The politics of greed is what keeps this world wrapped in corruption. If you want to stick around for a while longer, I suggest you educate yourself and try to do something constructive to help save what little good, honesty, and trust we have left.

A motto for us old vets: Take one with you!

Use your Go Back and Go Forward commands to get to where you were in a previous file.

Go to Home

Highest Go To numbers are the latest Links of all coruption pages.


Go to 13455
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=9523
Senior Bush Administration Figures Leaving
05-28-2008
Washington Post

With eight months left in President Bush's term, scores of senior officials already are heading for the exits, leaving nearly half the administration's top political positions vacant or filled by temporary appointees, federal statistics show.

More than 200 pending nominations are languishing on Capitol Hill, bogged down in political fights between Democrats and the White House.

At the same time, agencies have begun preparing for a new administration, including plans to temporarily install career employees in senior positions at the Department of Homeland Security during the transition. The White House also has taken the unusual step of ordering federal agencies to stop proposing regulations after Sunday -- meaning that new rules on issues including greenhouse gases and air-traveler protection are unlikely to be finalized before Bush leaves office.

In many ways, the work slowdown and higher appointee turnover is typical of any changing of the political guard in Washington. But the process now occurs over years rather than months, and experts say it threatens to hamper the important work of agencies, whether it be improving public health, promoting affordable housing, fighting crime or providing for the nation's security.

"You've got almost two years of pure chaos," said Paul C. Light, an expert on the federal bureaucracy at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service. "The civil servants don't know who they're supposed to be talking to. They're receiving no direction. Congress isn't being talked to. The president isn't really doing anything. It's really a highly vulnerable time for running a government."

Many experts say it is an especially bad time for vacancies, with two wars being waged abroad and a housing crisis and slumping economy at home. David E. Lewis, an assistant professor at Princeton University who has just written a book on presidential appointments, noted that the botched response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was exacerbated by high turnover and vacancies at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"If you told people on Wall Street that every four years or eight years, you were going to lop off the top of a Fortune 500 company and say the company would operate normally, you'd be called crazy," Lewis said. "There is no question that it matters. Turnover and vacancies in politically appointed positions hurts performance."

Scandal has thinned the administration's ranks, as well. Dozens of appointee jobs have become vacant since ethical crises at the General Services Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Justice Department, to name a few.

White House officials say some departures are expected during any president's final year. But they accuse Democrats of making the problem worse by failing to approve nominations. The conflict came to a head last week when Senate leaders and the White House blamed each other for the collapse of a deal Thursday to approve 80 political and career appointees, including the new housing secretary.

"In the last year of an administration, it's reasonable that people would seek jobs outside the federal government," said White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore. "We work to fill these vacancies, but Congress has not moved on them in a timely manner."

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), said the White House has been slow to nominate replacements and has proved incapable of locking up the support of Senate Republicans for deals to bring packages of nominees up for a vote. He said last week's deal collapsed when a Republican senator balked.

"I have always thought, in my dealings around here, when we work something out, that is the agreement," Reid said on the Senate floor Thursday night. "But at the last minute, somebody steps in and says, 'That isn't quite good enough.' . . . That is not the way we should be doing business."

Among the most beleaguered agencies is Housing and Urban Development. The department has been reeling since the resignation of Secretary Alphonso Jackson in March after allegations of cronyism and inattention to the rising wave of mortgage failures.

The president's nominee for the job, Small Business Administration chief Steven C. Preston, appeared last week before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. But efforts to fast-track a confirmation vote fell through.

Other top vacancies at HUD include assistant secretary for community planning and development, assistant secretary for public and Indian housing assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental relations, and president of the Government National Mortgage Association.

"What we need is really strong leadership in these positions," said Linda Couch, deputy director of the nonpartisan National Low Income Housing Coalition. "The problems don't go away just because there is not someone there to fix them."

Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), a member of the housing committee, said the vacancies are "unacceptable."

"This committee must share blame," Allard said during the confirmation hearing for Preston. "These nominations have been languishing for months."

At the Justice Department, five of seven senior positions have been filled by acting officials since the departure of former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales, who resigned amid controversy over the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who argues cases before the Supreme Court, just announced his resignation, as well.

At the Treasury Department, vacancies exist for the deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis and the senior adviser to the assistant secretary for economic policy. The department has an acting inspector general who is awaiting Senate confirmation. Several top positions for career officials also are open.

Eileen Gilligan, a Treasury spokeswoman, said that the total number of vacancies is "low for us," and that "they are not affecting the department's work, because we have plenty of good people covering the work for those vacant positions."

Leonard E. Burman, a public finance expert at the Urban Institute who served as deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis in the Clinton administration, said unfilled positions do not go unnoticed.

"It's probably important for the morale of the staff, because if there are no replacements for senior-level positions and none in the wings, then it suggests that they are kind of irrelevant," Burman said. "It does kind of signal that the work of that office is kind of shutting down."

At the Department of Health and Human Services, the country has been without a permanent surgeon general since Richard H. Carmona's term expired in July 2006. Two men have held the post on an acting basis since then. The current occupant, Steven K. Galson, is a respected career public health official who has served in senior-level positions at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the Food and Drug Administration.

Bush nominated former Kentucky state health director James W. Holsinger Jr. for the job in May 2007, but his nomination stalled in the Senate.

The lack of a permanent leader matters, said Jerry Farrell, executive director of the Commissioned Officers Association, a nonprofit group that represents more than 7,000 current and retired officers of the U.S. Public Health Service. "As the acting guy, he doesn't have the heft, the authority, that a permanent appointee would have," Farrell said.

HHS also lacks a permanent head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which serves more than 94 million Americans and oversees $653 billion in entitlement spending annually. Kerry Weems, the acting administrator of the agency, was nominated by Bush in May 2007 but has never come up for a confirmation vote.

Even at the White House, the president's three-member Council of Economic Advisers has only one confirmed member, Chairman Edward P. Lazear. The nomination for acting member Donald Marron has stalled for nearly a year. The third seat remains empty after a nominee withdrew his name.



Go to 13454
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=9525
South America Considers Common Currency
05-28-2008
Gulf Times

South America is thinking of creating a common currency and a central bank along the lines of those in the European Union’s eurozone, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said yesterday.

The idea is a logical next step following the signing last Friday of a treaty creating a Union of South American States that aims to promote joint regional customs and defense policies, Lula said during his weekly radio broadcast.

“Many things still haven’t been realised. We are now going to create a Bank of South America. We are going to move forward so in the future we’ll have a single central bank, a common currency,” he said.

But, he added: “This is a process. It won’t be something that happens quickly.”

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela all signed up to the Unasur treaty creating the regional union during a ceremony in Brasilia last Friday.

The entity’s goal is to bring together two trade blocs within South America, Mercosur and the Andean Community, and to integrate the region.

Brazil is also pushing for a regional defence council that could be used as a forum to settle inter-regional disputes as well as formulate joint policies.

Lula said the creation of Unasur was “the realisation of a dream,” and evidence of remarkable economic and political progress South American nations have made in recent decades.

Brazil, Latin America’s biggest economy, has taken the lead in the new entity.

But Colombia, the strongest US ally in South America and a country often at odds with neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador, has decided not to join.

Lula stated that “nobody can think of this as a crisis” in the nascent bloc, noting that several EU nations also opted out from aspects of European integration such as adopting the euro. - AFP



Go to 13453
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=9534
Ford To Cut 12% Of Salaried Jobs
05-28-2008
Reuters

Ford Motor plans to cut its U.S. salaried work force by up to 12 percent after its turnaround plan stalled because of the downturn in the U.S. economy, the Detroit News reported Wednesday.



