Ship of Fools

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This is a No-FAQ Zone, still heavily under construction.

Renewable Energy Myths Dispelled

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HP100_32.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Home Power's position in the small-scale renewable energy (RE) community ensures that we hear it all, every day. Along the way, we've found that there's more than a little misinformation out there. Many RE myths are so widespread that they represent bona fide hindrances to the increasing use of these important technologies. This article is our collective debunking effort, in the interest of clearing the air..." Home Power Magazine; read more on cite

TAP: Vol 15, Iss. 2. We See That Now. Tony Hendra.

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TAP: Vol 15, Iss. 2. We See That Now. Tony Hendra.

"We confess. It's all true. Everything you say. We trafficked in hate. We did it in anger. Just as you said, Mr. Kristol, Mr. Krauthammer, Mr. Brooks: We poisoned the airwaves and befouled the sheets of our nation's most august publications. We attacked a sitting president, impugned his integrity, smeared his family, invaded his privacy, tried desperately to drag him down to our own filthy, rock-bottom, sewer-dwelling level. ...

"...George W. Bush cannot be, as we've screamed till we're blue in the face, the cretinous finger puppet of an incalculably cynical and malevolent cabal and a ruthless neo-Confederate, bent on creating a plutocratic ruling class at home and a rapacious corporate imperium abroad. He's one or the other. We cannot have it both ways. We see that now..." --Tony Hendra; The American Prospect; read more on cite

First They Came for the Shock Jocks

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First They Came for the Shock Jocks

"During the Fifties, actors and screenwriters sympathetic to progressive and radical causes found it nearly impossible to get work. Though they couldn't prove it, blackballed Hollywood talent knew why their telephones had stopped ringing. Somewhere behind the scenes, someone powerful, someone who believed that America was composed only of two kinds of people--communists and right-thinking souls like themselves--was working to silence them.

We tell our kids that America learned from McCarthyism, but a new version of the Red Scare is being born in this new century. Powerbrokers ... operate out in the open. Their goal: to crush personalities whose influence and eloquence threatens their plan to recast the United States in their white, heterosexual, pro-business image...." --Ted Ral, Common Dreams News Center; read more on cite

Irony Alerts

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Crooked Timber: Irony alerts in the 14th and 21st centuries

"...Having run afoul of irony in both directions lately (having my own ironic post on Lent taken literally, then taking literally an ironic comment by Chris), I’ve come to the conclusion that HTML needs its own version of the pronunciato.

Here’s my proposal: Text meant to be taken ironically would be surrounded by tags. Such text would render normally, but would have a hover property such that, when the mouse hovered over ironic text, it would flicker through a range of suitably ironic colors. Not perfect, but a lot more appealing than a smiley :-)..." --John Quiggin, Crooked Timber; read more on cite

Open Letter to Dr. Laura

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jokes > J Kent Ashcraft: an open letter to Dr. Laura

"Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?..." "J. Kent Ashcraft"; read more on cite

Parable of The Selfish Drip

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Parable of The Selfish Drip

"Some time in the distant future on a dried greenhouse affected planet, the last of the bottled water was massed on to pallets in huge warehouses. In one back corner of one warehouse, the years went by, and the bottled water evolved intelligence. But these waters became bored and restless with life. Each bottle was a sophisticated individual, but there was an undercurrent feeling that there should be more. They wondered about the meaning of liquidity and how to find the inspiration for further advancement. Together they formed a learned University, and decided to look into their ancestry, to see if any answers lay there. ..." --Dr. Beetle; read more on cite

Seeds of Deception

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Seeds of Deception

"On May 23, 2003, President Bush proposed an Initiative to End Hunger in Africa[1] using genetically modified (GM) foods. He also blamed Europe’s “unfounded, unscientific fears” of these foods for thwarting recovery efforts. Bush was convinced that GM foods held the key to greater yields, expanded U.S. exports, and a better world. His rhetoric was not new. It had been passed down from president to president, and delivered to the American people through regular news reports and industry advertisements.

