of
If we don’t change,
we don’t grow.
If we don’t grow,
we are not really living.
Growth demands
a temporary surrender of security.
– Gail Sheehy
Author: Jeff Fenske Page 613 of 614
From: Los Angeles Times, 3/31/08
The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn. …
The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives have since taken.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuTcRg_AKA8]
From News with Views
America’s most celebrated jurist, Daniel Webster (himself a dedicated Christian man), said, “God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.” Obviously, Christian men down through our history have personally and collectively shown themselves more than willing to “guard and defend” our liberties. From Bunker Hill to the Alamo, Christian men stood tall in the defense of America’s freedom. So, it is more than a little disconcerting to realize that there is a sizeable percentage of today’s Christians who seem completely unwilling to “guard and defend” liberty in these United States of America.
Oh, I know that almost all of our pastors and church leaders will laud and honor a young Christian man’s decision to join our armed forces and go overseas to fight enemies abroad. But when it comes to opposing those within our own country who seek to dismantle constitutional government or the principles of liberty, their support for resistance turns to apathy and indifference. (The reason for this couldn’t be because they simply don’t want to do the hard work, could it? Please tell me it ain’t so!)
I have even had Christians tell me that we should not oppose any attempts to resist draconian developments within our country, because doing so would actually be resisting God. The reasoning goes something like this: “The Bible says things will get worse and worse. Therefore, all this ‘bad’ stuff happening is God’s will, and if we try to prevent it, we are fighting against God’s will.” I know it sounds incredible, but we might be shocked as to the number of professing Christians that actually subscribe to such nonsense.
Isn’t it interesting, however, that these same Christians did not believe we were fighting against God’s will when we sent hundreds of thousands of U.S. military forces (many of them Christians) to fight and destroy the evil regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq? If things are supposed to get worse and worse and we would be opposing God’s will by resisting, why should we interfere in Iraq? Why should we send troops to Afghanistan, if we are not to resist evil?
And, of course, the bigger question is, If it is right to resist evil in a foreign country half way around the world, why is it not right to resist evil in our own country?
From: 60 Minutes
An innocent man held as a terror detainee for years tells Scott Pelley, in his first U.S. television interview, how Americans tortured him in Afghanistan and then at Guantanamo Bay.
… He told 60 Minutes that American troops held his head underwater.
“They used to beat me when my head is underwater. They beat me into my stomach and everything,” he says.
“They were hitting you in the stomach while you’re head was underwater so that you’d have to take a breath?” Pelley asks. …
Kurnaz says the Americans used a device to shock him with electricity that made his body go numb. And he says he was hoisted up on chains suspended by his arms from the ceiling of an aircraft hangar for five days.
“Every five or six hours they came and pulled me back down. And the doctor came to watch if I can still survive to not. He looked into my eyes. He checked my heart. And when he said okay, then they pulled me back up,” Kurnaz says. …
At Guantanamo Kurnaz says he endured endless months of interrogations, beatings at the hands of soldiers in riot gear, and physical cruelty which included going without sleep for weeks and solitary confinement for up to a month in cells that were sealed without ventilation or were set up to punish him with extreme conditions.
“It’s dark inside. No lights. And they can punish you in isolation by coldness or by the heat. They have special air conditioners over there. Very strong. They can turn it very cold or very hot,” Kurnaz says.
From: Realtime with Bill Maher, 3/28/08
MAHER: We have to bring on our “Real Time” Real Reporter. … Let me ask you quickly, because you’re a radical—[laughter]—have you ever said, “G__ D___ America”? Because I think that’s the worst thing they find this guy said – “G__ D___ America!” Because I watch the TV – “the TV,” what am I, eighty? [laughter]—I watch the TV. [laughter] But I watch TV, and about three times a week, I see something going on where I feel – I say something akin to that. Because this country is so greedy and so…
DAN SAVAGE: Who hasn’t said, “G__ D___ blank” about things that they [love] – I’ve said, “G__ D___ my mother” when she’s gotten on my nerves.
MAHER: [overlapping] Right.
SAVAGE: Like, we have a right to curse out the people and things we love the most. [laughter]
MAHER: Right.SAVAGE: What else would make you as angry as the things you love? [applause]
From: Anchorage Daily News
NOME — An unidentified man driving a snowmachine early Saturday morning crashed into the back of the dog sled driven by two-time Iditarod champion Lance Mackey during the All-Alaska Sweepstakes and seriously injured a key animal in his Comeback Kennel.