Go to 13452
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=33
The Jewification Of America

Dear Friends – THE JEWISH QUESTION has been debated ever since England’s “Jew Bill of 1753,” which dealt with the ability of Jews to integrate within Western Europe. Since that time, Karl Marx, Theodore Herzl, and even John Paul Sartre, have written on the “Jewish Question,” expanding the question into political, religious, and even, “poetic” realms.

~ But on a grass roots level, both past and present, the “Jewish Question” as discussed in taverns, coffee houses, and restaurants, is about the perception people have of Jews existing as a peripheral and disloyal group that is internally cohesive and conspiratory.

~ I would like to tell you what I mean by the term, Jewification. Since the Jews have no culture or ideology of their own, being a people of the Diaspora, and most of them being secular Jews, the term jewification has to do rather with the “agenda” of the Jews. And an agenda they have indeed!

~ To jewify a nation’s culture, (for a nation’s culture does not exist in a vacuum but always has an ideology attached to and informing it), is to have imposed on that culture a “Jewish way of looking at things.”

~ Do we not see this “Jewish way of looking at things” through the Mass Media funneling down into the general culture? How many times have you heard the expression, “Oy Vey!” as if this is a pleasant expression and contributes to the culture of our society? Or how many times did a fellow worker come up to you and ask, “Would you like to hear a good Jewish joke?” And it’s all so lighthearted and so enriching is it not? And then we turn on Seinfeld at night and the skinny Jew boy makes us laugh and feel so good about being allowed entry into the Jewish way of looking at things.

~ Have you seen the cover of this week’s Newsweek? The hideous looking Jewish face of Alan Greenspan who is laughing all the way to his and his Rothschild friends’ privately-owned Federal Reserve Bank which is charging interest on loans of printed money to us Americans up the gazoo, is leering at us from this red fluorescent cover of the Jewish-owned Newsweek. It almost prompts an American, or better yet, a Christian, to fling his arms up in the air, and then with the right hand making a projected fist, to say, “Enough is enough already of these Jews!”

~ The Jewification of America began almost as soon as the Jews got off the boat in America in the late 1800s. Yes, the Jews came over because good ‘ol Christian America opened its arms to the persecuted and “innocent” Jews fleeing the pogroms of Russia! “Oh we are so persecuted everywhere we go!” say the Jews. But did any of us ever ask just why the Jews are “so persecuted everywhere they go?” Is it perhaps that the host nations in which they were once welcomed also had plenty of reasons to proclaim, “Enough is enough already of these Jews?”

~ In Henry Ford’s, The International Jew, written in the 1920’s, he outlines the beginnings of the Anti Christian Jews’ attempts to jewify America by first eradicating Christianity from public life. He writes, “The Jews’ determination to wipe out of public life every sign of the predominant Christian character of the United States, is the only active form of religious intolerance in our nation today.”

~ You see, before the Jews could impose their way of looking at things and how we should act thereby, they first had to get the Christian way of looking at things out of the way. And so they began their systematic process of wiping out Christianity from our nation’s culture by intimidating and bribing judges to rule that praying and reading the Bible in our schools, (made up of mostly Christian folk), is “Unconstitutional.”
[ For a list of the Jews’ actions beginning in the early 1900s to which Henry Ford was referring, See: http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=24 ]

~ Next came the Jews’ role in bringing America into World War I. Why did Woodrow Wilson, whose friend was the Zionist and his own Supreme Court appointment, Louis Brandeis, suddenly come out in favour of the War in 1916? It was because the Zionist Jews supported by the Rothschilds, sent Chaim Weitzman to Great Britain to strike a deal with Prime Minister Lloyd George.

~ The deal, as recounted by the former Zionist Benjamin Friedman turned Roman Catholic, was the following: Germany had won the war by 1914. Then Germany invited France and Britain to the peace table and said, “Okay, we’ve won, but there will be no losers. Let’s just go back to how things were before.” Germany did this because before the War broke out they had made arrangements with the Ottomans to develop oil fields for them because of their advanced technology. (Are you getting to see the picture here?)

~ So what happens next, the Rothschilds send their pawn, Chaim Weitzman, (probably one of the ugliest men you will ever look at), to Lloyd George and the British parliament with these words, “You don’t have to lose the war. We will bring America into the War through our contacts with Woodrow Wilson. But you’ve got to promise to give us Palestine.” (They did not mention anything about their designs on the oil fields of the Ottoman Empire or did they?). Anyways, from that conversation, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 appeared.

~ Now here’s what happened in America. Woodrow Wilson had a lot of Jews advising him. Wilson was enamored of the Jews, especially when they “helped him out” now and again. More “help” was on its way. The Jews got wind that Woodrow had an illicit affair with a fellow Professor’s wife while teaching at Yale.

~ So they send one of their investment bank boys to him with these words, “Your former mistress is having qualms of conscience about the whole unseemly affair. She would like $40,000 to stop her conscience from bothering her.” After Woodrow gulps and the color of his face changes to a deep reddish hue, the Jew chimes in, “We have arranged to loan you the $40,000 as a contribution to your election campaign.” And no sooner does the Jew make that promise or rather, “blackmail” poor Woodrow, that all of a sudden, good ‘ol Woodrow wants America to enter the War! (And Louis Brandeis, the Zionist Jew, gets appointed to the Supreme Court not too long afterwards.)

[ Read The Speech of Benjamin Friedman @ “A Former Zionist Warns USA” @ http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=13 ]

~ Time does not permit me to go into the Jews’ role in bringing America into World War II. That will be for another article. But what we are seeing now as a consequence of the Jewish efforts to eradicate the “Christian way of looking at things,” is the “Jewish way of looking at things” in full force! How so?

~ First of all, “the Jewish way of looking at things,” begins with their own unspoken approach to life, which is, their obsession with self-preservation. The Jew is a materialist with no aspirations for a life after death. All of their hopes and dreams are invested in the here-and-now. This, coupled with a half conscious guilt for their crimes and misdemeanors against the offended “Goyim”, gives rise to their obsession for self-preservation.

~ The Jews want nothing more than a weakened, impotent culture to exist in. This works to their benefit so that they can take over a society of jaded, passive citizens. Will homosexuality and lesbianism weaken that culture? You better believe it, since the family unit, (which the Jew lives and dies for), is the central component of a strong nation and healthy culture. That’s why you have Jews promoting deviant sexual activity in their synagogues by their token Gay rabbis; in their Newsweeks; in their TV shows; in their New York Times; and in their Hollywood.

~ Will multi-culturism weaken a nation’s culture? You better believe it. For multi-culturism served up, “Jewish Style,” means, multi-religionism. “Diversity Is Our Strength!” reads the slogan penned by the Jewish Madison Avenue boys. But this slogan flys in the face of the saying of one of their own who exhorted, “United we stand, divided we fall.” We all know that a unified idea confers strength, but a plethora of ideas only creates confusion and impotence. Thus we have seen the Jews favouring, promoting, pushing, writing, lobbying for all of the Open Immigration bills, beginning with the Immigration Law of 1965 which opened the flood gates of all kinds of multi-cultural peoples with their multi-religious views.

~ Need I go on and on? We all know that America’s foreign policy is based on the Zionist Dream that every Jew should have a place to escape to — I mean, to live in perfect Jewish freedom! But there ain’t too many of dem Jews here in America who want to live that Zionist Dream – but rather to have our tax money in the billions every single year sent over to Zion for carnage and mutilation of enemy childrens’ faces by fierce hot flaming US made bombs, in order that their great grandchildren may have a place to flee to.

