Sonoma News Today

Alleged Pedophile Sonoma Priest Reported Dead in Mexico

2011-06-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

Fugitive Sonoma ex-priest reported dead in Mexico
The Press-Democrat, California/June 3, 2011
By Martin Espinoza

http://www.rickross.com/reference/clergy/clergy1299.html

Francisco Xavier Ochoa, the fugitive ex-priest from Sonoma wanted on 10 felony child sex abuse counts since 2006, has died in Mexico.

A copy of his death certificate, obtained by The Press Democrat Friday, shows that Ochoa died Nov. 30, 2009 of lung cancer in Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico, at age 71. Ochoa fled the United States in May 2006.

The Diocese of Santa Rosa confirmed Friday that it has known about Ochoa's death since April and has closed the case. A church official said the diocese decided not to make the information public and relied instead on local law enforcement officials to inform Ochoa's victims.

Although the Sonoma County District Attorney's office has received a certified copy of the death certificate, the office is working with the Mexican Consulate to confirm that the person in the death certificate is Ochoa.

"We want to be absolutely sure that this is the same individual," said District Attorney Jill Ravitch, adding that once confirmation is made, the arrest warrant will be withdrawn and the case closed.

Ravitch said the Sheriff's Office has notified family of Ochoa's alleged victims about the death certificate.

Ochoa fled to Mexico several days after an April 28, 2006, meeting with Bishop Daniel Walsh of the Santa Rosa Diocese and other church officials. He admitted that he offered a boy $100 to strip dance in front of him and that he had kissed other boys on the lips.

After the meeting, Walsh removed Ochoa from his duties, but the diocese delayed in reporting the allegations to authorities. A subsequent police investigation revealed that Ochoa, who had ministered to Latino Catholics in the Sonoma Valley since the late 1980s, had allegedly molested multiple children from different families.

It was three days before Walsh, through diocesan attorney Dan Galvin, reported Ochoa to Sonoma County Child Protective Services and four days before the Sheriff's Department was notified. State law requires such reporting be done immediately by phone.

In July 2006, a federal arrest warrant was issued against Ochoa for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The federal warrant allowed U.S. marshals to work with Mexican authorities to locate and apprehend Ochoa.

For his failure to report Ochoa immediately, Walsh was assigned to a five-month counseling diversion program in late 2006.

Walsh, who is expected to retire later this year, will be replaced by Bishop Robert Vasa, formerly of the Baker Diocese in eastern Oregon.

The Santa Rosa Diocese was sued by families of Ochoa's victims and in September 2007 the diocese settled the case for $5 million, including $20,000 of Walsh's own funds.

Ochoa's case then seemed to drop off the radar. For years, the only public reminder was his mug shot on the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office website listing the county's most-wanted criminal suspects.

Ochoa, who was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, has relatives in Santa Rosa and talk of his death began floating around Sonoma County last year, apparently reaching the Santa Rosa Diocese two months ago.

"We found out about his death on April 11," said Deirdre Frontczak, a diocese spokeswoman. "Apparently there had been some rumors floating around in the Hispanic community that he had died."

She said that Monsignor Daniel Whelton decided that no action would be taken until the diocese received "verifiable information." Frontczak said that Ochoa's sister in Mexico sent a letter to Whelton on April 11, informing him of Ochoa's death. Attached was a copy of the death certificate from Mexico.

Two days later the diocese contacted attorney Galvin, who then contacted the District Attorney's Office on April 26. Ochoa's death certificate has made its way to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Mexican Conference of Catholic Bishops and Cardinal William Levada in the Vatican.

"We're informed that the case was closed," said Frontczak.

The death certificate, in Spanish, provides details about where he died and the cause of death. Under cause of death, the document lists pulmonary thromboembolism (four days), pulmonary cancer (six months) and metastatic bronchial carcinoma (one year).

Frontczak said that Ochoa was removed from the clergy "years ago" and that local church officials have had no communication with Ochoa since he left five years ago.

"The case is closed as far as the church is concerned," she said.

More on CLERGY ABUSE

Flora Springs Winery

2011-03-30T16:11:00.001-07:00

National Radiation Map

2011-03-18T14:40:00.001-07:00

http://radiationnetwork.com/

Click here for an Update to our Message. It will answer a lot of your questions.

Welcome to RadiationNetwork.com, home of the National Radiation Map, depicting environmental radiation levels across the USA, updated in real time every minute. This is the first web site where the average citizen (or anyone in the world) can see what radiation levels are anywhere in the USA at any time (see Disclaimer below).

Nuclear Site Alert Level = 100 CPM

How the Map Works:

A growing number of Radiation Monitoring Stations across the country, using various models of Digital GeigerCounters, upload their Radiation Count data in real time to their computer using a Data Cable, and then over the Internet to this web site, all of this accomplished through GeigerGraph for Networks software.

How to Read the Map:

Referring to the Map Legend at the bottom left corner of the map, locate Monitoring Stations around the country that are contributing radiation data to this map as you read this, and watch the numbers on those monitoring stations update as frequently as every minute (your browser will automatically refresh). The numbers represent radiation Counts per Minute, abbreviated CPM, and under normal conditions, quantify the level of background radiation, i.e. environmental radiation from outer space as well as from the earth's crust and air. Depending on your location within the US, your elevation or altitude, and your model of Geiger counter, this background radiation level might average anywhere from 5 to 60 CPM, and while background radiation levels are random, it would be unusual for those levels to exceed 100 CPM. Thus, the "Alert Level" for the National Radiation Map is 100 CPM, so if you see any Monitoring Stations with CPM value above 100, further indicated by an Alert symbol over those stations, it probably means that some radioactive source above and beyond background radiation is responsible.

Notice the Time and Date Stamp at the bottom center of the Map. That is Arizona Time, from where we service the Network, and your indication of how recently the Radiation Levels have been updated to the Map.

(Please note: Any White circles on the map represent Monitoring Stations that are running Simulations, instead of using a real Geiger counter, so any Alert levels that may occur over those stations are to be ignored since they represent only momentary testing.)

How to Participate in the Nationwide Radiation Network:

If you want to join this nationwide grass roots effort to monitor the radiation in our environment, then this is all you need (click on the Software link):

	Digital Geiger Counter (See models below)
	GeigerGraph Software and Data Cable
	Computer with Windows Operating System
	Internet Access (Direct connection preferred)

In fact, if you become an active participant in this network (instead of just a passive viewer of this website), the GeigerGraph software that you use will incorporate the same Radiation Map as above, but your map will be fully interactive, with zoom capabilities, descriptions of Nuclear Sites and Monitoring Stations, additional Map Layers, including Counties, Airports, Roads, Railroads, Lakes and Rivers, and even the capability to download City Streets for your county. Plus, in keeping with the elements of a true Network, the GeigerGraph software has its own Chat forum.

Compatible Geiger Counter Models:

	The Geiger
	Monitor 4 (yr 2008 redesign)
	Radalert 50 and Radalert 100
	Digilert 50 and Digilert 100
	palmRAD
	Inspector
	Inspector EXP

Most of these models, as well as the GeigerGraph for Networks software, are available at GeigerCounters.com, a web site operated by Mineralab. Click on the text hyperlinks in the previous sentence to go there. You can also contact us here:

Mineralab, LLC
2860 W. Live Oak Drive
Prescott, AZ 86305 USA

Please read this Message first if you are considering contacting us.

Email: minlab@mineralab.com

Disclaimer: Mineralab, LLC, the operator of this web site, can not independently verify that the Radiation Levels, or any Radiation Alerts, that are displayed on this Radiation Map are correct and valid. Among other possibilities, Geiger counter malfunctions or proximity of the counters to certain medical procedures or to radioactive items can cause high readings at a Monitoring Station. If the Radiation Map appears to show elevated Radiation levels, contact Mineralab.

Click here for a Map of Japan

Click here for a Map of Alaska and Hawaii

The Corexit Cover-Up

2011-03-17T04:30:00.001-07:00

An Open Letter to "Patriots Question 9/11.com"

2011-03-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

My copy of Dr. Wood's excellent 500 page book

Received this email today...

AN OPEN LETTER TO "PATRIOTS QUESTION 9/11.com"
Friday, March 4, 2011 12:55 PM
From: "Ralph Kermit Winterrowd 2nd"
To: "Alan Miller"
Cc: "Dr. Steven Jones" , hardevidence@gmail.com, "Dr. James Fetzer" , "Gage Richard" , "Kevin Ryan"

Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:38:01 -0500
To: Alan Miller
From: Eric Larsen oliveropenpress@nyc.rr.com
Subject: AN OPEN LETTER TO "PATRIOTS QUESTION 9/11.com"
Cc: Dr. Steven Jones, Dr. James Fetzer, Richard Gage, Kevin Ryan

PREFATORY NOTE TO ALAN MILLER:
I composed this letter almost a year ago but held off sending it in the hopes that, by waiting, I could send it on the occasion of the publication of Dr. Wood's book, Where Did the Towers Go? (http://wheredidthetowersgo.com/) That occasion has now arrived at last. Dr. Wood's book has been published and is now available to readers the world around, making this the real moment of truth. The question now, for every person in any way associated with the 9/11 movement, is whether that person is in fact interested in exposing the truth or, on the other hand, in continuing to cover it up. The publication of Dr. Wood's book is a momentous event, an event of incalculable importance to the entire world. It is time, now, for me to send you this letter.
Eric Larsen
February 17, 2011

March 1, 2010
Dear Alan Miller,
I’ve noticed that Dr. Judy Wood isn’t any longer listed or cited on “Patriots Question 9/11.” Why is this? I know that earlier she was on the list of professors as well as the list of engineers. What happened?

In my own view, Dr. Wood’s being omitted is like dropping Shakespeare from an anthology of Elizabethan literature. Alone among the most highly visible of 9/11 analysts, Dr. Wood is the one truth-seeker who sticks precisely and only with one thing, and that one thing is the truth about what physically happened on 9/11 insofar as it can be known through the scientific study of all—not some, but all—of the available empirical, observable evidence that pertains solely to the “what” of what happened on that day. Dr. Wood purposely stays clear of any forays into politics, innuendo, guesswork, or supposition. She will have nothing whatsoever to do with the question of “who ‘did’ it.” That question, in her view, is meaningless until the scientifically true “what” of what happened is known. This “what” is what she sets out—successfully—to show. That is, she does not say that “9/11 was an inside job” because that fact has not been scientifically established. Her focus is solely on the empirical, measurable, and observable study of evidence of any relevant kind—from analysis, measurement, and study of the “remains” of the WTC buildings through analysis of the seismic record of that day’s events, study of anomalies in the earth’s magnetic field at the times of the destructions, and even study of the field effects of the massive hurricane off the east coast of the U.S. on that day (and especially of that storm’s field effects in relation to the enormous high pressure cell that was simultaneously approaching NYC from the west).

Dr. Wood’s study, research, and analysis reveal, among many other things, that the WTC buildings did not collapse, explode, or implode, but that they DISAPPEARED into dust. Multitudes of evidence prove her case, but that hasn’t kept 9/11 pseudo-truth seekers from ridiculing her by smear, innuendo, name-calling, neglect, and disinformation in whatever ways they are able. With courage, strength, and a scientifically-based factuality, Dr. Wood has experienced more malicious contumely, more smears and fraudulent attacks than any other single member of the scientific, political, philosophical, or historical 9/11 truth-seeking community. Yet Dr. Wood has continued to stand up for the truth. Those who “choose” not to accept the evidence-based conclusions of Dr. Wood’s studies, or who, perhaps, are either afraid OR “afraid” to accept them, take the fool’s option of ridiculing them, or, equally often, of most, most blatantly ignoring both those results AND Dr. Wood’s efforts in determining them. The 9/11 truth community greeted Dr. Wood’s Request for Corrections (RFC) to NIST (March 16, 2007) with scorn, despite her being the first person to confront NIST formally about their fraudulent report of the demise of the WTC towers. It was as if the fraud of the NIST report, a report whose integrity was absolutely essential if the official story were to be undergirded, was of no real interest to the wider 9/11 community.

Dr. Wood’s federal qui tam case, filed 4/25/2007 against the contractors of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for science fraud also received virtually no notice or indication of interest other than ridicule from the 9/11 truth community. Again, it was as if the federal case being brought by Dr. Wood against the NIST contractors for science fraud (in its Congressionally-mandated task that it determine how and why the WTC buildings were destroyed)—as if this entire and absolutely central question was of no real interest to the wider 9/11 truth community. That case, further, was itself improperly dismissed as those hearing it treated the case—incorrectly—as if it paralleled the views of the general 9/11 truth movement. Those determining whether the case would be allowed to go forward incorrectly assumed, for example, that Dr. Wood (a) blamed the US military (which she does not); (b) they incorrectly assumed that Dr. Wood held the view that there was “substantial evidence that all three buildings collapsed from explosive devices” and that this view was “at the heart of the Wood. . . litigation.” (entirely incorrect); and (c) they incorrectly assumed that Dr. Wood claimed “that the towers were struck by high powered energy beams [from space]” (things that are not in any way her position). All of these issues were addressed, although to no avail, in the Motion for Reconsideration: http://www.drjudywood.com/articles/NIST/Wood_motion_reconsider.shtml

And now the case—due who knows how much to the ridicule and lack of support from the truth community—has been denied a Writ of a Certiorari by the United States Supreme Court, meaning that the Court will not hear it or allow the factual evidence to be presented in a courtroom, and therefore that the case is dead. How can it be that this is not seen by the 9/11 truth community as an exceedingly enormous defeat? Yet virtually no mention whatsoever of the Supreme Court’s rejection of the case has been forthcoming. It causes me to question the entire purpose of the “9/11 truth movement” (as well as the purpose of your Patriots Question 9/11 website). Anyone who read the document submitted to the United States Supreme Court (available on Dr. Wood’s website) should be appalled by what has taken place. The Court of Appeals essentially stated in a footnote of its written decision that it knew that the law applied to Dr. Wood’s case, but that the court was ignoring the law in order to dismiss her case.

In fact, the evidence of science fraud submitted by Dr. Wood is irrefutable. NIST itself admitted to Dr. Wood that its report was a fraud. And not one of the contractors hired by NIST denied her allegations. Then the Court of Appeals ignored the law in order to dismiss the case. What could conceivably explain the lack of interest or response by the 9/11 community? This travesty of justice, the unfounded and prejudicial derailing of Dr. Wood’s case, should be of significant concern to the entire constitutional republic. If laws are ignored for ease of dismissing cases, then we are no longer living in a constitutional republic. We are living no longer in a republic of laws, but in a state where factions of any kind can usurp power through ignoring or pre-empting laws, however ancient they may be, or however firmly embedded in the nation’s founding documents.

Dr. Wood filed her federal qui tam case in April 2007. Since that time the “9/11 truth movement” has grown, with your own Patriots Question 9/11 website now reporting “1,060+ Engineers and Architects.” Especially in light of the collection of so many engineers and architects, I find it troubling that, to this day, Dr. Wood is the only engineer, architect, or person of any profession to have filed a federal qui tam case challenging the science fraud in NIST’s report of what destroyed the WTC towers. Those who truly wanted “a new and independent investigation” into what caused the destruction of the WTC should have enthusiastically supported what she did. Such as federal case as she attempted to bring WOULD ITSELF HAVE RESULTED IN a new investigation. There it was, a genuine opportunity for achieving what so many people have been claiming all along to want above all. But now the opportunity has been destroyed by the essentially unaccountable court system as well as the lack of interest in accountability by the so called “truth movement.” All those who scorned Dr. Wood’s work and failed so notably to support her qui tam case may have done so at the expense of this nation.

Wood sacrificed her career when she spoke out about 9/11. But instead of praising her heroism, many in the “official-truth movement” have accused her of being an agent or “COINTELPRO” or disinformation agent. Such accusations can easily be dispelled by noting that it is a crime to defraud the government and it is treason if done so by a government agent (see the Smith-Mundt Act). A government agent submitting disinformation to another government agency would amount to the government attacking itself in a psychological operation. Perhaps this explains why no one has submitted “thermite evidence” to NIST. Perhaps this explains why no one has submitted “thermite evidence” in a federal qui tam case.

Along these same lines, it is powerfully notable that only after the Supreme Court denied the case in which Dr. Wood included as evidence the aerial photographs of the towers being destroyed on 9/11 were these photographs “newly released” with the claim that they had never before been seen. In truth, not only were they a part both of Dr. Wood’s RFC and her qui tam case, and not only had they already been posted on her web site for FOUR YEARS, but when she prepared the legal documents in early 2007, she gave the images to Jim Fetzer to be used for a photo section in his book—only to have him give credit for them not to Dr. Wood herself but to someone else. An even worse example of the distortion the “truth movement” is capable of, Dr. Fetzer, with the “new” release of the aerial images, treated them publically as images being seen by him for the first time.

I have never met Dr. Wood, but I have been aware of her work and have corresponded with her for many years. For the past six of those years, she has been working on a book, due out this year, that will present her work and its results in totality. I know the book very well, since—in consideration of my qualifications as essayist, writer, novelist and author, retired professor of writing, publisher, editor, and 9/11 truth-seeker myself—I have edited it in its entirety two times, once chapter by chapter and then again when the book was pulled together into its entirety. In my own view, Dr. Wood’s book will prove, in a great number of ways, to be very possibly the most important book yet to have been published in the 21st century.

So strongly do I feel about the extraordinary importance of Dr. Wood’s research, and about its incalculable superiority to the research—and the “conclusions”—of any and all others in the 9/11 truth movement, that if she isn’t reinstated on the “Patriots for 9/11 Truth” site in acknowledgment of what she has done for this country, I will ask you—and in fact ask you here and now, should Dr. Wood not be reinstated—also to remove me, my picture, my biography, and my 9/11-related comments from the site entirely. Those who do not support Dr. Wood’s work are not patriots. It may be concluded that those who do not support Dr. Wood’s work have an unpatriotic agenda that I do not want to be associated with.

My best to you, and my gratitude for your attention,

Eric Larsen
http://www.ericlarsen.info/
http://www.oliveropenpress.com/

Human Lab Rats: Where is the Outrage??!

2011-02-28T14:08:00.001-08:00

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer
Sun Feb 27, 6:46 pm ET

ATLANTA – Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.

Much of this horrific history is 40 to 80 years old, but it is the backdrop for a meeting in Washington this week by a presidential bioethics commission. The meeting was triggered by the government's apology last fall for federal doctors infecting prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago. U.S. officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in the United States — studies that often involved making healthy people sick.

An exhaustive review by The Associated Press of medical journal reports and decades-old press clippings found more than 40 such studies. At best, these were a search for lifesaving treatments; at worst, some amounted to curiosity-satisfying experiments that hurt people but provided no useful results. Inevitably, they will be compared to the well-known Tuskegee syphilis study. In that episode, U.S health officials tracked 600 black men in Alabama who already had syphilis but didn't give them adequate treatment even after penicillin became available.

These studies were worse in at least one respect — they violated the concept of "first do no harm," a fundamental medical principle that stretches back centuries. "When you give somebody a disease — even by the standards of their time — you really cross the key ethical norm of the profession," said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics.

Some of these studies, mostly from the 1940s to the '60s, apparently were never covered by news media. Others were reported at the time, but the focus was on the promise of enduring new cures, while glossing over how test subjects were treated. Attitudes about medical research were different then. Infectious diseases killed many more people years ago, and doctors worked urgently to invent and test cures. Many prominent researchers felt it was legitimate to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society — people like prisoners, mental patients, poor blacks. It was an attitude in some ways similar to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews.

"There was definitely a sense — that we don't have today — that sacrifice for the nation was important," said Laura Stark, a Wesleyan University assistant professor of science in society, who is writing a book about past federal medical experiments. The AP review of past research found:

_A federally funded study begun in 1942 injected experimental flu vaccine in male patients at a state insane asylum in Ypsilanti, Mich., then exposed them to flu several months later. It was co-authored by Dr. Jonas Salk, who a decade later would become famous as inventor of the polio vaccine. Some of the men weren't able to describe their symptoms, raising serious questions about how well they understood what was being done to them. One newspaper account mentioned the test subjects were "senile and debilitated." Then it quickly moved on to the promising results.

_In federally funded studies in the 1940s, noted researcher Dr. W. Paul Havens Jr. exposed men to hepatitis in a series of experiments, including one using patients from mental institutions in Middletown and Norwich, Conn. Havens, a World Health Organization expert on viral diseases, was one of the first scientists to differentiate types of hepatitis and their causes. A search of various news archives found no mention of the mental patients study, which made eight healthy men ill but broke no new ground in understanding the disease.

_Researchers in the mid-1940s studied the transmission of a deadly stomach bug by having young men swallow unfiltered stool suspension. The study was conducted at the New York State Vocational Institution, a reformatory prison in West Coxsackie. The point was to see how well the disease spread that way as compared to spraying the germs and having test subjects breathe it. Swallowing it was a more effective way to spread the disease, the researchers concluded. The study doesn't explain if the men were rewarded for this awful task.

_A University of Minnesota study in the late 1940s injected 11 public service employee volunteers with malaria, then starved them for five days. Some were also subjected to hard labor, and those men lost an average of 14 pounds. They were treated for malarial fevers with quinine sulfate. One of the authors was Ancel Keys, a noted dietary scientist who developed K-rations for the military and the Mediterranean diet for the public. But a search of various news archives found no mention of the study.

_For a study in 1957, when the Asian flu pandemic was spreading, federal researchers sprayed the virus in the noses of 23 inmates at Patuxent prison in Jessup, Md., to compare their reactions to those of 32 virus-exposed inmates who had been given a new vaccine.

_Government researchers in the 1950s tried to infect about two dozen volunteering prison inmates with gonorrhea using two different methods in an experiment at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. The bacteria was pumped directly into the urinary tract through the penis, according to their paper.The men quickly developed the disease, but the researchers noted this method wasn't comparable to how men normally got infected — by having sex with an infected partner. The men were later treated with antibiotics. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association but there was no mention of it in various news archives.

Though people in the studies were usually described as volunteers, historians and ethicists have questioned how well these people understood what was to be done to them and why, or whether they were coerced. Prisoners have long been victimized for the sake of science. In 1915, the U.S. government's Dr. Joseph Goldberger — today remembered as a public health hero — recruited Mississippi inmates to go on special rations to prove his theory that the painful illness pellagra was caused by a dietary deficiency. (The men were offered pardons for their participation.)

But studies using prisoners were uncommon in the first few decades of the 20th century, and usually performed by researchers considered eccentric even by the standards of the day. One was Dr. L.L. Stanley, resident physician at San Quentin prison in California, who around 1920 attempted to treat older, "devitalized men" by implanting in them testicles from livestock and from recently executed convicts.Newspapers wrote about Stanley's experiments, but the lack of outrage is striking.

"Enter San Quentin penitentiary in the role of the Fountain of Youth — an institution where the years are made to roll back for men of failing mentality and vitality and where the spring is restored to the step, wit to the brain, vigor to the muscles and ambition to the spirit. All this has been done, is being done ... by a surgeon with a scalpel," began one rosy report published in November 1919 in The Washington Post.

Around the time of World War II, prisoners were enlisted to help the war effort by taking part in studies that could help the troops. For example, a series of malaria studies at Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois and two other prisons was designed to test antimalarial drugs that could help soldiers fighting in the Pacific.It was at about this time that prosecution of Nazi doctors in 1947 led to the "Nuremberg Code," a set of international rules to protect human test subjects. Many U.S. doctors essentially ignored them, arguing that they applied to Nazi atrocities — not to American medicine.

The late 1940s and 1950s saw huge growth in the U.S. pharmaceutical and health care industries, accompanied by a boom in prisoner experiments funded by both the government and corporations. By the 1960s, at least half the states allowed prisoners to be used as medical guinea pigs. But two studies in the 1960s proved to be turning points in the public's attitude toward the way test subjects were treated. The first came to light in 1963. Researchers injected cancer cells into 19 old and debilitated patients at a Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in the New York borough of Brooklyn to see if their bodies would reject them.
The hospital director said the patients were not told they were being injected with cancer cells because there was no need — the cells were deemed harmless. But the experiment upset a lawyer named William Hyman who sat on the hospital's board of directors. The state investigated, and the hospital ultimately said any such experiments would require the patient's written consent.

At nearby Staten Island, from 1963 to 1966, a controversial medical study was conducted at the Willowbrook State School for children with mental retardation. The children were intentionally given hepatitis orally and by injection to see if they could then be cured with gamma globulin. Those two studies — along with the Tuskegee experiment revealed in 1972 — proved to be a "holy trinity" that sparked extensive and critical media coverage and public disgust, said Susan Reverby, the Wellesley College historian who first discovered records of the syphilis study in Guatemala.

By the early 1970s, even experiments involving prisoners were considered scandalous. In widely covered congressional hearings in 1973, pharmaceutical industry officials acknowledged they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.

Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia made extensive use of inmates for medical experiments. Some of the victims are still around to talk about it. Edward "Yusef" Anthony, featured in a book about the studies, says he agreed to have a layer of skin peeled off his back, which was coated with searing chemicals to test a drug. He did that for money to buy cigarettes in prison. "I said 'Oh my God, my back is on fire! Take this ... off me!'" Anthony said in an interview with The Associated Press, as he recalled the beginning of weeks of intense itching and agonizing pain.

The government responded with reforms. Among them: The U.S. Bureau of Prisons in the mid-1970s effectively excluded all research by drug companies and other outside agencies within federal prisons.
As the supply of prisoners and mental patients dried up, researchers looked to other countries.It made sense. Clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules. And it was easy to find patients who were taking no medication, a factor that can complicate tests of other drugs. Additional sets of ethical guidelines have been enacted, and few believe that another Guatemala study could happen today. "It's not that we're out infecting anybody with things," Caplan said.

Still, in the last 15 years, two international studies sparked outrage.

One was likened to Tuskegee. U.S.-funded doctors failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study in Uganda even though it would have protected their newborns. U.S. health officials argued the study would answer questions about AZT's use in the developing world. The other study, by Pfizer Inc., gave an antibiotic named Trovan to children with meningitis in Nigeria, although there were doubts about its effectiveness for that disease. Critics blamed the experiment for the deaths of 11 children and the disabling of scores of others. Pfizer settled a lawsuit with Nigerian officials for $75 million but admitted no wrongdoing.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general reported that between 40 and 65 percent of clinical studies of federally regulated medical products were done in other countries in 2008, and that proportion probably has grown. The report also noted that U.S. regulators inspected fewer than 1 percent of foreign clinical trial sites.Monitoring research is complicated, and rules that are too rigid could slow new drug development. But it's often hard to get information on international trials, sometimes because of missing records and a paucity of audits, said Dr. Kevin Schulman, a Duke Universtity professor of medicine who has written on the ethics of international studies.

These issues were still being debated when, last October, the Guatemala study came to light. In the 1946-48 study, American scientists infected prisoners and patients in a mental hospital in Guatemala with syphilis, apparently to test whether penicillin could prevent some sexually transmitted disease. The study came up with no useful information and was hidden for decades.The Guatemala study nauseated ethicists on multiple levels. Beyond infecting patients with a terrible illness, it was clear that people in the study did not understand what was being done to them or were not able to give their consent. Indeed, though it happened at a time when scientists were quick to publish research that showed frank disinterest in the rights of study participants, this study was buried in file drawers."It was unusually unethical, even at the time," said Stark, the Wesleyan researcher."When the president was briefed on the details of the Guatemalan episode, one of his first questions was whether this sort of thing could still happen today," said Rick Weiss, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

That it occurred overseas was an opening for the Obama administration to have the bioethics panel seek a new evaluation of international medical studies. The president also asked the Institute of Medicine to further probe the Guatemala study, but the IOM relinquished the assignment in November, after reporting its own conflict of interest: In the 1940s, five members of one of the IOM's sister organizations played prominent roles in federal syphilis research and had links to the Guatemala study.

So the bioethics commission gets both tasks. To focus on federally funded international studies, the commission has formed an international panel of about a dozen experts in ethics, science and Clinical research. Regarding the look at the Guatemala study, the commission has hired 15 staff investigators and is working with additional historians and other consulting experts. The panel is to send a report to Obama by September. Any further steps would be up to the administration.Some experts say that given such a tight deadline, it would be a surprise if the commission produced substantive new information about past studies. "They face a really tough challenge," Caplan said.

Watch the Vid Now: What in the World are They Spraying?

2010-11-12T17:37:00.001-08:00

Part 1 of 7

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

November 13, 2010 EMAIL EXCHANGE

Email
well this was very good. i can not believe the public's non response. how do you explain the obvious. it is so crazy cathy. i got my relatives to look up at the sky and tell me what that is and they just said it was normal contrails unbelievable and they go on like nothing is going on

Reply

Hi John,
It is a curious mystery how some folks are totally aware of this ongoing silent genocide while most others are completely oblivious to it all AND refuse to even look at or investigate it!

Go figure.

Onward!
Cathy

What in the World Are They Spraying? and What Are We Breathing??

2010-10-12T20:42:00.000-07:00

http://floridagulfskywatch.blogspot.com/

http://sonomachemtrails.blogspot.com/

Shocked to Read that Sonoma Valley Bank Failed!

2010-09-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

Now living in Florida so not up on the Sonoma news and was shocked to receive a welcome to Westamerica Bank letter saying on August 20 they "assumed all deposits, loans and operation formerly held by Sonoma Valley Bank". WOW! What happened??

Not sure why I got the letter as I no longer have any funds there but am wondering, did folks loose money in this deal or does the FDIC cover that?

Here's an August 23, 2010 article and comments from the Wall Street Journal:

August 23, 2010, 11:13 AM ET.

Fifth TARP Bank Fails, Likely Wiping Out Taxpayer Stake

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/23/fifth-tarp-bank-fails-likely-wiping-out-taxpayer-stake/

By Damian Paletta

Sonoma Valley Bank in northern California failed on Friday, the fifth financial institution that failed despite having received federal bailout funds. The failure likely wipes out the $8.7 million taxpayer investment that was made in the bank in early 2009 as part of the controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Several hundred banks that received funding under TARP, a program approved by Congress in 2008 to help financial institutions and other companies in the wake of the global financial crisis, have either paid back the money or are expected to within several years. But there is a growing group of banks that continued to struggle after getting bailouts, or have already been seized by regulators.

Officials who designed the program had said the money was intended to go to companies that weren’t at risk of toppling, and regulators have sought to downplay the failures of TARP-connected banks.

Sonoma Valley Bank joins CIT Group Inc., Pacific Coast National Bank, United Commercial Bank, and Midwest Bank and Trust Co., which all failed shortly after receiving the federal bailout funds. Three of the five banks were headquartered in California. Combined, the losses to taxpayers from these failures are expected to total slightly less than $3 billion.

It is unclear how many TARP banks might ultimately fail. Banks that received TARP funds are supposed to periodically pay dividends or interest payments to the Treasury Department, but about 100 have skipped at least some of these payments. These missed payments total $146 million, the Treasury Department estimated, compared with the $9.5 billion in dividends it has collected.

The eight bank failures this week brought the 2010 total to 118, nearing the 140 that failed in 2009. Only a handful of these banks had received TARP funds, though many had requested the money from regulators and were rejected.

COMMENTS

3:24 pm August 23, 2010
Linus Wilson wrote:
Sonoma Valley Bancorp was one of the “TARP’s Deadbeat Banks”. See page 39 of my paper at
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1527270

4:31 pm August 23, 2010
LC wrote:
Good to see this is working so well. Better jack our taxes some more to pay for another go round. Geniuses just pure genius. Dont put in price control, dont hammer product coming in the country,dont reel in the drug companies the hospitals and any other crook stealing from the public. Just throw more money you dont have at the problem that will fix it. What the hell are you people thinking or our your buddies getting filthy rich on this game your playing? I put my vote on the game they are playing. Boy is the general public blind or what?

8:29 am August 24, 2010
Bones wrote:
Was wondering if this was one of Rep. Maxine Waters’ banks? Hope she got her or her family’s money out before it failed, she’ll need that money to defend herself eventually.

9:21 am August 24, 2010
Beeker wrote:
@Bones
Even if the bank failed, there is a deposit insurance that protects depositors from losses due to bank failure. Typical lack of knowledge how insurance works.

I’m not surprised that the bank failed. It is most likely through loan losses as with other banks that are facing the same issue.

11:22 am August 24, 2010
Dick wrote:
The loss to the taxpayers in the Sonoma Valley Bank failure is restricted to the TARP loss. This bank was sold to Westamerica under what is known as a negative bid. The FDIC paid $10,000,000 to Westamerica and it was merged out. The FDIC fund gets it’s money from the banks not the government. The banks pay an insurance premium each quarter to cover the costs of insurance and failed banks. The government provides an overall guarantee and a line of credit but that has not been drawn on.

12:26 pm August 24, 2010
bankalchemist wrote:
Ca has several more Dead Beat Tarp Banks on the list…not if just when, bankalchemistl

5:36 pm August 24, 2010
get real wrote:
A combined loss of $3 Billion on the banks that have thus far failed is a much smaller amout than I would have expected, especially when the gov’t is running the thing. The entire TARP was about 700 Billion so the 3 Billion loss is only a loss of less than .4%!

Also, the missed dividend and interest payments by banks was less than .2% (146 million missed vs. 9.5 Billion paid).

The TARP program which was designed under the Bush admin has worked well, unlike the Billions of dollars of stimulus money thrown out the window by the Obama admin. How much of that will tax payers recoup?

Yeah, I know. Not a dime.

Are They Spraying Us With Chemical Weapons for Mass Destruction?

2010-07-21T19:21:00.001-07:00

Gulf spraying act of war (Pt III) Chemical warfare white cloud of death

July 14, 8:01 PM
Human Rights Examiner
by Deborah Dupre'

Photo: Poison gas attack, WWI

Chemical warfare white cloud of death

Chemtrailing humans with Corexit based poison is burning people with a 'nepalm-like substance.' Reports abound of the poison attack burning plant life, therefore poisoning the food supply as the new Youtube video below documents.

Filmmaker and Renewable Energy UN Ambassador of Goodwill, Josh Tickell, who is director of FUEL, writes from South Louisiana that the Gulf situation is deteriorating for humans.

"The use of the deadly and toxic chemical Corexit continues at an undisclosed rate per day. With our group of eight people standing on the beach, 100 feet from the surf of the Gulf, our eyes were burning and as we approached the water our skin was affected," reports Tickell.

"Most people walked off the beach with rashes. This is not from the oil, it is from the napalm-like substance that is being manufactured in conjunction with BP and put into the Gulf of Mexico with enough quantity to effect the air. (Emphasis added)

"Tests reveal that this chemical compound is becoming an aerosol and traveling, as a cloud, across the beach communities," stated Tickell.

As highlighted in Part I of this series, chemical warfare (CW) involves toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. In chemical warfare terms, "dispersion" is placing the chemical agent upon or adjacent to a target immediately before dissemination, so that the material is most efficiently used. Dispersion is the simplest technique of delivering an agent to its target. (See Censored Gulf dispersant news: Aerial spraying act of war Part I, Examiner, Dupre, June 2010)

In attempt to prevent such atrocities and hold perpetrators responsible, on April 29 1997, the Chemical Weapons Convention - CWC) entered into force. It is the Convention on prohibition of the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons and on their destruction, of 13 January 1993 and reinforcing the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting chemical and biological weapons by banning development, production and stockpiling of chemical weapons.

Under the banner of "pesticide research," the US Do, EPA and petrochemical-military-industrial complex continued its research and development chemical weapons of mass destruction, testing them on plant and animal life, including humans. (See Part II of this series)

Chemical weapons of mas destruction (WMDs) are what President Bush accused Iraq of having, lying to justify murdering millions of people there for its resources, while developing and stockpiling such WMDs on American soil, now using them on Americans. At least one known foreign country, Britain, is an enemy in this war.

Tickell advises that this "aerosol spraying is illegal and could be fatal for multiple life forms," a statement to be welcomed by many leaders, such as AC Griffith (heard in the chemtrail video below), thousands of citizens and organizations across the US, such as Geo-engineering Watch, plus organizations overseas - all battling for years to raise awareness about the act of war on the people and genuine national security issue of chemtrails.

Only a year ago, Tickell was skeptical about chemtrails and decades of research and development to apply them to the human population by the petrochemical-military-industrial complex that includes private companies, such as airlines, spraying them. Like most people, he found this human rights violation too difficult to face or believe: that geophysical weapons, under the sophisticated science of geoengineering, includes spraying the human population with deadly chemcals, authorized by the US government.

Geoengineering, the artificial modification of the earth's climate systems, is an environment modification (ENMOD) science for the "deliberate manipulation of natural processes - the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space that can be applied as a weapon of mass destruction."

Geoengineering projects range from declassified experimentation, such as dumping particles into the oceans to attract algae that sequesters carbon and theoretically slows "global warming," to highly classified experimentation such as aerosol spraying. (See:Geoengineers at annual conference to face human rights defenders, Dupre, Examiner, 2009)

Denial by intelligent people of integrity of all walks of life has been a major frustration for those exposing new, high-tech weapons, including chemical weapons. DoD obcene funding plus black budgets helped open the gate wide open for even heavier aerial poisoning of humans and all other life forms, as experienced and witnessed along the Gulf coast today.

Aside from the odorless poison destined to be the cause of human injury and deaths from breathing it, in a new video (below), a Floridian showing his burned yard plants says, "If its killing our plants, its killing our food. If we can’t have food we die.

"Don’t you see that?"

He urges the public to read the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but the backbone of both were shredded with enactment of the USA PATRIOT ACT during the Bush administration. That set the stage for events unfolding today.

The Floridian now questions, "We let a foreign company come in and tell us what we can and can't do?"

Controversial post-9/11 expansions of executive branch powers prompted the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, BORDC to urge local showings of a video about dangers threatening Americans. It hoped for subsequent nationwide dialogue about whether the power needs to be curbed to protect U.S. residents' constitutional rights.

Instead, the citizenry was succesfully pacified with TV and mainstream newspapers, and Congress maintained the USA PATRIOT ACT instead of restoring Constitutional rights through the JUSTICE ACT.

ACLU called the USA PATRIOT ACT a "minefield for American rights."

The same corpocracy that designed and supported the USA PATRIOT ACT dictating the nation's people has now ruthlessly stepped on a deep water minefield.

It is using its decades of sinister, secret and torturous research and development paid by the taxpayers to kill them in an act of war using a chemical weapon of mass destruction while its Attorney General, Eric Holden ponders: Is this a civil or a criminal case?

Contact the author at mailto:%20info@DeborahDupre.com

source: http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Human-Rights-Examiner~y2010m7d14-Gulf-spraying-act-of-war-Pt-III-Chemical-warfare-white-cloud-of-death

Is the Gulf Oil Spill a Staged Event?

2010-07-06T21:03:00.001-07:00

They lied to us about 9/11
They lied to us about JFK
They lied to us about going to the moon
They lied to us about Pearl Harbor
They lied to us about so many things over the years, why believe what they are saying now? Is the Gulf Oil Spill a staged event:?

HoopDance by Sonoma's Bene Rather-Taylor

2010-06-22T04:24:00.000-07:00

"Never without a hoop in hand, Bene has been passionately sharing her love of hoopdance since the beginning of the year. She hand-makes all her hoops and has hosted weekly playshops in the Sonoma Plaza throughout the summer. She has travelled internationally to study flow arts and performs with her fire hoop and fire poi at restaurants and private events both locally and regionally." source

Gulf Oil Spill or Gulf Mud Volcano?

2010-06-20T12:20:00.001-07:00

June 22, 2010 COMMENT
"That is why I sent you Alex Jones audio, there were idiots on there claiming it was a big earthquake and volcanic blow of oil, they all got it from Sarcha Faal, that witch of which nothing she ever says comes true, we have oil in orange beach, and gulf shores. definitely the hand of the illuminati. k"

Dr. Judy Wood: Another Great Interview

2010-06-13T12:47:00.003-07:00

JUNE 23, 2010 UPDATE
Interview is back up on youtube, not sure for how long:
http://forums.ukcolumn.org/showthread.php?tid=1993&pid=8784#pid8784

JUNE 14, 2010 UPDATE

YOUTUBE removed the following videos, so go here to hear a more recent interview with Dr. Wood: http://enjoyingthejourney.blogspot.com/2010/03/where-did-towers-go-evidence-of.html

DR. WOOD'S WEBSITE: http://drjudywood.com/

INTERVIEW: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=436BDD0158F50954

Part 1 of 14

Part 2 of 14

Part 3 of 14

Part 4 of 14

Part 5 of 14

Part 6 of 14

Part 7 of 14

Part 8 of 14

Part 9 of 14

Part 10 of 14

Part 11 of 14

Part 12 of 14

Part 13 of 14

Part 14 of 14

My 2 Cents on the Gulf Oil Spill

2010-06-11T20:39:00.001-07:00

Can't help but wonder why the LORD brought me to the Gulf of Mexico at the same time as the now infamous Gulf oil spill? Maybe to document my findings since I now live 200 feet from the ocean and take almost daily walks on the still beautiful white sand and turquoise blue water.

source: http://cathyscamera.blogspot.com/

In any case, here are my thoughts on the whole affair...

First, I trust NEXT TO NONE of those who are telling us what is going on: the contolled news media, the alternative news media, the government officials as well as those who post on message boards/blogs/youtube/etc.

Second, the fact that this event even happened is weird. No safety measures? no regulations? no oversight? this was one big "OOPS!"? Sorry, not buying it.

Third, the DAILY news coverage continually blasting in our faces is a BIG RED FLAG.

And fourth, looking at the satellite images from the get-go, MOST show nothing unusual (besides the ongoing black ops military toxic chemtrail geoengineering areosol spray activity) in the Gulf of Mexico. And the few images that appear to be oil, look fake and manipulated.

In conclusion, I've learned that that those who want to run the show will doing ANYTHING to gain wealth and power which includes fear mongering, lying, cheating, murder, etc etc etc. Satan of course is behind all this but his people are pulling the strings. Truly tragic and sad for the deceived.

HOWEVER, there is a HAPPY ENDING!

That is for those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, we don't know what the future holds but we believers in Christ know WHO holds the future and this is WHO we trust with all our hearts!

SATELLITE IMAGES FROM TODAY AND YESTERDAY OF THE GULF OF MEXICO

June 11 TERRA image looks weird

June 11 AQUA image looks normal

June 12 AQUA image looks weird

June 12 TERRA image looks normal

LINK FOR SATELLITE IMAGES OF USA

Evergreen Air's Connection to Chemtrails

2010-06-08T10:53:00.001-07:00

A few months ago NotForSale interviewed a whistleblower from inside the Evergreen Air Facility. For those who do not know Evergreen Air is a CIA front company for chemtrail operations within the United States, weapons and arms dealing, drug running and rendition tortures. The whistleblower known as KrisH provided the Intel Hub staff with documentation to prove his employment at the facility located in Pinal County Airpark in Arizona.
May 29, 2010

SOURCE: http://theintelhub.com/2010/05/29/evergreen-air-cia-chemtrail-facility-leaked/

"From information that I have pieced together
over the past several years,I firmly believe that
EVERGREEN is one of the lead companies used to modify
aircraft used in CHEMTRAIL spraying operations,those
would be aircraft taken out of storage at the
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base boneyard in Tucson and
the Mojave Airport among others.There are 100’s of
aircraft available for CHEMTRAIL spraying ops because
of newer model replacements in the commercial and
military fleets. Google EVERGREEN AIR"

Tim White, Viet Nam Vet(USAF)
Concerned Citizen.Researcher,Investigator,Whistleblower

The War Comes Home by Aaron Glantz

2010-05-31T10:00:00.001-07:00

How does America treat its veterans? An independent journalist specializing in the impacts of war, Aaron Glantz, provides a devastating indictment of the Bush administration for its blatant neglect of soldiers and its disingenuous reneging on their benefits.

In 2009 Aaron Glantz spoke at US Santa Barbara:

Book: The War Comes Home

The Hidden Toll of America's Wars

May 29, 2009 — "Five American soldiers died on Monday after being shot by a fellow soldier at one of the biggest American bases in Baghdad. Journalist Aaron Glantz says the story is tragic but not surprising. Glantz is a Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism at the Carter Center and the author of 'The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans.'"

Video: Freemasonry and the Illumaniti Exposed

2010-05-30T05:56:00.001-07:00

Good-bye Sonoma

2010-05-03T18:22:00.000-07:00

Left Saturday, May 1, 2010, to move to Florida via Interstate 40 with bits and pieces of Route 66.

CLICK HERE to read/see more.

And here's a special video for John Lasseter from Tucumari, New Mexico today!

Oil Slick Covered by 'Streaky Clouds'... i.e. Chemtrails

2010-04-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

Satellite image of oil slick in Gulf of Mexico blocked by chemtrails.

April 28, 2010

Above image: "In this image, the slick is partially covered by streaky clouds, but reddish streaks of oil can be seen in the close-up..." Click to enlarge image that was taken by the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite.
Source http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/gulf_oil_spill-gallery/all/1

Yesterday's photo

A few days ago

--- end ---

RED FLAG: HALLIBUTON DEFENDANT IN LAWSUITS

Rig had history of spills, fires before big 1

By FRANK JORDANS and GARANCE BURKE
Associated Press
April 30, 2010
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100430/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_the_rig

During its nine years at sea, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig operated by BP suffered a series of spills, fires — even a collision — because of equipment failure, human error and bad weather. It also drilled the world's deepest offshore well.

But Deepwater Horizon's lasting legacy will undoubtedly be the environmental damage it caused after it exploded and sank, killing 11 crew and releasing an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

What likely destroyed the rig in a ball of fire last week was a failure -- or multiple failures -- 5,000 feet below. That's where drilling equipment met the sea bed in a complicated construction of pipes, concrete and valves that gave way in a manner that no one has yet been able to explain.

Oil services contractor Halliburton Inc. said in a statement Friday that workers had finished cementing the well's pipes 20 hours before the rig went up in flames. Halliburton is named as a defendant in most of the more than two dozen lawsuits filed by Gulf Coast people and businesses claiming the oil spill could ruin them financially. Without elaborating, one lawsuit filed by an injured technician on the rig claims that Halliburton improperly performed its job in cementing the well, "increasing the pressure at the well and contributing to the fire, explosion and resulting oil spill."

Remote-controlled blowout preventers designed to apply brute force to seal off a well should have kicked in. But they failed to activate after the explosion.

Scott Bickford, a lawyer for several Deepwater Horizon workers who survived the blast, said he believes a "burp" of natural gas rose to the rig floor and was sucked into machinery, leading to the explosion.

Halliburton's said "it is premature and irresponsible to speculate on any specific causal issues."

Before last week's catastrophe, Deepwater Horizon's most recent hiccup occurred in Nov. 2005, when the rig — under contract with BP — spilled 212 barrels of an oil-based lubricant due to equipment failure and human error. That spill was probably caused by not screwing the pipe tightly enough and not adequately sealing the well with cement, as well as a possible poor alignment of the rig, according to records maintained by the federal Minerals Management Service.

Following that spill, MMS inspectors recommended increasing the amount of cement used during this process and applying more torque when screwing in its pipes.

Experts say the number of safety incidents experienced by Deepwater Horizon isn't unusual for an industry operating in harsh conditions. And it is difficult to draw any connections between those problems and last week's deadly explosion, they say.

"These are big, floating cities," said Tyler Priest, a historian of offshore oil and gas exploration. "You're always going to have minor equipment failure and human error, and of course they're operating in a hurricane prone environment."

Because vessels like the Deepwater Horizon operate 24 hours a day, Coast Guard officials said minor equipment problems appear frequently. But if they go unfixed such incidents could mushroom into bigger concerns.

- In Feb. 2002, just months after the rig was launched from a South Korean shipyard, it spilled 267 barrels of oil into the Gulf after a hose failed, according to MMS records.

- In June 2003, the rig floated off course in high seas, resulting in the release of 944 barrels of oil. MMS blamed bad weather and poor judgment by the captain. A month later, equipment failure and high currents led to the loss of 74 barrels of oil.

- In January 2005, human error caused another accident. A crane operator forgot he was in the midst of refueling a crane, and 15 gallons of overflowing diesel fuel sparked a fire.

The rig was being used by BP during all of the above incidents.

The Coast Guard, which is supposed to ensure the vessels are seaworthy, keeps its own set of safety records on the Deepwater Horizon.

From 2000 to 2010, the Coast Guard issued six enforcement warnings and handed down one civil penalty and a notice of violation to Deepwater Horizon, agency records show.

On 18 different occasions during that period the Coast Guard cited the vessel for an "acknowledged pollution source." No further details about the type of pollution were immediately available.

The agency also conducted 16 investigations of incidents involving everything from fires to slip-and-fall accidents.

Steven Sutton, who oversees offshore drilling inspectors in the Coast Guard's New Orleans office, said the number of accidents and incidents reported on the Deepwater Horizon didn't strike him as unusual.

A collision with a towing vessel reported on June 26, 2003 could have created safety problems over the long term if the $95,000 damage to the rig's hull wasn't adequately repaired, Sutton said. The collision risked compromising the rig's watertight integrity or weakening the structure that supports the drilling operation, he said.

Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for the rig's owner Transocean Ltd., said Friday that the Swiss-based company planned to conduct its own investigation of what caused last week's explosion.

"Any prior incidents were investigated," he said. "Any speculation that they are related to the Deepwater Horizon incident is speculation."

Both Transocean and BP PLC cited comments made Monday by Lars Herbst, the regional director for the Minerals Management Service, who said the companies had a good history of compliance.