Mackey broke down in tears Saturday, telling how his most-prized dog, Zorro, was critically injured as the canine was riding in the sled’s basket from Safety to Nome — less than 22 miles left in the 408-mile race.
“I was flashing them like mad with my headlamp,” Mackey said. “I was shining my headlamp right in his face, but they kept on coming at me.
“The piano, to me, was that escape
from the boredom,
the segregation,
the racism
that existed in the deep south.
I had to fight this constant proclamation
that I was inherently born inferior.
So at 22-years old, I made a decision;
and I told all my friends:
I’ve got enough of civil rights;
I’m not going to hate the white man.
I’m going to the piano,
and I’m gonna create the life that I want to live!
And yes,
music can transform our lives.”
Transcribed by Jeff Fenske from:
“Live from Abbey Road,” the Sundance Channel
From: IBNLive
New Delhi: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama on Saturday alleged that Chinese soldiers disguised as monks were instigating riots in his homeland.
Dalai Lama joined religious leaders of several faiths at the memorial of Mahatama Gandhi, Rajghat, in New Delhi, to pray for those killed in the unrest in Tibet since March 10.
The exiled Tibetan leader told reporters later that he had come to New Delhi to take a course on Buddhist teaching and meditation, but his mind had been much distracted after the Lhasa uprising.
“Since March 10 (when riots begin in Lhasa), I am having the same experience that I had in 1959 (the year he fled to India from Tibet),” he said.
China was disguising its soldiers as monks to give the impression that Tibetans were instigating the riots, he added.
“In one picture, we see a lama holding a sword, but it is not a traditional Tibetan sword. We know that a few hundred soldiers have been dressed like monks,” said the Dalai Lama….
Related: 2 Sources Confirm Dalai Lama’s Claim: ‘China Cloaking Soldiers as Monks to Incite Riots’
From: George Washington’s Blog
Note: I am not arguing that the hijackers’ names should be cleared or that they are good people who were victimized. Anyone who took a single life on 9/11 is a murderer and a scoundrel. I am, instead, simply asking who the true masterminds of 9/11 were, and who provided the resources to carry out the plan.
__________________________
We’ve all seen it on television. The defense attorney argues his client was “entrapped”. That is, that it wasn’t the defendant’s idea to commit the crime, but that the police planted the idea and urged him to do it.
Many of us have heard allegations that post-9/11 arrests of suspected Al Qaeda members were based on very thin information. Did you realize that all or virtually all of these arrests occurred due to entrapment? For example:
• PBS’ Frontline ran a special report focusing on the the alleged Al Qaeda plot in Lodi, California, which showed — based upon interviews with top law enforcement officials involved in the case — that the bust amounted to little more than entrapment and coerced and fabricated confessions from two men who, in fact, had nothing to do with the terrorist group
• The Washington Post ran a story about one alleged threat entitled “Was it a terror sting or entrapment?“, showing that the U.S. government lent material support to the wanna-be terrorists, and put violent ideas in their heads
• Raw Story reports that the alleged terrorist group that is alleged to have planned to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower was non-violent before a government informant infiltrated the group and planted violent ideas in their heads
• There are numerous other instances of entrapment of peaceful or mentally incompetent people who are then arrested as “terrorists” (see this, this and this)
But surely 9/11 was different, right?Also Here
Related: Rockefeller Predicted “Event” To Trigger War Eleven Months Before 9/11
From: Global Research
‘Commercial beehives pollinate over a third of [North]America’s crops and that web of nourishment encompasses everything from fruits like peaches, apples, cherries, strawberries and more, to nuts like California almonds, 90 percent of which are helped along by the honeybees. Without this pollination, you could kiss those crops goodbye, to say nothing of the honey bees produce or the flowers they also fertilize’.1
This essay will discuss the arguments and seriousness pertaining to the massive deaths and the decline of Bee colonies in North America. As well, it will shed light on a worldwide hunger issue that will have an economical and ecological impact in the very near future.
There are many reasons given to the decline in Bees, but one argument that matters most is the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and “Terminator Seeds” that are presently being endorsed by governments and forcefully utilized as our primary agricultural needs of survival. I will argue what is publicized and covered by the media is in actuality masking the real forces at work, namely the impact of genetically modified seeds on the reproduction of bee colonies across North America.