~ One begins to wonder if the Jews will have to wait that long for the flight of their darling little grandchildren to Zion. I have already seen on the street the flinging arms of the offended “Goy” raised in frustration. I think it is only a matter of time before those flinging arms of the offended “Goy” turn into a defiant fist.



Go to 13451
http://www.rense.com/general82/whod.htm
Who Destroyed The WTC?
By D. Cassidy
5-27-8

A Memorial to the millions of innocents who died and will die as a result of September 11, 2001.

"Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence." Henry Kissinger, 1991.

"I can think of no faster way to unite the American people behind George W. Bush than a terrorist attack on an American target overseas." Henry Kissinger, 2000.

"September Eleven was good for Israel" (Benjamin Netanyahu)

Do the following quotes from news reports on the internet, limn a cabal so evil, so dreadful that--"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists."-- J. Edgar Hoover. And it rules Washington absolutely!

The Principals

Lewis Eisenberg, vice president of AIPAC and former Goldman Sachs partner, was Chairman of the Port Authority ("PA"), the Lessor. Larry Silverstein, New York developer and friend of Netanyahu (every Sunday Netanyahu would call Silverstein) led the Silverstein Group, the Lessee. (Italics added.)

In April 2001 Silverstein was informed he had lost his bid in the privatization of the World Trade Center ("WTC"). Then events took a surprising turn. The winner dropped out, leaving Silverstein and his partners, who had finished second, as the new winner.

The Lease

The lease was purchased by the Silverstein Group for $3.2 billion on July 24, 2001. Silverstein put up $125 million, only $14 million his own money. The net lease covers four buildings at the World Trade Center, including the Twin Towers and the retail Mall. It may have been one of the most elaborate deals in the leasing history of New York City.

The speed with which this painstakingly complex deal was closed is notable. "There are a million items that need to be dealt with", said Marc Schauer, of NAI Lawrence, a leasing firm. The entire negotiation period--from start to finish--lasted only a few [3] months, a relatively swift duration in the world of colossal lease transactions especially with a governmental entity. [This frantic rush to close [for possession] by some deadline was the principal cause of the litigation to follow. Why the rush?]

The Property

Chairman Eisenberg said, "The Port Authority and the region both benefit from this transaction." PA Executive Director Neil Levin said, "It was this excellent record of managing the complex that now allows the Port Authority to realize the enhanced value of the complex." Silverstein said. "We will be in control of a prized asset and we will seek to develop its potential, raising it to new heights." [Was that, "raising" or "razing"?]

But from an economic standpoint, the trade center -- subsidized since its inception -- has never functioned, nor was it intended to function, unprotected in the real estate marketplace. It would cost $800 million just to upgrade the electrical, electronic, and cooling systems.

And it was well-known that the WTC was an asbestos bombshell. Plans were made in 1989 to completely dismantle the WTC not only because of the asbestos problems but also the electrolytic corrosion problems. Apparently, the plans were dropped because they were considered prohibitively expensive. The only reason the building was still standing on 9/11 was it was too costly to disassemble floor by floor. There is a persistent report on the internet that either the state of New York or the EPA had ordered the dismantling of the WTC. And dismantling the WTC would not result in the recovery of insurance proceeds since it would not be a casualty.

Why would Silverstein, a knowledgeable real estate developer, pay millions of dollars to get control of a building that was uneconomic, was an environmental basket case, and had serious corrosion problems? Many New York developers had gone bankrupt complying with mandated renovations.

But all of Lucky Larry's problems disappeared on Sept. 11, 2001. Silverstein filed TWO insurance claims for the maximum amount of the policy, based on two, in Silverstein's view, separate attacks. The total potential payout is $7.1 bn., more than enough to build a fabulous new complex and leave a hefty profit for the Silverstein Group, including Larry Silverstein himself. Lucky Larry would also miss his usual breakfast at the Windows on the World restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower and survive that fateful day together with 3,999 of 4,000 Israelis who normally were in the WTC, a statistical anomaly of huge proportions).

The Insurance

The story of the Silverstein insurance program, assembled in the summer of 2001, is so far-fetched that any law professor who dreamed it up would be laughed out of the classroom. Silverstein hired Willis Group Holdings Ltd. to find enough coverage to satisfy his lenders. Willis is a giant insurance broker, specializing in coverage for big commercial properties. Silverstein's lenders insisted on first $2.3 bn. then right before the lease deal closed, $3.55 bn. Willis scrambled to place the insurance, ultimately to 25 carriers. Negotiations were frenetic.

Willis hustled in June and July, contacting carriers in the United States, Europe and Bermuda to place coverage. Willis distributed a sample policy that Willis had developed, the Wilprop form. This form included a specific definition of "occurrence" under which the destruction of the WTC was plainly, a single occurrence. But Willis later testified that it considered it's form a starting point for negotiations after the closing.

On July 24, 2001, Silverstein closed with only binders, slips of coverage and certificates of insurance totaling $3.5 bn. from his insurers ["slips" are binders in Europe]. According to federal Judge Martin, "The New York Court of Appeals has made clear that when a binder is signed, "the contract of insurance is closed and the binder is in effect the same as a regular insurance policy." Swiss Re [a major insurer] asserts that the language used in the binders that it and 21 other insurers signed was the "WilProp" form under which the attack on the WTC is unambiguously a single occurrence.

But Travelers Insurance [CEO Sanford Weill] had a major role to play in the total insurance picture for the WTC. It insisted on using its own form, which did not specifically define "occurrence"; however, its form was not present at closing. Willis needed Travelers to stay in the deal and promised to substitute the Travelers policy after the closing. Only one formal policy was in effect on September 11, 2001.

The developer has often repeated that he would need at least $7 bn. to rebuild the WTC site. But Silverstein chose to insure the entire property for $3.55 bn., half of its true replacement value, to save premiums and declared the full replacement cost for insurance purposes as $3.945 bn. to avoid co-insurance. [Shouldn't this make him a co-insurer under insurance law, sharing half the cost of damages, exactly the reverse of double indemnity?]

The Dispute

Contrary to the express understanding of insurance professionals, Silverstein trumpets at every opportunity that the attack on the WTC was two separate occurrences." Barry Ostrager, an insurer's attorney, weighed in with, "Silverstein's elaborate two-occurrence argument is a hoax. We believe we have established that the Silverstein case is a fiction conceived by lawyers and public relations advisors after Sept. 11, 2001."

Silverstein and Willis now say that all of the insurance companies agreed to and should be held to the terms of the Travelers policy which did not define "occurrence". Swiss Re and a host of other carriers notified Willis that they'd bound coverage on the basis of the WilProp form, and had never agreed to substitute the Travelers form at all. Most of the carriers deny that anyone from Willis ever told them Travelers was replacing WilProp; many said that the first they'd heard of it was after Sept. 11.

When Willis' Boyd called their London office after Sept. 11, he said, according to the notes of one, "In their opinion this is one occurrence." Another broker said something similar to Swiss Re's Bollier. Silverstein's own risk manager hurriedly faxed a copy of portions of the WilProp form to a lawyer for the PA with a cover note: "FYI the 'occurrence' definition and the insuring agreement and the exclusions in the Willis policy that we are working with." Several hours later he sent the same materials to one of Silverstein's lenders.