The message was part of a master plan that had been crafted by corporations determined to control the world’s food supply. This was made clear at a biotech industry conference in January 1999, where a representative from Arthur Anderson Consulting Group explained how his company had helped Monsanto create that plan. ..." Jeffrey M. Smith, "Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating"; read excerpt on cite

Beware the Fossil Fools

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Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Beware the fossil fools

"...The scientific community has reached a consensus," the government's chief scientific adviser, Professor David King, told the House of Lords last month. "I do not believe that amongst the scientists there is a discussion as to whether global warming is due to anthropogenic effects.

It is man-made and it is essentially [caused by] fossil fuel burning, increased methane production... and so on." Sir David chose his words carefully. There is a discussion about whether global warming is due to anthropogenic (man-made) effects. But it is not - or is only seldom - taking place among scientists. It is taking place in the media, and it seems to consist of a competition to establish the outer reaches of imbecility. ..." George Monbiot, The Guardian Unlimited; read more on cite

The Fed As Lifeblood

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The Fed Is Lifeblood to the Root of Evil

"Central banking is perhaps the most brilliant scam ever perpetrated, and the U.S. Federal Reserve stands as the most successful of all central banks in history. The Fed is able to transfer wealth away from the people who earned it, and into the hands of the Federal Government and member banks, relentlessly, stealthily, year after year, and all the while maintaining the preposterous claim of social benefit in the form of “managing the economy.” The method of this theft is sophisticated and disguised enough as to escape the attention of most, and when combined with propaganda, leads most people to the conclusion that we’d be in trouble without it. Yet I wish to show here that central banking can be well understood by most people for exactly what it is – the fraudulent theft of trillions of dollars via the monopolization of money. ..." Andrew "Ace" Baker; Strike The Root; read more on cite

A Temporary Coup

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A Temporary Coup

"The U.S. is now waging three wars, says intelligence expert Thomas Powers. One is in Iraq. The second is in Afghanistan. And the third is in Washington -- an all-out war between the White House and the nation's own intelligence agencies.

Powers, the author of "Intelligence Wars: American Secret History From Hitler to Al Qaeda," charges that the Bush administration is responsible for what is perhaps the greatest disaster in the history of U.S. intelligence. From failing to anticipate 9/11 to pressuring the CIA to produce bogus justifications for war, from abusing Iraqi prisoners to misrepresenting the nature of Iraqi insurgents, the Bush White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies they corrupted, coerced or ignored have made extraordinarily grave errors which could threaten our national security for years. By manipulating intelligence and punishing dissent while pursuing an extreme foreign-policy agenda, Bush leaders have set spy against U.S. spy and deeply damaged America's intelligence capabilities.

"It's a catastrophe beyond belief. Going into Afghanistan was inevitable, and in my opinion the right thing to do. But everything since then has been a horrible mistake," Powers says. "The CIA is politicized to an extreme. It's under the control of the White House. Tenet is leaving in the middle of an unresolved political crisis -- what really amounts to a constitutional crisis." ..." --Mark Follman, Salon; read more on cite

The New Blue Gold

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AlterNet: EnviroHealth: The New Blue Gold

"...In their third collaborative documentary film after the successes of Blacks and Jews (1997) and Secrets of Silicon Valley (2001), Bay Area-based filmmaking duo Deborah Kaufman and Snitow take an unflinching and multifaceted look at water privatization in Bolivia, India, Japan and the U.S.

What Kaufman and Snitow find is that the "water rush" is likely to turn into one of the most volatile and potentially galvanizing issues of the 21st century.

"This is an incredible struggle, and yet it's still so far below the radar that we're trying to give it a voice," Kaufman says. "People are already willing to die for [water], but it's something that many of us still take for granted."

The grab for corporate control of water is indeed already here in our own backyards. But the conflict over water supplies perhaps most familiar to news-savvy audiences is the place where Thirst goes first: to Cochabamba, Bolivia. After the country auctions off the water system of its third-largest city to U.S.-based Bechtel Corporation in 1999, residents experience water price hikes of 30-300%, and the situation eventually erupts in a cross-class protest that makes headline news worldwide.

By April 2000, the government responds to civil unrest by declaring martial law. Shortly thereafter, Victor Hugo Daza, a 17-year-old peaceful protester, is shot dead in the streets by a government sniper.