Last week's blowout was "an aberration in the history of the Gulf for the last 40 years" during which the industry has refined and automated much of the work on the estimated 3,500 rigs currently operating in the Gulf, said Priest, a professor and director of Global Studies at the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston.

"The industry is going to learn a lot from this. That's what happens in these kinds of disaster," he said, citing the 1988 explosion of the Piper Alpha rig in the North Sea and the 1979 blowout of Mexico's IXTOC I in the eastern Gulf.

Britain overhauled its safety requirements after the North Sea incident, which killed 167 men, and companies have since spent billions upgrading emergency equipment and improving their operating procedures.

Norway, which has huge oil and gas reserves in the North Sea, requires rigs to have at least two independent systems to trigger the blowout preventer.

Deepwater Horizon was considered state-of-the-art when it was built in 2001 by Hyundai Heavy Industries, Cantwell said. It was designed to withstand 118-mile an hour winds and waves as high as 41 feet. Last year, it set a world record for the deepest oil and gas well when it drilled 35,055 feet into the Gulf of Mexico.

Cantwell said the $560 million semi-submersible model has been superseded by a new design capable of drilling 40,000 feet down in water as deep as 12,000 feet.
__

Jordans reported from Geneva, Burke from San Francisco. Associated Press Writers Mike Kunzelman in New Orleans and Chris Kahn in New York contributed to this report.

--- end ---

Gulf Oil Spill Fight Turns to Chemicals Team Hopes Oil Dispersants Will Limit Damage on LandMain Content

Ker Than
National Geographic News
Published April 30, 2010
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100430-energy-gulf-oil-spill-chemical-dispersants/

A dispersant plane passed over an oil skimmer in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday. Chemicals are a key tool in the fight against the spreading oil spill. Photograph by Patrick Semansky, AP

To combat the massive oil spill from BP’s wrecked drilling site, cleanup crews are dropping huge quantities of chemical dispersant into the Gulf of Mexico in an urgent effort to stop as much of the slick as possible from reaching land.

(See Related, “Oil Spill Hits Gulf Coast Habitats”)

This could well be the single largest deployment of dispersants against an oil spill in U.S. history, said Richard Gaudiosi, president of the Delaware Bay and River Cooperative in Linwood, Pennsylvania.

The joint federal-industry response team responsible for the cleanup effort reports that nearly 140,000 gallons (529,928 liters) of dispersants have been used so far, with an additional 51,000 gallons (193,056 liters) available. Responders also have been trying controlled burns and have deployed long lines of inflatable booms, but they have said the chemicals have proven the most effective method of attacking the spill so far.

"Even on the Exxon Valdez spill, dispersants weren't used all that readily," Gaudiosi said. The notorious 1989 tanker disaster, up until now the worst oil spill in U.S. history, dumped 11 million gallons (41.6 million liters) on the remote Prince William Sound in Alaska.

But the spill now spreading from the site of the April 20 explosion that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which could reach the size of the Valdez spill in 52 days at its current rate, threatens not only wildlife refuges, ecologically sensitive areas, and fisheries but also densely populated and developed waterfronts and resort areas.

(See Pictures: Gulf Oil Spill Hits Land—And Wildlife)

The oil slick touched land Thursday night in Louisiana and was expected to reach shore in Mississippi and Alabama this weekend and in Pensacola and the Florida panhandle by Monday.

Breaking oil into droplets

Oil dispersants have been available to combat spills since the mid-1980s. They are detergent-like chemicals that break up oil slicks on the surface of the water into smaller droplets, which can then be broken down by bacteria in the water and by other natural processes. Dispersants also help prevent the oil droplets from coalescing to form other slicks.

According to the U.S. National Research Council, oil spill dispersants do not actually reduce the total amount of oil entering the environment. Rather, they change the chemical and physical properties of the oil, making it more likely to mix into the water column than to contaminate the shoreline.

The NRC report says that evaluating the environmental trade-offs associated with

dispersant use is “one of the most difficult decisions that oil spill responders and natural resources managers face during a spill.” The reason is the increased oil exposure for fish, as well as for corals and creatures that live in the lowest level of the water, such as oysters, the report said.

"Dispersant only alters the destination of the toxic compounds in the oil," redirecting its impact from feathered and fur-bearing animals on shore to organisms in the water column itself and on the seafloor, Richard Charter, senior policy adviser for marine programs at the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, said in an email.

"No good answers to a mess this big, only degrees of damage to various life-forms," Charter said.

(See Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Aerial Views Show Leak's Size)

Dispersants are specially designed to have low toxicity to marine organisms, so any environmental impact they do have has more to do with the breakup of the oil into droplets than with the dispersants themselves, said Robin Rorick, director of marine and security at the American Petroleum Institute.

When the oil at the surface is treated with the chemicals, it initially disperses within the upper 30 feet (9 meters) of the water column, according to a briefing paper distributed by the Deepwater Horizon response team.

An underwater chemical experiment

The dispersants are being applied by aircraft over the Gulf of Mexico. Helicopters and ships also can be used, and the joint federal-industry response team, led by the U.S. Coast Guard, said yesterday it is planning also to apply dispersants underwater, directly to the source of the leak.

This technique is considered experimental and has never been attempted at a depth of 5,000 feet (1,524 meters). If BP and the Coast Guard go through with the plan, the undersea dispersants would probably be applied by robotic submarines, also known as remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs.

It would be yet another job for the submarines at a site that is far too deep, and where pressures are far too great, for human divers to venture.

(See "Rig Explosion Shows Risks in Key Oil Frontier.")

The subs also are monitoring the well site and have been deployed—unsuccessfully so far—to try to stop the leak. With BP saying it may take weeks or months to stop the flow, the need for more effective ways to disperse the oil and protect the shore has become urgent.

Rorick said undersea application probably is being considered because dispersants are most effective when they are applied to freshly leaked oil.

"If the oil is out there for a long period of time and it gets really mixed with the water ... the dispersants are less effective," he explained.

(Related blog: "Who's Still Spilling Oil in the Seas?")

The Rothschild Cabal and Weather Control

2010-04-26T09:32:00.001-07:00

"Just as the people of Iceland, Venezuela, Iran and China are all asking what is causing their problems with supposed nature, there are issues which are simply not discussed or even broached in the Rothschild controlled media. One has to do much research with alternative media sources to even begin to arrive at some ideas on what is happening around the world to cause such enormous trouble with the several nations which thought to speak out and oppose the ruler ship of the Rothschild Cabal masters and their US puppet."

The Goldsmiths—Part CXXXVIII

Posted Friday, 23 April 2010
source
By R. D. Bradshaw

The prior Goldsmiths (137) was on Iceland and its bout to break free of the power of the Rothschild Cabal bankers in Britain which are obsessed with the idea that the people of Iceland must be excessively taxed to pay off the losses in the Cabal owned/controlled Icelandic banks, just like the suckers in North America and Europe are doing. While still in a preliminary vein, it is prudent to look at some history and current events now affecting perhaps every person in America as well as in the rest of the world.

For a start, let’s revisit some more troubling events from little Iceland. Here, the London Guardian of Mar 21, 2010 had this by Gudjon Helgason on Volcano erupts in Iceland, hundreds evacuated: “Authorities evacuated hundreds of people after a volcano erupted beside a glacier in southern Iceland, Iceland's civil protection agency said Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The eruption occurred around 11:30 p.m. Saturday (7:30 p.m. EDT) beside the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, the fifth largest in Iceland. Authorities initially said the eruption was below the glacier, triggering fears that it could lead to flooding from glacier melt, but scientists conducting an aerial survey in daylight located the eruption and said it did not occur below ice…

“A state of emergency has been declared in communities near the 100-square-mile (259-square-kilometer) glacier, and three Red Cross centers were set up for evacuees in the village of Hella… A European volcanic island in the North Atlantic, Iceland is largely an arctic desert with mountains, glaciers and volcanoes and agricultural areas in the lowlands close to the coastline. The last time the volcano erupted was in the 1820s.”

The London Telegraph of Apr 14, 2010 had a follow up story on Iceland volcano: hundreds evacuated over eruption risk. The article said that some 800 people near the Eyjafjallajokull volcano were evacuated after seismic activity suggested it erupted for the second time. The volcano, 75 miles east of Reykjavik, erupted on March 20, after almost 200 years of silence. The report said that the volcano is under a glacier. If a serious eruption happens, there could be bad flooding.

Already, volcanic ash covers much of Europe to delay or halt airline traffic (this is bringing huge economic losses to Europe and especially with the airlines). As far as Iceland, the eruption is proving to be even more terrible. The toxic fumes from the eruptions present major health problems to both humans and animals in Iceland. People and animals must stay indoors as much as possible. Many crops have been hit hard. The Icelandic economy has been and will be further devastated if the eruption continues or intensifies.

There were a couple of other news reports this past week which also seem to have a bearing on what is going on with Iceland’s volcanoes. First, a report from Yahoo News of Apr 20, 2010 addressed some strange mysterious lightning associated with the eruption. The article said that the Eyjafjallajokull volcano “continues to produce spectacular visual effects. Photographers have captured images of lightning, seemingly erupting directly from the volcano. The bolts may look like Hollywood special effects, but they're very much the real deal. No CGI required. But as LiveScience reports, they're also still a ‘bit of a mystery.’”

There is another interesting issue involved with Iceland. Drudge of Apr 21, 2010 had a report that the Eyjafjallajokull volcano has a nearby sister volcano even larger named Katla. There is concern that it may too explode. It’s even larger and with a much larger glacier. It would really create havoc in worldwide ash if it erupts.

But along with Iceland, there are a handful of other nations which too are balking at taking orders from the Rothschild Cabal bosses in London. Probably, the most important of these are Iran and Venezuela (with some increasing recent concern about China since she has been a big Iran supporter). Almost regularly, the Rothschild controlled media is bombarding the public about the evils of Iran and Venezuela and their leaders.

Iran

The one receiving the most attention has been Iran. Along with telling us about the evils of Iran and why she must be bombed into oblivion, the Rothschild media has also revealed numerous reports of internal protests and opposition from some part of the Iranian people over their government and its leaders.

Long ago, I learned that anytime one of the non-Rothschild controlled nations starts having internal political trouble, and particularly from student protests (students are always easy to motivate to protest), there is a high probability that the funding and direction of the protests are coming from the Rothschild Cabal powers with the CIA, MI 6 (from Britain) and the Mossad (from Israel). These spy agencies all work for and serve the Rothschild Cabal masters. The US government, thru the CIA, funds most of their activities.

Along with the internal problems in Iran, the Rothschild media has told us about another interesting little development in Iran. It is the almost continuous state of drought the nation has faced in the last several years.

On Iran’s drought problems, The USDA FSA had this report on IRAN: Another Disappointing Wheat Harvest Ahead in 2009/10: “The widely dispersed winter grain production regions in Iran have generally experienced more favorable growing conditions in 2009/10 than during last year’s extremely severe drought. Normal to above normal rainfall in the important rain fed wheat growing areas of northwest Iran has helped improve overall grain production prospects this year. However, drought conditions have persisted in important southern and western irrigated growing areas, ensuring the nation will have another below-average national grain harvest in 2009/10.

“The dwindling supply of irrigation water in several major producing provinces has resulted in regional declines in grain area and much reduced crop yield potential in the affected areas. Despite regional drought, total wheat production is expected to increase roughly 20 percent over last year, though still resulting in the second lowest harvest in the past six years. The disappointing 2009/10 wheat harvest could lead to significant additional grain imports, following on the record 8.5 million tons estimated to have been imported in 2008/09.”

Venezuela and Chavez

Along with the huge number of internal problems now occurring with Iran, Venezuela seems to also have more than its fair share of troubles—including a catastrophic drought which now is causing political troubles for Chavez. Mongabay.com had a March 22, 2010 report on the crisis in Venezuela in an article by Nikolas Kozloff on El Nino in Venezuela: Hugo Chavez’s Katrina Moment?

Kozloff’s article addressed the Venezuelan drought and likened it for Chavez to the Katrina crisis for George W. Bush of some years ago. He noted that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has been in power for more than ten years, during which time he has deflected “numerous electoral challenges, a recall effort, a coup d’etat and even an oil lock out.” Yet, he has demonstrated enormous staying power throughout all of these political crises.

But, per the story, some say that Chávez’s “luck” may have finally run out because this current devastating drought has ravaged Venezuela and the government has been forced to undertake conservation measures for water and electricity. Some are holding Chávez responsible for the energy crunch. Some say that the drought could exact a heavy toll on the Venezuelan president in September’s legislative elections.

The article then asked what was causing the crisis and said: “There may not be a clear cut answer to this question, and different people provide differing interpretations. Chávez critics say that the government has neglected the power grid and failed to invest in hydrology systems and aqueducts in order to expand power production and satisfy increased consumption.” However, Chavez blames weather changes from El Niño as the cause.

Currently, state-owned oil, aluminum and steel companies are obliged to "rationalize" their electric use. Steel company Sidor, a large manufacturer, has been running at less than 50 percent capacity. In Caracas, the city’s main water utility announced it would reduce water supply by 25 percent per person. Chávez has urged the public to limit its showers to three minutes. "Some people sing in the shower, in the shower half an hour," he said. "No kids, three minutes is more than enough. I've counted, three minutes, and I don't stink."

The article notes that “thousands have taken to the streets to protest the water and electricity crunch. Some have burned electricity bills while others brandish surge-damaged blenders, televisions and stereos outside the state utility company. What’s more, the energy crunch has now had a serious political spillover effect: in a daring move, former Chávez aides such as Defense Minister Raul Isaias Baduel have signed a petition asking for the President to resign.” The statement said that after 11 years in power, “it was important for Chávez to resign so as to protect the country from a continuation of various ‘ills.’”

China

As long as the Chinese were accepting US dollars and IOU paper for the sale of its goods to the Rothschild controlled US, everything was peaches and cream with China. But since the Rothschild Cabal imposed deflation and depression, most Americans have not had the money to be buying many Chinese goods. Accordingly, China is beginning to backtrack in its purchases of US debt paper. Cabal agents like Tim Geithner have been making frequent trips to China to beg her/force her to keep buying US paper.

But China too is having her problems with rain and earthquakes. Most of Southern China is in a serious drought which may soon prove to be catastrophic in food production. Reportedly, the drought there started in 2009. It is the worst in 100 years. Some 61 million people are affected and the government is hauling in water by trucks to dispense to people who line up with containers to get the water.

Sina.com had a report on Dry Spell Hits where it hurts which said: “Drought is sparking fears of inflation and food shortages in Southwest China, report Wang Huazhong in Guizhou, and Peng Yining and Li Yingqing in Yunnan… The ongoing drought, which has lasted since last autumn and been dubbed the worst in a century, has dried out all of the village's water tanks. Zhu's wife must walk three kilometers on snaking mountain paths to fetch turbid water three times a day for her family and cattle…

“By the end of March, Guizhou had seen more than 916,000 hectares of crops affected by drought, causing a direct loss of almost 3 billion yuan ($440 million), according to figures released by the provincial agricultural commission. The commission's publicity director, Zheng Chuanlou, also told China Daily that crops to be harvested this summer, such as rape and wheat, are "doomed", with most areas likely to see dramatically reduced or even zero output. Already about eight million people just in Yunnan province are suffering a grain shortage, said Wang Shufen, director of the Yunnan provincial civil administration, who told China News Service that five million had ‘no financial income and are relying on government handouts’.

“The situation has prompted fears among analysts that low output of cash crops - rapeseed, medicinal materials, tobacco, sugar, tea and flowers - will push up prices nationwide. To stabilize prices and curb the potential inflation, the central government ordered the transfer of 1.7 million tons of grain reserves to the drought-hit region, Shen Leihai, a senior State official responsible for China's food security, told Southern Weekend, a newspaper based in Guangzhou…

“However, time is running out. Although meteorology authorities predict the drought will last until the end of May, in just four weeks China will enter a long, hot summer, by which time it will be too late to plant. Farmers say getting seedlings ready to be replanted in the fields takes 40 days. Even if the seedlings are successfully planted, the drought is also sparking conflicts over how much of the region's limited water resources should be used to irrigate them.”

Along with the impact of drought, China has just been hit with a severe earthquake about Apr 13, 2010, per a story by Malcolm Moore in the London Telegraph. This one, at 7.1 magnitude, struck in Western China near Tibet. Reports say 1,200 people were killed and 12,000 injured.

Just as the people of Iceland, Venezuela, Iran and China are all asking what is causing their problems with supposed nature, there are issues which are simply not discussed or even broached in the Rothschild controlled media. One has to do much research with alternative media sources to even begin to arrive at some ideas on what is happening around the world to cause such enormous trouble with the several nations which thought to speak out and oppose the ruler ship of the Rothschild Cabal masters and their US puppet. For some possibilities, let’s review some history.

Secretary of Defense William Cohen

On April 28, 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen attended a counterterrorism conference at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, as sponsored by former US Senator Sam Nunn. Reuters and a number of sources quoted the DoD News Briefing, with Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Q&A at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy (Subsequently, the DOD reportedly deleted this page and quotation in its sources; but the quotation was heavily covered in the media at that time, to now include cnet news which reportedly confirms it).

Thememoryhole.org has this on the verbatim transcript of the question and answer session as posted at the DOD web site:

“After some introductory remarks about the conference, Cohen takes questions from the media in attendance. A reporter asks a question based on the fake anthrax letters that had recently been sent to B'nai Brith. Cohen gives a strange answer, using the occasion to mention the exotic weapons being developed by terrorists (as well as--one would assume--governments). Here's the exchange, taken verbatim from the transcript posted on the Defense Department's Website:

“Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week's scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B'nai Brith.

“A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we've learned in the intelligence community, we had something called -- and we have James Woolsey here to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.

“So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important.”

Well, all this Goldsmiths can say here is that if it’s going on (and it is, per former Secretary of Defense Cohen), we can bank on that the Rothschild Cabal and the US DOD’s DARPA agency are actively involved. Whatever can be said of Cohen, he was no fool. He knew what he was talking about. It is manifestly clear that he knew what was happening because of firsthand knowledge from his work in the Pentagon.

Some More History

But Cohen was not the Lone Ranger on this theme. Long before he came along, others addressed the idea of using several different forms of technology to be able to create man-made earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and weather alterations. Without burdening the reader with this host of reports, here are just a few as taken from an article by Ray Bilger on Human Engineered Earthquakes at rense.com:

One of the earliest forms of this idea surfaced in the writings and perhaps even some experiments by Nicola Tesla on Controlled Earthquakes in 1935. Per Bilger, they were labeled by Tesla as “the art of telegeodynamics.” Tesla was able to cause “rhythmical vibrations to pass through the Earth with almost no loss of energy,” and he could “convey these mechanical effects to the greatest terrestrial distances and produce all kinds of unique effects.”

Next, Bilger transitioned his discussion to a US Senate Sub-Committee hearing in 1975 where the Chairman, Senator Claiborne Pell, said: "We need a treaty now... before the military leaders of the world start directing storms, manipulating climates and inducing earthquakes against their enemies." As Bilger concluded, Pell must have known something on this subject to prompt his words.

Going forward to December 10, 1976, Bilger wrote: “the General Assembly of the United Nations approved the 'Convention of the Prohibition of Military or any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques,' and issued a report. Again, such a report would not have been issued if there were not technology in place capable of environmental modification, including the ability to induce earthquakes.”

Bilger then quoted the June 5, 1977, New York Times which described the great earthquake which destroyed Tangshan, China on July 28, 1976, and killed over 650,000 people. The Times said: “Just before the first tremor at 3:42 am, the sky lit up like daylight. The multi-hued lights, mainly white and red, were seen up to 200 miles away. Leaves on many trees were burned to a crisp and growing vegetables were scorched on one side, as if by a fireball.” Bilger then raised the question if these lights could be associated with Tesla technology? (On this question, it must be noted that the Icelandic volcano at Eyjafjallajokull has been having associated lightning with it. Live Science/Yahoo news called the lightning phenomenon a mystery.)

Next Bilger came to January of 1978, when Dr. Andrija Puharich, MD, LL.D, issued a detailed research paper entitled “Global Magnetic Warfare - A Layman's View of Certain Artificially Induced Unusual Effects on The Planet Earth During 1976 and 1977.” In his paper, Dr. Puharich stated, "Of the many great earthquakes of 1976, there is one that demands special attention - the July 28, 1976 Tangshan, China earthquake." The January 1978 edition of Specula magazine ran an article which described an incredibly profound phenomenon that could be produced within the Earth by what is called the “Tesla Effect.”

According to the article, “electromagnetic signals of certain frequencies can be transmitted through the Earth to form standing waves in the Earth itself. In certain cases, coherence to this standing wave can be induced wherein a fraction of the vast, surging electromagnetic current of the Earth itself feeds into and augments the induced standing wave. In other words, "much more energy is now present in the standing wave that the... amount being fed in from the Earth's surface." By interferometer techniques, giant standing waves can be combined to produce a focused beam of very great energy. This can be used to produce earthquakes induced at distant aiming points.”

Bilger then cited Dr. Peter Beter (a former official with the Kennedy Administration), who said that, by 1977, “the Russians had placed fission-fusion-fission superbombs in certain deep undersea trenches around the Philippines.” A related source believes that the Philippines are in the position of a “keystone” within the giant Pacific Tectonic Plate. Russia had already been setting off lower yield undersea weapons in other areas around the Pacific Ocean causing strong earthquakes.

Dr. Beter suggested that the intention was to relieve tensions all around the Pacific plate, except the Philippines where stresses would build to tremendous levels. Then, at a certain point, the bombs around the Philippines will be set off. It is expected that this will cause incredible earthquakes and tidal waves and ultimately devastate the American West Coast. Volcanoes erupting in the Philippines are an indication that stresses are building in the area. (Bilger adds that readers need to understand that earthquakes and volcanoes are intimately connected and work hand in hand, with the one sometimes triggering the other, and sometimes the reverse. An earthquake can open vents deep in the Earth which allow lava to flow up. In other cases, the stresses driving volcanic activity can also cause earthquakes).

Bilger then took note of a January 30, 1981 article in the Washington Post which reported that in 1979 there were 56 significant earthquakes in the world, and that by 1980 the annual figure was up to 71. He then added: “Coincidentally, in 1980 there was an increase in ELF transmissions by both Russia and the United States.”

Going forward to 1981, Bilger cited Lt. Col. Thomas Bearden, a nuclear engineer and the leading Tesla researcher in the U.S. He gave a lecture before the U.S. Psychotronics Association where he spoke of the standing waves produced by Tesla Magnifying Transmitters that were also discussed in Specula magazine in 1978. Bearden was, per Bilger, describing how HAARP works.

Bearden stated in part: “Then, what you do is change the frequency. If you change the frequency one way (by dephasing it), you dump the energy up in the atmosphere beyond the point on the other side of the Earth that you focused upon. As you start ionizing the air, you can change the weather flow patterns, the jet stream, etc. If you dump it gradually, real gradually, you influence the heck out of the weather. It's a great weather machine. If you dump it sharply, you won¹t get the little ionization like that. You will get flashes and fireballs (plasma) that will come down to the surface of the Earth. You can cause enormous weather changes over entire regions by playing that thing back and forth.”

Nicola Tesla

The above references to Tesla prompt these remarks. Niocola Tesla (1856 to 1943) was an 1884 immigrant to the United States from Serbia. He gained fame as perhaps the world’s most important inventor of electrical and electromagnetic applications. Today’s AC current used to power thousands of appliances (including our computers) came from his brilliant mind.

One of his most devoted projects was to take electricity from the heavens and make it freely available to people with minimal costs. In 1899, he went out to the mountains near Colorado Springs, CO and hooked up his free electricity scheme to the nearby town of Colorado Springs. Reportedly, his first experiment was so powerful that it blew the electric lights out in the town.

But 19th century and early 20th century inventor Thomas Edison was also busy on electricity as well. But Edison had the advantage because he was financed by the fat cat bankers, including the Rockefellers/Roggenfelders. This combine didn’t like what Tesla was doing so he was characterized by the controlled media as a “Mad Scientist.” Unable to get financing, Tesla’s plans for free energy died out. Edison and his money partners prevailed to establish electric power companies to sell energy commercially to the American people.

Tesla died a pauper in 1943. But both the old Soviet Union and the United States commenced a dedicated effort in WWII to locate, retrieve, secure and hide all of Tesla’s writings on electricity. His work quickly transitioned into Top Secret military projects. So his work passed out of the lime light for the next many years until the 1990s when the US HAARP program commenced, allegedly based on Tesla technology.

HAARP

This backdrop takes us to this believed Tesla technology called HAARP. In the last dozen years or so, a number of writers have discussed HAARP at length and have suggested all kinds of possibilities on what it is doing with its huge field full of large antennas in Alaska beaming millions of watts of energy into the heavens for some ostensible purpose. I have read material by Nick Begich, Dick Eastman, Jesse Ventura (former Governor of MN), etc discussing the different theories.