Building No. 7

WTC 7 occupied a city block north of the WTC complex. Silverstein's estimated investment in WTC 7 was $386 million. FEMA concluded that the collapse of WTC 7 was a direct result of fires triggered by debris from the collapse of WTC Tower 1 which resulted in a payout of nearly $861 million or a profit of about $500 million to Silverstein. Buildings a lot closer to the Twin Towers strangely remained upright.*

Silverstein stated in a PBS documentary that he and the FDNY decided to demolish WTC 7, late in the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001. And the building quickly fell into its own basement. [How did the FDNY know that WTC 7 was prepared for demolition? Did Silverstein? This requires weeks of careful preparation by demolition experts.] Senator John Kerry stated that, WTC 7 was brought down as a result of a controlled demolition, directly contradicting FEMA. So WTC 7 was "pulled" by a controlled demolition, meaning that the FEMA version of what happened is false, casting serious doubt on the official story that terrorists of foreign origin destroyed the WTC as well as on the rest of the official account of 9/11 [and today disbelieved by most Americans and the rest of the world].

The OEM crisis center in WTC 7 has been identified on the internet as the control center for the pre-planned demolition of the WTC. The center and all of the evidence was destroyed when the 47-story tower was completely demolished. So, who decided to build the OEM crisis center in WTC 7? "Jerry Hauer recommended it as the prime site" Mr. Giuliani said. "It was largely on his recommendation that that site was selected."


The Attorneys

On Sept. 13, two days after the towers fell, Silverstein hired top legal gun Herbert Wachtell to defend him in the tangle of litigation sure to come. It was Wachtell, according to Ostrager, who originated the double indemnity theory of two ocurrences. Willis agreed that attorneys John Gross, Eric Roth and Marc Wolinsky could come to New Jersey on Monday, Sept. 17, to talk to the brokers. It was at these meetings that Ostrager claimed that Wachtell exerted "fantastic pressure" on Willis as the lawyers and brokers figured out what to tell the insurance market.

Ostrager claimed repeatedly in the litigation that only after Wachtell Lipton lawyers got involved did Willis witnesses convert to the story that favors Silverstein. He later said they never meant to suggest that Wachtell Lipton lawyers had suborned perjury, merely that in hours of preparing Willis witnesses for deposition, Wachtell Lipton had subtly shaped their recollections and perspectives. Silverstein's attorney, Howard Rubenstein called the statements "a cynical and manipulative attack on Silverstein and an attack on rebuilding lower Manhattan."

Willis was represented at these meetings by Andrew Amer. Amer, who presumably heard the Willis witnesses tell Silverstein's lawyers that the Travelers policy governed the WTC coverage, declined to comment. Gerson of Epstein Becker, the lawyer who replaced Amer soon after those initial meetings rejects any suggestion that Willis witnesses were coerced at the Sept. 17 meeting with Wachtell Lipton lawyers.

The Litigation

In 2002, US District Judge Martin rejected the Silverstein claim "that at the time the insurers signed the binders they were well aware that they were committing to be bound to some future agreement" and granted summary judgment in favor of three insurers who specifically referred to the WilProp form in their binders. Two Bermudan insurance companies also mentioned the WilProp form in their binders and paid only their policy limits. Judge Martin seemed eager for the case to settle, and appointed federal Judge Lewis Kaplan to oversee talks. Judge Martin retired and Judge Mukasey took over.

In May 2004, before Judge Mukasey, a jury decided, with respect to 10 of the remaining insurers were bound by the Wilprop form and only one occurrence had taken place and therefore were only obligated for $2 bn. rather than $4 bn. The jury said that three others insurers were bound by other forms and had to pay double on their claims. Thus, by the Fall of 2004, about $2.4 or $2.5 bn. in insurance proceeds had been awarded to Silverstein. The remaining claims were for either $1.1 or $2.2 bn.

In December 2004, before Judge Mukasey, a second jury held that the remaining nine insurers were not bound by the Wilprop form, thus two occurrences had taken place, holding all nine insurers collectively liable for $2.2 bn. By the dawn of 2005, then, $4.6 bn. was awarded in insurance settlements. This is a far cry from what Silverstein wanted ($7 bn.), but much more than what many pundits thought he would recover ($3.55 bn.). Brooklyn-Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner vowed to punish the insurers with fines or operating restrictions if they do not pay up. [The WTC is in Manhattan.] Both sides appealed.

[A judge can greatly influence a jury by regulating the evidence they receive and the final instructions that guide their decision. The second jury was obviously and totally confounded and overwhelmed by the mass of conflicting evidence and the burden of having to reconstruct the intent of the various parties years after the fact and very dependent on Mukasey's "shepherding".]

In October 2006, the Court of Appeals (Judge Walker) in a 70 page opinion affirmed Judge Mukasey and wrote, "Judge Mukasey did a masterful job shepherding this complex, hotly contested case through both phases of a lengthy jury trial."

Judge Walker opens his opinion with, "whether the coordinated terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, whereby two jetliners separately crashed into the WTC, destroying both buildings, constituted one or two "occurrences" under...multiple insurance contracts." And concludes with, "The jury had before it evidence that none of the remaining nine insurers were bound to the WilProp form... their hours limitation clauses did not specifically refer to losses caused by fire, aircraft, or acts of terrorism...and the destruction of the WTC was caused by separate fires, resulting from separate collisions by separate aircraft into separate buildings."

[Persuasive evidence was allowed from a Silverstein expert as to trade customs in the insurance industry as well as testimony by a Travelers executive as to other claims against Travelers which were treated as separate occurrences. Reading this lengthy opinion, one is struck by the absence of Weill's Travelers as the replacement insurer when the news reports are filled with it.]

Silverstein had spent about $100 million paying lawyers, which critics said was an unconscionable siphoning of money that should have been used for rebuilding but that $100 million produced an additional $1.1 bn. And Silverstein made a huge profit. The Port Authority, after Silverstein won the second case, quietly filed its own lawsuit seeking double indemnity on its own insurance policy.

More Litigation

In 2005, Lloyd's of London filed a lawsuit against the PA, claiming the agency's demands for $2.1 bn. in insurance money to rebuild WTC are unreasonable. The PA has already received $950 million for damages incurred on September 11. The PA and Silverstein are still pressed for money to complete the reconstruction of the WTC and the PA wants to seek damages for two events instead of one, making it eligible for about $1.5 bn. more in insurance money.

In August 2006, seven insurers contended the new ownership of the WTC did not affect their insurance obligations, arguing that the insurers' obligations are intertwined with the litigation that has been ongoing since 2002 . (The PA had taken back ownership of the $2 billion Freedom Tower and Silverstein had assigned the insurance proceeds to the PA to reduce rent payments.) But Judge Mukasey ruled that he lacks jurisdiction to handle the latest lawsuit and sent it back to state court, where it will be handled by Justice Herman Cahn.

In 2007 Silverstein and seven insurance companies agreed to a $2 billion settlement to end an almost six-year dispute over the insurance policies covering the WTC. Governor Eliot Spitzer announced the settlement at a news conference in lower Manhattan, 'The settlement will end all litigation on the issue". Spitzer compared the insurance dispute to a Stanley Cup playoff hockey series in which the two sides play a ``very hard match'' and ``at the end of the series they always shake hands and move on.'' [Forgetting the thousands who died so horribly and were disposed of in a landfill.] New York and PA officials said that the deal removed any uncertainty over how much money would be available for rebuilding and would enable them to obtain private financing for the $9 bn. project. "There's a high level of cooperation," says Travelers counsel Harvey Kurzweil, who, along with his partner Saul Morgenstern, has become a spokesman for the other insurers. [Cynics comment the insurers' litigation was only intended to shelter them from billions in claims by their own shareholders, participants, re-insurers and excess insurers.]

