I would like to wish any readers of my blogs a Happy, Safe and prosperous New Year.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
RASC (Responsible Alcohol Sales Campaign)
RASC (Responsible Alcohol Sales Campaign)
Undercover police officer will be watching pub landlords, off-licence staff and drinkers this Christmas and will be enforcing on-the-spot £80 fine for being drunk to any member of they public who police officers says is drunk under Home office Guidelines. Also police will covertly be watching landlords and off-licence staff who are selling alcohol to members of the public who are already drunk. Seems The law states that it is illegal to 'knowingly sell to a drunk person' and the courts have defined drunks as people who have "drunk intoxicating liquor to the extent which affects self-control."
Sounds like the UKs police forces will be raking in the money this Christmas especially as a majority of pub goers do not know about this new clamp down.
Oxford
Yorkshire
Nottinghamshire
Newport, Wales
Government plans to put police, nurse and social workers into schools
Government plans to put police, nurse and social workers into schools
Last updated: 12th December 2007
Source: Daily Mail
A vision of schools where teachers work side by side with police, social workers and nurses was revealed yesterday.
Education Secretary Ed Balls unveiled an extraordinarily-detailed ten-year blueprint spelling out policies affecting virtually every single area of children's lives including sexual health and youth justice.
He vowed to widen the free nursery places scheme to thousands of two-year-olds, and pledged to "make this country the best place in the world for our young people to grow up".
But he was instantly accused of hijacking the traditional responsibilities of parents and intensifying Labour's "nanny knows best" approach.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Please watch the "7/7 Ripple Effect" film
Dear 9-11 Truth people,
Peace be upon you.
I hope this finds you all well, in good spirit and having a good day.
Please watch the "7/7 Ripple Effect" film at http://JforJustice.co.uk/77/
and
please get everyone you can to watch it too.
If you would like a DVD copy of the film, please send me an address to post
it to.
Thank-you,
Muad'Dib.
Peace be upon you.
I hope this finds you all well, in good spirit and having a good day.
Please watch the "7/7 Ripple Effect" film at http://JforJustice.
and
please get everyone you can to watch it too.
If you would like a DVD copy of the film, please send me an address to post
it to.
Thank-you,
Muad'Dib.
Brown's £725m 'betrayal' over lost pensions
Brown's £725m 'betrayal' over lost pensions
Last updated at 23:37pm on 9th December 2007
Source: The Daily Mail
Gordon Brown has overruled his Cabinet over plans to bail out thousands of pensioners whose employers went bust.
Ministers had promised £725million to help more than 125,000 workers whose company pension schemes collapsed.
But the Prime Minister has risked a major Cabinet split by vetoing the plan.
Last night critics accused him of a "betrayal" which would condemn pensioners to a "dreadful Christmas".
Some contrasted the Government's lack of help with its speedy action to rescue Northern Rock, at a cost to taxpayers of more than £25billion.
Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain was said to be "very frustrated" by the opposition of Mr Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling.
He is understood to have already put aside £725million of his department's budget to beef up the Financial Assistance Scheme, which gives compensation to people who have lost out after paying into company pension schemes which collapsed before 2004.
Andrew Young, the Government's chief actuary, said the money would give the workers 90 per cent of the value of their lost pensions.
It would bring the Financial Assistance Scheme - to which the Government has already committed £1.5billion - into line with the Pension Protection Fund, which compensates victims of later pension fund collapses.
Earlier this year, pensions minister Mike O'Brien promised that the Government would come up with a rescue package.
He is now said to be "mortified" that he will have to break his word as the result of Mr Brown's refusal.
Campaigner Dr Ros Altmann, of the Pensions Action Group, said last night: "The money is there. It just needs to be paid. Northern Rock was sorted out in days - these people have been waiting years.
"Good people are being left to have another dreadful Christmas.
"I do not know how any politician can enjoy Christmas festivities if these people are being left like this."
Tory spokesman Chris Grayling said: "These people have been left facing real hardship in retirement as a result of Gordon Brown's pensions failings over the past ten years.
"If he is now deliberately blocking a package that could help rescue their retirement it is an absolute betrayal."
Last month 30 campaigners who lost their pensions when their companies collapsed staged an all-night vigil outside Downing Street, while another group stripped off at the Labour conference in Bournemouth.
In February the High Court attacked the Government for producing "inaccurate and misleading" leaflets which had reassured workers that their pensions would be safe.
Dr Altmann said: "After the instant rescue of Northern Rock savers, at a potential cost of billions of pounds to the taxpayer, the continued delay in settling the pension wind-ups scandal is totally inexcusable.
"Responsible Government should be about admitting mistakes, putting them right and moving on.
"Sadly, it seems Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are incapable of doing so and this lack of integrity and compassion has led to a bitter row within Cabinet.
"It is important that governments should be honest about what they do.
"Whatever else they do, they should not put people in a position in which they do not have adequate pension cover."
Liberal Democrat spokesman Danny Alexander said: "The Government should be ashamed of the way it has treated these 125,000 pensions victims.
"Still it continues to drag its feet, years after justice should have been done.
"These people should be paid benefits at the same level as the Pension Protection Fund.
"There is a powerful moral argument for doing so and a small cost.
"Mr Brown's incompetent government now seem incapable of doing the right thing, even when it is blatantly obvious what is needed.
"Let us hope that public pressure will cause a rethink."
A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said: "Andrew Young was asked to examine ways of using the residual assets in FAS pension schemes more effectively for the benefit of those who have lost their pensions.
"We will continue to consider his findings carefully and make an announcement in due course."
Monday, December 03, 2007
Britain 'to miss child poverty targets'
Source: The Independant
Published: 03 December 2007
Gordon Brown is in danger of missing targets to cut poverty, according to reports by researchers and a Labour-dominated committee of MPs.
Members of the Commons Treasury Committee warned that the Government risked failing to achieve its goal of halving child poverty by the end of a decade, while a study into poverty funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said the Government's attempts to cut the numbers of families and children in poverty had stalled.
The study by the New Policy Institute think tank showed that child poverty in 2005-06 was half a million over the target set for 2004-05.
Researchers warned that poverty levels had risen during 2005-06, the latest year for which figures are available, and was no better than that recorded in 1988.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
The Eye of the Storm video
The corporate Police State...
Actual Police Surveillance Footage of Anti-Government protest in 2002, Portland, Oregon, USA.
Part One
Part Two
_____________________
Regards,
Clive
*I love my Country, but I hate what the politicians are doing to it.*
Alleged Trainer Of 9/11 Hijackers a CIA Informant
Sakka attempts to plug holes in 9/11 official story, claims Hanjour did not pilot Flight 77
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The man who claims to have trained six of the 9/11 hijackers is a paid CIA informant according to Turkish intelligence specialists, who also assert that Al-Qaeda is merely the name of a secret service operation designed to foment a strategy of tension around the world.
Hollywood Goes Big On Endgame Zeitgeist
Are rash of recent movies about humanity's imminent eradication a warning, a promise, or just a reflection of our own fears?
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Prison Planet
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Hollywood is obsessed with the idea that mankind is coming to an abrupt end and numerous movies which portray the short-term future of humanity as a dystopic nightmare abound - but is this a warning, a promise, or a reflection of the fears that have been pushed down our throats by the elite?
Media Hoax Attempts To Hide Advance Of North American Union
Establishment engages in mass public deception in desperate effort to hoodwink Americans into believing march towards global government is a conspiracy theory
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Prison Planet
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
The establishment media has promoted a consistent hoax and engaged in mass public deception by claiming that a plan for the political, social and economic integration of the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a North American Union does not exist, despite overwhelming and manifestly provable evidence to the contrary.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Massive rise in Europe GM crops
Massive rise in Europe GM crops
Date: 30/10/2007
Source: BBC News
The area planted with genetically modified crops in Europe has grown by 77% since last year, figures show. Figures published on Monday show the area planted with genetically modified crops in Europe has grown by 77% since last year.
This year more than 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of GM maize was harvested.
The biotech industry says this proves its products are appealing to farmers and are safe for the environment.
The only genetically modified crop grown widely in Europe is maize resistant to the corn borer - a moth larva which eats the stem.