One of the best reports I read was by an unnamed author who wrote at euro-med.dk in an article on Do Devils Play this HAARP? On HAARP (the US High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Alaska), the report cited HAARP´s homepage and said: “HAARP was started in Alaska in 1993. HAARP will very quickly heat the ionosphere, which is the upper part of the atmosphere, with a focused and steerable electromagnetic beam. By suddenly lifting the ionosphere to high altitudes it can destroy incoming rockets. It is an experiment on the atmosphere and no one knows what it leads to.

“HAARP is for military purposes, being said to be able to wipe out communication over a wide area, penetrate the earth for many kilometers to search for tunnels, minerals, oil, subterranean military plants, detect low incoming planes. The Prime Argus Project looked into ways to cause earthquakes through deflection of the focused electromagnetic beam from the ionosphere on to a spot, where the land plates are pressing above each other, i.e. predilection earth quake zones.”

The report quoted an article of 25 years ago by Zbigniew Brzezinski that “HAARP can produce changes in the composition of the atmosphere and thus change the performance of the brain in very large populations –even make them uncapable to fight. Brzezinski had this in mind, too, writing on the Technetronic Era, where everybody will be controlled by a small elite. This is said to be brought about by Extremely Low Frequency ELF) waves, which is said to have been proved in thousands of experiments.” A Mr. Eastlund was also quoted that through the HAARP system they can change the weather, by sending ELF waves into the Van Allen Belts (the sun´s electromagnetic fields deflect cosmic radiation, thus influencing the formation of clouds).

The Danish writer then proceeded to bring up the recent Haiti earthquake and asked if it could be the work of HAARP? The story cited the Boston Globe of Jan 13, 2010 and its remarks on a light seen over Haiti the night before.

But My Purpose

As far as the speculations of Zbigniew Brzezinski, of some 25 years ago, this is very plausible. My check of Wikipedia on HAARP says that work on the HAARP Alaskan station started in 1993 and it was completed in 2007. Brzezinski could have known about the project and its purposes 25 years ago. As to earlier prototypes and their work of bombarding the heavens, who knows when and how this effort started. For sure, it was all clouded in a Top Secret classification so there is no way we can be sure of the backdrop on HAARP.

But my purpose here is not to get into any speculation on Brzezinski or what may have caused the Haiti earthquake. For my part, it could have been manmade or it could be strictly a phenomenon of nature. For the time being, I will leave that question as unresolved. But for purposes here, let’s digress to the situation in Iceland, Iran, Venezuela, and China which are the theme for this Goldsmiths.

Now Back to the Wisdom of Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen

Here, let us revisit Iceland once more about her new trouble with an erupting volcano. Based on the reports made by William Cohen and the many others cited above, is it possible that the tiny nation of Iceland is now faced with an erupting volcano because of its decision to oppose the Rothschild Cabal demands that Iceland pay them off for their losses? Thus, could this volcanic eruption problem in Iceland be tied to its decision to refuse to pay off the Rothschild Cabal masters?

Next, let’s motorize over to Iran, Venezuela and China and their tragic state of drought. This writer is not completely certain of what all the Rothschilds and their puppet states like the US are doing to manipulate weather and natural forces on earth; but I’m sure the present droughts in Venezuela, China and Iran are not the work of nature. There is something going on behind the scenes on these enemies of the Rothschild Cabal masters who rule Europe, North America and much of the rest of the world. Isn’t it strange that Rothschild puppet nations are doing good on rain while these three Rothschild Cabal enemies are in some of the worst droughts that they have had in a hundred years. To this list, we can also add the recent earthquake in China. Is there a connection?

Consequently, when Rothschild agent Geithner arrives in China in April, does he come to tell China what might happen if she refuses the Rothschild demands? In the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, Rothschild/US agents visited both of them in advance and told them in blunt terms either surrender their sovereignty or the US would invade and destroy them. Thus, I am old enough and watched events enough through the years that I would not put anything past Plato’s envisioned gold and silver rulers. The best thing to do is expect the worse and be happy if it doesn’t get that bad.

More on Weather

I have already cited the weather problem in various Goldsmiths over the years. In the Goldsmiths 99 (published Sep 10, 2009), I reported that the Cabal owned and directed puppets with the US government and the US government sponsored and directed weather modification program (under DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects) began bringing drought and bad weather to nations that do not play on the Cabal team. There is much documentation establishing that DARPA is working on weather alteration/control (thru HAARP, chem-trails, etc). I have outlined some of this data above.

Rense.com has had numerous stories saying the plan is that by 2020 the US will control weather worldwide (this is the backdrop for the periodic El Nino and La Nina events—which by the way were unheard in the US until the arrival of modern history in the last ten years or so). My own take right now is that DARPA is busy bringing drought to nations which do not play on the US team (which translates to the Rothschild Cabal team since it is synonymous with the US team).

The chief beneficiary/curse of this focus by the Cabal and its colleagues at DARPA has been the Iranians. In this vein, Iran has had a series of very significant droughts which have greatly hurt agricultural production. I could also give numerous reports of news stories of awful drought and grain diseases in other non-Cabal controlled nations (to include Russia which has had her weather problems as well, complements of the Rothschild Cabal and its lackeys at DARPA).

One of the main points of the Mickey Mouse document (cited in Understanding Money and War XIV at www.analysis-news.com) was the capability and indeed the practice of the plutocratic bankers involved to cause wars and bring on attacks on nations which do not submit to the Cabal’s plutocratic rule. Iran, Iceland, Venezuela and China are four of those nations. I don’t have any problem seeing weather/volcanic/earthquake warfare as being used by the Cabal to attack and hurt nations around the world which do not submit to Cabal control.

In publishing the Goldsmiths 99, a reader wrote me and said: “Mr. Bradshaw: In recent commentaries, you opined that the cabal might be altering the weather. I find this hard to believe. Science has recently discovered that hot ionized solar plasma, galactic cosmic rays (charged protons from exploded stars) and other influences from outer space play a major role in determining cloud formation and weather on earth. I doubt that the cabal is able to exert any control over these awesome cosmic forces.”

While it may or may not be true that galactic cosmic rays play a major part on earth’s weather, it is true that DARPA has a weather control plan underway involving HAARP which attempts to guide and direct the jet stream across North America to bring moisture to various parts of the continent as desired. And what are chem-trails doing? Well, for one thing, they are polluting the atmosphere. One of the purposes of rain is to clean the air of pollutants. I submit that among other things, one of the fallouts of the chem-trail spraying operation is to produce rain in some areas.

As for as galactic powers to influence weather, I am in no position to judge how influential these forces could be. I know about HAARP and chem-trails. I also know that cloud seedings to make rain have been around for the last 70 or 80 years; and they are only the tip of the iceberg. I also know about DARPA’s plans; and I am assured that if DARPA has this capability, we can bank on it that the Rothschild Cabal controls it in some way since the Cabal controls the US government.

With this control, the Cabal is or will be in the position to determine which nations get rain and which do not. In this context, it is logical that they will be sure that rain falls on land that they own/control; and drought is destined in areas which are in revolt from their ruler ship.

Dick Eastman

In support of my comments above, here are some comments from Dick Eastman of Yakima, WA who has done extensive research on weather modification and its purposes. Here below are some excerpts from his Jan 2, 2010 article at rense.com on Telsa-Style Weather Control Since the Early 1990s.

In discussing chem-trails, he said that “there are those who argue that the laying of ionized cloud is part of a benevolent plan to save the earth from global warming due to greenhouse-effect-producing gases in the atmosphere. While it is true that physicist Edward Teller did make such a proposal, the last thing you should think is that weaponized weather modification has anything to do with the government secretly saving us from global warming. Global warming (is) a deception, the result of selecting the research, suppressing research, and differentially rewarding researchers for the conclusions they reach.

“Global warming is a cover for the use of weather technology by the most powerful people in the world for their own economic and geopolitical benefit. Global warming is more real than space aliens at Roswell or ray guns bringing down the twin towers of the WTC. Increased carbon dioxide is not a threat, but a potential boon to mankind. The global warming deception both conceals weather crimes (unlegislated crimes against humanity) for profit and it is used as an excuse for international agencies (controlled by the weather atrocity perpetrators themselves) to take over more of the economic activity of the human race…

“The conspiracy is that El Niño and other high-impact weather events really are under control of powerful private interests…

“One more thing: The people who are controlling the weather are more interested in destroying crops for geopolitical purposes (weaponized weather modification) and for economic purposes than for ‘benefiting farmers.’ If you buy agricultural commodities futures (rights to buy farm products in the future at a given price) and then destroy this crop around the world using CWM to raise the price (supply and demand) you really ‘make a killing’ in every sense of the word…

“The Rothschild Mafia has used weaponized clandestine weather modification, to create weather disasters which have been as profitable for lending to government financing emergency spending and reproduction as it has for positioning to profit from foreknown weather shocks to agricultural futures markets, energy use and so forth. But now the need is to disable the American population in the finishing strokes of a war of hidden sabotage (false-flag weather-catastrophes blamed on Mother Nature -- just as the Kleptastrophe has been blamed on impersonal market forces).

“Remember, the Rothschild Mafia can never be caught attacking anyone. That is why they have developed these indirect means made possible in the age of knowledge-advantage warfare that people don't even recognize as weapons being wielded by men. (The technologies available to the Rothschild Mafia with all the defense research and development corporations in every industrial country they control and with financial resources commensurate with the trillions they have been taking in from the bogus War on Terror and the Kleptastrophe operations against us that have drained us dry)…

“Discovering that global warming has been a fraud has helped us, although we have not been able to translate our discovery into the rollback of disinformation and bad legislation. Now bear in mind that global warming has just been a cover for the increased weather disasters from weaponized clandestine weather modification -- they needed something to blame for all of unusual death and destruction they have been causing.

“We have failed to come to agreement about 9-11, the Kleptastrophe, and the conspiracy of Zionist Bankers -- so I suspect that most people will be willing to let their minds wander far from what the mainstream news tells them... Last point: I am about 80 percent confident that the predicted record cold snaps are not just pure Rothschild Mafia luck… Hey, we made it through 2009. A year in which we learned a lot that will help us do better against the Rothschild Mafia next year…”

Eastman has researched and written about both chem-trails and HAARP. While he recognizes those applications by DARPA for military purposes (which he documents), he also came to the above conclusions on the use of weather warfare to benefit the powerful Rothschild connected bankers in their manipulation of the financial markets (so if the Icelandic volcano eruptions were man-made by the Cabal, what will the volcanic ash clouds worldwide do to agricultural food production this year and who will profit accordingly?). Though Eastman’s conclusions were on the present Rothschild use of weather manipulations to make current profits, my take is on a more sinister use in the future by the Cabal to completely control the worldwide production of food.

The Bottom Line

So the place we must come to is it possible that the Rothschild Cabal masters, using their puppets at DARPA, are now in the process of taking over nature to bring on natural calamities to nations which do not toe the line as the masters in London demand? Could the Cabal masters be behind the troubles now in Iceland, Iran, Venezuela and China? Along with punishing Rothschild Cabal enemies, would such events also open the door for some huge profits for Cabal insiders? Thus, if an insider with the Cabal had advance knowledge of the coming Icelandic volcano eruptions and resulting ash, could he have sold airline stocks short and made a barrel of profits (as interestingly happened in the 9/11 thing some years ago)?

In the way of a postscript, the latest news from Iceland has it that the IMF and Nordic states have jointly approved a loan to Iceland. While the backdrop on this development has not been revealed, it suggests that the way has been paved for Iceland to join the EU and make payments to the bankers as demanded by Rothschild ruled Britain and Holland. My guess is that slowly in the coming days the Cabal owned media will tell us what Iceland will do to get the loans being made. There is a high probability that the people of Iceland got the word that the Cabal will destroy them if they try to continue opposing the demands from the Rothschild Cabal masters. My take is that Iceland has or will surrender.

By the way, subscribers to www.analysis-news.com can attest to the fact that I had reported some predictions weeks ago from one Cabal source about a big fall in April with the big drops coming around April 15-22. I had to almost apologize to subscribers on April 15th when we had not yet had any really big falls (though bonds and most commodities had taken a beating as predicted). But sure enough, April 16 came through with a hard drop in most everything but the dollar.

Putting these facts together, informed observers can verify that the evidence is substantial that the Icelandic volcano problems were pre-known. We can bank on it that Cabal insiders were already positioned to make a barrel of money on this deal. So, let me repeat the above question. Is there a connection between the troubles in Iceland, Iran, Venezuela and China and the demands of the Rothschild Cabal masters?

The bottom line here is that in this age of uncertainty and Rothschild Cabal fiat money manipulations, more and more people seem to be turning to gold.

Check this out! Iceland Volcano Live Cam April 18, 2018

2010-04-24T18:55:00.001-07:00

HAARP??

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LIVE CAM
http://mila.is/english/

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Volcanic Ash Threat in Europe was All a 'Mistake', Authorities Say
Published April 20, 2010 by:
Luis R. Miranda
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Once Again Computer Models Did the Trick for Scientists

It was not a volcano or its ash what caused major disruptions in air travel for the past several days, but a bunch of flawed computer models scientists used to forecast how the volcanic eruption would affect air
travel throughout the European continent. As reported yesterday, other reasons are being looked at to explain why flights were suspended if the famous ash cloud did not reach Europe in the way it was originally described. Today, authorities are blaming defective computer models and not the volcanic eruption.

According to Matthias Ruete, director general for mobility and transport in Europe, the computer models used to make a decision on whether or not the air space would remain open, were flawed due to the fact scientists used incomplete science and limited data. The closure of air space, which caused great disruption in passenger and cargo transport from and to the old continent, stranding thousands of people and amounting to loses of hundreds of millions of dollars per day, does not come as a surprise. Scientists who claim that man causes global warming, also based their calculations and forecasts on flawed, incomplete and dubious data. This was discovered when e-mails and documents from the University of East Anglia were let out on the web.

"It is a black box in certain areas," Matthias Ruete, said, asserting that the assumptions used in the models were not based on scientific evidence. Apparently, authorities in Europe were not sure about certain issues and questions involving the amount of ash at specific heights and places, how hazardous it would be and the rate at which the ash would fall from the sky. "It's one of the elements where, as far as I know, we're not quite clear about it," he revealed.

As reported yesterday, some airlines even conducted test flights in order to determine whether their planes would be able to withstand the effects of the now confirmed fictitious ash. Companies like KLM, Air France and Lufthansa sent planes up and all indications pointed out that the risk was minimum or none.

It appears that scientists and authorities decided to close air space, and in the process cause grave stress to an economic system that is already shaky. The current levels of outstanding debt many of the companies that revolve around commerce and air travel as well as that of European and other governments provides very little margin of error for this kind of mistakes, however those who oversee air safety did not take that into account when making up their minds about what to do with transatlantic flights.

This computer model errors along with poor judgment still do not explain why if there was any kind of threat to air travel, military planes from European countries and the U.S. maintained and still continue to execute exercises that are part of the Brilliant Ardent 10 program. The admittance of wrongdoing does not explain if and how the Coronal Mass Ejections (CME's) may have influenced on weather patterns, plate tectonics or volcanic activity. We tried to obtain information from Dr. David H. Hathaway, a NASA scientist and expert in CME, but he has not returned our e-mail. "If you take the situation across the Atlantic, there the advice would probably be: don't fly over the volcano. Otherwise, it is up to you to take the precautions necessary," Mr Ruete said. Many people are now calling for the adoption of standards used in the United States, where it is up to the airlines to decide whether it is safe to fly or not. European standards establish that member states have the prerogative to make those decisions, but all decisions made for the past week have been made by computer models, it seems. Unfortunately, computers cannot be fired.

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Coronal Mass Ejection is the Issue in Europe, Not a Volcanic Ash Cloud
Published April 19, 2010 by:
Luis R. Miranda
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It is Just Not Coincidental that Three Significant Events Occurred at the Same Time. The Volcanic Eruption, the Military Exercise and the Coronal Mass Ejections

It is of everyone's knowledge the kind of disruptions the volcanic eruption in Iceland caused to international travel in Europe. Due to this eruption and the huge amount of ash reported to be coming out of the volcano, it is understandable that air space is closed for the safety of the people who intended to make their ways around the continent and across the Atlantic Ocean. However, some information has come to my attention that I think is important to share with the public, since the authorities are not doing it.

Although, as I mentioned before, air travel is banned for the moment, there are some facts that do not follow the same trend. For example, why is the Keflavic International Airport in Iceland still open? Is the real disruptor of air transport really volcanic ash or a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)? Is European airspace being kept clear to prevent people seeing something significant out of aircraft windows? Is European airspace being kept clear for military defensive purposes or for military offensive purposes? Whose military?

Volcanic eruptions are nothing rare nowadays. Volcanic activity is seen daily around the world, and there are volcanoes erupting daily around the globe. So why is this particular eruption so special? Maybe it's not. There is another event happening at the same time this eruption is taking place. A large NATO Live Exercise originated out of Germany on April 12 and running up until April 22 is also taking place in European airspace. The exercise includes participants like the U.S. Air Force stationed in Germany and other places in the old continent.

Reports from Germany, Austria and other locations in Europe reported clear and blue skies up to April 17, as it can be seen in this image dated April 17, 2010. Enter the following report from rumormillnews.com.

"In Germany we experienced the most beautiful day of the year. No clouds, clear sky, not the slightest sign of dust or ash in the atmosphere. To confirm my own observation I checked the www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/ 1200 UTC satellite picture with the same result: A large high pressure area stretching from England and France via the North Sea, Germany, the Alps all the way across Poland to the Russian border with winds from the east in central Germany. You can see the Sat Pic via the link below."

This information contradicts the ash cloud forecast to engulf all European airspace. Air space over Ramstein Airforce Base in Germany has also remained opened throughout the emergency. Ramstein is the main location from which operations in the Middle East are coordinated. There have not been any interruptions in the operations conducted at Ramstein, as military airplanes seem to be able to cope with volcanic ash. German Airline Lufthansa conducted several flights in order to test the possibility of restarting normal transportation activity. The result of those tests were no damage or any other problems for the aircraft.

"In addition to air assets, tactical employment of Theater Missile Defense and Ground Based Air Defense assets will be extensively exercised." Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception and destruction of attacking missiles. Originally conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed Intercontinental ballistic missiles, its application has broadened to include shorter-ranged non-nuclear tactical and theater missiles", continues the report.

May these military exercises be related to a Coronal Mass Ejections? Well, one has to say it is just coincidental that three significant events occurred at the same time. The volcanic eruption, the military exercise and the coronal mass ejections. See Coronal Mass Ejection from April 13, 2010. According to the Solar Influences Data Center, significant solar activity is expected to occur between 2010 and 2012 and some of it was expected to happen beginning April 14. Find the report here.

"A Coronal Mass Ejection or CME linked to the eruption of a polar crown filament was detected on April 13 by LASCO and other coronagraphs. It is partially halo, with a main propagation direction to the North of the ecliptic plane. There is a risk that the southern flank of the CME crosses the Earth, triggering enhanced geomagnetic activity, not before late April 16 or more likely on April 17."Although air travel is supposed to be interrupted for several more days, reports issued as late as Sunday expressed the possibility that some flight activity would resume on Monday April 17. Is this also a coincidence? The solar activity was supposed to end on April 17, was it not? Also, note that although the volcanic eruption is real and the ash is real too, no image shown anywhere has confirmed the massive cloud of ash all over Europe as it has been reported by the main stream media. Vasts areas of the continent have remained clear throughout the emergency. So why close most European Air Space? Please stay tuned for more details.

Sources:

NASA. Coronal Mass Ejections
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/CMEs.shtml

Operation Brilliant Ardent 10
http://realagenda.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/massive-military-exercise-in-europe-as-volcano-erupts/

Europe Satellite Image April 17, 2010
http://www.rumormillnews.com/pix5/2010.04.17_SatD_1200_Resize.jpeg

Dundee Satellite Receiving Station
http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/

Ash Cloud Forecast over Europe
http://www.eurad.uni-koeln.de/index.html

Coronal Mass Ejection April 13, 2010
http://www.spaceweather3.com/images2010/13apr10/cme_c3_anim360.gif?PHPSESSID=ifbmesp6a7oc507tt90elfoc45

Solar Influences Data Analysis Center
http://www.sidc.be/products/presto/

Rainy Resurrection Day

2010-04-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

In spite of the wet weather, the sun is shining above the clouds. May the Son of God shine in your heart today as well.

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Today's Rainbow for YOU!

2010-03-30T19:40:00.001-07:00

After work today, I took a long walk to the store and back - about 1-1/2 hrs - and not 15 minutes after I got home it started to rain, so I thought, thank You, Lord! THEN... out one window I saw the sun shine and out the other, dark clouds and rain, so I thought, "I wonder if there's a rainbow?" So I looked out and YES! there it was, so big and so BEAUTIFUL! Reminding me of God's wonderful promises found in His Word.

Be sure to watch the video too!

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And God said, This [is] the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that [is] with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which [is] between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
Genesis 9

Why we had very limited sunshine today

2010-03-28T22:17:00.003-07:00

San Francisco Bay area
March 28 2010
Chemtrail Assault
Geoengineering Areosol Spray Crimes
Satellite Photo

Where Did the Towers Go? The Evidence of Directed Energy Technology on 9/11 by Dr. Judy Wood

2010-03-28T09:20:00.003-07:00

UPDATE: Dr. Wood will be on the Aroostook Watchmen show again April 5, 2010.

Where Did the Towers Go? The Evidence of Directed Energy Technology on 9/11 by Dr. Judy Wood (July 2010)

"The data told us what destroyed the twin towers. The data told us that directed-energy weapons must exist. We were not aware that the US military had directed-energy weapons. After we concluded that some sort of energy weapon was used, we looked for evidence that such weapons exist and found it." - Dr. Judy Wood

http://drjudywood.com/

LISTEN TO DR. JUDY WOOD INTERVIEW FROM MARCH 16, 2010

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Aerosol Spray Geoengineering (Chemtrails) is a Human Rights Violation

2010-03-23T13:05:00.001-07:00

Geo-Engineering Watch

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Geo-Engineering Watch

Staying Warm in Klamath Falls Using Geothermal Energy

2010-03-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

Sidewalks and more are heated by underground hot water

Oregon town uses geothermal energy to stay warm

By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press Writer – Sat Mar 20, 1:56 pm ET
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KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. – When snow falls on this downtown of brick buildings and glass storefronts in southern Oregon, it piles up everywhere but the sidewalks. It's the first sign that this timber and ranching town is like few others.

A combination of hot rocks and water like those that created Yellowstone's geysers have been tapped by the city to keep the sidewalks toasty since the early 1990s. They also heat downtown buildings, kettles at a brewhouse, and greenhouses and keep the lights on at a college campus.

Geothermal wells in this town of 20,000 mark one of the nation's most ambitious uses of a green energy resource with a tiny carbon footprint, and could serve as a model for a still-fledgling industry that is gaining steam with $338 million in stimulus funds and more than 100 projects nationwide.

"We didn't know it was green. It just made sense," said City Manager Jeff Ball.

Geothermal energy is unknown in much of the country but accounts for 0.5 percent of the nation's energy production.

It can be seen on a snowy day in a handful of Western towns like Klamath Falls. That's because hot rock is closer to the surface here, and comes with the water needed to bring the energy to the surface. Northern California is home to the world's largest geothermal power complex. The Geysers, 75 miles north of San Francisco, produces enough electricity for 750,000 homes.

With more than 600 geothermal wells heating houses, schools and a hospital as well as turning the turbine on a small power plant, Klamath Falls shows what everyday life could be if stimulus grants and venture capitalists turn geothermal energy from a Western curiosity to a game-changing energy resource.

Until now, geothermal energy has been limited by having to find the three essentials ingredients occurring together in one place naturally: hot rock relatively close to the surface, water, and cracks in the rock that serve as a reservoir.

Those limitations go away if engineers can tame a technology known as EGS, for Enhanced Geothermal Systems.

A 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report estimates that EGS, with support, could be producing 100 gigawatts of electricity — equivalent to 1,000 coal-fired or nuclear power plants — by 2050, and has the potential to generate a large fraction of the nation's energy needs for centuries to come.

"If we are going to try to achieve a transformational change in this country, geothermal should be part of that recipe," said Jefferson Tester, chairman of the committee that produced the report and professor of sustainable energy at Cornell University. "It's not treated that way. It's typically forgotten."

One form of EGS involves drilling thousands of feet down to reach hot rock, pumping water down to fracture the rock to create reservoirs, then sending down water that will come back up another well as hot water or steam that can spin a turbine to generate electricity.

The system can be dropped in practically anywhere that hot rocks are close enough to the surface to make drilling economical.

The major problem with EGS is the potential to create earthquakes.

Pumping water into the ground to open numerous tiny fractures in the rock for a reservoir makes the earth move — what scientists call induced seismicity. Earthquakes stopped an EGS project in the middle of Basel, Switzerland, last year, and an international protocol has been developed for monitoring and mitigating earthquake problems.