In 2003, Spitzer, then NY Attorney General, got involved behind the scenes and in the courts, filing a amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief on Silverstein's behalf [after the Martin decision in 2002]. The courts ended up agreeing with Spitzer and Silverstein. Spitzer helped mid-wife a fat compromise and an eventual $4.5 billion payout for Silverstein. Requests for comment from Governor Spitzer were ignored.

But the money Silverstein is set to receive from his insurers--$4.6 bn.--is not enough to reconstruct. So much of Silverstein's insurance proceeds have already been spent, there is not enough money to rebuild. The developer has often repeated that he would need at least $7 bn. to rebuild the WTC. Silverstein and the PA had spent more than $1.5 billion of the insurance money already, including more than $500 million for Silverstein's rent to the PA; about $190 million for the PA to buy out Westfield America's retail rights; and more than $700 million to repay Silverstein's lender, GMAC, and to repay Silverstein and his partners most of their equity.

In another case, Judge Harold Baer of the U.S. District Court rejected arguments by Silverstein that it should recover an additional $700 million to make a rebuilt complex safe, modern and politically acceptable. What's most noteworthy is that Judge Baer interpreted the policy language as the insurers thought it was written.

February 2008: The Port Authority lost its right to collect insurance money on the destroyed Twin Towers and much of the WTC when it leased the property two months before the 9/11 terror attacks. Federal Judge Barbara Jones limited claims by the PA to buildings that weren't leased to developer Larry Silverstein. The judge noted Silverstein had his own insurance.

March 2008: Larry Silverstein joined in a suit by the Families of the Victims of 911 and is seeking $12.3 bn. in damages from airlines and airport security companies. He filed the claim in 2004, saying the airlines and airport security companies failed to prevent terrorists from destroying the WTC. The $12.3 bn. represented $8.4 bn. for the replacement value of the destroyed buildings [that he declared for insurance purposes as $3.9 bn.] and $3.9 bn. in other costs, including $100 million a year in rent to the PA and $300 million a year in lost rental income, as well as the cost of marketing and leasing the new buildings. Judge Hellerstein expressed skepticism about Silverstein's claim and asked why he had not stemmed his losses by just "walking away. Any trials in the case appear to be more than a year away.

[Judge Hellerstein also played an important role in the 911 Victims lawsuits, judicially "blackjacking" them into settlements rather than lawsuits.] He ruled out testimony from top government officials raising serious questions as to why the judge would cover up and potentially obstruct government testimony and evidence under oath by key players when it would be in the interests of both parties to the suit.

An atmosphere of intimidation was apparent when an attorney for the victim families explained that his clients wanted a trial not a settlement, to which Hellerstein retorted, "Sit down." The judicial coercion continued, attorney Schiavo told Hellerstein that she was also experiencing problems with "difficult clients" who were adamant about going to trial with full discovery and government witness testimony, to which the judge said, "This is the way it's going to be. Go back and you tell them we are going to settle, period." Hellerstein finally decided to personally "select and quickly hear" three cases "without any discovery or interruptions." Though remaining families want a trial, Hellerstein has been coercing them all along to negotiate a settlement with his "special mediator," Sheila L. Birnbaum.

Not one single September 11 Victim lawsuit has been permitted to proceed to a public trial by jury with testimony by major government officials, complete and unhindered discovery of documents and interrogation by career prosecutors despite meritorious evidence of prior knowledge of the attacks by the Bush administration.

When Silverstein applied for $3.35 bn. in tax-exempt Liberty Bonds to help finance the Freedom Tower and his other buildings on the site, Mr. Bloomberg [mayor of New York] found a lever. The city and the state each control half those bonds, and the mayor said that he would not agree to the city's half unless Mr. Silverstein made certain concessions. Silverstein needed the Liberty Bonds because insurance proceeds, which amounted to about $4.6 billion, would not nearly cover the expected costs of the five towers [now $9 bn.].

Victim family attorneys have strangely failed to seek testimony from Ashcroft and Chertoff regarding the selection of Kenneth R. Feinberg as Master of the multi-billion dollar 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund which forced families to sign away their right to sue the U.S. government for criminal negligence. Feinberg's law firm represented major insurance firms which would have lost billions in payouts if Congress had not used American taxpayer funds to cover expected losses by insurance companies.

What is almost certainly the most sophisticated and complete understanding of exactly how and why the World Trade Center fell has been compiled as part of a secret proceeding in federal court in Lower Manhattan. But everyone fears that the closely held information may remain buried in sealed files or even destroyed.

Epilogue

In 2008 Mukasey, an Israeli citizen, was installed as US Attorney General at the urging of Senators Schumer and Feinstein where he will "shepherd" the prosecution of AIPAC for treason and/or espionage just like Kissinger was chosen to head the 911 Commission and replaced by Zelikow. Former Attorney General Gonzalez came under intense pressure to resign from Senators Schumer, Feinstein and Spector. The deputy attorney general and the associate attorney general also resigned clearing the way for more Mukasey shepherding. [Got the picture yet?]

Four of the Israelis, arrested on 9-11 for celebrating the mass murder of thousands of Americans, filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the US Justice Department, claiming they were arrested illegally, then held without charge and interrogated and tortured for months. They were released by Chertoff, another Israeli citizen who now heads Homeland Security. The FBI concluded at least two of the five were Mossad agents and all were on a Mossad surveillance mission. Their lawyer claims the case will debunk theories that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks. As of 2008, there have been no further media reports about this lawsuit. [What are the odds they were paid?]

After Sept. 11 over 100 young Israeli "art students", illegally in the country and spying all across America, were quietly ordered "deported" to Israel by a high American official [Chertoff again?]. [Have they filed suit against US, too?]

Conclusion

As anticipated by Kissinger, the destruction of the WTC and the loss of thousands of lives resulted in the demolition of the American Constitution; the American people did unite behind Bush and endorse wars of aggression and genocide on the nations of the Middle East and the theft of their resources for the benefit of Israel. Now it comes out that the president actually practiced for 911 in advance and on that terrible day didn't know whether it was real or another practice session. And still noone in government or the 911 litigation even dares to suggest that the WTC was an "inside job" although the evidence is now almost overwhelming. Reportedly, even the National Institute for Standards and Technology has repudiated the "collapse initiation" theory of its 10,000 page report, "We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse." Well, nearly everybody else on the planet can.

There is no Statute of Limitations on murder. There should be an inquiry by an international body, such as the International Criminal Court, to assess responsibility for this monstrous crime against humanity; ironically like the Nuremberg Trials brought by the zionist cabal against German officials.

*In the history of the world, no high rise steel buildings have ever collapsed from fire except the three Silverstein buildings on 9-11-01. Structural steel is not affected by fire. For example in 1991 eight floors in the middle of the high rise Meridian Building in Philadelphia burned for 20 hours. According to the official fire report, "Beams and girders sagged and twisted -- some as much as three feet --under severe fire exposures. Despite this extraordinary exposure, the columns continued to support their loads without obvious damage." And stood for many years later.

Despite zionist efforts to confuse the two, Zionism is not a religion but a political conspiracy, centuries old. Zionism is Jewish like Nazism was Lutheran. You can read all about it in the Protocols. Many years ago,

George Washington called them "our greatest enemy."

Benjamin Franklin said, "They are vampires. If they are not excluded from the United States...they will rule and destroy us."

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson." FDR letter to Colonel House, November 21st, 1933.

"We control America and they know it." Ariel Sharon

Welcome to the Goldene Medin, the New Khazar Empire (ceded by Congress: 413-8)!