Daza's death doesn't quell dissent the way it was intended to. In fact, protests heat up to the point that water consortium execs beat a hasty retreat, and Cochabamba's water system gets handed over to a community-run utility. In an unlikely turn of events, the citizens actually get what they want; water gets treated like a human right, not as the last frontier of the commercialization and privatization of earth's natural resources. ..." -- By Silja J.A. Talvi, AlterNet; read more on cite

"They're on the defensive in the global South," Kaufman explains. "In many ways, they're ahead of us responding to what's in the near future for all of us."

Unnecessary Circumcision

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The Case Against Circumcision

"...History shows that the arguments in favor of circumcision are questionable. At the beginning of this century, one of the reasons given for circumcision was to decrease masturbation, which was thought to lead to insanity and other "morbid" conditions. We now know that circumcision does not prevent masturbation, nor does masturbation lead to insanity.

More recently, circumcision was promoted as a means of preventing cervical cancer in the man's sexual partners; this notion has been proved incorrect.4 The current excuses are that failure to remove the foreskin may contribute to urinary tract infections and penile cancer, but neither of these contentions has been proved. Performing 100 mutilative surgeries to possibly prevent one treatable urinary tract infection is not valid preventive medicine - it is just another excuse. Penile cancer occurs in older men at a rate of approximately 1 per 100,000. The idea of performing 100,000 mutilating procedures on newborns to possibly prevent cancer in one elderly man is absurd. Applying this type of reasoning to women would seem to lead to the conclusion that breast cancer should be prevented by removing the breasts at puberty...."

"...One thousand years ago, the Jewish sage Maimonides said that the effect of circumcision was "to limit sexual intercourse, and to weaken the organ of generation as far as possible, and thus cause man to be moderate...for there is no doubt that circumcision weakens the power of sexual excitement, and sometimes lessens the natural enjoyment; the organ necessarily becomes weak when...deprived of its covering from the beginning. Our sages say distinctly: it is hard for a woman, with whom an uncircumcised [man] had sexual intercourse, to separate from him."5

Infants are routinely circumcised without anesthesia. In the past few years, scientific papers have demonstrated that infants' responses to pain are similar to those of adults, indicating that babies do indeed experience pain.6 This is supported by the fact that the quality of an infant's cry is appallingly different at circumcision...." --George C. Denniston, MD, MPH, "Unnecessary Circumcision", NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers); read more on cite

Depleted Uranium: Dirty Bombs, Dirty Missiles, Dirty Bullets

by Leuren Moret

" Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation.

"And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press that “Gulf-era veterans” now on medical disability since 1991 number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period.

"This week the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb” on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months. ..." --by Leuren Moret, Truthout; read more on cite

NWO Weapons can Trigger Climate Change

by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa

"The important debate on global warming under UN auspices provides but a partial picture of climate change; in addition to the devastating impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the ozone layer, the World's climate can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated "non-lethal weapons." Both the Americans and the Russians have developed capabilities to manipulate the World's climate.

"In the US, the technology is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) as part of the ("Star Wars") Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). Recent scientific evidence suggests that HAARP is fully operational and has the ability of potentially triggering floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction. Potentially, it constitutes an instrument of conquest capable of selectively destabilising agricultural and ecological systems of entire regions.

"While there is no evidence that this deadly technology has been used, surely the United Nations should be addressing the issue of "environmental warfare" alongside the debate on the climatic impacts of greenhouse gases..." --Michel Chossudovsky; read more on cite

Comedians For Routine Change

--Swami Beyondananda

Dear Fellow Funnypeople,

With the exception of the religious right and companies like Halliburton, the only others who have benefited from the Bush Presidency have been the comedians. But the richness of material that’s been “killing” audiences for the past four years, well it seems to be killing democracy, the economy and the environment as well. That’s why I am asking fellow comics, cartoonists, humor writers and speakers to “stand up and take a stand” and join with Comedians for Routine Change. If America changes her regime this year, we will gladly change our routine next year...." Swami Beyondananda (and other comic signers); read more on site

Link: Comedians For Routine Change.