This sweetener can kill
This sweetener can kill
Aspartame, the sweetener being used in everything from Fizzy pop to salad dressing, may be making us sicker and fatter than good old sugar ever could!
Now, discover how this "healthy option" could actually kill you... plus learn more REAL medical truths that could save your life!
Northern Rock shares plunge 32%
This all seems reminisant of the what the U.S. Federal reserve Bank did back in the 1920's causing the U.S. stock market to crash ( "Black Thursday," ) and subsiquently most of Europe too.
There are actual reports of people becoming agressive with Northern Rock employees, with one women kidnapping and locking in a manager who would not allow the women to withdraw her one million pounds savings.
Shares in mortgage lender Northern Rock plunge after it seeks emergency funding, but it is not expected to go bust.
Read "The Credit Crunch"
The Case Against Further Green Taxes - Report and Poll
Seems like someone is getting rich fast at the expense of the British Tax payers.
You can read some of the Treasuries response to this report at the BBC News website.
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The Case Against Further Green Taxes - Report and Poll
Sunday, September 02, 2007
- GOVERNMENT RAISING £10 BILLION MORE FROM GREEN TAXES THAN REQUIRED TO COVER COST OF UK'S CARBON FOOTPRINT
- EVERY UK HOUSEHOLD ALREADY OVER-PAYING GREEN TAXES TO THE TUNE OF MORE THAN £400 A YEAR
- NEW POLL SHOWS BIG MAJORITY BELIEVE POLITICIANS ARE USING GREEN TAXES AS A REVENUE RAISING MEASURE
- FIRST EVER AUDIT OF UK GREEN TAX POLICY REVEALS EXCESSIVE BURDEN OF ENVIRONMENTAL LEVIES THAT FAIL THEIR OBJECTIVES
The TaxPayers' Alliance has released the first audit of environmental taxation in the UK alongside a new YouGov poll of more than 2,000 adults (double the usual sample) commissioned into public attitudes towards green taxes.
Quick News
New drive to combat bad behaviour
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveils plans to combat anti-social behaviour before it turns into more serious crime.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveils plans to combat anti-social behaviour before it turns into more serious crime.
WHO warns of global epidemic risk
Infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever, the World Health Organization annual report says.
Infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever, the World Health Organization annual report says.
Boy is accused of sausage assault
The mother of a 12-year-old boy condemns prosecutors for taking her son to court for throwing a cocktail sausage.
The mother of a 12-year-old boy condemns prosecutors for taking her son to court for throwing a cocktail sausage.
'Many' support pay-as-you-throw
Almost two-thirds of people would support a "pay-as-you-throw" system on house waste, a survey suggests.
Almost two-thirds of people would support a "pay-as-you-throw" system on house waste, a survey suggests.
Royal 'targeted by blackmailers'
Royal the target of blackmailers... again ;)
The last time this happened, to a member of the Royal family being blackmailed, was the same time these women and others lost their lives.
The royal being blackmailed at that time, Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward (Edward VII).
Know the famous case I am mean, yet???
Yep the Famous Jack the Ripper murders.
The BBC are wrongly reporting that the last time a Royal was blackmailed was in 1891, which is inaccurate, either to not connect the event with the Ripper murders and start the whole conspiracy off again or they just got it wrong.
Seems these modern day blackmailers were caught and investigated back in September but not much was said then. This News has only come to light now because of a report in the Sunday Times. But the two men were arrested in September, so it is possible that it was kept quiet until the Courts imposed reporting restrictions to prevent the victim from being identified. The BBC state in there report that a former Palace spokesman Dickie Arbiter said "royal officials would have carried out their own inquiry into the validity of the Sunday Times story, but that it was unlikely that the name of the royal would be revealed." Seems one of the Royal, possibly one of the younger ones as not been toeing the line. I suspect it is the young wild one who has already been in trouble for smoking dope and getting drunk in public. The very same Royal is the target of speculation that he is the result of an adulterous affair by his mother and that the P.O.W is not the real father. I need not say more on these Speculations as I don't want to end up in the Tower of London or dead in a Tunnel in Paris France. LoL
Clive (^_^)
Royal 'targeted by blackmailers'
28 October 2007, 08:44 GMT
Source: BBC News
Buckingham Palace has refused to discuss a report that a member of the Royal Family has been the subject of a blackmail attempt.
According to the Sunday Times, the case involves allegations of drugs and sex.
A Palace spokesperson would only say it was a police matter and Scotland Yard was investigating.
Police said two men, aged 30 and 40, appeared before City of Westminster magistrates on 13 September accused of blackmail and were remanded in custody.
They will next appear at the Old Bailey in December.
Also see:
The overall plan to force the North American Union
The overall plan to force the North American Union
By: Lt. Col. USAF, Joe Kress, Ret.
By: Lt. Col. USAF, Joe Kress, Ret.
Date: October 28, 2007
Source: NewsWithViews.com
The demise of the United States, the greatest experiment in liberty, is about to be accomplished by its elected representatives, David Rockefeller and his banking friends, and the major media owners. They have succeeded in dumbing down the public. The government public education system's "No Child Left Behind" has left millions of students politically, economically and intellectually ignorant of the rudiments of science, mathematics......
Is this Art or Child Pornography?
Is this Art or Child Pornography?
To the parents of the two little girls in the photograph "Klara and Edda Belly Dancing photo" by Nan Goldin (who is well know for her pornographic photography) it would seem innocent and fun (maybe). But for the same photo to be owned by Sir Elton John, who has no connection to the family of the girls, seems very disturbing to me especially as it is now being seen by thousands of people in an exhibit in the UK and over the internet. The photo in question which was seized from an art exhibit by British police because of complaints that the image was indecent has been returned to the singer and no charges will be made. But now that the image is on the internet makes this whole thing seem like the Rules on Child porn are ok under the label of art but are not if owned or produced for other instances, to me there is no difference this image should not be shown. Could this decision by the UK police be a sign that the state allows child porn to be published if it is for the rich nobles like SIR Elton John, but not ok If an ordinary man/women had this photo hanging on his/her wall. I doubt that the Police would not press any charges for the latter.
Why is Sir Elton John being allowed to own this photo? if I was a parent of these two girls I would not of allowed anyone to own this photo.
You decide Art or child Porn
N.B. Some may find this image a bit shocking!!!
Please Note: I would never normally pass on anything like this under any circumstances, but I want to show the hypocrisy of the laws in the UK. I personally find it totally shocking that this image is owned by a complete stranger to the girls and I wanted to make an important point, which I hope I have.
Regards,
Clive
Blackwater project foes hope for backlash
**WoW!! Blackwater wanted to build a 220 acre training camp in the area of the San Diego Fires. This just gets better.**
Blackwater project foes hope for backlash
Opponents are optimistic that the controversy in Washington will help derail the company's training camp project near San Diego.
SAN DIEGO -- Opponents of Blackwater USA's proposal to build a training facility east of San Diego hope that the growing controversy over the private security firm's conduct in Iraq will help their drive to thwart the project.
Protesters have planned a weekend rally.
Meanwhile, a local congressman has submitted a bill to block Blackwater's proposal to build the 220-acre camp in unincorporated Potrero, 45 miles east of downtown San Diego near the Mexican border.
The proposal, now undergoing environmental review by San Diego County planners, is opposed by a coalition of environmentalists, property owners and antiwar activists. It could be months before the plan is submitted to the county planning commission and Board of Supervisors.
On Tuesday, Blackwater's chairman was met with a blizzard of criticism while testifying before the House Oversight Committee.
Blackwater opponents in San Diego say the national controversy has brought needed attention to the Potrero proposal.
"The public hasn't really paid attention until this event," said Raymond Lutz, coordinator of Citizens' Oversight Project and www.StopBlackwater.net. "Finally, information about Blackwater is being discussed at the kitchen table."
Rep. Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista) last week introduced a bill to allow the training of "mercenaries" -- a term rejected by Blackwater -- only on property owned by the federal government.
The opposition to Blackwater's Potrero plan has brought together otherwise disparate groups: residents concerned about increased traffic and noise, environmentalists worried about the effect on wildlife, and longtime peace activists.
Carol Jahnkow, executive director of the Peace Resource Center of San Diego, said the controversy over the violent actions of Blackwater bodyguards employed by the State Department in Iraq "underscores what kind of corporation they are."