D. Cassidy
Memorial Day, 2008

More 911 Truth Links
=http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/26/18502304.php



Go to 13450
http://www.rense.com/general29/skolov17.htm
The Overthrow Of The American
Republic - Part 17
FBI SOUGHT CLAMP ON BUSH STORIES
By Sherman H. Skolnick
9-11-2

White House and network reporters as well as U.S.-based foreign journalists are using national security leaks to pursue proposed stories about George W. Bush's reputed relationship with a male sex-mate since his college days up to now. So contends the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a Justice Department request to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act secret court that met in sound-proof facilities in the Justice Department Building, Washington, D.C.

The Bush reputed male sex-mate details have enabled Red China, perceived by some as a sworn enemy of the U.S., and others reportedly to blackmail or otherwise unlawfully compromise the current occupant and resident of the White House, causing the disclosure of U.S. industrial, financial, and military secrets. Various reporters, including those of British Broadcasting Company, BBC, and Canadian Broadcasting Company, CBC, have, on their own, verified and corroborated the exclusive stories by this reporter as to the Bush relationship causing a breach itself by Bush of national security.

The FBI/Justice requests to the secret court acting as a type of U.S. District Court under FISA, included:

[1] that the FBI/Justice Department be empowered and authorized to use all means necessary to surveil the reporters, foreign and domestic, working on the story;

[2] that the FBI/Justice Department be authorized and empowered as to the War Powers, or similar provisions, to forcibly or otherwise stop the publishing and electronic transmission of any stories or pictures relating to George W. Bush in a Skull & Bones Society satanic ritual coffin engaging in homosexual acts with his reputed male sex-mate.
The controller of satellites, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, NRO, to be ordered to block and obstruct all satellite transmissions of related news and pictures and graphics.

[3] That the FBI/Justice Department be authorized and empowered to block by forcible and other means any print or electronic news dissemination mentioning of the photo editor, Robert Stevens, of American Media, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida; of Stevens having been murdered by anthrax-by-mail, on or about September, 2001, through the aid, complicity, and connivance of U.S. Government civil/military covert operatives. And any mentioning or dissemination by news and other outlets, that the FBI by closing down the American Media, Inc. headquarters up to date, was thus blocking retrieval of reported pictures and supporting authentication as to George W. Bush in a coffin engaging as a proposed new member of the Skull & Bones Society, in a satanic ritual, in homosexual acts with his reputed male sex-mate who has numerous times visited Bush since that time; such rituals having been conducted at a building called "The Tomb", at Yale University.

[4] That the FBI/Justice Department be authorized and empowered to block phone, wire and wireless data, and other transmissions including microwave, between U.S.-based foreign journalists and their out-of-U.S. offices. And to block and obstruct, by means not disclosed to persons involved, of phone calls, data transmissions, and such, from such out-of-U.S. offices into the U.S. And to block phone calls, data transmission, and such, from outside the U.S. to U.S. phones and instruments used by reputed sources of data as to the Bush male sex-mate stories and pictures and authentications, and their national security implications.

[5] That the FBI/Justice Department, without such authorizations to be disclosed, to be authorized and empowered to shut down websites and other computer-linked and computer-generated means, used to disseminate such stories and exchanges of data, pictures, and graphics.

The secret court, as a form of U.S. District Court, under FISA, granted such requests by the FBI/Justice Department. The orders of the secret court went into effect on September 9 and 10, 2002. Thereafter, however, their Court orders were in part affirmed and in part reversed and/or vacated, by the secret Appeals Court provided for under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The secret Appeals Court meets in sound-proof facilities in Baltimore, Maryland and their appeals decision was not publicly disclosed.

Who says there is no secret political police, no Gestapo, in the United States?



Go to 13449
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42495
EUROPE: Going Nuclear Despite Warnings
By Zoltán Dujisin
PRAGUE, May 24 (IPS) - The EU seems to be backing nuclear energy as the response to global warming and gas dependency, but civic groups warn that safety and waste processing should be preconditions for the industry's growth.

These issues were debated in Prague May 22-23 at the second European Nuclear Energy Forum, an EU (European Union) initiative to discuss opportunities and risks of nuclear energy.

Civic groups criticised their extremely low representation at the event, seen by them as a gathering of nuclear energy supporters lobbying the EU.

"There is no energy technology free of risks. We have to live with that and do our best choices among existing possibilities," Ulla Birgitta Sirkeinen from the EU's Economic and Social Committee, a consultative body, told participants. "This committee has the view that nuclear energy is needed."

"We all share the (EU) objective of reducing greenhouse emissions by 20 percent by 2020," Nicole Fontaine, a European Parliamentarian, told participants. "Although there are many solutions such as renewable energy, reality dictates we use nuclear energy, which covers 32 percent of European energy needs.

"It doesn't have the greenhouse effect, and it allows ensuring security of supply," she said, hinting at the high European dependency on Russian gas, to which many believe nuclear power could be an alternative.

The EU is the biggest nuclear energy generator in the world.

Czech politicians, who named their country one of the leaders in the field, stressed that only nuclear power can ensure freedom and independence by reducing over-reliance on Russian gas.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek attacked "ideologically motivated" environmentalist groups for their negative stance on nuclear energy, and called nuclear waste treatment a "pseudo-problem" of a political, not technical nature.

Topolanek said the EU's organisation of this conference was another sign of Brussels becoming favourably inclined towards nuclear energy.

But the whole of the EU is not going nuclear, said Patricia Lorenz from Friends of the Earth. EU members such as Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Germany and Austria all have doubts about nuclear power.

"There is strong pressure at this conference from industry and political groups to give support for nuclear energy, and this is not legitimate, because many countries are not nuclear and the public is mostly against it," Lorenz said.

While most participants spoke of how better to tackle "inevitable" increase in energy consumption, Lorenz believes the key lies in reducing consumption.

"No one wants to hear this because it means many changes in transport," she told IPS. "But only when consumption goes down we can bring in renewables.

"No technology can maintain our level of consumption," she added. "Not even nuclear: uranium will also run out in 40 or 50 years."

Industry representatives seemed less concerned. "Renewable energy cannot provide us with basic electricity, and the question is politically important because lots of jobs are at stake," Thomas Mock, head of the German association of energy intensive industry consumers told the conference.

Walter Hohlefelder from the German energy company E.ON seemed confident that controversies over nuclear energy could be minimised by harmonised safety rules, saying these would bring transparency and public acceptability.

Fontaine also said the harmonisation of rigorous safety standards was one of the objectives of the forum. A high-level group is expected to present a proposal to the EU Council in July.

But Andrej Stritar, acting chairman of the High Level Group on Nuclear Safety and Waste Management of the Council, suggested that enthusiasts of "nuclear renaissance" should "slow down and reconsider everything, especially issues of nuclear safety."

But Electricite de France board member Bruno Lescoeur said "the barrel of oil costs 135 dollars, and it is urgent to act; the industry cannot wait for convergence to emerge on all subjects on the industry, it has to implement solutions quickly."

Critics have claimed that efforts at harmonisation could be an excuse to lower standards. Lorenz also brought up the issue of liability. "Industry is protected against potential threats; it must be liable to pay for what happens," she said.

The activist also pointed to one of the most contentious issues. "There is no solution for waste; industry is not coping well with this problem and is not really trying. The de facto solution has been to export to Russia, and this will remain the solution."

Lorenz said "it is not possible to find an effective way to treat nuclear waste; they proved it themselves by not coming up with anything. There is no affordable technology for the amounts of waste involved." The EU generates 40,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste a year.