As long as the wells are not close to major earthquake faults, "it is not damaging, but very upsetting to the community that lives literally on top of it," said Ernie Majer, a seismologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, and lead author on the protocol.

Federal funding for geothermal started during the 1970s Arab oil embargo, waned when oil prices subsided, and essentially stopped when Texas oilman George W. Bush entered the White House, Majer said.

With interest growing in energy with a tiny carbon footprint, the Obama administration revived support for geothermal energy. Besides handing out more than $40 million a year from the Department of Energy, it is funding 123 demonstration projects in 38 states with stimulus funds. Projects include home heat pumps, power plants, drilling, rock fracturing, exploration and underground mapping.

"The goal of the department is to try to validate that a source of energy could be produced at an adequate price," said Jacques Beaudry-Losique, deputy assistant secretary for renewable energy. He expects results in two to three years.

The centerpiece is $25 million to AltaRock Energy, Inc., of Seattle and Sausalito, Calif., to demonstrate EGS can produce electricity economically and without producing earthquakes just outside the Newberry Craters National Monument in central Oregon. Investors, Google among them, put in $60 million.

Earthquake concerns were mounting around AltaRock's EGS work at The Geysers when they shut it down over drilling problems, before getting to the point of trying to fracture rocks, AltaRock CEO Don O'Shei said. They are developing a system to monitor quakes at Newberry.

"If EGS becomes economical, it will really be a game-changer," O'Shei said. "Even though it is relatively high risk in terms of the money to develop that kind of technology under the ground ($6 million to $20 million for a well that could prove worthless), it is very important."

People in Klamath Falls don't have to be convinced.

IFA Nurseries, Inc., wouldn't have come to Klamath Falls if there wasn't geothermal energy. The geothermal heat cut greenhouse heating costs by a third compared to natural gas, said Jacqueline Friedman, nursery manager for IFA Nurseries.

The city is stepping beyond heat to electricity, building a geothermal generator like the one at Oregon Institute of Technology with the help of an $816,000 stimulus grant.

Stepping gingerly from the icy street to the dry sidewalk on his way to a bakery for a cinnamon roll, Klamath County Museum Manager said visitors are often curious about the geothermal energy in town, which also heats the museum.

"I've always said the city should adopt a slogan, `City of Warm Sidewalks,'" he joked. "But I've been told we'll get every hobo in America who will be drifting into town."

The Chemtrail Smoking Gun

2010-03-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from The Chemtrail Smoking Gun:

In Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Bases conclusion, the N.A.S. found that the most effective global warming mitigation turned out to be the spraying of reflective aerosol compounds into the atmosphere utilizing commercial, military and private aircraft. This preferred mitigation method is designed to create a global atmospheric shield which would increase the planet's albedo (reflectivity) using aerosol compounds of aluminum and barium oxides, and to introduce ozone generating chemicals into the atmosphere.

This method was the most cost effective, and yielded the largest benefits. It could also be conducted covertly to avoid the burdens of environmental protection and regulatory entanglements.

It is evident to anyone who cares to look up, that this mitigation is now being conducted worldwide and on a daily basis. It is certain that our leaders have already embarked on an immense geoengineering project; one in which they expect millions of human fatalities, and consider these to be acceptable losses.
--- end of excerpt ---

http://sonomachemtrails.blogspot.com/

Yesterday's Chemtrail Time Lapse Over SF Bay

2010-03-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

The press, who are supposed to be our watchdogs against corruption, are so corrupt and self-serving, they haven't been sounding the alarm.

But of course, this press blackout regarding chemtrails is all by design in spite of extensive proof of government involvement, funding, sponsorship, multidisciplinary research, policy making and implementation of global atmospheric modification under the classification of 'Geoengineering.'

See Chemtrail Smoking Gun

Local: Sonoma Chemtrails

LINK: http://sv.berkeley.edu/view/

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Mumbo-Jumbo to Justify Chemtrails!

2010-03-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

GAG! Literally... cough-cough!!!

This 'solution' of putting 'particles' in the air is SO STUPID!!! And it is a HUGE coverup to justify chemtrails which is making everyone sicker, contamination our water and food.

These are atheists talking who do not believe in the true living God who can and will intervene IF there was something to fix.

This propaganda mumbo-gumbo is a pack of lies.

And UNPLUG YOUR TV IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY which is the most powerful brainwashing tool yet!

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SONOMA CHEMTRAILS

White Clouds of Death

2010-03-13T17:13:00.001-08:00

White Clouds of Death: Aussie exposes geoengineered chemtrail contents

Photo: Geoengineering sky over Los Angeles, Calif, March 2010

March 13, 2010
Deborah Dupré
Examiner.com
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To paraphrase Senator William Proxmire – ‘If a foreign government crop dusted our children and our cities with powerful, secret, untested, unwanted pesticides – we would consider it an act of war.' ~ David Dilworth, Nov 2007, HOPE Executive Director

Geoengineering the skies through airplane spraying leaves what one Australia man calls "White Clouds of Death." Colin Andrews has tested rainwater following airplane heavy spraying in Australia. He provides the government analysis of the water in the video below.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have been targeted as human guinea pigs for testing the worst weapons of mass destruction including biochemical weapons.

Since WWII, entire American cities have been secretly aerial sprayed with injurious bio-chemical agents, in the name of “research.” (See OPERATION H1N1: Vaccine Liberty or Death) It would be naïve to think that this practice has halted.

A congressional attempt to curb citizenry technological abuse through non-consensual human experimentation including classified covert research was made by former astronaut U.S. Senator John Glenn in his "Human Research Subject Protections Act of 1997" S.193 (105th Congress).

Introducing the Human Research Protection Act, Glenn spoke of “serious gaps in our legal system and under current rule and executive order, it is possible to waive informed consent and IRB [institutional review board] review for [U.S.] classified [human] research.”

One of the serious gaps is due to wording of Section 1520a Chapter 32 of U.S. Code Title 50 that in fact, empowers the military to conduct lethal experimentation. The law states that the Secretary of Defense may NOT conduct any chemical or biological test or experiment on civilian populations, unless such tests are for medical, therapeutic, pharmaceutical, agricultural, industrial purposes or for research in general or for protection against weapons or for law enforcement purposes, including riot control.

The following short video, Chemtrails and HAARP Exposed in Australia, is produced by Colin Andrews courtesy of Don't Poison Me. A copy of the rainwater anlysis of which he speaks is located below the video.

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Today's Chemtrail Plane Over Sonoma

2010-03-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

4 O'Clock Sky

2010-03-08T21:48:00.001-08:00

Bill Gates, Vaccines and Depopulation

2010-03-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

IN-YOUR-FACE QUOTE: "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent." Bill Gates

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HAARP = Earthquakes, Weather Warfare and Mind Control

2010-03-01T08:15:00.001-08:00

The more I read about this horrific stuff, the more I pray for Divine intervention to expose the criminals.

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HARRP AND EARTHQUAKES
Are We in a HAARP "Earthquake War"?

HARRP AND WEATHER WARFARE
Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather by 2025 (pdf)

HAARP AND MIND CONTROL (MKULTRA)
Haarp: The Ultimate Weapon of the Conspiracy

MATTHEW 24
"And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all [these things] must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these [are] the beginning of sorrows."

Ready or not, judgment day is coming, thus the need to humble ourselves before the living God and put our trust in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Where are the Blue Skies??

2010-02-28T15:23:00.001-08:00

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Sonoma Skies Today

2010-02-24T21:42:00.000-08:00

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Tragic Sonoma Loss: Amy Bean, 28 and Daughter, Anjelee Sanchez, 6

2010-02-23T09:19:00.000-08:00

This is so sad and we pray to the Lord for Amy's brother and Anjelee's father...

Amy Beam

Autopsies today in apparent murder-suicide of daughter and mother

By RANDI ROSSMANN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Monday, February 22, 2010 at 11:51 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, February 22, 2010 at 4:40 p.m.
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Amy Marie Beam Beam, 28, and her six-year-old daughter Anjelee Sanchez had been dead about four days when they were found Friday, lying side by side on a bed in their Sonoma apartment, Lt. Chris Spallino reported.

Detectives said notes and letters written by Beam and interviews with friends led them to suspect Beam killed Anjelee by giving her an overdose of medications, then took pills to kill herself, Spallino said.

Dozens of pills and medications were discovered in close proximity to the bodies. But investigators would not comment on what those medications were.

The autopsies were performed Monday morning as counselors descended on Prestwood Elementary School, where young Anjalee was a first-grade student. It is the second time in less then three months that tragedy has claimed a student at the school.

Grace and Aiden Maloney, 5, and 8, died along with their parents, John and Susan Maloney, when their minivan was hit by a speeding driver who ran a red light Nov. 28.

Now the loss of Anjalee comes as another shock to the 500-student school, Prestwood Principal Beth Wolk said.

“She was a wonderful little girl. She was a good student, a great reader. She loved to play, loved to draw and she loved Hello Kitty," Wolk said.

Spallino said, “there were a number of things that led her to this action,” but he would not provide details on what those things are. No information was given about the notes she left.

How the young girl ingested the pills wasn't known. There were no signs capsules had been broken open and mixed with something for easier swallowing.

Toxicology test results were expected to take at least a few weeks before a final determination on what types of pills were ingested.

The bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition. Whether the two died at close to the same time wasn't known.

Amy Beam had sent a text message on Monday, giving detectives a parameter for when the two were last known to be alive.

Four counselors from throughout the Sonoma Valley school district came to Prestwood Monday to meet with staff and students.

Barbara Cullen, director of the Wilmar Center, which focuses on child mourning, also visited with staff and counselors Monday morning to discuss how to talk to the children about the death.

Wolk acknowledged the loss of the two Maloney children in November, followed by the loss of Anjalee is a heavy blow to the school.

“We'll get through this because we care and support each other,” she said.

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Mother in apparent murder-suicide in Sonoma ID'd

Press Democrat
Published: Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 6:30 p.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 6:30 p.m.
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The Sonoma woman who apparently killed her daughter and then herself was described Saturday as a loner, but someone who doted on her child.

“I am just shocked about this whole thing, I can’t get over it, her whole world was around that little girl,” said Jerry Marino of Sonoma, owner of the Casa de Sonoma apartment complex where the two lived.

The sheriff’s office on Saturday was still withholding the names of the woman and child, who is 6 years old.

Marino identified the woman as Amy Beam, who grew up in Benicia. He said she was in her late 20s or early 30s.

Marino went to their apartment Friday morning with the woman’s brother, Josh Beam of Napa, after Amy Beam had not been to work in a week and no one was able to reach her by telephone.

“She was kind of a loner, stayed to herself,” Marino said.

She worked for Dr. Lee Schaller, a Sonoma oral surgeon, Marino said.

The bodies of the mother and child were found on the bed in the master bedroom, where they may have been for a week, said sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Tim Duke.

There was no apparent cause of death. Autopsies were being conducted this weekend, Duke said.

Residents of the apartment complex, just three blocks from the historic plaza, said they saw the mother and girl, but only spoke to them in passing and didn’t know their names.

Most of the tenants keep to themselves in the complex.

“I would see her when I would pick up the mail and in the carport, the next car to my truck is hers,” said resident Salvador Quintero. “You see only her all the time. No friends, no boyfriends, no anything.”

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Sonoma woman, 6-year-old die in apparent murder-suicide

By BOB NORBERG
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Friday, February 19, 2010 at 6:48 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, February 19, 2010 at 6:48 p.m.
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The bodies of a mother and her young daughter were found Friday morning in their Sonoma apartment, apparently a murder-suicide, sheriff's officials said.

The identities of the victims were being withheld pending notification of relatives.

Apartment building owner Jerry Marino said the victims were a young mother and her daughter, who was soon to turn 7 years old.

“I assume she took her daughter's life first,” Marino said. “The daughter was asleep on the pillow. The mother was face down on the bed, facing toward the baby.”

Marino and relatives of the woman went to the apartment to check on their welfare after the woman had not been to work in a week and no one was able to reach her by telephone. They had had lived at the apartment building for three years, he said.

The sheriff's department, which is the city of Sonoma's police force, set up a command center on First Street West, just a few blocks from the historic plaza, and spent the day and much of the night at the scene.

The Casa de Sonoma apartment is a 16-unit, white-stucco building on a street that is a mix of rental homes and apartments.

“This is a very peaceful neighborhood, we live across the street in a loft and nothing bad ever happens here,” said Conrad Sanchez. “It's mostly baby boomers here, 50 and 60-year-olds.”

Neighbors described the woman as quiet, a loner and a bit aloof.

The daughter, who was a regular around the kidney-shaped pool, liked to dance and sing, said a resident of the apartment, who did not want to be named.

“I saw them at the mail box and the waste disposal, and the pool,” said another resident, Gary Youngberg. “She was a typical 6-year-old.”

Detective Sgt. Tim Duke said the two may have been dead for a week, and it was not immediately apparent how they died.

“On the first preliminary walk through, it is not obvious to us,” Duke said. “It will take us time to figure it out.”

--- end ---

Is Using PG&E's SmartMeter a Smart Idea?

2010-02-17T08:12:00.000-08:00

A gas meter on a southwest Santa Rosa residence outfitted with a PG&E SmartMeter transponder. The transponder has not yet been activated.

Maybe not.

Sebastopol asks PG&E to put off SmartMeters

By BOB NORBERG
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
source
Published: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 10:52 p.m.

The city of Sebastopol is asking PG&E to delay putting wireless meters inside the city limits while state regulators and the utility conduct studies on the meter's safety.

Related Links:Sebastopol council weighs action on wireless PG&E meters PG&E predicts more shutoffs with new meters Building a better power meter “We are getting different information from our citizens and we don't get the full information from PG&E,” said Mayor Sarah Gurney. “We feel this is a safety matter that is being investigated, and that's why we are asking for a deferral.”

The city in a letter will also ask that PG&E make it a matter of choice, allowing customers to opt to have a SmartMeter, as they are called.

SmartMeters are being installed in a statewide program by PG&E, which says they will give customers the instant feedback that is necessary to reduce energy during peak times and save money.

The meters were to have been installed in Sonoma County beginning this month.

Critics, however, contend the meters emit radio waves that are damaging to the health, contributing to the electromagnetic field that already exists from other sources.

They also contend that the meters may not be the cost-saving device the utility claims them to be.

Supporters, however, said the meters are a step toward reducing energy use during peak times, when the additional electricity is generated by “peak plants” that are among the most polluting.

Sonoma County Supervisor Efren Carrillo is setting up a countywide forum on SmartMeters for April, city officials said.

The letter will be sent to the state Public Utilities Commission, which has jurisdiction over the utility, asking for the delay and that customers be given a choice.

It passed on a 3-1 vote, with Councilman Larry Robinson voting against it, contending that meters are necessary in the climate change fight. Councilwoman Linda Kelley was absent.

You can reach Staff Writer Bob Norberg at 521-5206 or bob.norberg@pressdemocrat.com

Bike Riding After Work Yesterday

2010-02-17T05:54:00.000-08:00

From Cathy's Camera

Is Anyone Looking Up??

2010-02-17T05:45:00.000-08:00

Sonoma Chemtrails are Alive and Well Above our Heads!

What is being sprayed into our skies, why and who is doing this?

Enquiring minds demand to know!

On the Bike Trail Today

2010-02-15T17:43:00.000-08:00

From Cathy's Camera

ALL DAY CHEMTRAIL ONSLAUGHT

2010-02-15T00:20:00.001-08:00

ALL DAY! The spraying never ceased... May the culprits be exposed and stopped I pray in Jesus name.

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Chemtrails and Ripples and Planes... OH MY!

2010-02-11T16:39:00.000-08:00

source

Sonoma Chemtrails

More Rain

2010-02-06T14:43:00.001-08:00

from Cathy's Camera

Rain

by Robert Louis Stevenson
(13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894)

The rain is falling all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

Sonoma Birds

2010-02-05T18:53:00.001-08:00

About an hour ago, I caught this flock of birds doing their evening ritual bebefore settling down for the night - pretty cool!

source

JFK: Looking Back to 1963

2010-01-31T23:11:00.000-08:00

The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) in Dealey Plaza.

Kennedy was fatally shot while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a Presidential motorcade.

source

The ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 19631964, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 19761979, and other government investigations concluded that the President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, who himself was murdered before he could stand trial.

This conclusion was initially met with support among the American public, but polls conducted from 1966 on show as many as 80% of the American public have held beliefs contrary to these findings.

The assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios.

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed.

The HSCA also concluded that there were at least four shots fired and that it was probable that a conspiracy existed. Later studies, including one by the National Academy of Sciences, have called into question the accuracy of the evidence used by the HSCA to support its finding of four shots.

The Event Continues Investigation to the present day.

PHOTOS

COVERUP?

source

Is Zapruder Film Accurate?

source

RUSH TO JUDGMENT - MARK LANE

Watch MARK lANES RUSH TO JUDGEMENT in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
source

Tonight's Bright Moon

2010-01-29T23:50:00.000-08:00

This was taken from my camcorder

And below is the video

source

Sky show tonight: Full moon, Mars close to Earth

Mercury News
Posted: 01/29/2010 11:48:07 AM PST
Updated: 01/29/2010 02:36:48 PM PST
source

Clouds willing, the sky will put on a show tonight: Both the full moon and Mars will be about as close to Earth as they get.

The moon, which will rise around 5:15 p.m., will be the closest full moon of 2010, occurring during the lunar perigee — the point in its cycle when the moon is closest to earth. It will appear about 15 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than a full moon at an average distance. Perigeal tides are also a little higher — but only by an inch or so.

As for Mars, it was a tad bit closer to Earth on Thursday, but the viewing is likely to be better tonight: It will be in opposition, meaning it is directly opposite the sun. Appearing as a bright reddish dot to the left of the

Perhaps to avert some of the weird hoopla that accompanied a good Mars viewing opportunity several years back ("it will look as big as the moon!" some people burbled), NASA hosted a live online chat this afternoon about the phenomenon. (The transcript will be posted at http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/index.html).

Of course, the wild card for Bay Area viewing is the visibility: Rain is forecast for this evening.

If it's clear, telescopes will be available for the usual Friday night free public viewing at the observatories of Foothill College in Los Altos Hills (9 p.m.-11 p.m.) and Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland (7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.).

And if the clouds don't cooperate? Saturday won't be bad viewing; in fact, the just-past-full moon will rise into darker skies, about 6:30 p.m. The full moons of February and March will also be within a day or so of the perigee, though they won't be quite as spectacular. And Mars will loom large again in a couple of years.

Great White Egrets of Sonoma

2010-01-29T20:36:00.001-08:00

Today there were over 20 great white egrets including their young in the wet field along where I walk each day - pretty cool to watch!

source
Music: Brahms Symphany 1 (2nd Movement)

Great Egret

Today's Sonoma Chemtrails

2010-01-28T21:08:00.000-08:00

source

MORE: Sonoma Chemtrails

Photo of the Day

2010-01-23T21:09:00.001-08:00

This afternoon I walked outside and was greeted with a rainbow so big, I couldn't fit it all in one camera shot! A kiss from heaven...

My Pro-Choice Decision

2010-01-22T18:26:00.000-08:00

source

My Pro-Choice Decision

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Stormy Weather

2010-01-22T06:26:00.000-08:00

From Cathy's Camera

Piner Road Santa Rosa Flooding

2010-01-22T06:23:00.000-08:00

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More Storm Damage

2010-01-21T15:23:00.001-08:00

source

Photo of the Day

2010-01-20T06:31:00.000-08:00

In between storms yesterday around noon facing Sonoma from 8th St East and Schellville Road, a lovely rainbow could be seen.

Storm Damage

2010-01-19T17:56:00.000-08:00

Today's storm ripped through Sonoma County causing trees to fall into two homes along the Russian River.
From the Press Democrat

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Avoid Debit Card Skimming

2010-01-15T21:11:00.000-08:00

Debit-Card 'Skimming' Scams
Friday, January 15, 2010
consumerreports.org
source

Three steps to take to protect your account data from getting into the wrong hands.

Whether by choice or necessity, American consumers are increasingly relying on debit rather than credit cards. Debit card spending has risen steadily, growing from 47.7 percent of purchases made with plastic in 2003 to 58.9 percent in 2008 and it is expected to surpass 67 percent by 2013, according to the Nilson Report, a newsletter that tracks the consumer payment industry.

When you use a debit card, the money is immediately taken from your checking account. While using debit guarantees that you pay as you go, these cards have downsides, including a growing appeal to thieves. "As economic conditions have worsened, there's been a noticeable increase in all types of card fraud," says Avivah Litan, an analyst specializing in fraud detection and prevention at Gartner Research in Stamford, Conn. "But ATM and debit-card fraud is the top area of concern we're hearing about from banks all over the world."

Unlike credit-card thieves, who usually charge merchandise and then resell it to come up with money, people who create counterfeit ATM or debit cards by stealing your PIN and other account data can simply pull cold cash from your bank account. Using a technique known as skimming, they set up equipment that captures magnetic stripe and keypad information when you input your PIN at ATM machines, gas pumps, restaurants, or retailers.

Here's how you can protect yourself:

Don't Type in Your Pin at the Pump

Be especially vigilant at gas stations, Litan says. "Gas pumps are notorious for skimming because they're produced by only a couple of different manufacturers, and if someone gets the key to one from a disgruntled employee, they can insert a skimming device inside the pump where it can't be seen," she says. She recommends using a credit card rather than a debit card when you fill your tank.

If you must use a debit card at the gas pump, choose the screen prompt that identifies it as a credit card so that you do not have to type in your PIN. The purchase amount will still be deducted from your bank account, but it will be processed through a credit-card network, which will give you greater protection from liability if fraud does occur. This is because card issuers typically have "zero liability" policies for both debit and credit cards, but sometimes exclude PIN-based transactions from that protection.

Stick With ATMs Located at Banks

To reduce your risk at ATMs, use machines at banks rather than in convenience stores, airports, or any isolated locations, advises Darrin Blackford, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, which investigates financial crimes involving interstate commerce. "A thief has to be able to attach and retrieve a skimming device to use the data it's gathered," he says. "And that's more likely to happen in nonbank settings where there's less traffic and no surveillance cameras."

That doesn't mean that bank ATMs are immune, however. In August 2008, Wachovia Bank reported that several debit-card "identities" were stolen when a skimming device was placed on an ATM at a branch in Cape Coral, Fla.

"It's often hard to spot skimmers," Blackford says. "But if you notice a change at an ATM you use routinely, such as a color difference in the card reader or a gap where something appears to be glued onto the slot where you insert your card, that's a warning sign you'd want to report to the bank that owns the machine."

Closely Monitor Your Bank Accounts

Check them regularly—preferably online rather than waiting for monthly statements to arrive in the mail. Federal law limits your liability for fraudulent debit-card charges to $50, but only if you report the theft or loss of your card or PIN within two business days of discovering the problem. If you fail to report unauthorized charges within 60 days of the date the statement listing those charges was mailed, you could be liable for any unauthorized withdrawals afterward, including the full value of credit lines or savings accounts linked to your account for overdraft protection.

Visa and MasterCard have zero liability policies that go beyond federal law by exempting debit cardholders from liability in most circumstances when a bank investigation confirms that a transaction is fraudulent. But dealing with debit-card fraud can have a greater impact on your finances than credit-card fraud.

When you're a victim of unauthorized charges on a credit card, you won't be out any money while the disputed charges are being investigated. But when a thief steals money from your bank account using a counterfeit debit or ATM card, that cash won't be restored to your account until the bank conducts its investigation and classifies it as a case of fraud. Some victims of debit-card skimming scams who have contacted the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, about their experiences report that while banks in most cases replenished the stolen funds, some of them had no access to the money for several weeks while bank investigations were conducted.

Today's Sonoma Photo

2010-01-14T20:12:00.000-08:00

Q. Where?

A.Sonoma Skypark Airport

Sonoma Picture of the Day

2010-01-12T16:11:00.001-08:00

What REALLY Happened on Sept 11, 2001?

2010-01-09T13:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.prlog.org/10481408-911-qui-tam-case-filed-in-us-supreme-court.html

9/11 Qui Tam Case Filed in US Supreme Court

29 December 2009 – Ridgefield Connecticut/Clemson South Carolina – The Qui Tam Case of Dr. Judy Wood – Court of Appeals, Second Circuit Docket Number 08-3799-cv), United States District Court (SDNY) Docket Number: 07-cv-3314 has been filed in the US Supreme Court in a petition for writ of certiorari.