"They're a corporation that puts profit above human life, a corporation that sees themselves as above the law," she said.
Although land-use disputes are common in local rural areas, the Blackwater dispute has reached an emotional pitch rarely seen. Three dozen sheriff's deputies and San Diego police officers were on hand during an April planning department "scoping session," the kind of pro forma meeting that is usually sparsely attended.
A recall movement is underway aimed at members of the Potrero community planning group who voted to recommend to county officials that the proposal be approved.
The Potrero facility, on property that is now farmland, would include firing ranges, an armory, a bunkhouse, administrative buildings and a "combat town." Blackwater officials have said they would use the facility to train their own employees but also would make it available for police departments and military units.
Anne Tyrrell, spokeswoman for the Moyock, N.C.-based company, said Blackwater was not altering its Potrero proposal in light of the controversy. Last week the company announced it had dropped negotiations to buy land in North Carolina for a training site. That decision, Tyrrell said, was not a result of the controversy.
Blackwater officials have said that Potrero's proximity to San Diego County's military bases made it a desirable location. Among those facilities is the Navy SEALS training base in Coronado. Blackwater Chairman Erik Prince, who testified before the congressional committee Tuesday, is a former SEAL.
tony.perry@latimes.com
Protesters have planned a weekend rally.
Meanwhile, a local congressman has submitted a bill to block Blackwater's proposal to build the 220-acre camp in unincorporated Potrero, 45 miles east of downtown San Diego near the Mexican border.
The proposal, now undergoing environmental review by San Diego County planners, is opposed by a coalition of environmentalists, property owners and antiwar activists. It could be months before the plan is submitted to the county planning commission and Board of Supervisors.
On Tuesday, Blackwater's chairman was met with a blizzard of criticism while testifying before the House Oversight Committee.
Blackwater opponents in San Diego say the national controversy has brought needed attention to the Potrero proposal.
"The public hasn't really paid attention until this event," said Raymond Lutz, coordinator of Citizens' Oversight Project and www.StopBlackwater.net. "Finally, information about Blackwater is being discussed at the kitchen table."
Rep. Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista) last week introduced a bill to allow the training of "mercenaries" -- a term rejected by Blackwater -- only on property owned by the federal government.
The opposition to Blackwater's Potrero plan has brought together otherwise disparate groups: residents concerned about increased traffic and noise, environmentalists worried about the effect on wildlife, and longtime peace activists.
Carol Jahnkow, executive director of the Peace Resource Center of San Diego, said the controversy over the violent actions of Blackwater bodyguards employed by the State Department in Iraq "underscores what kind of corporation they are."
"They're a corporation that puts profit above human life, a corporation that sees themselves as above the law," she said.
Although land-use disputes are common in local rural areas, the Blackwater dispute has reached an emotional pitch rarely seen. Three dozen sheriff's deputies and San Diego police officers were on hand during an April planning department "scoping session," the kind of pro forma meeting that is usually sparsely attended.
A recall movement is underway aimed at members of the Potrero community planning group who voted to recommend to county officials that the proposal be approved.
The Potrero facility, on property that is now farmland, would include firing ranges, an armory, a bunkhouse, administrative buildings and a "combat town." Blackwater officials have said they would use the facility to train their own employees but also would make it available for police departments and military units.
Anne Tyrrell, spokeswoman for the Moyock, N.C.-based company, said Blackwater was not altering its Potrero proposal in light of the controversy. Last week the company announced it had dropped negotiations to buy land in North Carolina for a training site. That decision, Tyrrell said, was not a result of the controversy.
Blackwater officials have said that Potrero's proximity to San Diego County's military bases made it a desirable location. Among those facilities is the Navy SEALS training base in Coronado. Blackwater Chairman Erik Prince, who testified before the congressional committee Tuesday, is a former SEAL.
tony.perry@latimes.com
Article Source:
Aircraft sat as California wildfires took hold
*Hmm, I wonder.... No Bush wouldn't... would he?*
(-_-)
-------------------------------------------------
Aircraft sat as California wildfires took hold
26/10/2007
Source: CNN USA
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- As wildfires were charging across Southern California, nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters and two massive cargo planes sat idly by, grounded by government rules and bureaucracy.
How much the aircraft would have helped will never be known, but their inability to provide quick assistance raises troubling questions about California's preparations for a fire season that was widely expected to be among the worst on record.
It took as long as a day for Navy, Marine and California National Guard helicopters to get clearance early this week, in part because state rules require all firefighting choppers to be accompanied by state forestry "fire spotters" who coordinate water or retardant drops. By the time those spotters arrived, the powerful Santa Ana winds stoking the fires had made it too dangerous to fly.
The National Guard's C-130 cargo planes, among the most powerful aerial firefighting weapons, never were slated to help. The reason: They've yet to be outfitted with tanks needed to carry thousands of gallons of fire retardant, though that was promised four years ago.
"The weight of bureaucracy kept these planes from flying, not the heavy winds," Republican U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told The Associated Press. "When you look at what's happened, it's disgusting, inexcusable foot-dragging that's put tens of thousands of people in danger." 
Watch pilot defend air response »
Rohrabacher and other members of California's congressional delegation are demanding answers about aircraft deployment. And some fire officials have grumbled that a quicker deployment of aircraft could have helped corral many of the wildfires that quickly flared out of control and have so far burned 500,000 acres from Malibu to the Mexican border.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other state officials have defended the state's response, saying the intense winds prevented a more timely air attack.
"Anyone that is complaining about the planes just wants to complain," Schwarzenegger replied angrily to a question Wednesday. "The fact is that we could have all the planes in the world here -- we have 90 aircraft here and six that we got especially from the federal government -- and they can't fly because of the wind."
Indeed, winds reaching 100 mph helped drive the flames and made it exceedingly dangerous to fly. Still, four state helicopters and two from the Navy were able to take off Monday, while nearly two dozen others stayed grounded.
Thomas Eversole, executive director of the American Helicopter Services & Aerial Firefighting Association, a Virginia-based nonprofit that serves as a liaison between helicopter contractors and federal agencies, said valuable time was lost.
"The basis for the initial attack helicopters is to get there when the fire is still small enough that you can contain it," Eversole said. "If you don't get there in time, you quickly run the risk of these fires getting out of control."
The first of the 15 or so fires started around midnight Saturday. By Sunday afternoon, fires were raging in Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties.
At the request of firefighters on the ground, at 4 p.m. Sunday the state Office of Emergency Services asked the National Guard to supply four helicopters. Under state rules, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection "spotter" must accompany each military and National Guard helicopter to coordinate water drops.
The spotters have 24 hours to report for duty, and it took nearly all that time for them and the National Guard crews to assemble. By the time they were ready to go, the winds had made it unsafe to fly.
The helicopters finally got off the ground Tuesday.
Mike Padilla, aviation chief for the forestry department, acknowledged the Guard's helicopters were ready to fly before the spotters arrived. He said state officials were surprised.
"Typically we're waiting for them to get crews," Padilla said.
In a conference call with reporters Thursday, state officials rejected the notion they were ill-prepared, noting that more than 20 helicopters and airplanes were stockpiled in Southern California ahead of the wildfires because of the danger of flames erupting.
But high winds after the fires began meant "there was very little opportunity" to fly, said the forestry department's director, Ruben Grijalva.
"This is not a resource shortage on those days, this is a weather-condition problem," he said.
That explanation doesn't jibe with what U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray said state officials told him Tuesday night. Bilbray, who represents parts of San Diego, and other lawmakers were informed that 19 Navy and Marine helicopters were ready to fly, some as early as Sunday but didn't take off because there were no state fire spotters to accompany the crews, said Bilbray's spokesman, Kurt Bardella.
Alarmed, Bilbray quickly helped broker an agreement to waive the spotter requirement, allowing flights to begin Wednesday.
"We told them, 'You don't want the public to be asking why these units weren't flying while we had houses burning,'" Bilbray told the AP.
By the time the helicopters got airborne, the area burned had quadrupled to more than 390 square miles, and the number of homes destroyed jumped from 34 to more than 700.