From: News with Views
A friend recently turned me on to the CBS television series, Jericho. I watch so little network television that I confess to never having seen the show before this week. Obviously, then, I am quite uninformed as to the overall plot and previous episodes. What I saw Tuesday evening, however, stunned me. Why? Because it very aptly depicted what could become a very real-life scenario for these United States in the not-so-distant future.
If I accurately picked up the basic plot of the show, average, freedom-loving citizens in the Western U.S. are fighting against tyrannical elements of their own government, including military forces. The State of Texas has declared its independence from the corrupt new government and another civil war is breaking out in America. And all this was predicated upon a nuclear attack, which some believed was an inside job. Am I close?
Contributing further to my amazement was the way Jericho used real-life political events to depict America’s fall into tyranny. I was flabbergasted to see the characters of Jericho refer to the Continuity of Government act as the foundation for the government’s declaration of martial law after the nuclear attack had occurred.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Continuity of Government (COG) act is not television make-believe: it is the real deal.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esehfmzza1c]
From: Ron Paul 2008
Alaska is Ron Paul Country
The news was buzzing earlier in the week with stories of our successes in last weekend’s Missouri caucuses. You can still find reports on that coverage on our Daily Dose campaign blog.
There is also much good news to report from Alaska, where the hard work, dedication, and great attitude of Ron Paul supporters resulted in several planks being added to the official Alaskan Republican Party platform. Several resolutions, which will stand for the next two years, were also agreed upon.
From: Ron Paul Alaskans
Chris McGraw: Ron Republicans Report!
This is what Chris wrote on Saturday night after returning from the Convention:
The Alaskan Republican Party State Convention took place in Anchorage from March 13th to 15th. I just got back home. This is my informal report.
There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 to 360 total delegates to the State Convention, as I recall (I don’t remember the exact number and I could be significantly wrong on that).
As you may have heard, the Alaskan Ron Paulites were very organized and aggressive during our February 5th and 9th district conventions. We organized state-wide to crash the Republican convention, passed amazing platform changes and resolutions, and got a lot of us elected as delegates to the State Convention. After those successful district conventions, we kept working hard to organize and prepare for the State Convention. All told, we were able to secure 105 delegates to State, or roughly 30% of the total by my estimation. While we were not a majority, this made us a force to be reckoned with.
From: The Guardian
They are some of the most extravagant headgear in the animal kingdom, but a moose’s antlers are not just for show. Scientists believe they act as elaborate hearing aids that help males to find calling females.
A study has found that the antlers’ sound-gathering qualities boost the hearing of the animals by 19%.
Moose, which are called elk in Europe, are well-known for their impressive hearing. Their ears are more than 60 times larger than those of a human, and their calls can travel nearly two miles.
Scientists had previously suspected the antlers helped with locating mates because males with them were found to be better able to locate females than those without.
George Bubenik, of the University of Guelph, Ontario, and his son Peter, of Cleveland State University in Ohio, decided to test the antler amplifier hypothesis by using a moose skull and a fake ear made by a TV special effects team.
The two scientists put a microphone inside the fake ear, placed between the sweeping Alaskan moose antlers.
From: BlackListedNews.com
The patent actually reads this:
Upon activation of the electric shock device, through receipt of an activating signal from the selectively operable remote control means, the passenger wearing that particular bracelet receives the disabling electrical shock from the electric shock device. Accordingly, the passenger becomes incapacitated for a few seconds or perhaps a few minutes, during which time the passenger can be fully subdued and handcuffed, if necessary. Depending on the type of transmission medium used to send the activating signal, other passengers may also become temporarily incapacitated, which is undesirable and unfortunate, but may be unavoidable.
From: 60 Minutes, March 23, 2008
(CBS) You’ve probably heard of soccer player David Beckham, but what might surprise you is that with the possible exception of Tiger Woods, the 32-year-old Englishman is the most well-known and well-compensated athlete in the world. …
While his career has been marked by stunning victories, there’ve also been very public failures. In 1998, Beckham was ejected from the World Cup for a kick against an opposing player. England lost the match against rivals Argentina and was eliminated from the tournament. Almost everyone in England blamed it on Beckham. His family was harassed, and he received death threats.
“There was a sort of dummy of me with an England shirt on, with a noose around, hung up outside a pub in England,” Beckham remembers.