Publicly available information about the status of the petition can be found at the Supreme Court's website at: http://origin.www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/09-548.htm

Below is a summary of the nature of Dr Wood’s Qui Tam Case, for full details, see Dr Wood’s Webpage: http://www.drjudywood.com/articles/NIST/Qui_Tam_Wood.shtml'

In 2005, a number of reports were issued by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) which were the result of a study, mandated by congress, to "Determine why and how WTC 1 and WTC 2 collapsed ...". In April 2007, Dr. Wood, with the help of a Connecticut Attorney Jerry Leaphart, lodged a “Qui Tam” complaint against some of the contractors NIST employed to produce these reports. This complaint followed an earlier "Request For Correction" (RFC) with regard to the same NIST WTC reports, establishing her as the first to address the fact that this report did not even contain an analysis of the collapse of the WTC towers.

http://ocio.os.doc.gov/s/groups/public/%40doc/%40os/%40ocio/%40oitpp/documents/content/prod01_004678.pdf

In the original RFC, Dr. Wood stated that “NIST cannot make a statement that the World Trade Center towers came down in ‘free fall’ on one hand”, and then say “that doing so is a form of collapse.” Dr Wood concluded from her study, that a new type of Directed Energy Weapon was used to destroy most or all of the WTC buildings. This weapon appears to utilise “field effects” in its operation – it is fundamentally different to known types of directed energy weapons, such as lasers and masers. Dr Wood’s Qui Tam submissions do not discuss the use of “ray beams from space” (a term which has been used to mis-represent what the case focuses on). The case discusses many, many pieces of evidence which indicate the presence of field effects in and around the WTC complex on 9/11 - including pictures of girders which are bent and deformed in unusual ways – and because the towers turned to dust, the effects on the girders cannot be explained as being caused by a “gravity-driven collapse”. In Dr. Wood’s submission, certain effects on metals and on objects near the WTC are also considered – such anomalous dust effects, flipped cars, and cars which are “toasted” – but show damage inconsistent with a hot fire. Anomalous rusting and effects seen in the Deutsche Bank building are also noted. Dr. Wood’s later research has also documented the presence of Hurricane Erin, which was closest to NYC at about 8am on 9/11, but was not widely reported.

Dr. Wood also points out that some defendants in the Qui Tam - such as Applied Research Associates (ARA) - are developers and/or manufacturers of Directed Energy Weapons systems or components. This therefore would be one example of a “conflict of interest” in producing a truthful report. Dr Wood’s case states that ARA and other NIST contractors exhibited “wilful blindness” when they produced their part of the NCSTAR reports.

Dr. Wood has demonstrated that the Twin Towers did not burn up nor did a significant portion of them “crash down”; they turned to powder in mid air. Fire alone cannot turn a quarter-mile tall building to powder in 8-10 seconds. The respondents herein knew or should have known this and they therefore engaged in actionable fraud within the meaning of the FCA. Contrary to what some have assumed, the case is not one which identifies or attempts to identify the perpetrators of the destruction of the WTC complex.

In June 2008, Judge George Daniels of the Court of the SDNY dismissed Dr. Wood’s case, but Dr. Wood asserted that the court’s ruling did not address the evidence discussed above (the ruling can be read at the website above). A decision was therefore made to lodge an appeal and another round of submissions took place. Following submission of extensive documentation, oral argument of the case took place on 23rd June 2009, in the Ceremonial Courtroom (9th Floor), at 500 Pearl Street, Manhattan, New York City.

On July 13, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, issued an 11 page decision in which it affirmed the lower court's decision dismissing Dr. Judy Wood's Qui Tam case. (This was slightly amended on 16th of July.) In common with the first ruling, analysis done on behalf of Dr. Wood led to the conclusion that the appellate court had not properly addressed the arguments presented in the appeal. An interesting point was raised because the “False Claims Act” (FCA), which relates directly to all cases like those initiated by Dr Judy Wood, was enhanced – and those enhancements applied to all cases which were pending as of June 7, 2008. The Second Circuit acknowledged on the one hand that the FCA had been amended, but on the other, it did not take those amendments into account in its ruling.

An important development occurred in early December when Attorney Jerry Leaphart wrote to the United States Department of Justice, National Security Division and to existing United States Department of Defense Military Commissions defence counsel for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who is accused of conspiring in the “officially described” 9/11 plot. Jerry Leaphart’s letters outlined the evidence in Dr. Wood’s case and which has been put into the public record via NIST and other governmental sources. In a legal sense, this essentially raises “reasonable doubt” (to put it no more strongly than that) in regard to the official story of 9/11 and therefore could be used in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s defence as “exculpatory” information which the government must provide to KSM’s defence counsel.

For more information, please use the details below.

Jerry Leaphart, Jerry V. Leaphart & Assoc., P.C. 8 West Street, Suite 203 Danbury, CT 06810 phone - (203) 825-6265 , fax – (203) 825-6256, e-mail: jsleaphart@cs.com

Dr. Judy Wood/Qui Tam Case: http://www.drjudywood.com/articles/NIST/Qui_Tam_Wood.shtml

NIST’s filings of the RFC’s and responses can be found at:
http://www.ocio.os.doc.gov/ITPolicyandPrograms/Information_Quality/PROD01_002619

WeCU and Crimethink

2010-01-08T09:53:00.000-08:00

In the 1949 novel by George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty-Four", the Big Brother government attempts to control not only speech and actions, but also the thoughts of the people, labeling disapproved thoughts with the term thoughtcrime or in Newspeak, "crimethink".

So today, here's an interesting article on the reality of this previous science fiction activity!

Mind-reading systems could change air security

By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press
Fri Jan 8, 6:22 am ET
source

CHICAGO – A would-be terrorist tries to board a plane, bent on mass murder. As he walks through a security checkpoint, fidgeting and glancing around, a network of high-tech machines analyzes his body language and reads his mind.

Screeners pull him aside.

Tragedy is averted.

As far-fetched as that sounds, systems that aim to get inside an evildoer's head are among the proposals floated by security experts thinking beyond the X-ray machines and metal detectors used on millions of passengers and bags each year.

On Thursday, in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt over Detroit, President Barack Obama called on Homeland Security and the Energy Department to develop better screening technology, warning: "In the never-ending race to protect our country, we have to stay one step ahead of a nimble adversary."

The ideas that have been offered by security experts for staying one step ahead include highly sophisticated sensors, more intensive interrogations of travelers by screeners trained in human behavior, and a lifting of the U.S. prohibitions against profiling.

Some of the more unusual ideas are already being tested. Some aren't being given any serious consideration. Many raise troubling questions about civil liberties. All are costly.

"Regulators need to accept that the current approach is outdated," said Philip Baum, editor of the London-based magazine Aviation Security International. "It may have responded to the threats of the 1960s, but it doesn't respond to the threats of the 21st century."

Here's a look at some of the ideas that could shape the future of airline security:

MIND READERS

The aim of one company that blends high technology and behavioral psychology is hinted at in its name, WeCU — as in "We See You."

The system that Israeli-based WeCU Technologies has devised and is testing in Israel projects images onto airport screens, such as symbols associated with a certain terrorist group or some other image only a would-be terrorist would recognize, said company CEO Ehud Givon.

The logic is that people can't help reacting, even if only subtly, to familiar images that suddenly appear in unfamiliar places. If you strolled through an airport and saw a picture of your mother, Givon explained, you couldn't help but respond.

The reaction could be a darting of the eyes, an increased heartbeat, a nervous twitch or faster breathing, he said.

The WeCU system would use humans to do some of the observing but would rely mostly on hidden cameras or sensors that can detect a slight rise in body temperature and heart rate. Far more sensitive devices under development that can take such measurements from a distance would be incorporated later.

If the sensors picked up a suspicious reaction, the traveler could be pulled out of line for further screening.

"One by one, you can screen out from the flow of people those with specific malicious intent," Givon said.

Some critics have expressed horror at the approach, calling it Orwellian and akin to "brain fingerprinting."

For civil libertarians, attempting to read a person's thoughts comes uncomfortably close to the future world depicted in the movie "Minority Report," where a policeman played by Tom Cruise targets people for "pre-crimes," or merely thinking about breaking the law.

LIE DETECTORS

One system being studied by Homeland Security is called the Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST, and works like a souped-up polygraph.

It would subject people pulled aside for additional screening to a battery of tests, including scans of facial movements and pupil dilation, for signs of deception. Small platforms similar to the balancing boards used in the Nintendo Wii would help detect fidgeting.

At a public demonstration of the system in Boston last year, project manager Robert Burns explained that people who harbor ill will display involuntary physiological reactions that others — such as those who are stressed out for ordinary reasons, such as being late for a plane — don't.

The system could be made to work passively, scanning people as they walk through a security line, according to Burns.

Field testing of the system, which will cost around $20 million to develop, could begin in 2011, The Boston Globe said in a story about the demonstration. Addressing one concern of civil libertarians, Burns said the technology would delete data after each screening.

THE ISRAELI MODEL

Some say the U.S. should take a page from Israel's book on security.

At Israeli airports, widely considered the most secure in the world, travelers are subjected to probing personal questions as screeners look them straight in the eye for signs of deception. Searches are meticulous, with screeners often scrutinizing every item in a bag, unfolding socks, squeezing toothpaste and flipping through books.

"All must look to Israel and learn from them. This is not a post-911 thing for them. They've been doing this since 1956," said Michael Goldberg, president of New York-based IDO Security Inc., which developed a device that can scan shoes while they are still on people's feet.

Israel also employs profiling: At Ben-Gurion Airport, Jewish Israelis typically pass through smoothly, while others may be taken aside for closer interrogation or even strip searches. Another distinquishing feature of Israeli airports is that they rely on concentric security rings that start miles from terminal buildings.

Rafi Ron, the former security director at Israel's famously tight Ben Gurion International Airport who now is a consultant for Boston's Logan International Airport, says U.S. airports also need to be careful not to overcommit to securing passenger entry points at airports, forgetting about the rest of the field.

"Don't invest all your efforts on the front door and leave the back door open," said Ron.

While many experts agree the United States could adopt some Israeli methods, few believe the overall model would work here, in part because of the sheer number of U.S. airports — more than 400, versus half a dozen in Israel.

Also, the painstaking searches and interrogations would create delays that could bring U.S. air traffic to a standstill. And many Americans would find the often intrusive and intimidating Israeli approach repugnant.

PROFILING

Some argue that policies against profiling undermine security.

Baum, who is also managing director of Green Light Limited, a London-based aviation security company, agrees profiling based on race and religion is counterproductive and should be avoided. But he argues that a reluctance to distinguish travelers on other grounds — such as their general appearance or their mannerisms — is not only foolhardy but dangerous.

"When you see a typical family — dressed like a family, acts like a family, interacts with each other like a family ... when their passport details match — then let's get them through," he said. "Stop wasting time that would be much better spent screening the people that we've get more concerns about."

U.S. authorities prohibit profiling of passengers based on ethnicity, religion or national origin. Current procedures call for travelers to be randomly pulled out of line for further screening.

Scrutinizing 80-year-old grandmothers or students because they might be carrying school scissors can defy common sense, Baum said.

"We need to use the human brain — which is the best technology of them all," he said.

But any move to relax prohibitions against profiling in the U.S. would surely trigger fierce resistance, including legal challenges by privacy advocates.

PRIVATIZATION

What if security were left to somebody other than the federal government?

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Washington-based Cato Institute, a free-market-oriented think tank, says airlines should be allowed take charge of security at airports.

Especially since 9/11, the trend has been toward standardizing security procedures to ensure all airports follow the best practices. But Harper argues that decentralizing the responsibility would result in a mix of approaches — thereby making it harder for terrorists to use a single template in planning attacks.

"Passengers, too, prefer a uniform experience," he said. "But that's not necessarily the best security. It's better if sometimes we take your laptop out, sometimes we'll pat you down. Those are things that will really drive a terrorist batty — as if they're not batty already."

Harper concedes that privatizing airport security is probably wishful thinking, and the idea has not gotten any traction. He acknowledges it would be difficult to allay fears of gaping security holes if it were left to each airline or airport owner to decide its own approach.

--- end ---

So being the good investigative reporters, let's read up on WeCU Technologies:

WeCU Technologies Ltd.

WeCU Technologies Ltd.
C/O - InnovoTech , 7 HaEshel St
Caesarea
38900
3598
Israel
Caesarea
Fax: 972-4-623-1744
Telephone: 972-4-623-1704
Email: innovoeg@bezeqint.netCompany
General information
Year Established: 2006
Website: http://www.wecu-technologies.com/
Key figures
Number of Employees: 3

About us
WeCU has developed a method and system for screening and indicating individuals with hidden intent, wherein the system comprises: a) a working place for fulfillment of at least one stated assignment; b) a stimuli exposure block configured to exposure at least one stimuli to said working place within at least one exposure timeframe while said timeframe is contemporary with individual's fulfillment of at least one stated assignment and said stimulus does not require an active direct reaction from the individual and is intended to cause a psycho-physiological reaction; c) sensors and measuring tools block configured to register individual's psycho-physiological characteristics giving rise to registered parameters; and a processor configured to compare the registered parameters or derivatives thereof with a test criterion and to facilitate indication of hidden intent in case of predefined discrepancy.

SOURCE: http://www.export.gov.il/Eng/_Articles/Article.asp?ArticleID=9468&CategoryID=998&Page=1

--- end ---

MORE: http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showConnection.php?id1=7974&id2=3214

BLOG COMMENT:
So in spite of this ominious possibility, I refuse to submit to the controlled news media fear mongering and rather, put my trust in the LORD. Perfect love casts out fear, so I choose to love my enemies as God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. Yes, as a follower/believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I have the mind of Christ and so do you, if you are born-again (see John 3).

Ever Heard of Smart Dust?

2010-01-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

Received this email today - thanks Debra!

Cathy, found your blog today, and was moved to send you a link to this video... i have been watching/researching for two years now, and of all the "reasons" why this is being done, this vid makes the most sense.... so far

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v5_TdZ4f7Q

or search youtube for "smart dust"

great work, by the way - i have some shots in napa valley and around lake mead and some recent shots in az, if you are interested, let me know.

Debra

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Today's Sonoma Photo

2010-01-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

At the corner of Napa Road and Eighth Street East, snapped this pic early this morning.

Comment about Detroit Flight Fire

2009-12-30T21:11:00.000-08:00

December 31, 2009 UPDATE
Northwest Bomb Plot 'Oddities'

ORGINAL POST
Thought the following comment on the December 25, 2009, flight from the Netherlands to the USA interesting and probably closer to the truth than what we hear on the mainstream news media:

The NCTC, which has responsibility if any visas are to be pulled over terrorism concerns, then reviewed the information and found it was "insufficient to determine whether his visa should be revoked," Kelly said.

What visa? The accused didn't even have a passport!

Total farce. As more evidence emerges, evidence that this paper is too lazy, or otherwise, to report suggests that this was a false-flag operation.

In a day and age when to hold a job we have to get urine tests, show two forms of ID, and/or thumbprint, to do the simplest things, go through security to enter all manner of buildings, we're suppose to believe someone with no passport, or visa, or luggage, can board an international flight, change planes without help?

Evidence has come forth that this idiot is well connected, his father is a retired bank president, that went to authorities concerned about his son's activities, that a "sharply dressed man" helped the accused to get on the plane pass security, and that another man was calmly filming him the entire flight. This smacks of an intelligence operation all the way, not theirs, ours.

This poor stooge was most likely thinking he was part of an exercise, a total patsy, MK-Ultra style.

And before any of you go off ridiculing me as a conspiracy nut, you better be prepared to tell us that we don't spend 40% of our military budget on black-ops operations, that our government hasn't committed crimes against us in the past, that the Gulf of Tokin wasn't staged, the there were experiments performed on American citizens unbeknown to them, that the USS Liberty wasn't attack by Israel and Lyndon Johnson didn't order that the ship be sunk, that there isn't enough evidence now to conclude that we were totally lied to about events of 9/1*1.

The lies aren't working anymore, too many people know. Wonderful thing, the Internet. One doesn't have to rely on corporate owned media anymore to get the truth.

(source)

Fun with Friends at the Angeli Home

2009-12-20T00:04:00.000-08:00

Germ Warfare 1994 in Oakville, Washington Six Times

2009-12-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

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MORE: Sonoma Chemtrails

Operation Paperclip and Mind Control

2009-12-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

"After many thousands of Americans died in WW II fighting Nazism, our government’s intelligence agencies (incl. the military intelligence groups) in cooperation with the Illuminati and its people in the Vatican, smuggled 10,000 of the worst Nazi-fascist war criminals into this country. This is on public record now. Part of this was under Operation Paperclip.

"The Rothschilds and Nelson Rockefeller forced the Jewish Zionist leadership in Israel to keep silent about the Nazis who were smuggled into the U.S. after W.W. II. In return for Israel’s silence and the Mossad’s silence about the thousands of high level satanic Nazis who were brought into the U.S., the nation of Israel was allowed. They made a deal, according to high level insiders.

"The South American countries, especially Argentina, ruled by the Perons, was connected to both the Illuminati in Germany and the Illuminati in the states. Many Germans went to Argentina, and they simply continued doing what they had done in the past. Satanism working under the veil of Nazism was very strong in Argentina where many of the German Illuminati leaders moved after the war.

"Another place that the Germans loved to move to was Oregon, especially Portland, OR. The head of Hitler’s intelligence was the brilliant Reinhard Gehlen who worked for the CIA after the war. He is Illuminati. His brother was Doe Winters who lived in Pullach after the war.

"Mengele, (the Dr. Black of Monarch Programming, who was an Illuminati Grand Master himself) would occasionally visit Doe Winter’s Pullach residence. To renovate the image of Nazi criminals, they became Anti-communist crusaders. A group of fascists from Asia and Europe were taken by U.S. Intelligence and moulded into the WACL (World Anti-Communist League). And we of the sheppel (sheep) were given more Hegalian dialectics. Those of us who still care about humanity’s freedom, and that human spirit not to be broken by the elite’s total mind control, have got to get beyond labels, and the media’s propaganda, and the false fronts.

"Some programmers are hard-core military men who see any type of "discipline" or "training" as good if the end product produces better obeying soldiers. These hard-core military men have lost any proper boundaries on what is O.K. for training. This explains why the whole apparatus to create mind-controlled slaves is turning out new slaves at an alarming rate. The small number of victims who are painstakingly saved by de-programming and therapy is slight compared to the number of new slaves being created. Over two million Americans have been programmed by trauma-based mind control since 1947, & the CIA admitted its Mind Control publicly in 1970, and yet the existence of the mind-control is still secret to the general public."

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The CIA is Corrupt to the Core

2009-12-13T09:40:00.000-08:00

"The CIA is a front for the Illuminati, and the CIA in turn sets up fronts. Some of those fronts, are elaborate well-staffed, well-equipped programming sites, (such as many of the state mental hospitals, McGill Psychiatric Training Network consisting of 8 Montreal hospitals esp. St. Mary’s, NASA in Huntsville, AL; the Presideo, CA; and NOTS at China Lake, CA, to name a few." Fritz Springmeier (more)

CIA Wars

"Coming to grips with these U.S./CIA activities in broad numbers and figuring out how many people have been killed in the jungles of Laos or the hills of Nicaragua is very difficult. But, adding them up as best we can, we come up with a figure of six million people killed-and this is a minimum figure. Included are: one million killed in the Korean War, two million killed in the Vietnam War, 800,000 killed in Indonesia, one million in Cambodia, 20,000 killed in Angola ... and 22,000 killed in Nicaragua. These people would not have died if U.S. tax dollars had not been spent by the CIA to inflame tensions, finance covert political and military activities and destabilize societies.

"The six million people the CIA has helped to kill are people of the Mitumba Mountains of the Congo, the jungles of Southeast Asia, and the hills of northern Nicaragua. They are people without ICBMs or armies or navies, incapable of doing physical damage to the United States, the 22,000 killed in Nicaragua, for example, are not Russians; they are not Cuban soldiers or advisors; they are not even mostly Sandinistas. A majority are rag-poor peasants, including large numbers of women and children.

"Communists? Hardly, since the dead Nicaraguans are predominantly Roman Catholics. Enemies of the United States? That description doesn't fit either, because the thousands of witnesses who have lived in Nicaraguan villages with the people since 1979 testify that the Nicaraguans are the warmest people on the face of the earth, that they love people from the United States, and they simply cannot understand why our leaders would want to spend $1 billion on a contra force designed to murder people and wreck the country."
Secret Third World Wars by John Stockwell

CIA Gangs

"For the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of LA and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerilla army run by the CIA. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America. It is one of the most bizarre alliances in modern history—the union of a US-backed army attempting to overthrow a socialist government and the Uzi-toting “gangstas” of Los Angeles."
P. 297 Gary Webb. Mass Media Cover-up Leading Journalists Expose Major Cover-ups by Media Corporations (read more)

CIA Fake War on Drugs

"And what happened to me was that I met and fell in love with a woman who was a contract CIA agent, a career agent. Now, I come from a CIA family and they had tried to recruit me, so this was not unexpected to me, but I began to see that she was protecting drug shipments and that the Agency was actively involved in dealing drugs......we teach now with From The Wilderness is that it wasn't just CIA dealing some drugs to fund covert operations. It is that drug money is an inherent part of the American economy. It has always been so, as it was with the British in the 1600s when they introduced opium into China to fund the triangular trade with the British East India Company. ...... The CIA has dealt drugs for all 50 years of its existence--50 plus years, even before it was the CIA. And the point is that with 250 billion dollars a year in illegal drug money moved, laundered through the American economy, that money benefits Wall Street. That's the point of having the prohibitive drug trade, which the CIA effectively manages for the benefit of Wall Street."
Mike Ruppert (Wall Street, CIA and the Global Drug Trade)

CIA Money Laundered through Wall Street

"But one guy I talked to was a guy named Rex Nutting, who was the bureau chief of CBS Market Watch--he is the head guy for CBS for the stock market. And we're sitting back in the room--I'm waiting for Huffington to get free--and I'm talking to this guy about the fact that Richard Grasso, the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, last July went to Colombia and cold-called on the FARC guerrillas and asked them to invest their drug money in Wall Street. And Rex Nutting says: "Well, of course they always go where the money is. It's obvious." The drug money is always going through Wall Street. Wall Street smells money and doesn't care where the money comes from; they'll go for the drug money.

"And we jokingly laughed that the National Security Act that created the CIA in '47 was written by a guy called Clark Clifford, who was a Wall Street banker and lawyer. He's the guy that brought us BCCI. The job of writing the outline for CIA, the design for the Agency, was given to Clark Clifford by John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles--both law partners in the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell. In '69 after Nixon came in, the Chairman of SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] was William Casey--the same guy who was Ronald Reagan's Director of Central Intelligence. And the current Vice President in charge of enforcement for the New York Stock Exchange, Dave Dougherty, is a retired CIA General Counsel. The CIA is Wall Street, and vice versa. When you understand that, and that money is the primary objective, everything else just falls into place."
Mike Ruppert (Wall Street, CIA and the Global Drug Trade)

CIA and Ollie North

"We brought the story into the CIA. And I reported that the CIA had assisted North's operation, despite their denials; that North was using National Security Agency highly-sensitive secret cryptology equipment and had been passing it out like candy to all the people who were working with him - they all had these KL-43's as they were called which could send these secret messages back and forth, and so we'd broken that barrier. We'd broken into the CIA.

"Choice "A" was to tell the truth, to say that the President had violated a variety of laws, committed felonies, and violated our constitutional safeguards about the way we carry out wars in our country, and impeach him. Option A.

"Then there was Option "B" - to tell the truth and have congress sort of say well, it's okay with us, which creates a dangerous precedent for the future, that is, that now President's would say well hey, look at the Reagan example, you know, if he can wage war privately, why can't I? So that was Option "B."

"And then there was Option "C" - to pretend it didn't happen, or to pretend that, say, some Lieutenant Colonel had done it all. So Washington, I guess understandably, settled on Option "C."
[1993] Fooling America. A talk by Robert Parry

MORE CIA QUOTES

The CIA, Contras, Gangs, and Crack

2009-12-10T05:44:00.001-08:00

December 13, 2009 UPDATE

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ORIGINAL POST:

This 1996 article is very interesting and am posting it since Sonoma has drug and gang problems (i.e. Gang behavior spawns three incidents):

The CIA, Contras, Gangs, and Crack

by William Blum

Volume 1, Number 11
November 1996
source

Written by William Blum, a Washington, DC based writer on foreign policy and intelligence matters. Author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.

In August 1996, the San Jose Mercury News initiated an extended series of articles linking the CIA's "contra" army to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles.1 Based on a year-long investigation, reporter Gary Webb wrote that during the 1980s the CIA helped finance its covert war against Nicaragua's leftist government through sales of cut-rate cocaine to South Central L.A. drug dealer, Ricky Ross. The series unleashed a storm of protest, spearheaded by black radio stations and the congressional Black Caucus, with demands for official inquiries. The Mercury News' Web page, with supporting documents and updates, received hundreds of thousands of "hits" a day.

While much of the CIA-contra-drug story had been revealed years ago in the press and in congressional hearings, the Mercury News series added a crucial missing link: It followed the cocaine trail to Ross and black L.A. gangs who became street-level distributors of crack, a cheap and powerful form of cocaine. The CIA's drug network, wrote Webb, "opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the 'crack' capital of the world." Black gangs used their profits to buy automatic weapons, sometimes from one of the CIA-linked drug dealers.