Criticism from Bilbray and other lawmakers on the call helped lead Grijalva on Wednesday to abandon the state's long-standing policy to have a spotter aboard each aircraft and instead let one spotter orchestrate drops for a squadron of three helicopters.
"I directed them to do whatever was necessary to get those other military assets into operation," Grijava said.
He said he could not explain why more spotters were not deployed before the flames spread to ensure that every aircraft ready to fly could take off.
Regardless, he said, safety -- not availability of spotters -- was the overriding concern in determining when to allow aircraft into the skies.
Padilla said he didn't want the Marines to participate because they "would have been a distraction" since they weren't trained.
"It's no different from me walking into Baghdad and saying, 'I'm ready to fight the bad guys,"' he said. "They would no more want me in their arenas, not being trained, prepared and equipped, than I would want them if they were not trained, prepared and equipped."
The C-130 saga is a much different story.
More than a decade ago, Congress ordered replacement of the aging removable tanks for the military planes because of safety concerns and worries that they wouldn't fit with new-model aircraft. California's firefighting C-130 unit is one of four the Pentagon has positioned across the country to respond to fire disasters.
New tanks were designed, but they failed to fit into the latest C-130s. Designers were ordered back to the drawing board. Republican Rep. Elton Gallegly said Congress was assured the new tanks would be ready by 2003.
Four years later, the U.S. Forest Service and Air Force have yet to approve the revised design. Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Paula Kurtz said "technical and design difficulties" have delayed the program.
Rohrabacher and Gallegly are angered by the delay, which has left no C-130s capable of fighting fires on the West Coast. The last of the older-model C-130s with an original tank was retired by the California National Guard last year.
"It's an absolute tragedy, an unacceptable tragedy," Gallegly said.
The situation meant that rather than deploying C-130s from inside the state, Schwarzenegger was forced to ask Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to call in the six remaining older C-130s from other states as far away as North Carolina.
None of them began fighting the fires until Wednesday afternoon.
Sourced:
FBI reveals California fires were started deliberately
*Hmm, I wonder.... No Bush wouldn't, would he?*
It seems that these "California Fires" are beginning to put Dictator Bush's Administration back on top for responding so well to this disaster, even boosting popularity for (Heir)Schwarzenegger too.
I wonder why Bush's response and his promise of Aid is so prompt for this disaster compared to New Orleans, could it be because it's hit a more affluent part of the California area, rather then they have learned lessons from their bad response to Katrina. They didn't really show much concern to start with or bothered to do so much for New Orleans when Katrina hit and it seems that the after care promised to New Orleans is still being waited for as they are still trying to re-build the City.
Although all the first lot of reports claimed the Fires were started by Power lines getting blown down by extremely high winds linked to Global warming it seems now that reports are claiming it was started deliberately (See "Police shoot dead 'arsonist' as FBI reveals California fires were started deliberately" Below.) So which is it to be? An act of Nature and Blaming Global warming or a Deliberate attack by an arsonist? what next a terrorist attack???? Maybe an Al Qaeda secret cell sponsored by the Iranian National Guard did it, Iran supplied the Matches and Paraffin to start the fire, it sure would boost a public acceptance to a US lead attack on Iran. LoL
(*_*)
Police shoot dead 'arsonist' as FBI reveals California fires were started deliberately
Date: 26th October 2007
Source: Daily Mail
Death toll reaches eight as two more bodies found in burned home
A suspected arsonist was shot dead by police as FBI agents revealed several of the fires that have forced one million people from their homes in southern California had been started deliberately.
The news came as two burned bodies were found in a San Diego area home, bringing the death toll in California's five days of wildfires up to at least eight, officials said today.
San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolender said the bodies were found in Poway, a town engulfed by the big Witch fire in the northern part of the county, and had not yet been identified.
White House Requests Bunker-Buster Bombs
White House Requests Bunker-Buster Bombs
24 Oct 2007
Source: ABC News
White House Bomber Request Leaves Some Wondering if U.S. Is Preparing Action in Iran
Tucked inside the White House's $196 billion emergency funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is an item that has some people wondering whether the administration is preparing for military action against Iran. The item: $88 million to modify B-2 stealth bombers so they can carry a newly developed 30,000-pound bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator, or, in military-speak, the MOP.
French parliament adopts DNA bill
French parliament adopts DNA bill
24/10/2007
Source: BBC NEWS
France's parliament passes a new bill introducing possible DNA tests for foreign migrants joining relatives.
Unveiled: radical prescription for our health crisis
It seems to me that it wont be long before we will need a permit just to live...
Unveiled: radical prescription for our health crisis
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 23 October 2007
Source: The indipendent
Obesity, alcohol abuse, smoking: Britain is among the most unhealthy countries in Europe. Now a pioneering NHS adviser is proposing a revolutionary cure for our ills
A radical plan to persuade people to stop smoking, take more exercise and change their diets was proposed last night by a leading Government adviser.
As new figures were published yesterday showing that England tops the European league as the fattest nation in the EU, Professor Julian Le Grand, chair of Health England and a former senior Downing Street aide to Tony Blair, said a completely fresh approach was required by Government to reverse the epidemic of obesity and to tackle similar ills caused by "excess consumption".
In a speech to the Royal Statistical Society last night, Professor Le Grand said instead of requiring people to make healthy choices – by giving up smoking, taking more exercise and eating less salt – policies should be framed so the healthy option is automatic and people have to choose deliberately to depart from it.
Among his suggestions are a proposal for a smoking permit, which smokers would have to produce when buying cigarettes, an "exercise hour" to be provided by all large companies for their employees and a ban on salt in processed food.
Pendemic Protocols May Prove Worse Than the Disease
Pendemic Protocols May Prove Worse Than the Disease
By Jim Kouri
October 23, 2007
Source: NewsWithViews.com
For instance, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and its affiliated state organizations such as the Oregon Association of Chiefs of Police have recently formulated in their 2007 Legislative Report an emergency plan for police agencies in the event of a pandemic involving the so-called Bird Flu. Prior to a pandemic event, the plan urges that local leaders prepare their communities for implementation of pandemic influenza containment measures that may be called into play during the emergency. Community disease control measures range from "individual containment measures to community-based containment measures."
Israeli news evokes 'Gog and Magog' scenario
Israeli news evokes 'Gog and Magog' scenario
Date: 18th October 2007
Source: Israel today
Two of Israel's three major television news programs broadcast special reports Wednesday evening dealing with US President George W. Bush's warning that a nuclear Iran could lead to World War III.
Earlier in the day, Bush reminded a White House press conference that "we have a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel, so I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
Israel's Channel 2 and Channel 10 evening newscasts ran with the president's statement, presenting viewers with large world maps showing the possible alignment of nations in a future world war.
On one side would be Israel, the US, Britain, France and Germany. They would be opposed by Russia, Iran, Syria, China and North Korea.
Israel National News noted that the scenario was presented in such a way that evoked the biblically prophesied war of "Gog and Magog," a global end-times conflict spelled out in the book of Ezekiel (chapters 38-39).
(o_o)Iran backing terror, says Blair
**Tony Blair in his new job! This is why Bush wanted Blair to be a Middle East envoy**
Iran backing terror, says Blair
19 October 2007
Source: BBC News
UK ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair has accused Iran of backing terrorism and warned the world faces a situation akin to "rising fascism in the 1920s".
Mr Blair told a charity event in New York that Iran was prepared to destabilise peaceful countries.
In his first major speech since leaving office, Mr Blair again defended the decision to go to war in Iraq.
He urged continued vigilance by the United States, Britain and their allies in combating the threat of extremism.
Mr Blair - now an envoy for the Middle East Quartet - warned against being "forced into retreat" as the world faced a situation similar to "rising fascism in the 1920s".
UK Green Lights Iran Strike
UK Green Lights Iran Strike
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, Oct 8, 2007
Infowars.net
Monday, Oct 8, 2007
Brown gives backing to Bush for tactical strikes as "counter-terrorism"
Reports in the British press this weekend have suggested that Gordon Brown's government has promised to back U.S. led strikes on Iranian military bases but not on the country's nuclear facilities.
Brown welcomes deal on EU treaty (EU Constitution)
19 October 2007
Source: BBC News
Gordon Brown says Britain's national interest has been protected as EU leaders agree a deal on a new treaty.