Twilight at Easter

by Jared Diamond

...Why were Easter Islanders so foolish as to cut down all their trees, when the consequences would have been so obvious to them? This is a key question that nags everyone who wonders about self-inflicted environmental damage. I have often asked myself, "What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?" Like modern loggers, did he shout "Jobs, not trees!"? Or: "Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we'll find a substitute for wood"? Or: "We need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature"?...Jared Diamond, New York Review of Books; read more on cite.

HAARP Quad All-Sky Imager

Link: HAARP Quad All-Sky Imager.

This tool shows earth images of HAARP activity; it's produced by the HAARP group and the viewer can input their own date and time and see the imagery for that day.

9-11Plot

Link: 9-11Plot.

You might think you're crazy for reading this but rest assured that there are many more than the millions of Americans and the 525 links posted here that don't think you're crazy. They think it's about time you got the insight to just look a little more closely at the convenient cavalcade of coincidences and unexplained facts, studies, observations and inconsistencies in the ' Official ' 9/11 story.
You might think I'm crazy to suggest that the 9/11 attacks were planned, schemed and executed Black-Ops military attack disguised as war games, based on a plot perpetrated by the PNAC; copied from Operation Northwoods, and managed by PNAC signator Cheney; who, in an unprecedented move was put solely in charge of five war games exercises involving hijacked planes at the exact same time the WTC attacks were occurring and who had also; three months beforehand, in another unprecedented move been put in charge of all NORAD military responses in the event of any attack though when asked, he lied and claimed it was the President who had to make any decisions about responses; but he was inaccessible; cowering in a room full of 8 year olds and he didn't want to alarm them, ( how conveeenient ) ; so instead of being whisked out of there, he stayed, making nervous jokes, chewing on his lip, putting his foot in his mouth and staring into space like a stunned rabbit, while people jumped to their deaths from the burning, undefended, WTC Twin Towers.

Just ask ONE question.
" How did ALL THREE of those buildings just fall down in their own footprints, from a sheetrock and office furniture fire; two at freefall speed and the other IN A VACUUM !! ? "

Or better yet;
" WHY??!! "

What is the Victor Diamond Project

Link: .http://www.wildlandsleague.org/display.aspx?pid=231&cid=233

The Victor Diamond Project is a massive diamond mine being proposed by the DeBeers diamond conglomerate in northeastern Ontario near Attawapiskat on James Bay. This region is part of one of the largest, intact wilderness areas left on earth and currently has no industrial development.

Aerosol Crimes & Cover-Up

Link: Aerosol Crimes & Cover-Up.
Clifford C. Carnicom - 2007

[This article has photos of both the anomalous "cloud" activity and a clear set of control photos of a normal vapor trail, and the comparison of the two in a single post makes it easier to agree that "something" untoward/unexplained is going on. Ed..]

A significant set of observations has taken place. On Mother's Day and the day following of 2007, another major aerosol operation was conducted over the skies of the Santa Fe, New Mexico region. A more detailed visual examination of some of these emissions has been made; mechanical, artificial and systematic introduction of the aerosols appears evident. There are two primary observed anomalies at this time: the first of these is the presence of what may be referred to as "core tracks" (ribbon-like; possibly filamentous in nature) and the second is the repeated presence of a characteristic "pulse" emission. The behavior and character of these anomalies is now being presented and an adequate basis for further examination exists with this article. These characteristics are completely out of accordance with any claims of meterological discontinuities in the atmosphere, any uniform fluid or gas dynamic analysis, and any unmodified combustive process. Read More: Link: Aerosol Crimes & Cover-Up.

Location...Location...Location

Link: Location...Location...Location.

Booker Harris and his wife Allie are not household names     . There has been no round the clock coverage of Mr.Booker, age 91, who     was deposited in a lawn chair, in front of the Superdome, during Katrina.     Mr. Booker died there of dehydration , shock, neglect,  and racism of the     first order. Allie, age 93,  his frail wife, sat  at his  side munching     on crackers, unaware of her surroundings,  or the death of her husband.

Deadly Immunity

Link: Deadly Immunity.

When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data -- and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic. by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.