But there are enough optimists around at the political level. "There will be a feasible solution within a short period, I believe, in the development of science and of humankind," János Toth, president of the energy section of the European Economic and Social Committee told IPS. "If you look back in history, all energy sources have progressed, solutions have always been found." (END/2008)



Go to 13448
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=1be275ca-cd91-4bfc-96a6-f311f7514bb4
Family seed business takes on Goliath of genetic modification
Control of world's food supply at stake, Montreal growers argue
Marian Scott, Montreal Gazette; Canwest News Service
Published: Sunday, May 25
Heather Meek leafs through the seed catalogue she wrote on the family computer, on winter nights after the kids went to bed.

There are Kahnawake Mohawk beans and Painted Mountain corn; Tante Alice cucumber and 40 varieties of heritage tomatoes.

Selling seeds is more than just an extra source of income on this organic farm an hour northwest of Montreal.

For Meek and partner Frederic Sauriol, propagating local varieties is part of a David and Goliath struggle by small farmers against big seed companies.

At stake, they believe, is no less than control of the world's food supply.

Since the dawn of civilization, farmers have saved seeds from the harvest and replanted them the following year.

But makers of genetically modified (GM) seeds -- introduced in 1996 and now grown by some 70,000 Canadian farmers, according to Monsanto, the world's largest seed company -- have been putting a stop to that practice.

The 12 million farmers worldwide who will plant GM seeds this year sign contracts agreeing not to save or replant seeds. That means they must buy new seeds every year.

Critics charge such contracts confer almost unlimited power over farmers' lives to multinational companies whose priority is profit. They say GM seeds are sowing a humanitarian and ecological disaster.

But Trish Jordan, a Canadian spokesman for Monsanto, explains that requiring farmers to sign "technology use agreements" allows companies to recoup the cost of developing products.

"Farmers choose these products because of benefits they provide," Jordan says. "That's why we're successful as a company."

The debate over GM seeds has come into sharp focus as the world faces a food-price crisis that threatens to push millions into starvation.

In recent months, riots have erupted from Haiti to Bangladesh in the wake of soaring costs for staples like bread, rice and corn.

The crisis has prompted calls to step up investment in biotechnology to improve crop yields in developing countries.

"At a global level, it's a problem that's not going to be solved by organics or focusing on local food," says Douglas Southgate, a professor of agricultural economics at Ohio State University.

"Dealing with the problem on a global scale involves using biotechnology."

But Ottawa author Brewster Kneen, a fierce opponent of GM seeds, counters that biotechnology, as practised by companies like Monsanto, is not the answer.

"The point was never feeding the world or saving the environment," says Kneen, author of several books about agriculture and biotechnology, including Farmageddon: Food and the Future of Biotechnology. "It's about wealth, not about health."

Developing new seed varieties was long a congenial affair where federal government scientists shared information and distributed samples to farmers for testing, says Kuyek, a researcher for GRAIN, an international non-profit organization that promotes agricultural biodiversity.

But in the 1980s, he says, the federal government began privatizing agricultural research.

Worldwide, GM crops have grown 67-fold in 12 years, now covering 690.9 million hectares in 23 countries, according to the industry's Council for Biotechnology Information.



Go to 13447
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S443145.shtml?cat=1
05/13/2008
House, Senate both reject Real ID

ST. PAUL (AP) - The House and Senate have approved a bill that would bar state driver's license authorities from implementing the federal Real ID regulations.

Governor Pawlenty vetoed an earlier attempt to require that conditions be met before the state could change licenses to meet federal rules. But both chambers passed the bill by veto-proof margins: 50-16 in the Senate and 103-30 in the House.

The Real ID mandate would require every citizen to carry a U.S. government-approved card to board a plane or enter a federal facility.

Critics say it will be costly to implement and that too much of people's personal information will be added to a national database. Supporters argue that a more secure identification card will help in homeland security and immigration control efforts.



Go to 13446
http://www.rense.com/general82/dnt.htm
Bush & McCain's Iran Insanity
By Charley Reese
5-25-8

President George Bush and his tag-along buddy John McCain are repeating almost word for word about Iran the pattern of lies and threats they used to justify the war against Iraq.

Our intelligence agencies have said that Iran gave up the pursuit of a nuclear weapon three years ago. President Bush makes speeches as if he's never heard of any intelligence agencies. That's what worries me about President Bush. His words very often defy and contradict reality.

Recently, he almost repeated word for word a theme he often used in the buildup to the Iraq aggression. It was, he said, unthinkable to allow "the most dangerous regime to acquire the most dangerous weapons." This guy might actually launch an attack on Iran before his term expires. If he does, you can kiss the world economy goodbye. You don't like $4-a-gallon gas? How about $10 a gallon?

In the first place, Iran is far from the most dangerous regime in the world. I would say it is not dangerous at all, so far as the United States is concerned. Except for idiots, sane people assess threats based on capability, not on political rhetoric, intentions or imagination.

So what are the capabilities of Iran? It has no nuclear weapons. We have about 3,000 or more. One American submarine could destroy the entire country of Iran and its population. Iran has no missiles that could reach us. It has no aircraft that could reach us. Its army couldn't even defeat Iraq.

So what I want to know is how in the blankety-blank Hades Bush and McCain define the word "dangerous"? When their statements about Iran are placed side by side with the known facts, Bush and McCain sound insane.

Nothing alarms me more than the thought of an irrational person in the White House. I'm OK with stupid. I can live with venal. I can tolerate a womanizer, even a drunk, but a crazy person in command of our nuclear forces gives me the heebie-jeebies. Somebody who can't tell the difference between a nuclear-free Iran with no ICBMs and Russia with thousands of nuclear warheads sitting atop advanced intercontinental missiles has no business being allowed in the White House, even as a tourist.

There are two countries that have the capability of being a threat to us ­ Russia and China. That's foreign policy and geopolitical strategy at the kindergarten level. They have the capability. No other country in the world does. Only a moron would worry more about an ex-college professor with a long name whose office doesn't even control the armed forces than he would about Vladimir Putin. This present American administration, in one of the dumbest moves in the history of diplomacy, neglected our relations with Russia while it got us bogged down in two small desert countries that don't amount to a hill of coffee beans.

Also bear in mind that it doesn't matter diddly squat if some small country manages to make a few nuclear weapons. A few is no threat to many. Nobody with a few would be tempted to attack any country with many nuclear weapons.

Deterrence worked when the Soviet Union had 30,000 nuclear warheads, but these moronic, unscrupulous, intellectually dishonest, dishonorable neocons would convince you that deterrence wouldn't work against Iran.

I know most secular folks equate religion with insanity, but they are not the same. Iran is a religious nation, but its leaders are not crazy. They are smart and well-educated. They fought a long, grueling war with Iraq, and I think what they want more than anything else is a little peace and prosperity. But I think they are worried about Bush, McCain and Israel, and I don't blame them.



Go to 13445
http://tinyurl.com/6owuee
Spain's drought a glimpse of our future?

The Independent (London), May 24, 2008 Saturday - Barcelona is a dry city. It is dry in a way that two days of showers can do nothing to alleviate. The Catalan capital's weather can change from one day to the next, but its climate, like that of the whole Mediterranean region, is inexorably warming up and drying out. And in the process this most modern of cities is living through a crisis that offers a disturbing glimpse of metropolitan futures everywhere.

Its fountains and beach showers are dry, its ornamental lakes and private swimming pools drained and hosepipes banned. Children are now being taught how to save water as part of their school day. This iconic, avant-garde city is in the grip of the worst drought since records began and is bringing the climate crisis that has blighted cities in Australia and throughout the Third World to Europe. A resource that most Europeans have grown up taking for granted now dominates conversation. Nearly half of Catalans say water is the region's main problem, more worrying than terrorism, economic slowdown or even the populists' favourite - immigration.