Claims of secret CIA jail for terror suspects on British island to be investigated
Claims of secret CIA jail for terror suspects on British island to be investigated
19 Oct 2007
Source: The Guardian
Prisoners may have been held in ships off coast
Allegations that the CIA held 'al-Qaida' suspects for interrogation at a secret prison on sovereign British territory are to be investigated by MPs, the Guardian has learned. The all-party foreign affairs committee is to examine long-standing suspicions that the agency has operated one of its so-called "black site" prisons on Diego Garcia, the British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean that is home to a large US military base. According to the organisation's submission to the committee, the UK government is "potentially systematically complicit in the most serious crimes against humanity of disappearance, torture and prolonged incommunicado detention".
The Ultimate Con - 911
The Ultimate Con - 911
Reports of Explosions heard at the site of the WTC.
Note: at 1:40 on the video the reporter states that police had found a suspicious device.
2 Jul 2007
Ultimate Con...This is the much awaited and anticipated complete 911 Documentary. This has no narration or conjecture, only news footage and interviews to tell the
Also see:
Never before seen Video of WTC 9/11 attack
Watch video here:
To Download a higher resolution version visit the website @:
The user who posted this video on YouTube states:
"At the time I received this video it was not released publicly. It's the personal video of someone i met.
After the first plane hit one of the towers, this cameraman set up his home video camera on a balcony 1 block from the world trade centers and left the room to let it record unknowing a 2nd plane would hit and he would catch it on tape."
After the first plane hit one of the towers, this cameraman set up his home video camera on a balcony 1 block from the world trade centers and left the room to let it record unknowing a 2nd plane would hit and he would catch it on tape."
Killed on Camera by Chicago police officer
This is state sponsored murder, Why?, because the police officer was defended by the CPD and was not charged with murder or the lesser charge of Manslaughter but instead he was promoted...
~~<>~~<>~~<>~~<>~~<>
Killed on Camera by Chicago police officer
Officer Alvin Weems shot an unarmed man point-blank in view of CTA security cameras. Investigators recommended that he be fired. Phil Cline promoted him.
By John Conroy
April 20, 2007
LAST DECEMBER SIX off-duty Chicago police officers reportedly attacked four businessmen in a bar, leaving one in need of reconstructive surgery and another with four broken ribs. In February off-duty officer Anthony Abbate beat up a young female bartender who declined to serve him any more drinks. Both incidents were recorded by security cameras.
Outgoing police superintendent Phil Cline said he was "disgusted" by the assaults. He said what dismayed him wasn't just the beatings but also how the attackers were subsequently protected by the department. Commanders kept the offenders in the December incident on active duty for months, even after seeing the recording. In videotape of February's incident, Abbate can be seen repeatedly punching and kicking bartender Karolina Obrycka, yet he was only charged with a misdemeanor till the state's attorney's office brought more serious charges. A police captain ordered his men to harass the media who came to cover Abbate's first court hearing.
Watch the Video here:
Quebec Police Defend Undercover Montebello Officers
Quebec Police Defend Undercover Montebello Officers
Watch video here:
Quebec provincial police are standing behind three officers who went undercover during protests at the recent Montebello summit, saying the men weren't there to provoke demonstrators.
"At no time did the officers in question engage in provocation or incite anyone to commit violent acts," Insp. Marcel Savard told a news conference in Montreal on Friday.
The police admitted Thursday afternoon that three masked men caught on video Monday afternoon pushing toward a line of riot police, despite protesters' efforts to stop them, were the force's officers.
The protesters were demonstrating against an agreement called the Security and Prosperity Partnership that was being discussed by U.S. President George Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Montebello Monday and Tuesday.
Savard acknowledged that one of the officers was given a rock by protesters but did not use it.
"One of the extremists gave the rock to one of our police officers and he had a choice to make," Savard said. "He was asked by extremists to throw the rock at the police, but never had any intention of using it."
Protester Dave Coles on Friday refuted Savard's allegations.
"I would testify in a court of law that these guys were lying. They were pushing me around. They had rocks," said Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.
"They were trying to incite violence. They were trying to get others to throw rocks at the store. It's just a fabrication."
Day brushes off calls for inquiry
The police admission came after several days of accusations from the protesters and denials from police that the three men were agents trying to provoke a confrontation between protesters and police.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day continued to dismiss calls for a public inquiry on Friday, saying the RCMP has a formal complaints process.
"The thing that was interesting in this particular incident, three people in question were spotted by protesters because were not engaging in violence," Day said.
"They were being encouraged to throw rocks and they were not throwing rocks, it was the protesters who were throwing the rocks. That's the irony of this."
On Friday, politicians and protesters alike were still demanding answers about the incident.
Quebec Opposition public security critic Sylvie Roy, ADQ MNA for Lotbinière, said in an interview that the province's Public Security Minister Jacques Dupuis has to answer for the police actions.
Protester considers pressing charges
Coles, who tried to hold the masked men back, said he is considering pressing charges against the undercover officer who pushed him.
"Criminal acts were committed. They were shoving me and others," he said Friday. "We want an arm's-length independent inquiry of what's going on here."
A video posted on YouTube Tuesday showed three burly men dressed in black with bandanas over their faces pushing past Coles and other protesters in a designated protest area. One man was carrying a rock.
In the video, the protesters told the men to leave and put down the rock, and accused them of being agents provocateurs. The men broke through the police line and were handcuffed by police.
The video has been viewed 190,000 times since it was posted online on Tuesday.
The police later admitted the men were its officers, but said they were there to maintain order and were not trying to incite violence.
Credit CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca
"At no time did the officers in question engage in provocation or incite anyone to commit violent acts," Insp. Marcel Savard told a news conference in Montreal on Friday.
The police admitted Thursday afternoon that three masked men caught on video Monday afternoon pushing toward a line of riot police, despite protesters' efforts to stop them, were the force's officers.
The protesters were demonstrating against an agreement called the Security and Prosperity Partnership that was being discussed by U.S. President George Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Montebello Monday and Tuesday.
Savard acknowledged that one of the officers was given a rock by protesters but did not use it.
"One of the extremists gave the rock to one of our police officers and he had a choice to make," Savard said. "He was asked by extremists to throw the rock at the police, but never had any intention of using it."
Protester Dave Coles on Friday refuted Savard's allegations.
"I would testify in a court of law that these guys were lying. They were pushing me around. They had rocks," said Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.
"They were trying to incite violence. They were trying to get others to throw rocks at the store. It's just a fabrication."
Day brushes off calls for inquiry
The police admission came after several days of accusations from the protesters and denials from police that the three men were agents trying to provoke a confrontation between protesters and police.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day continued to dismiss calls for a public inquiry on Friday, saying the RCMP has a formal complaints process.
"The thing that was interesting in this particular incident, three people in question were spotted by protesters because were not engaging in violence," Day said.
"They were being encouraged to throw rocks and they were not throwing rocks, it was the protesters who were throwing the rocks. That's the irony of this."
On Friday, politicians and protesters alike were still demanding answers about the incident.
Quebec Opposition public security critic Sylvie Roy, ADQ MNA for Lotbinière, said in an interview that the province's Public Security Minister Jacques Dupuis has to answer for the police actions.
Protester considers pressing charges
Coles, who tried to hold the masked men back, said he is considering pressing charges against the undercover officer who pushed him.
"Criminal acts were committed. They were shoving me and others," he said Friday. "We want an arm's-length independent inquiry of what's going on here."
A video posted on YouTube Tuesday showed three burly men dressed in black with bandanas over their faces pushing past Coles and other protesters in a designated protest area. One man was carrying a rock.
In the video, the protesters told the men to leave and put down the rock, and accused them of being agents provocateurs. The men broke through the police line and were handcuffed by police.
The video has been viewed 190,000 times since it was posted online on Tuesday.
The police later admitted the men were its officers, but said they were there to maintain order and were not trying to incite violence.
Credit CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca
Bush warns Putin over 'World War Three'
Bush warns Putin over 'World War Three'
By Matthew Moore and Adrian Blomfield
18/10/2007
18/10/2007
President George W Bush today warned that world leaders risk helping bring about "World War Three" unless they do more to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons.