CIA Director John Deutch declared that he found "no connection whatsoever" between the CIA and cocaine traffickers. And major media--the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post--have run long pieces refuting the Mercury News series. They deny that Bay Area-based Nicaraguan drug dealers, Juan Norwin Meneses and Oscar Danilo Blandon, worked for the CIA or contributed "millions in drug profits" to the contras, as Webb contended. They also note that neither Ross nor the gangs were the first or sole distributors of crack in L.A. Webb, however, did not claim this. He wrote that the huge influx of cocaine happened to come at just the time that street-level drug dealers were figuring out how to make cocaine affordable by changing it into crack.

Many in the media have also postulated that any drug-trafficking contras involved were "rogue" elements, not supported by the CIA. But these denials overlook much of the Mercury News' evidence of CIA complicity. For example:

1. CIA-supplied contra planes and pilots carried cocaine from Central America to U.S. airports and military bases. In 1985, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Celerino Castillo reported to his superiors that cocaine was being stored at the CIA's contra-supply warehouse at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador for shipment to the U.S.2 The DEA did nothing, and Castillo was gradually forced out of the agency.

2. When Danilo Blandón was finally arrested in 1986, he admitted to drug crimes that would have sent others away for life. The Justice Department, however, freed Blandón after only 28 months behind bars and then hired him as a full-time DEA informant, paying him more than $166,000. When Blandón testified in a 1996 trial against Ricky Ross, the Justice Department blocked any inquiry about Blandón's connection to the CIA.

3. Although Norwin Meneses is listed in DEA computers as a major international drug smuggler implicated in 45 separate federal investigations since 1974, he lived conspicuously in California until 1989 and was never arrested in the U.S.

4. Senate investigators and agents from four organizations all complained that their contra-drug investigations "were hampered," Webb wrote, "by the CIA or unnamed 'national security' interests." In the 1984 "Frogman Case," for instance, the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco returned $36,800 seized from a Nicaraguan drug dealer after two contra leaders sent letters to the court arguing that the cash was intended for the contras. Federal prosecutors ordered the letter and other case evidence sealed for "national security" reasons. When Senate investigators later asked the Justice Department to explain this unusual turn of events, they ran into a wall of secrecy.

History of CIA Involvement in Drug Trafficking

"In my 30year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA." -- Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit.3

The foregoing discussion should not be regarded as any kind of historical aberration inasmuch as the CIA has had a long and virtually continuous involvement with drug trafficking since the end of World War II.

1947 to 1951, France

CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille to wrest control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained political influence and control over the docks--ideal conditions for cementing a long-term partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin capital of the Western world. Marseille's first heroin laboratories were opened in 1951, only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront.4

Early 1950s, Southeast Asia

The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist China, became the opium baron of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand, and Laos), the world's largest source of opium and heroin. Air America, the CIA's principal proprietary airline, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia.5

1950s to early 1970s, Indochina

During U.S. military involvement in Laos and other parts of Indochina, Air America flew opium and heroin throughout the area. Many GI's in Vietnam became addicts. A laboratory built at CIA headquarters in northern Laos was used to refine heroin. After a decade of American military intervention, Southeast Asia had become the source of 70 percent of the world's illicit opium and the major supplier of raw materials for America's booming heroin market.6

1973 to 1980, Australia

The Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney was a CIA bank in all but name. Among its officers were a network of U.S. generals, admirals, and CIA men--including former CIA Director William Colby, who was also one of its lawyers. With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering, and international arms dealing. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt.7

1970s and 1980s, Panama

For more than a decade, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega was a highly paid CIA asset and collaborator, despite knowledge by U.S. drug authorities as early as 1971 that the general was heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. Noriega facilitated "guns-for-drugs" flights for the contras, providing protection and pilots, safe havens for drug cartel officials, and discreet banking facilities. U.S. officials, including then-CIA Director William Webster and several DEA officers, sent Noriega letters of praise for efforts to thwart drug trafficking (albeit only against competitors of his Medellín cartel patrons). The U.S. government only turned against Noriega, invading Panama in December 1989 and kidnapping the general, once they discovered he was providing intelligence and services to the Cubans and Sandinistas. Ironically, drug trafficking through Panama increased after the U.S. invasion.8

1980s, Central America

The San Jose Mercury News series documents just one thread of the interwoven operations linking the CIA, the contras, and the cocaine cartels. Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the traffickers gave support to the contras. In 1989, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations (the Kerry committee) concluded a three-year investigation by stating: "There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual contras, contra suppliers, contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the contras, and contra supporters throughout the region. . . . U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua. . . . In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter. . . . Senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the contras' funding problems."9

In Costa Rica, which served as the "Southern Front" for the contras (Honduras being the Northern Front), there were several CIA-contra networks involved in drug trafficking. In addition to those servicing the Meneses-Blandon operation (detailed by the Mercury News) and Noriega's operation, there was CIA operative John Hull, whose farms along Costa Rica's border with Nicaragua were the main staging area for the contras. Hull and other CIA-connected contra supporters and pilots teamed up with George Morales, a major Miami-based Colombian drug trafficker who later admitted to giving $3 million in cash and several planes to contra leaders.10 In 1989, after the Costa Rica government indicted Hull for drug trafficking, a DEA-hired plane clandestinely and illegally flew the CIA operative to Miami, via Haiti. The U.S. repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull to Costa Rica to stand trial.11

Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. Many had long been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking. They used contra planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimp company, which laundered money for the CIA, to channel cocaine to the U.S.12

Costa Rica was not the only route. Guatemala, whose military intelligence service--closely associated with the CIA--harbored many drug traffickers, according to the DEA, was another way station along the cocaine highway.13 Additionally, the Medellín cartel's Miami accountant, Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testified that he funneled nearly $10 million to Nicaraguan contras through long-time CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, who was based at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador.14

The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips, warehouses, front companies, and banks) to these CIA-linked drug networks. At least four transport companies under investigation for drug trafficking received U.S. government contracts to carry nonlethal supplies to the contras.15 Southern Air Transport, "formerly" CIA-owned and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well.16 Cocaine-laden planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and other locations, including several military bases. Designated as "Contra Craft," these shipments were not to be inspected. When some authority wasn't apprised and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled to result in dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or deportation.17

Mid-1980s to early 1990s, Haiti

While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients' drug trafficking. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). SIN's mandate included countering the cocaine trade, though SIN officers themselves engaged in trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some Haitian military and political leaders.18

1980s to early 1990s, Afghanistan

CIA-supported Moujahedeen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting the Soviet-supported government, which had plans to reform Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading drug lords and the biggest heroin refiner, who was also the largest recipient of CIA military support. CIA-supplied trucks and mules that had carried arms into Afghanistan were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The output provided up to one-half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies.19 In 1993, an official of the DEA dubbed Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug world.20

Endnotes
1 Gary Webb, "Dark Alliance" series, San Jose Mercury News. Beginning August 18, 1996.

2 Celerino Castillo, Powder Burns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War (Mosaic Press, 1994). Los Angeles Times lengthy series of articles, October 20, 21, 22, 1996. Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus, "The CIA and Crack: Evidence is Lacking of Alleged Plot" (Washington Post, October 4, 1996). Howard Kurtz, "Running with the CIA Story" (Washington Post, October 2, 1996). Douglas Farah and Walter Pincus "CIA, Contras and Drugs: Questions on Links Linger" (Washington Post, October 31, 1996). Tim Golden,"Though Evidence is Thin, Tale of CIA and Drugs Has a Life of Its Own" (New York Times, October 21, 1996).

3 Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) pp. x-xi.

4 Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York City, New York: Harper & Row, 1972, chapter 2).

5 Christopher Robbins, Air America (New York City, New York: Avon Books, 1985) chapter 9. McCoy, Politics of Heroin.

6 McCoy, Politics of Heroin, chapter 9.

7 Robbins, Air America, p. 128 and chapter 9. Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA (New York City, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1987). William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995) p. 420, note 33.

8 Scott & Marshall, Cocaine Politics; John Dinges, Our Man in Panama (NY, New York: Random House, 1991); Murray Waas, "Cocaine and the White House Connection", Los Angeles Weekly, Sept. 30-Oct. 6 and Oct. 7-13, 1988; National Security Archive Documentation Packet: The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations (Washington, DC).

9 "Kerry Report": Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, a Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, 1989, pp. 2, 36, 41.

10 Martha Honey, Hostile Acts: U.S. Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1994).

11 Martha Honey and David Myers, "U.S. Probing Drug Agent's Activities in Costa Rica," San Francisco Chronicle, August 14, 1991.

12 Honey, Hostile Acts.

13 Frank Smyth, "In Guatemala, The DEA Fights the CIA", New Republic, June 5, 1995; Blum, Killing Hope, p. 239.

14 Martha Honey, "Drug Figure Says Cartel Gave Drugs to Contras" Washington Post, June 30, 1987.

15 Kerry report, Drugs.

16 Scott & Marshall, Cocaine Politics, pp. 17-18.

17 Scott & Marshall, Cocaine Politics; Waas, "Cocaine and the White House"; NSA, The Contras.

18 New York Times, Nov. 14, 1993; The Nation, Oct. 3, 1994, p. 346.

19 Blum, Killing Hope, p. 351; Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget (New York City, New York: Warner Books, 1990) pp. 151-2.

20 Los Angeles Times, Aug. 22, 1993

Publications
Lorraine Adams, "North Didn't Relay Drug Tips", The Washington Post, Oct. 22, 1994, p. 1.

William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995).

Celerino Castillo with David Harmon, Powder Burns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War (Mosaic Press, 1994).

John Dinges, Our Man in Panama (New York City, NY: Random House, 1991).

Martha Honey, Hostile Acts: U.S. Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1994).

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, December 1988.

Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA (New York City, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1987).

Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1972).

Clarence Lusane, Pipe Dream Blues: Racism and the War on Drugs (Boston: South End Press, 1991).

National Security Archive, Documentation Packet: The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations (Washington, D.C. October 1996).

Christopher Robbins, Air America (New York City, New York: Avon Books, 1985).

Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (Berkeley, California: University of CA Press, 1991).

Murray Waas, "Cocaine and the White House Connection", Los Angeles Weekly, Sept. 30-Oct. 6 and Oct. 7-13, 1988.

Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget (New York City, New York: Warner Books, 1990).

--- end ---

Aug 22, 1996
Cocaine pipeline financed rebels
Evidence points to CIA knowing of high-volume drug network

by Gary Webb
San Jose Mercury News
source

For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to an arm of the contra guerrillas of Nicaragua run by the Central Intelligence Agency, the San Jose Mercury News has found.

This drug network opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the "crack" capital of the world. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America - and provided the cash and connections needed for L.A.'s gangs to buy weapons.

It is one of the most bizarre alliances in modern history: the union of a U.S.-backed army attempting to overthrow a revolutionary socialist government and the "gangstas" of Compton and South-Central Los Angeles.

The army's financiers - who met with CIA agents before and during the time they were selling the drugs in L.A. - delivered cut-rate cocaine to the gangs through a young South-Central crack dealer named Ricky Donnell Ross.

Unaware of his suppliers' military and political connections, "Freeway Rick" turned the cocaine powder into crack and wholesaled it to gangs across the country.

Drug cash for the contras

Court records show the cash was then used to buy equipment for a guerrilla army named the Fuerza Democratica Nicaraguense (Nicaraguan Democratic Force) or FDN, the largest of several anti-communist groups commonly called the contras.

While the FDN's war is barely a memory today, black America is still dealing with its poisonous side effects. Urban neighborhoods are grappling with legions of homeless crack addicts. Thousands of young black men are serving long prison sentences for selling cocaine - a drug that was virtually unobtainable in black neighborhoods before members of the CIA's army brought it into South-Central in the 1980s at bargain-basement prices.

And the L.A. gangs, which used their enormous cocaine profits to arm themselves and spread crack across the country, are still thriving.

"There is a saying that the ends justify the means," former FDN leader and drug dealer Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes testified during a recent cocaine-trafficking trial in San Diego. "And that's what Mr. Bermudez (the CIA agent who commanded the FDN) told us in Honduras, OK? So we started raising money for the contra revolution."

Recently declassified reports, federal court testimony, undercover tapes, court records here and abroad and hundreds of hours of interviews over the past 12 months leave no doubt that Blandon was no ordinary drug dealer.

Shortly before Blandon - who had been the drug ring's Southern California distributor - took the stand in San Diego as a witness for the U.S. Department of Justice, federal prosecutors obtained a court order preventing defense lawyers from delving into his ties to the CIA.

Blandon, one of the FDN's founders in California, "will admit that he was a large-scale dealer in cocaine, and there is no additional benefit to any defendant to inquire as to the Central Intelligence Agency," Assistant U.S. Attorney L.J. O'Neale argued in his motion shortly before Ross' trial on cocaine-trafficking charges in March.

The 5,000-man FDN, records show, was created in mid-1981 when the CIA combined several existing groups of anti-communist exiles into a unified force it hoped would topple the new socialist government of Nicaragua.

Waged a losing war

From 1982 to 1988, the FDN - run by both American and Nicaraguan CIA agents - waged a losing war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government, the Cuban-supported socialists who'd overthrown U.S.-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

Blandon, who began working for the FDN's drug operation in late 1981, testified that the drug ring sold almost a ton of cocaine in the United States that year - $54 million worth at prevailing wholesale prices. It was not clear how much of the money found its way back to the CIA's army, but Blandon testified that "whatever we were running in L.A., the profit was going for the contra revolution."

At the time of that testimony, Blandon was a full-time informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, a job the U.S. Department of Justice got him after releasing him from prison in 1994.

Though Blandon admitted to crimes that have sent others away for life, the Justice Department turned him loose on unsupervised probation after only 28 months behind bars and has paid him more than $166,000 since, court records show.

"He has been extraordinarily helpful," federal prosecutor O'Neale told Blandon's judge in a plea for the trafficker's release in 1994. Though O'Neale once described Blandon to a grand jury as "the biggest Nicaraguan cocaine dealer in the United States," the prosecutor would not discuss him with the Mercury News.

Blandon's boss in the FDN's cocaine operation, Juan Norwin Meneses Cantarero, has never spent a day in a U.S. prison, even though the federal government has been aware of his cocaine dealings since at least 1974, records show.

Meneses - who ran the drug ring from his homes in the Bay Area - is listed in the DEA's computers as a major international drug smuggler and was implicated in 45 separate federal investigations. Yet he and his cocaine-dealing relatives lived quite openly in the Bay Area for years, buying homes, bars, restaurants, car lots and factories.

"I even drove my own cars, registered in my name," Meneses said during a recent interview in Nicaragua.

Meneses' organization was "the target of unsuccessful investigative attempts for many years," O'Neale acknowledged in a 1994 affidavit. But records and interviews revealed that a number of those probes were stymied not by the elusive Meneses but by agencies of the U.S. government.

CIA hampered probes

Agents from four organizations - the DEA, U.S. Customs, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement - have complained that investigations were hampered by the CIA or unnamed "national-security" interests.

One 1988 investigation by a U.S. Senate subcommittee ran into a wall of official secrecy at the Justice Department.

In that case, congressional records show, Senate investigators were trying to determine why the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, Joseph Russoniello, had given $36,000 back to a Nicaraguan cocaine dealer arrested by the FBI.

The money was returned, court records show, after two contra leaders sent letters to the court swearing that the drug dealer had been given the cash to buy weapons for guerrillas.

After Nicaraguan police arrested Meneses on cocaine charges in Managua in 1991, his judge expressed astonishment that the infamous smuggler went unmolested by American drug agents during his years in the United States.

His seeming invulnerability amazed American authorities as well.

A Customs agent who investigated Meneses in 1980 before transferring elsewhere said he was reassigned to San Francisco seven years later "and I was sitting in some meetings and here's Meneses' name again. And I can remember thinking, `Holy cow, is this guy still around?' "

Blandon led an equally charmed life. For at least five years he brokered massive amounts of cocaine to the black gangs of Los Angeles without being arrested. But his luck changed overnight.
On Oct. 27, 1986, agents from the FBI, the IRS, local police and the Los Angeles County sheriff fanned out across Southern California and raided more than a dozen locations connected to Blandon's cocaine operation. Blandon and his wife, along with numerous Nicaraguan associates, were arrested on drug and weapons charges.

The search-warrant affidavit reveals that local drug agents knew plenty about Blandon's involvement with cocaine and the CIA's army nearly 10 years ago.

"Danilo Blandon is in charge of a sophisticated cocaine smuggling and distribution organization operating in Southern California," L.A. County sheriff's Sgt. Tom Gordon said in the 1986 affidavit. "The monies gained from the sales of cocaine are transported to Florida and laundered through Orlando Murillo, who is a high-ranking officer of a chain of banks in Florida named Government Securities Corporation. From this bank the monies are filtered to the contra rebels to buy arms in the war in Nicaragua."

Raids a spectacular failure

Despite their intimate knowledge of Blandon's operations, the police raids were a spectacular failure. Every location had been cleaned of anything remotely incriminating. No one was ever prosecuted.

Ron Spear, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block, said Blandon somehow knew that he was under police surveillance.

FBI records show that soon after the raids, Blandon's defense attorney, Bradley Brunon, called the sheriff's department to suggest that his client's troubles stemmed from a most unlikely source: a recent congressional vote authorizing $100 million in military aid to the contras.

According to a December 1986 FBI teletype, Brunon told the officers that the "CIA winked at this sort of thing. . . . (Brunon) indicated that now that U.S. Congress had voted funds for the Nicaraguan contra movement, U.S. government now appears to be turning against organizations like this."

That FBI report, part of the files of former Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, was made public only last year, when it was released by the National Archives at the San Jose Mercury News' request.

Blandon has also implied that his cocaine sales were, for a time, CIA-approved. He told a San Francisco federal grand jury in 1994 that once the FDN began receiving American taxpayer dollars, the CIA no longer needed his kind of help.

None of the government agencies known to have been involved with Meneses and Blandon would provide the Mercury News with any information about them, despite Freedom of Information Act requests.

Blandon's lawyer, Brunon, said in an interview that his client never told him directly that he was selling cocaine for the CIA, but the prominent Los Angeles defense attorney drew his own conclusions from the "atmosphere of CIA and clandestine activities" that surrounded Blandon and his Nicaraguan friends.

"Was he involved with the CIA? Probably. Was he involved with drugs? Most definitely," Brunon said. "Were those two things involved with each other? They've never said that, obviously. They've never admitted that. But I don't know where these guys get these big aircraft."

That very topic arose during the sensational 1992 cocaine-trafficking trial of Meneses after he was arrested in Nicaragua in connection with a staggering 750-kilo shipment of cocaine. His chief accuser was his friend Enrique Miranda, a relative and former Nicaraguan military intelligence officer who had been Meneses' emissary to the cocaine cartel of Bogota, Colombia. Miranda pleaded guilty to drug charges and agreed to cooperate in exchange for a seven-year sentence.

In a long, handwritten statement he read to Meneses' jury, Miranda revealed the deepest secrets of the Meneses drug ring, earning his old boss a 30-year prison sentence in the process.

"He (Norwin) and his brother Luis Enrique had financed the contra revolution with the benefits of the cocaine they sold," Miranda wrote. "This operation, as Norwin told me, was executed with the collaboration of high-ranking Salvadoran military personnel. They met with officials of the Salvadoran air force, who flew (planes) to Colombia and then left for the U.S., bound for an Air Force base in Texas, as he told me."

Meneses - who has close personal and business ties to a Salvadoran air-force commander and former CIA agent named Marcos Aguado - declined to discuss Miranda's statements during an interview at a prison outside Managua in January. He is scheduled to be paroled this summer, after nearly five years in custody.

U.S. General Accounting Office records confirm that El Salvador's air force was supplying the CIA's Nicaraguan guerrillas with aircraft and flight support services throughout the mid-1980s.
The same day the Mercury News requested official permission to interview Miranda, he disappeared.

While out on a routine weekend furlough, Miranda failed to return to the Nicaraguan jail where he'd been living since 1992. Though his jailers, who described him as a model prisoner, claimed Miranda had escaped, they didn't call the police until a Mercury News correspondent showed up and discovered he was gone.

He has not been seen in nearly a year.

--- end ---

THE MIGHTY WURLITZER PLAYS ON

by Gary Webb
source

Chapter 14 from In the Buzzsaw edited by Kristina Borjesson

Webb was an investigative reporter for nineteen years focusing on government and private sector corruption and winning more than thirty journalism awards. He was one of six reporters at the San Jose Mercury News to win a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for general news reporting for a series of stories on Northern California's 1989 earthquake. He also received the 1997 Media Hero Award from the 2nd Annual Media & Democracy Congress, and in 1996 was named Journalist of the Year by the Bay Area Society of Professional Journalists. In 1994, Webb won the H. L. Mencken Award given by the Free Press Association for a series in the San Jose Mercury News on abuses in the state of California's drug asset forfeiture program. And in 1980, Webb won an Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Award for a series that he coauthored at the Kentucky Post on organized crime in the coal industry. Prior to 1988, Webb worked as a statehouse correspondent for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and was a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News where the "Dark Alliance" series broke in 1996. Months later, Webb was effectively forced out of his job after the San Jose Mercury News retracted their support for his story. He is now a consultant to the California State Legislature's Joint Audit Committee.

If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me. I'd been working at daily papers for seventeen years at that point, doing no-holds barred investigative reporting for the bulk of that time. As far as I could tell, the beneficial powers the press theoretically exercised in our society weren't theoretical in the least. They worked.

I wrote stories that accused people and institutions of illegal and unethical activities. The papers I worked for printed them, often unflinchingly, and many times gleefully. After these stories appeared, matters would improve. Crooked politicians got voted from office or were forcibly removed. Corrupt firms were exposed and fined. Sweetheart deals were rescinded, grand juries were impaneled, indictments came down, grafters were bundled off to the big house. Taxpayers saved money. The public interest was served.

It all happened exactly as my journalism-school professors had promised. And my expectations were pretty high. I went to journalism school while Watergate was unfolding, a time when people as distantly connected to newspapering as college professors were puffing out their chests and singing hymns to investigative reporting.

Bottom line: If there was ever a true believer, I was one. My first editor mockingly called me "Woodstein," after a pair of Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story. More than once I was accused of neglecting my daily reporting duties because I was off "running around with your trench coat flapping in the breeze." But in the end, all the sub rosa trench coat-flapping paid off. The newspaper published a seventeen-part series on organized crime in the American coal industry and won its first national journalism award in half a century. From then on, my editors at that and subsequent newspapers allowed me to work almost exclusively as an investigative reporter.

I had a grand total of one story spiked during my entire reporting career. That's it. One. (And in retrospect it wasn't a very important story either.) Moreover, I had a complete freedom to pick my own shots, a freedom my editors wholeheartedly encouraged since it relieved them of the burden of coming up with story ideas. I wrote my stories the way I wanted to write them, without anyone looking over my shoulder or steering me in a certain direction. After the lawyers and editors went over them and satisfied themselves that we had enough facts behind us to stay out of trouble, they printed them, usually on the front page of the Sunday edition, when we had our widest readership.

In seventeen years of doing this, nothing bad had happened to me. I was never fired or threatened with dismissal if I kept looking under rocks. I didn't get any death threats that worried me. I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests.

So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn't work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? Hell, the system worked just fine, as far as I could tell. It encouraged enterprise. It rewarded muckraking.

And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job. It turned out to have nothing to do with it. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress.

In 1996, I wrote a series of stories, entitled Dark Alliance, that began this way:

For the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods Street Gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, a Mercury News investigation has found.

This drug network opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the "crack" capital of the world. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America -- and provided the cash and connections needed for L.A.'s gangs to buy
automatic weapons.

It is one of the most bizarre alliances in modern history: the union of a U.S. backed army attempting to overthrow a revolutionary socialist government and the Uzi-toting "gangstas" of Compton and South Central Los Angeles.

The three-day series was, at its heart, a short historical account of the rise and fall of a drug ring and its impact on black Los Angeles. It attempted to explain how shadowy intelligence agencies, shady drugs and arms dealers, a political scandal, and a long-simmering Latin American civil war had crossed paths in South Central Los Angeles, leaving behind a legacy of crack use. Most important, it challenged the widely held belief that crack use began in African American neighborhoods not for any tangible reason but mainly because of the kind of people who lived in them. Nobody was forcing them to smoke crack, the argument went, so they only have themselves to blame. They should just say no.

That argument never seemed to make much sense to me because drugs don't just appear magically on street corners in black neighborhoods. Even the most rabid hustler in the ghetto can't sell what he doesn't have. If anyone was responsible for the drug problems in a specific area, I thought, it was the people who were bringing the drugs in.