Asked if the English take soccer too seriously, Beckham tells Cooper, “I’m not sure I’d say they take it too seriously. But, you know, sometimes it oversteps the mark. Like I played in European championships two years later, and as I was walking off the pitch, some England fans shouted up, ‘I hope your child dies of cancer.'”
Beckham’s reaction? He gave them the finger.
“It was reported at the time of me just being, you know, my petulant self. Until the actual truth came out about what people had shouted at me,” Beckham says.
From: Anchorage Daily News
Blessed by an early spring, Palmer Golf Course opened 18 holes with two temporary greens on Friday.
Word spread quickly. On Friday, about 50 players showed up, Palmer director of golf George Collum estimated. By Saturday, as many 80 were on the course — including one who buried an early-season eagle.
“It’s very early,” Collum said Saturday. “We opened in 2002 on the 28th of March. This is a week earlier, but we’re opening all 18 holes this time.” …
Collum said this is the course’s earliest opening.
From: News with Views
If you should see this amazing floating pile of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, it’s called “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” It features three million tons of plastic debris floating in an area larger than Texas. An eye-popping 46,000 pieces of plastic float on every square mile of ocean! Humans toss another 2.5 million pieces into our oceans hourly.
MP3 of George Noory’s Ron Paul Interview
3/24/08
From: Coast to Coast AM
Schedule for 03.24.08 – 03.28.08
Hosted by
George NooryGuest(s)
David Orrell, Ron PaulMonday, March 24
First Hour: Congressman Ron Paul will talk about limited constitutional gov’t, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies, as well as discuss his 2008 presidential bid. Dr. Paul will also take questions.Next up, mathematician and author David Orrell will discuss the limits of scientific prediction and how chaos theory and complexity limit our ability to predict weather, health and wealth.
Hosted by
George NooryGuest(s)
Jon BiloonTuesday, March 25
Subsistence Farmer in Hawaii who as studied alternative agriculture, Jon Biloon will discuss the dangers of Genetically Modified Foods and how Agri-business is robbing individuals of health, spirituality and sovereignty.[…]
Coast to Coast AM is live nightly from 10pm to 2am Pacific.
From: Democracy Now
MAX FRAAD WOLFF: …I take a bit of an issue with the description that Bear Stearns was bailed out. Everybody Bear Stearns does business with was bailed out. Bear Stearns was taken out by the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan, which then served Bear Stearns’s still-warm remains to JPMorgan Chase [one of the owners of the “Federal” Reserve – ed.]. …
NOMI PRINS: … So when I was talking to my old friends there and my old colleagues there, I was getting comments like, you know, this is like getting literally punched in the face. This is like—one of the fellows who runs one of the areas said, “You know what? This is literally like having, you know, a child die. It’s like being raped.” It’s all of these things. You know, you leave work on Friday after the stock is down $30, you come in on Monday morning, having heard Sunday that you’re being taken out at $2 a share, and you know. And one of the guys in there who actually kind of was knowing what was going on said, you know, this was the government shutting us down.
So, as Max was saying, a bailout is one way to look at—the Fed bailed part of the banking industry out by shutting down Bear Stearns and coming in there to look like it was saving the day.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k94VWPjUQSM]
From: WorldNetDaily
Despite the varied theories espoused by many establishment economists, it was none other than the Federal Reserve that caused the Great Depression and the horrific suffering, deprivation and dislocation America and the world experienced in its wake. At least, that’s the clearly stated view of current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.
From: Anchorage Daily News
The color of night is about to change.
In a move expected to save millions, improve nighttime visibility and make it easier to see the stars, the city plans to phase out its 16,500 pinkish-orange streetlights and replace them with energy-efficient white lights. In this northern metropolis, where residents live so much of their lives under artificial light, the switch means seeing everything differently.
“The one thing about the orange light, it makes everything fuzzier. White light, it makes everything crisper,” said Nancy Clanton, a Boulder, Colo., street lighting expert helping with the new lighting plan.
Light planners are also looking at ways to make street light more precise. What if lights dimmed slowly, responding to the rising sun? Is there a way to keep them from shining into bedroom windows? How many subtle undulations of northern lights could we see if we dampened Anchorage’s nighttime glow? …
The city’s light replacement plan, one of the most ambitious in the nation, … would probably happen gradually as traditional lights burn out…. Streetlights burn out every three to four years.