In remarks timed to coincide with Russian president Vladimir Putin's visit to Teheran, Mr Bush said the Islamic republic must remain isolated until it drops its nuclear ambitions.
"We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel," Mr Bush told a White House press conference.
"So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War Three, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
US 'to build 14 permanent bases in Iraq'
US 'to build 14 permanent bases in Iraq'
17 Oct 2007 22:44:29
Source: PressTV
A Finnish lawmaker has revealed that the US is planning to stay in Iraq by building as many as fourteen permanent bases in the country.
Jaakko Laakso told a group of Arab journalists-- who visited the Finnish Parliament in Helsinki recently-- that "the bases are not the bases the US government plans to build on the Iraq borders with Syria, but they are permanent bases located in the heartland of the country. "
"There is no difference between Republicans and Democrats as far as these permanent bases are concerned," Laakso added, according to Arabnews website.
The Finnish MP said that it is very unlikely that the EU would criticize the permanent presence of the US in Iraq.
The Finnish lawmaker also touched on Iran's nuclear issue and said that negotiation is the only way to resolve the issue.
"I hope the next president of the US would show some sort of positive attitude and would recognize that Iranians have the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology in the framework of international treaties, "he concluded.
MGH/RE
Jaakko Laakso told a group of Arab journalists-- who visited the Finnish Parliament in Helsinki recently-- that "the bases are not the bases the US government plans to build on the Iraq borders with Syria, but they are permanent bases located in the heartland of the country. "
"There is no difference between Republicans and Democrats as far as these permanent bases are concerned," Laakso added, according to Arabnews website.
The Finnish MP said that it is very unlikely that the EU would criticize the permanent presence of the US in Iraq.
The Finnish lawmaker also touched on Iran's nuclear issue and said that negotiation is the only way to resolve the issue.
"I hope the next president of the US would show some sort of positive attitude and would recognize that Iranians have the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology in the framework of international treaties, "he concluded.
MGH/RE
Bush Quips He Might Stay in Power (Threat Level Plays Along)
Bush Quips He Might Stay in Power (Threat Level Plays Along)
By Kevin Poulsen
October 17, 2007
At a press briefing this morning that touched on issues like the White House's extrajudicial wiretapping program and torture policies, the president was asked a question about Vladimir Putin's plan to hold on to power when his term as Russian president runs out.
Reporter: Mr. President, following up on Vladimir Putin for a moment, he said recently that next year, when he has to step down according to the constitution, as the president, he may become prime minister; in effect keeping power and dashing any hopes for a genuine democratic transition there ...
Bush: I've been planning that myself.
Terror drill turns into the real deal near Lloyd Center
Why would civilian police vehicles have traces of explosive in them????????
___________________________________________
Terror drill turns into the real deal near Lloyd Center
Oct 18, 2007 at 1:33 PM PDT
By KATU Web Staff
Source: KATU.com
PORTLAND, Ore. - Bomb-sniffing dogs being used for a TOPOFF exercise in northeast Portland on Thursday detected the real thing, prompting police to cordon off a hotel, close nearby streets and shut down the MAX.
According to Brian Schmautz with the Portland Police Bureau, as officials were doing a sweep of the Doubletree Hotel located near the Lloyd Center, bomb-sniffing dogs got a hit on several vehicles in the vicinity.
Police immediately cordoned off the area so they could investigate. They later discovered that the dogs had detected traces of explosives in police and military vehicles that were involved in the exercise that was being staged. The bomb residue is something common in those type of vehicles.
MAX service resumed just before 4:30 p.m. and police began clearing the area shortly after.
LAW CENTER: LITTLE EVIDENCE OF JIHADISTS IN THE U.S.
LAW CENTER: LITTLE EVIDENCE OF JIHADISTS IN THE U.S.
Date: Mon October 15, 2007
Date: Mon October 15, 2007
Source: NEW YORK (CNN)
Six years of investigations and prosecutions have turned up little evidence of
Islamic jihadists at work in the United States, according to a study released
Monday.
The study, conducted by New York University's Center on Law and Security, tracked 510 cases billed as terrorism-related when arrests were made.
But it found only 158 of those people arrested since al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks were prosecuted for terrorism.
FULL STORY:
Riot police storm pub after a smoker lights up in protest to the ban
Riot police storm pub after a smoker lights up in protest to the ban
Date: 15th October 2007
Source: Daily Mail
It wasn't exactly the dramatic finale one cricket fan was expecting.
Having installed himself in his local pub to watch England play India, John Vaughan was enraged when the channel was switched over to football just as the cricket was reaching its thrilling conclusion. So Mr Vaughan lit up a cigarette in protest. When he refused to extinguish it, staff pressed a panic button behind the bar. And a few minutes later six riot police officers wearing protective gear stormed the pub.
Terrorism fears over Brill Place
In sight of the recent escape of the Foot and Mouth virues through laxes in the Bio-Security systems and not on a workman's boot at the Pirbright HIVE facility. Plus with the history with other Bio-Research facilities in the U.S. (See my previous post: U.S. labs mishandling deadly germs). I would have to say that this has got to be a seriously stupid idea. Just imagine an escaped Influenza virus hitting the population of London and the problems it would cause for the city as well as the rest of the country especially if they plan on housing deadly viruses that no know cures exists for. The MRC sure did not think this one through properly, or did they?????????? ;-)
An outbreak in such a densely populated area like London with its Airports, rail and road networks could not be contained. At least if the facility was well away from a populated area there could be a better chance of dealing with an outbreak before it hit any human populated areas.
Clive
;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)
Terrorism fears over Brill Place
Bio-science centre on British Library site could be a target for extremists
Bio-science centre on British Library site could be a target for extremists
Date: 11th, October 2007
Source: The Camden New Journal
THE massive bio-science centre leading the hunt to buy vacant land behind the British Library – which would house deadly viruses and up to 30,000 lab animals – could be a security risk and result in a decline in medical research, according to scientists.
THE massive bio-science centre leading the hunt to buy vacant land behind the British Library – which would house deadly viruses and up to 30,000 lab animals – could be a security risk and result in a decline in medical research, according to scientists.
The only declared contender out of six shortlisted bidders for the 3.6-acre site at Brill Place is a £350 million research centre to be run by the multiple Nobel prize-winning Medical Research Council (MRC) in partnership with Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust, as the New Journal revealed in August.
But the proposed British Library International Science Site (BLISS) is the focus of debate within the scientific community following a two-year catalogue of financial set-backs, and security concerns over the siting of the country's highest-level virus containment facilities near the known terrorist targets of Euston and King's Cross stations.
Despite intense internal opposition, the MRC's management has driven the relocation of the National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) to central London from their existing 47-acre base in Mill Hill for four years, and bought the National Temperance Hospital site in Hampstead Road for £28 million in 2006.
But the 0.9 acre hospital site instantly hit problems, first from a leaked letter from the security agency MI5 which warned that a central London bio-science centre could be the target of both international and animal extremist terrorists.
In March, a parliamentary select committee branded the purchase too small and "an object lesson in how not to handle such a project". The MRC then identified the British Library site as more suitable.
Scientists at the existing NIMR are forbidden by contract from dealing with the press, but two have spoken to the New Journal on conditions of confidentiality. One said: "This whole project is misguided and will lead to worse science. There are no scientific arguments for moving from our current site – which is surrounded by a perimeter fence and has room for expansion – to a much tighter site.
"I am not saying there is a risk from the containment facilities, but clearly there is a greater risk in the centre of London than out in north London."
The MRC has declined to comment on details of the new centre until it learns the outcome of the bidding process, but in evidence to the select committee, the MRC's then chief executive Sir Colin Blakemore made clear that a new centre would rehouse all the functions now at Mill Hill.
These include studies of the influenza virus, avian flu, stem cell research, and genetics.
An MRC press official said yesterday (Wednesday): "Plans for the National Temperance Hospital site are on hold while the possibility of BLISS is explored."
Skies to be swept for alien life
Skies to be swept for alien life
Date: Friday, 12 October 2007
Source: BBC NEWS
The switch has been thrown on a telescope specifically designed to seek out alien life.
Funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the finished array will have 350 six-metre antennas and will be one of the world's largest.
The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) will be able to sweep more than one million star systems for radio signals generated by intelligent beings.