And so Dark Alliance was about them -- the three cocaine traffickers who supplied the South Central market with literally tons of pure cocaine from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. What made the series so controversial is that two of the traffickers I named were intimately involved with a Nicaraguan paramilitary group known as the Contras, a collection of ex-military men, Cuban exiles, and mercenaries that the CIA was using to destabilize the socialist government of Nicaragua. The series documented direct contact between the drug traffickers who were bringing the cocaine into South Central and the two Nicaraguan CIA agents who were administering the Contra project in Central America. The evidence included sworn testimony from one of the traffickers -- now a valued government informant -- that one of the CIA agents huddled in the kitchen of a house in San Francisco with one of the traffickers and had interviewed the photographer, who confirmed its authenticity. Pretty convincing stuff, we thought.

Over the course of three days, Dark Alliance advanced five main arguments: First, that the CIA-created Contras had been selling cocaine to finance their activities. This was something the CIA and the major media had dismissed or denied since the mid-1980s, when a few reporters first began writing about Contra drug dealing. Second, that the Contras had sold cocaine in the ghettos of Los Angeles and that their main customer was L.A.'s biggest crack dealer. Third, that elements of the U.S. government knew about this drug ring's activities at the time and did little if anything to stop it. Fourth, that because of the time period and the areas in which it operated, this drug ring played a critical role in fueling and supplying the first mass crack cocaine market in the United States. And fifth, that the profits earned from this crack market allowed the Los Angeles-based Crips and bloods to expand into other cities and spread crack use to other black urban areas, turning a bad local problem into a bad national problem. This led to panicky federal drug laws that were locking up thousands of small-time, black crack dealers for years but never denting the crack trade.

It wasn't so much a conspiracy that I had outlined as it was a chain-reaction--bad ideas compounded by stupid political decisions and rotten historical timing.

Obviously this wasn't the kind of story that a reporter digs up in an afternoon. A Nicaraguan journalist and I had been working on it exclusively for more than a year before it was published. And despite the topic of the story, it had been tedious work. Spanish-language undercover tapes, court records, and newspaper articles were laboriously translated. Interviews had to be arranged in foreign prisons. Documents had to be pried from unwilling federal agencies, or specially declassified by the National Archives. Ex-drug dealers and ex-cops had to be tracked down and persuaded to talk on the record. Chronologies were pieced together from heavily censored government documents and old newspaper stories found scattered in archives from Managua to Miami.

In December 1995, I wrote a lengthy memo to my editors, advising them of what my Nicaraguan colleague and I had found, what I thought the stories would say, and what still needed to be done to wrap them up. It also helped my editor explain our findings to her bosses, who had not yet signed off on the story, and most of whom had no idea I'd been working on it.

**Two months ago, in an unheard-of response to a Congressional vote, black prison inmates across the country staged simultaneous revolts to protest Congress' refusal to make sentences for crack cocaine the same as for powder cocaine. Both before and after the prison riots, some black leaders were openly suggesting that crack was part of a broad government conspiracy that has imprisoned or killed an entire generation of young black men.

Imagine if they were right. What if the US government was, in fact, involved in dumping cocaine into California -- selling it to black gangs in South Central Los Angeles, for instance -- sparking the most destructive drug epidemic in American history?

That's what this series is about.

With the help of recently declassified documents, FBI reports, DEA undercover tapes, secret grand jury transcripts and archival records from both here and abroad, as well as interviews with some of the key participants, we will show how a CIA-linked drug and stolen car network -- based in, of all places, the Peninsula -- provided weapons and tons of high-grade, dirt cheap cocaine to the very person who spread crack through LA and from there into the hinterlands.

A bizarre -- almost fatherly -- bond between an elusive CIA operative and an illiterate but brilliant car thief from LA's ghettos touched off a social phenomenon -- crack and gang-power -- that changed our lives in ways that are still to be felt. That day these two men met was literally ground zero for California's crack explosion, and the myriad of calamities that have flowed from it (AIDS, homelessness, etc.)

This is also the story of how an ill-planned and oftentimes irrational foreign policy adventure -- the CIA's "secret" was in Nicaragua from 1980 to 1986 -- boomeranged back to the streets of America, in the long run doing far more damage to us than to our supposed "enemies" in Central America.

For, as this series will show, the dumping of cocaine on LA's street gangs was the "back-end" of a covert effort to arm and equip the CIA's ragtag army of anti-Communist "Contra" guerrillas. While this has long been solid -- if largely ignored -- evidence of a CIA-Contra-cocaine connection, no one has ever asked the question: "Where did all the cocaine go once it got here?"

Now we know.

Moreover, we have compelling evidence that the kingpins of this Bay Area cocaine ring -- men connected to the assassinated Nicaraguan dictated dictator Anastasio Somoza and his murderous National Guard -- enjoyed a unique relationship with the U.S. government that has continued to this day.

*In a meeting to discuss the memo, I recounted to my editors the sorry history of how the Contra-cocaine story had been ridiculed and marginalized by the Washington press corps in the 1980s, and that we could expect similar reactions to this series. If they didn't want to pursue this, now was the time to pull back, before I flew down to Central America and started poking around finding drug dealers to interview. But if we did, we needed to go full-bore on it, and devote the time and space to tell it right. My editors agreed. My story memo made the rounds of the other editors' offices and, as far as I know, no one objected. I was sent to Nicaragua to do additional reporting, and the design team at Mercury Center -- the newspaper's online edition -- began mapping out a Web page.

At the end of my memo, I'd suggested to my editors that we use the Internet to help us demonstrate the story's soundness and credibility which, based on past stories critical of the CIA, was sure to come under attack by both the government and the press.

**I have proposed to Bob Ryan [director of Mercury Center] that we do a special Merc Center/World Wide Web version of this series. The technology is extant to allow readers to download the series' supporting documentation through links to the actual text. For example, when we are quoting grand jury testimony, a click of the mouse would allow the reader to see and/or download the actual grand jury transcript.

Since this whole subject has such a high unbelievability factor built into it, providing our backup documentation to our readers -- and the rest of the world over the Internet -- would allow them to judge the evidence for themselves. It will also make it all the more difficult to dismiss our findings as the fantasies of a few drug dealers.

To my knowledge, this has never been attempted before. It would be a great way to showcase Merc Center and, at the same time use computer technology to set new standards for investigative reporting.

* The editors jumped at the idea. From our perch as the newspaper of Silicon Valley, we could see the future the World Wide Web offered. Newspapers were scrambling to figure out a way to make the transition to cyberspace. The Mercury's editors were among the first to do it right, and were looking for new barriers to break. A special Internet version of Dark Alliance was created as a high-profile way of advertising the Mercury's Web presence and bringing visitors into the site. Plus, the newspaper could boast (and later did) that it had published the first interactive online expose in the history of American journalism.

I remember being almost giddy as I sat with Merc Center's editors and graphics designers, picking through the pile of once-classified information we were going to unleash on the world. We had photos, undercover tape recordings, and federal grand jury testimony. In addition, we had interviews with guerrilla leaders, tape-recorded Supreme Court files, Congressional records, and long-secret documents unearthed during the Iran-Contra investigation. For the first time, any reader with a computer and a sound card could see what we'd found -- could actually read it for themselves -- and listen in while the story's participants plotted, scheme, and confessed. And they could do it from anywhere in the world, even if they had no idea where San Jose, California, was.

After four months of writing, rewriting, editing, and reediting, my editors pronounced themselves satisfied and signed off. The first installment of Dark Alliance appeared simultaneously on the streets and on the Web on August 18, 1996.

The initial public reaction was dead silence. No one jumped up to deny any of it. Nor did the news media rush to share our discoveries with others. The stories just sat there, as if no one seemed to know what to make of them.

Admittedly, Dark Alliance was an unusual story to have appeared in a mainstream daily newspaper, not just for what it said, but for what it was. It wasn't a news story per se; nearly everything I wrote about had happened a dozen years earlier. Because my editors and I had sometimes vehemently disagreed about the scope and nature of the stories during the writing and editing process, the result was a series of compromises, an odd mixture of history lesson, news feature, analysis, and expose. It was not an uplifting story; it was a sickening one. The bad guys had triumphed and fled the scene unscathed, as often happens in life. And there was very little anyone could do about it now, ten years after the fact.

So, I wasn't really surprised that my journalistic colleagues weren't pounding down the follow-up trail. Hell, I thought it was a strange story myself.

Had it been published even a year of two earlier, it likely would have vanished without a trace at that point. Customarily, if the rest of the nation's editors decide to ignore a particular story, it quickly withers and dies, like a light-starved plant. With the exception of newspapers in Seattle, some small cities in Northern California, and Albuquerque, Dark Alliance got the silent treatment big time. No one would touch it.

But no one had counted on the enormous popularity of the Web site. Almost from the moment the series appeared, the Web page was deluged with visitors from all over the world. Students in Denmark were standing in line at their college's computer waiting to read it. E-mails came in from Croatia, Japan, Colombia, Harlem, and Kansas City, dozens of them, day after day. One day we had more than 1.3 million hits. (The site eventually won several awards from computer journalism magazines.)

Once Dark Alliance became the talk of the Internet (in large part because of the technical wizardry and sharp graphics of the Web page), talk radio adopted the story and ran with it. For the next two months, I did more than one hundred radio interviews, in which I was asked to sum up what the three-day long series said in its many thousands of words. Well, I would reply, it said a lot of things. Take your pick. Usually, the questions focused on the CIA's role, and whether I was suggesting a giant CIA conspiracy. We didn't know the CIA's exact role yet, I would say, but we have documents and court testimony showing CIA agents were meeting with these drug traffickers to discuss drug sales and weapons trafficking. And so, figure it out. Did the CIA know or not? The response would come back --So you're saying that the CIA "targeted" black neighborhoods for crack sales? Where's your evidence of that? And it would go on and one.

There were other distractions as well. Film agents and book agents began calling. One afternoon Paramount Studios whisked me down to have lunch with two of the studio's biggest producers, the men who brought Tom Clancy's CIA novels to the screen, to talk about "film possibilities" for the still-unfolding story. This was about the time I realized the wind speed of the shit storm I had kicked up.

The rumbles the series was causing from black communities was unnerving a lot of people. College students were holding protest rallies in Washington, D.C., to demand an official investigation. Residents of South Central marched on city hall and held candlelight vigils. The Los Angeles City Council soon joined the chorus, as did both of California's U.S. senators, the Oakland city council, the major of Denver, the Congressional Black Caucus, Jesse Jackson, the NAACP, and at least a half dozen congressional members, mostly African American women whose districts included crack-ridden inner cities. Black civil rights activists were arrested outside the CIA after sealing off the agency's entrance with yellow crime scene tape. The story was developing a political momentum all of its own, and it was happening despite a virtual news blackout from the major media.

Some Washington journalists were alarmed. Where is the rebuttal? "Why hasn't the media risen in revolt against this story?" CNN's Reliable Sources, Kalb expressed frustration that the story was continuing to get out despite the best efforts of the press to ignore it. "It isn't a story that simply got lost" Kalb complained, during the show, "It, in fact, has resonated and echoed and echoed and the question is, Where is the media knocking it down?"

It was an interesting comment because it foretold the way the mainstream press finally did respond to Dark Alliance. A revolt by the biggest newspapers in the country, something columnist Alexander Cockburn would later describe in his book White Out as "one of the most venomous and factually insane assaults...in living memory."

I remember arguing with a producer at a CNN news show shortly before I was to go on the air that I didn't want him asking me to explain "my allegations" because these stories weren't my allegations. I was a journalist reporting events that had actually occurred. You could document them, and we had.

"Well, you got to understand my position," he mumbled. "The trafficking, CNN's position is that these events may not have happened." I snapped, "What the fuck is that? When did we give the CIA the power to define reality?"

After nearly a month of silence, the CIA responded. It admitted nothing. It was confident that its agents weren't dealing drugs. But to dispel all the rumors and unkind suggestions my series had raised, the agency would have its inspector general take a look into the matter.

The black community greeted this pronouncement with unconcealed contempt. "You think you can come down here and tell us that you're going to investigate yourselves, and expect us to believe something is actually going to happen?" one woman yelled at CIA director John Dutch, who appeared in Compote, California, in November 1996 to personally promise the city a thorough investigation. "How stupid do you think we are?"

The conservative press and right-wing political organizations were equally hostile to the idea of a CIA crack investigation, but for different reasons. It meant the story was gaining legitimacy, and might lead to places that supporters of the Reagan and Bush administrations would rather not see it go. John Dutch was blasted on the front page of the Washington Times (which had also helped finance the Contras, hosting fundraisers and speaking engagements for Contra leaders while supporting their cause editorially) as a dangerous liberal who was undermining morale at the CIA by even suggesting there might be truth to the stories.

Ultimately, it was public pressure that forced the national newspapers into the fray. Protests were held outside the building by media watchdogs and citizens groups, who wondered how the Times could continue to ignore a story that had such an impact on the city's black neighborhoods. In Washington, black media outlets were ridiculing the Post for its silence, considering the importance the story held for most of Washington's citizens.

When the newspapers of record spoke, they spoke in unison. Between October and November, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times published lengthy stories about the CIA drug issue, but spent precious little time exploring the CIA's activities. Instead, my reporting and I became the focus of their scrutiny. After looking into the issue for several weeks, the official conclusion reached by all three papers: Much ado about nothing. No story here. Nothing worth pursuing. The series was "flawed," they contended. How?

Well, there was no evidence the CIA knew anything about it, according to unnamed CIA officials the newspapers spoke to. The drug traffickers we identified as Contras didn't have "official" positions with the organization and didn't really give them all that much drug money. This was according to another CIA agent, Adolfo Calero, the former head of the Contras, and the man whose picture we had just published on the Internet, huddled in a kitchen with one of the Contra drug traffickers. Calero's apparent involvement with the drug operation was never mentioned by any of the papers; his decades-long relationship with the CIA was never mentioned either.

Additionally, it was argued, this quasi-Contra drug ring was small potatoes. One of the Contra traffickers had only sold five tons of cocaine during his entire career, the Washington Post sniffed, badly misquoting a DEA report we'd posted on the Web site. According to the Post's analysis, written by a former CIA informant, Walter Pincus, who was then covering the CIA for the Post, this drug ring couldn't have made a difference in the crack market because five tons wasn't nearly enough to go around. Eventually, those assertions would be refuted by internal records released by both the CIA and the Justice Department, but at the time they were classified.

"I'm disappointed in the 'what's the big deal' tone running through the Post's critique," Mercury News editor Jerry Ceppos complained to the Post in a letter it refused to publish. "If the CIA knew about these illegal activities being conducted by its associates, federal law and basic morality required that it notify domestic authorities. It seems to me that this is exactly the kind of story that a newspaper should shine a light on." Ceppos posted a memo on the newsroom bulletin board, stating that the Mercury News would continue "to strongly support the conclusions the series drew and will until someone proves them wrong." It was remarkable, Ceppos wrote, that the four Post reporters assigned to debunk the series "could not find a single significant factual error."

Privately, though, my editors were getting nervous. Never before had the three biggest papers devoted such energy to kicking the hell out of a story by another newspaper. It simply wasn't done, and it worried them. They began a series of maneuvers designed to deflect or at least stem the criticism from the national media. Five thousand reprints of the series were burned because the CIA logo was used as an illustration. My follow-up stories were required to contain a boilerplate disclaimer that said we were not accusing the CIA of direct knowledge, even though the facts strongly suggested CIA complicity. But those stunts merely fueled the controversy, making it appear as if we were backing away from the story without admitting it.

Ironically, the evidence we were continuing to gather was making the story even stronger. Long-missing police records surfaced. Cops who had tried to investigate the Contra drug ring and were rebuffed came forward. We tracked down one of the Contras who personally delivered drug money to CIA agents, and he identified them by name, on the record. He also confirmed that the amounts he'd carried to Miami and Costa Rica were in the millions. More records were declassified from the Iran-Contra files, showing that contemporaneous knowledge of this drug operation reached to the top levels of the CIA's covert operations division, as well as into the DEA and the FBI.

But the attacks from the other newspapers had taken the wind out of my editors' sails. Despite the advances we were making on the story, the criticism continued. We were being "irresponsible" by printing stories suggesting CIA complicity without any admissions or printing stories suggesting CIA complicity without any admissions of "a smoking gun." The series was now described frequently as "discredited," even though nothing had surfaced showing that any of the facts were incorrect. At my editor's request, I wrote another series following up on the first three parts: a package of four stories to run over two days. They never began to edit them.

Instead, I found myself involved in hours-long conversations with editors that bordered on the surreal.

"How do we know for sure that these drug dealers were the first big ring to start selling crack in South Central?" editor Jonathan Krim pressed me during one such confab. "Isn't it possible there might have been others before them?"

"There might have been a lot of things, Jon, but we're only supposed to deal in what we know," I replied. "The crack dealers I interviewed said they were the first. Cops in South Central said they were the first. and that they controlled the entire market. They wrote it in reports that we have. I haven't found anything saying otherwise, not one single name, and neither did the New York Times, the Washington Post or the L.A. Times. So what's the issue here?"

"But how can we say for sure they were the first?" Krim persisted. "Isn't it possible there might have been someone else and they never got caught and no one ever knew about them? In that case, your story would be wrong."

I had to take a deep breath to keep from shouting. "If you're asking me whether I accounted for people who might never have existed, the answer is no," I said. "I only considered people with names and faces. I didn't take phantom drug dealers into account."

A few months later, the Mercury News officially backed away from Dark Alliance, publishing a long column by Jerry Ceppos apologizing for "shortcomings" in the series. While insisting that the paper stood behind its "core findings," we didn't have proof that top CIA officials knew about this, and we didn't have proof that millions of dollars flowed from this drug ring, Ceppos declared, even though we did and weren't printing it. There were gray areas that should have been fleshed out more. Some of the language used could have led to misimpressions. And we "oversimplified" that outbreak of crack in South Central. The New York Times hailed Ceppos for setting a brave new standard for dealing with "egregious errors" and splashed his apology on their front page, the first time the series had ever been mentioned there.

I quit the Mercury News not too long after that.

When the CIA and Justice Department finished their internal investigations two years later, the classified documents that were released showed just how badly I had fucked up. The CIA's knowledge and involvement had been far greater than I'd ever imagined. The drug ring was even bigger than I had portrayed. The involvement between the CIA agents running the Contras and the drug traffickers was closer than I had written. And agents and officials of the DEA had protected the traffickers from arrest, something I'd not been allowed to print. The CIA also admitted having direct involvement with about four dozen other drug traffickers or their companies, and that this too had been known and effectively condoned by the CIA's top brass.

In fact, at the start of the Contra war, the CIA and Justice Department had worked out an unusual agreement that permitted the CIA not to have to report allegations of drug trafficking by its agents to the Justice Department. It was a curious loophole in the law, to say the least.

Despite those rather stunning admissions, the internal investigations were portrayed in the press as having uncovered no evidence of CIA involvement in drug trafficking and no evidence of a conspiracy to send crack to black neighborhoods, which was hardly surprising since I had never said there was. What I had written -- that individual CIA agents working within the Contras were deeply involved with this drug ring -- was either ignored or excised from the CIA's final reports. For instance, the agency's decade-long employment of two Contra commanders --Colonel Enrique Bermudez and Adolfo Calero--was never mentioned in the declassified CIA reports, leaving the false impression that they had no CIA connection. This was a critical omission, since Bermudez and Calero were identified in my series as the CIA agents who had directly involved with the Contra Drug pipeline. Even though their relationship with the agency was a matter of public record, none of the press reports I saw celebrating the CIA's self-absolution bothered to address this gaping hole in the official story. The CIA had investigated itself and cleared itself, and the press was happy to let things stay that way. No independent investigation was done.

The funny thing was, despite all the furor, the facts of the story never changed, except to become more damning. But the perception of them did, and in this case, that is really all that mattered. Once a story became "discredited," the rest of the media shied away from it. Dark Alliance was consigned to the dustbin of history, viewed as an Internet conspiracy theory that had been thoroughly disproved by more responsible news organizations.

Why did it occur? Primarily because the series presented dangerous ideas. It suggested that crimes of state had been committed. If the story was true, it meant the federal government bore some responsibility, however indirect, for the flood of crack that coursed through black neighborhoods in the 1980s. And that is something no government can ever admit to, particularly one that is busily promoting a multibillion-dollar-a-year War on Drugs.

But what of the press? Why did our free and independent media participate with the government's disinformation campaign? It had probably as many reasons as the CIA. The Contra-drug story was something the top papers had dismissed as sheer fantasy only a few years earlier. They had not only been wrong, they had been terribly wrong, and their attitude had actively impeded efforts by citizens groups, journalists, and congressional investigators to bring the issue to national attention, at a time when its disclosure may have done some good. Many of the same reporters who declined to write about Contra drug trafficking in the 1980s -- or wrote dismissively about it -- were trotted out once again to do damage control.

Second, the San Jose Mercury News was not a member of the club that sets the national news agenda, the elite group of big newspapers that decides the important issues of the day, such as big newspapers that decides the important issues of the day, such as which stories get reported and which get ignored. Small regional newspapers aren't invited. But the Merc had broken the rules and used the Internet to get in by the back door, leaving the big papers momentarily superfluous and embarrassed, and it forced them to readdress an issue they'd much rather have forgotten. By turning on the Mercury News, the big boys were reminding the rest of the flock who really runs the newspaper business, Internet or no Internet, and the extends to which they will go to protect that power, even if it meant rearranging reality to suit them.

Finally, as I discovered while researching the book I eventually wrote about this story, the national news organizations have had a long, disappointing history of playing footsie with the CIA, printing unsubstantiated agency leaks, giving agents journalistic cover, and downplaying or attacking stories and ideas damaging to the agency. I can only speculate as to why this occurs, but I am not naive enough to believe it is mere coincidence.

The scary thing about this collusion between the press and the powerful is that it works so well. In this case, the government's denials and promises to pursue the truth didn't work. The public didn't accept them, for obvious reasons, and the clamor for an independent investigation continued to grow. But after the government's supposed watchdogs weighed in, public opinion became divided and confused, the movement to force congressional hearings lost steam and, once enough people came to believe the stories were false or exaggerated, the issue could safely be put back at the bottom of the dead-story pile, hopefully never to rise again.

Do we have a free press today? Sure we do. It's free to report all the sex scandals it wants, all the stock market news we can handle, every new health fad that comes down the pike, and every celebrity marriage or divorce that happens. But when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff -- stories like Tailwind, the October Surprise, the El Mozote massacre, corporate corruption, or CIA involvement in drug trafficking -- that's where we begin to see the limits of our freedoms. In today's media environment, sadly, such stories are not even open for discussion.

Back in 1938, when fascism was sweeping Europe, legendary investigative reporter George Seldes observed (in his book, The Lords of the Press) that "it is possible to fool all the people all the time -- when government and press cooperate." Unfortunately, we have reached that point.

Gary Webb
©1995 - 2004

--- end ---

Gary Webb (1955-2004)

On December 10, 2004, Gary Webb was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head and Sacramento County coroner Robert Lyons determined that it was suicide.

Cephas hoffman like always... juggling !!!!

2009-12-07T22:19:00.000-08:00

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Monday Morning Madness

2009-12-07T07:26:00.001-08:00

Copenhagen & the Sonomja Seven

2009-12-06T22:44:00.000-08:00

Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen
sonomachemtrails.blogspot.com

source

Is something rotten in Denmark trip?

Letter to the Press Democrat Editor:
EDITOR: Obviously Sonoma County has lots of extra money if it can afford to spend $22,500 sending seven people to Copenhagen. Have fun with the taxpayers money while in Denmark.
RUTH WALTENSPIEL
Healdsburg
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From Shakespear's play, Hamlet
Horatio:
He waxes desperate with imagination.
Marcellus:
Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.
Horatio:
Have after. To what issue will this come?
Marcellus:
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio:
Heaven will direct it.
Marcellus:
Nay, let's follow him.

To put it bluntly, not only is global warming a sham, so is this United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen which runs Dec. 13 to 18.

The event is expected to draw 30,000 people from 192 nations including President Obama and seven locals from Sonoma County.

The Sonoma Seven are being sent so they can “tout the county's environmental programs, participate in educational panels and have a voice in the debate”.

Who’s going?
1. Supervisor Valerie Brown
2. Suzanne Smith, executive director of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority
3. Tom Brilliant, Consultant, videographer and educator
4. Paul Kelley, Board of Supervisors president & president of the California Association of Water
5. Jake Mackenzie, Rohnert Park councilman & member of the Water Agency's advisory committee
6. Tim Anderson, Water Agency's governmental affairs director
7. Robert Wilkinson, UC Santa Barbara Professor & expert on environmental policies.

The cost? $22,500

Is this a waste of money?

Yes. Considering current budget cuts, increased rates and employee furloughs at the water agency and in the county, why do six people from the Water Agency and one from the county's Transportation Authority need to make the trip at all?

Enquring minds want to know!

Read More:
Sonoma County sending 7 people to climate conference in Denmark

Sonoma County: Red, black, green