Its creators hope it will help spot definite signs of alien life by 2025.
FBI to Participate in TOPOFF 4 National Preparedness Exercise
FBI to Participate in TOPOFF 4 National Preparedness Exercise
Sourced: Federal Bureau of Investigation
Released: October 12, 2007
More than 15,000 participants to take part in largest terror drill to date From October 15 – 19, 2007, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will take part in a multi-agency national preparedness exercise known as Top Officials, or TOPOFF. This full-scale exercise [We hope!] will simulate the response to a radiological dispersal device attack. The venues for this cycle, TOPOFF 4, are Arizona, Guam, and Oregon. In addition, activities will take place on a federal level in Washington, D.C. In coordination with the Department of State, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia are full international partners in the exercise.
Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria
Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria
Date: 14 Oct 2007
Source: New York Times
Israel's air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports. The description of the target addresses one of the central mysteries surrounding the Sept. 6 attack, and suggests that Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its determination to snuff out even a nascent nuclear project in a neighboring state.
Lawmaker says Rice interfered with Iraq inquiry
Lawmaker says Rice interfered with Iraq inquiry
Date: 12 Oct 2007
Source: Reuters.com
A leading Democratic lawmaker [Henry Waxman, CA] on Tuesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of interfering in congressional inquiries into corruption in Iraq's government and the activities of U.S. security firm Blackwater.
Possible police role in 2002 Bali attack
Possible police role in 2002 Bali attack
Date: 12 Oct 2007
Sourced: smh.com.au
Indonesian police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid says. In an interview with SBS's Dateline program, on the third anniversary of the bombing that killed 202 people, Mr Wahid says he has grave concerns about links between Indonesian authorities and terrorist groups. While he believed terrorists were involved in planting one of the Kuta night club bombs, the second, which destroyed Bali's Sari Club, had been organised by authorities. Asked who he thought planted the second bomb, Mr Wahid said: "Maybe the police ... or the armed forces." he says.
The Return of the Doomsday Machine?
the spectator
The Return of the Doomsday Machine?
Please don't count on me to save the world again.
Posted Friday, Aug. 31, 2007, at 3:52 PM ET
"The nuclear doomsday machine." It's a Cold War term that has long seemed obsolete.
And even back then, the "doomsday machine" was regarded as a scary conjectural fiction. Not impossible to create—the physics and mechanics of it were first spelled out by U.S. nuclear scientist Leo Szilard—but never actually created, having a real existence only in such apocalyptic nightmares as Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.
In Strangelove, the doomsday machine was a Soviet system that automatically detonated some 50 cobalt-jacketed hydrogen bombs pre-positioned around the planet if the doomsday system's sensors detected a nuclear attack on Russian soil. Thus, even an accidental or (as in Strangelove) an unauthorized U.S. nuclear bomb could set off the doomsday machine bombs, releasing enough deadly cobalt fallout to make the Earth uninhabitable for the human species for 93 years. No human hand could stop the fully automated apocalypse.
An extreme fantasy, yes. But according to a new book called Doomsday Men and several papers on the subject by U.S. analysts, it may not have been merely a fantasy. According to these accounts, the Soviets built and activated a variation of a doomsday machine in the mid-'80s. And there is no evidence Putin's Russia has deactivated the system.
Instead, something was reactivated in Russia last week. I'm referring to the ominous announcement—given insufficient attention by most U.S. media (the Economist made it the opening of a lead editorial on Putin's Russia)—by Vladimir Putin that Russia has resumed regular "strategic flights" of nuclear bombers. (They may or may not be carrying nuclear bombs, but you can practically hear Putin's smirking tone as he says, "Our [nuclear bomber] pilots have been grounded for too long. They are happy to start a new life.")
These twin developments raise a troubling question: What are the United States' and Russia's current nuclear policies with regard to how and when they will respond to a perceived nuclear attack? In most accounts, once the president or Russian premier receives radar warning of an attack, they have less than 15 minutes to decide whether the warning is valid. The pressure is on to "use it or lose it"—launch our missiles before they can be destroyed in their silos. Pressure that makes the wrong decision more likely. Pressure that makes accidental nuclear war a real possibility.
Once you start to poke into this matter, you discover a disturbing level of uncertainty, which leads me to believe we should be demanding that the United States and Russia define and defend their nuclear postures. Bush and Putin should be compelled to tell us just what "failsafe" provisions are installed on their respective nuclear bombers, missiles, and submarines—what the current provisions against warning malfunctions are and what kinds of controls there are over the ability of lone madman nuclear bombers to bring on the unhappy end of history.
As for the former Soviet Union, the possible existence of a version of a doomsday machine is both relevant and disturbing.
In the Strangelove film, the Soviet ambassador tells the president and generals in the U.S. war room that the device was designed to deter a surprise attack, the kind of attack that might otherwise prevent retaliation by "decapitating" the Soviet command structure. The automated system would insure massive world-destroying retaliation even if the entire Soviet leadership were wiped out—or had second thoughts. As a result, some referred to it as the "dead hand" doomsday device.
It is Dr. Strangelove himself, the madman U.S. nuclear strategist played by Peter Sellers, who detects the flaw in this plan. After being apprised of the system's existence by the Soviet ambassador, and the likelihood of its being triggered by a U.S. bomber on an unauthorized mission to nuke its Soviet target, Dr. Strangelove exclaims:
Yes, but the ... whole point of the doomsday machine ... is lost ... if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?
In other words, a doomsday machine kept secret is no good for deterrence, only for retaliation by extinction.
Did the Soviets actually design a variation on a doomsday device and not tell us about it? And could an accidental or terrorist nuclear attack on Putin's Russia (by Chechens, for instance) trigger an antiquated automated dead-hand system and launch missiles capable of killing tens, maybe hundreds, of millions at unknown targets that might include the United States?
Up until Aug. 10 of this year, I would have thought these questions were best consigned to the realm of apocalyptic film fantasy. But on that day I came upon a startling essay in the London Times Literary Supplement. It was a review (titled "Deadly Devices") of a book recently published in the United Kingdom: Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon by nuclear-age historian P.D. Smith of University College London. (It will be out in the United States in December.)
The TLS reviewer, Christopher Coker (who is on the faculty of the London School of Economics), asserted that the book demonstrates that "only after the Berlin Wall had been breached and ... the Cold War began to thaw did military analysts realize the Russians had actually built a version of the [doomsday] device. The details of this top-secret Soviet system were first revealed in 1993 by Bruce G. Blair, a former American ICBM launch control officer, now one of the country's foremost experts on Russian arms. Fearing that a sneak attack by American submarine-launched missiles might take Moscow out in 13 minutes, the Soviet leadership had authorized the construction of an automated communication network, reinforced to withstand a nuclear strike. At its heart was a computer system similar to the one in Dr. Strangelove. Its code name was Perimetr. It went fully operational in January 1985. It is still in place."
Wait a minute. Still in place?! How is this possible?
In the endnotes of Smith's book (which turns out to be an illuminating portrait of the Doomsday weapon concept and its cultural implications), I found a reference to a further description of the Perimetr system in a 2003 Washington Post op-ed by Bruce G. Blair, the former Minuteman ICBM launch control officer who first revealed the existence of the program. (When he wrote the op-ed, he was a Brookings fellow; he is now head of the World Security Institute in Washington, a liberal think tank.)
The op-ed offers a far more detailed and chilling picture of Perimetr than the brief mention devoted to it in the book and review:
Die-hard [U.S.] nuclear war planners actually have their eyes on targets in Russia and China, including missile silos and leadership bunkers. For these planners, the Cold War never ended. Their top two candidates [i.e., targets] in Russia are located inside the Yamantau and Kosvinsky mountains in the central and southern Urals.
Both were huge construction projects begun in the late 1970s, when U.S. nuclear firepower took special aim at the Communist Party's leadership complex. Fearing a decapitating strike, the Soviets sent tens of thousands of workers to these remote sites, where U.S. spy satellites spotted them still toiling away in the late 1990s.
Blair sources his information on these command bunkers to "diagrams and notes given to me in the late 1990s by SAC [Strategic Air Command] senior officers," men in charge of targeting our missile and bomber forces.
From them, he paints a Strangelovian picture:
The Yamantau command center is inside a rock quartz mountain, about 3,000 feet straight down from the summit. It is a wartime relocation facility for the top Russian political leadership. It is more a shelter than a command post, because the facility's communications links are relatively fragile. As it turned out, the quartz interferes with radio signals broadcast from inside the mountain.
A quartz nuclear-war mountain! Something phantasmal about it, like a satanic big rock candy mountain. But the quartz mountain melts in comparison with the Perimetr dead-hand system at Kosvinsky.
"Kosvinsky," Blair tells us, "is regarded by U.S. targeteers as the crown jewel of the Russian wartime nuclear command system, because it can communicate through the granite mountain to far-flung Russian strategic forces using very-low-frequency (VLF) radio signals that can burn through a nuclear war environment. The facility is the critical link to Russia's 'dead hand' communications network, designed to ensure semi-automatic retaliation to a decapitating strike."
Of course, there's a world of difference between a "semi-automatic" doomsday device and the totally automatic—beyond human control—doomsday device in Strangelove, something that Blair is careful to note. The Soviet facility does require a human hand for the final fatal push of the button. But Blair believes that the human brain behind that hand has not been programmed to suddenly turn peacenik. And the details of the device are far from reassuring.
"This doomsday apparatus, which became operational in 1984, during the height of the Reagan-era nuclear tensions, is an amazing feat of creative engineering." According to Blair, if Perimetr senses a nuclear explosion in Russian territory and then receives no communication from Moscow, it will assume the incapacity of human leadership in Moscow or elsewhere, and will then grant a single human being deep within the Kosvinsky mountains the authority and capability to launch the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal.
"Kosvinsky came online recently," Blair wrote in 2003, "which could be one explanation for U.S. interest in a new nuclear bunker buster."
Blair also suggested that the Bush administration's recurrent interest in funding the development of nuclear "bunker buster" bombs was at least in some respects designed to give them the capacity to destroy the dead-hand device buried deep in a Kosvinsky bunker, an argument that, if true, would suggest the dead-hand doomsday device was still thought to be operational. And perhaps you've heard something about its deactivation, but I haven't found any evidence of it.
Blair, who has written previously on the extremely rickety structure of presidential nuclear decision-making, believes that the current U.S. contingency plan is itself a "doomsday strategy":
President Bush's nuclear guidance doubtless instructs the Pentagon to plan the destruction of Yamantau and Kosvinsky, along with 2,000 other targets in Russia and hundreds more in China. But such targeting requires very high-yield weapons, typically 10 to 100 times more destructive than the bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. We are talking about a doomsday plan in which Yamantau and Kosvinsky are struck as part of an all-out nuclear exchange that would kill hundreds of millions of people.
There's some ambiguity in Blair's use of "doubtless": Does it imply that Bush's "nuclear guidance" includes only one all-out, 2,000-target response, or "merely" the capability of it? But shouldn't we know at least that in a genuinely "doubtless" way?
Blair's primary recent concern is not the prospect of a deliberate, ideological, Cold War-type nuclear war, but accidental war caused by the continued deadly presence of all-too-easily triggered Cold War arsenals. In four fascinating papers on the subject (all available online, and well worth reading), Blair describes the "launch on warning" bias built into our nuclear command structure, and foresees the possibility of a doomsday that results from our attempt to pre-empt their doomsday plan, all of which might be touched off by accident, mistake, or malfunction on either side.
Blair is not a wild-eyed Cassandra raising unsupported suspicions. Colleagues in his field regard him as a serious and cautious scholar raising real questions. Stephen M. Meyer, an expert on the Russian military at MIT, told the Times that Blair "requires of himself a much higher standard of evidence than many people in the intelligence community."
Blair's troubling papers, along with his book The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War, serve as a reminder that the illogic, irrationalities, and vulnerability to catastrophic error of our Cold War nuclear war command and control mechanisms were never resolved or fixed, just forgotten when the Cold War ended. His analysis suggests that during the Cold War, we may have escaped an accidental nuclear war by luck rather than policy.
It was Blair who pointed out, in congressional testimony, another continuing problem with nuclear launch posture, this one involving the much-ballyhooed "de-targeting"—a process by which the United States and the former Soviet Union purportedly reduced the risk of accidental nuclear war by insuring that their missiles were—after the fall of the Soviet Union—not still targeted at each other. Blair told Congress that, especially on the Russian side, detargeting was only "cosmetic and symbolic," and easily reversible, implemented in name only.
What drove Blair? I was particularly fascinated by one of Blair's other papers, his more personal "Nuclear Recollections," which might have been called "Memories of a Minuteman Missile Crewman," and describes his period of service in a missile silo at the Malmstrom, Mont., Air Force Base, hundreds of feet beneath the Great Plains.
Especially because I'd been there! Down in one of those silos, under the bleak landscape of the Great Plains (this one in Grand Forks, N.D.), interviewing missile commanders like Blair (for a Harper's story), only a few years after Blair resumed life aboveground and retired.
In the course of talking to Minuteman commanders down in their underground launch capsules, I'd glimpsed what they might be called upon to do. They had the ability to launch from their underground pods up to 50 missiles able to kill 200,000 or 300,000 people each. You do the math.
They certainly had, and it showed beneath their black-humored jokes about coming above ground after a nuclear war and finding "only huge mutant bunny rabbits alive."
They were, thank God, not automatons. As Blair points out, their training system was designed to turn them into automatic button pushers, but the ones I spoke to retained a sharp sense of skeptical individuality. About the gravity of their "mission": killing that many people. And about the sketchy mechanics of it.
One crew member even disclosed to me a flaw in the "command and control" "permissive action" system that was supposed to prevent a madman missile commander from launching his "birds" and starting an apocalyptic nuclear war all by himself. The flaw: the system's susceptibility to the "spoon and string" improvisation.
So much focus has been placed—in film, fiction, and nonfiction—on our supposedly "failsafe" barrier to a lone-madman launch. We'd been told that to launch a missile, two keys must be inserted simultaneously into their slots by two separate launch officers, and that the slots for the keys were located at a sufficient distance from each other that one madman couldn't, say, shoot the other crewman and then use both his arms to twist both the keys simultaneously.
But the missile crewmen I talked to told me they'd figured out a way to defeat that impediment with a spoon and a string. Not that they were planning to do it, but that they knew someone could do it.
You just shoot the other guy and "rig up a thing where you tie a string to one end of a spoon," he told me, "and tie the other end to the guy's key. Then you can sit in your chair and twist your key with one hand while you yank on the spoon with the other hand to twist the other key over."
American ingenuity! Can't beat it for finding a new way to end the world.
I always wondered if I should follow up on what happened after I published this information. (In a piece reprinted in The Secret Parts of Fortune, I assumed the flaw had been fixed somehow, and have long credited myself with saving the world. Kidding!)
I actually turned down an invitation to lecture about such matters from the Air War College in Alabama* (because of my peacenik inclinations at the time), and assumed that if they read the article, they must have taken action to save the world from a lone madman with a spoon and string, to whom I'd in effect given instructions for an unauthorized missile launch that could destroy the world. (Hmmm, maybe I'd come close to destroying the world, rather than saving it. Sorry about that.)
But it's clear from Bruce Blair's "Nuclear Recollections" that the experience of holding the lives of tens of millions in his hands when he held those keys left a profound mark on him. I know that when the missile crewmen I was interviewing let me hold the keys, even twist them into the (deactivated) locks, that it had a profound effect on me. The keys to Kingdom Come!
And while I may have abandoned my responsibility for too long, I was grateful that Bruce G. Blair was still on the case, raising the right questions. In fact, he's devoted his subsequent life to raising the alarm about our flawed nuclear alarm and launch system, using what an actual missile commander learned about its dysfunctions and biases.
Blair's work continues and I think it's urgent, now that Putin's "nuclear bombers" are flying again, that Congress re-examine the whole issue and take seriously Blair's warnings about the variations of doomsday we still face.
Pay attention to Blair. You can't count on me to save the world again.
Correction, Sept. 5, 2007: This piece originally referred to the Army War College in Alabama. In fact, it's the Air War College that is sited in Alabama. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
Ron Rosenbaum is the author of The Shakespeare Wars and Explaining Hitler.Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2173108/
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