The political battles now breaking out here could be a foretaste of the water wars that scientists and policymakers have warned us will be commonplace in the coming decades. The emergency water-saving measures Barcelona adopted after winter rains failed for a second year running have not been enough. The city has had to set up a "water bridge" and is shipping in water for the first time in the history of this great maritime city.

A tanker from Marseilles with 36 million litres of drinking water unloaded its first cargo this week, one of a mini-fleet contracted to bring water from the Rhone every few days for at least the next three months. So humbled was Barcelona when prolonged drought forced it to ship in domestic water from Tarragona, 50 miles south along the Catalan coast, 12 days ago, that city hall almost delayed shipment and considered an upbeat publicity campaign to lift morale and international prestige.

The whole country is suffering from its worst drought in 40 years and the shipments from Tarragona prompted an outcry from regions who insist they need it more. For now the clashes are being soothed by intervention from Madrid, and plans to ship water from desalination plants in parched Almeria in Andalusia are shelved until October. But there is little indication of a strategy to deal not just with an immediate emergency but an ongoing crisis. Buying water on an epic scale from France has given the controversy an international aspect as French environmentalists question whether such a scarce natural resource should be sold as a commodity to another country.

"It would be a mistake to consider this water bridge between Marseilles and Catalonia as simply an operation of solidarity," said a group of ecologists calling themselves Robin des Bois (Robin Hood). They said the commercial deal struck between private contractors failed to consider the environmental impact on France. The organisation blamed Barcelona's water shortage on "wasted resources and ... lack of foresight by Catalan and Spanish authorities".

What Barcelona authorities are fast discovering is that chronic water shortages are not a problem that money alone can solve.

Its 5.5 million inhabitants need a lot of the stuff: the 20 million litres/20,000 tonnes/five million gallons of water brought from Tarragona on 13 May were enough for barely 180,000 people and were consumed within minutes of being channelled through the city's taps. Wednesday's shipment from Marseilles was bigger, 36 million litres, but similarly short lived.

Barcelona has churned up a whirlpool of controversy over its handling of the water crisis, causing just the spray of negative publicity it hoped to avoid.

Even the arrival of rain has only made things worse. Catalonia's regional environment minister, Francesc Baltasar, rushed to announce last week that the hosepipe ban and swimming pool restrictions imposed in February would be lifted. Tarragona - whose wells supply shipped-in water - protested furiously. "Barcelona fills its swimming pools with water from Tarragona," local headlines screamed, and the water authority demanded a halt to pumping Tarragona's water for the Catalan capital.

Jose Montilla, Catalonia's regional prime minister, countermanded Mr Baltasar and insisted water-saving measures remain. "Obviously it makes little sense to lift certain measures when, if it stops raining, we'll have to re-impose them in three weeks' time," he said. But Tarragona re-opened the tap only after Mr Montilla visited, and insisted that "this effort of solidarity will supply only our basic needs".

Barcelona's daily El Periodico called Mr Baltasar's proposal to end unpopular water-saving measures "irresponsible and demagogic", increasing resentments in regions supplying water to Barcelona. The shipments themselves came under fire. Importing water gives the city a "lamentable, depressing image" and spreads "alarmism", Miguel Angel Fraile, secretary of the Catalan Trade Confederation, said.

With reservoirs now filled to 30 per cent, authorities should scrap the plan and ship in water only as a last resort, he said. But reservoirs remain two-thirds empty, half the national average and far lower than usual for May. These are dangerously low in anticipation of another dry summer, raising the ghastly prospect of water rationing - painful for residents and offputting for summer visitors.

Extreme short-term measures might have been averted had Barcelona mended leaky old pipes and filtered polluted aquifers, critics grumble. But Barcelona is among Europe's most careful water users, better than Madrid, Milan or Paris, La Vanguardia newspaper argues. Residents adapt their loos to flush less, shower rather than bath and brush their teeth without the tap running, but such individual measures are swamped by industrial usage, and waste in the infrastructure. La Vanguardia urges an immediate public works programme to improve the creaking system.

"People are much more aware of the need to save water," says Bridget King, a South African who settled in Barcelona 20 years ago to teach English. "We put a bucket under the shower to catch water before it heats up, and have stopped buying petunias that need a lot of watering. It's a constant topic of conversation and we worry it's a long-term thing. But as a South African I'm appalled to see people wash dishes under the running tap. I was brought up to be very careful with water. And although we feel relieved it's started raining, everyone knows it's only short term and probably not enough."

Recent rains have sharpened conflicts, offering a foretaste of water wars to come. Aragon straddles the mighty Ebro river but is a parched desert, cultivable only by sophisticated irrigation systems managed by an Association of Irrigators. This ancient brotherhood agreed to sell the surplus from its irrigation quota, which usually flows back into the Ebro, to Barcelona as a short-term emergency measure. If rains lift reservoirs from their emergency levels, Aragon warns it will halt supplies. But Mr Montilla tweaked Catalona's definition of "emergency" so it didn't rely solely on reservoir levels. Then Spain's Deputy Prime Minister, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, ordered Aragon to keep the water flowing "because conditions aren't sufficient to guarantee Barcelona's water supplies".

Water is now Catalans' principle worry: 43 per cent considered shortage the country's main problem. Authorities promise the crisis will ease when a huge desalination plant comes on stream next year. But they say little about how to tackle the long-term problem of water shortage afflicting the whole Mediterranean region. Catalan winemakers recognise that the change is permanent; some are planting new vineyards further north as traditional terrain becomes hotter and dryer.

Other entrepreneurs, including swimming pool manufacturers, have less room for manoeuvre. "The authorities are criminalising us," complained Josep Sadurni, of Catalonia's association of swimming pool manufacturers, which predicts losses of up to Euro 200m (£160m) this year. "Who'll buy a pool if they can't fill it?" Mr Sadurni asked.

A striking image of the seriousness of the drought is provided by the emergence of a church from the waters of a drying reservoir. For 40 years, all you could see of the drowned village of Sant Roma was the belltower of its stone church, which peeped from time to time above the surface of the artificial lake in a valley flooded in the 1960s to supply Catalonia with water. This year falling water levels have revealed the 11th-century church in its entirety for the first time, attracting curious onlookers who walk round it on the reservoir's dusty bed. Spain's Socialist government recognises that climate change will intensify water shortages, and favours desalination plants. One such plant, among the biggest in Europe - and 75 per cent EU funded - is being built on the outskirts of Barcelona and will supply 20 per cent of the city's water. But it will not be ready until next year.

"It was already very important when it was planned, but now with the urgent drought, it has become indispensable," said Tomas Azurra, the chief engineer at the plant.

Ecologists warn that desalination plants are costly in energy use, and damage the environment with high CO2 emissions. But developed European regions can afford them, and they're preferable to diverting water from rivers, which critics say is even more damaging.

More than 70 per cent of Spain's water goes on agriculture, much of it wasted on antiquated irrigation systems and the cultivation of thirsty crops unsuitable for arid lands. But few politicians seek confrontation with farmers already struggling to scratch a living.

High-density tourist resorts sprinkled with swimming pools, patio showers and golf courses along Spain's desertified southern coast, especially in Murcia where it rarely rains, are also unsustainable, ecologists say.

Spain needs to capture more rainwater, says Stephanie Blencker of the Stockholm International Water Institute, as climate change will produce alternating extremes of drought and heavy rain. "Rain is the biggest resource we have, and we can make it available all year round if we have sensible storage opportunities," she said.

Since the 1992 Olympics, Barcelona has enjoyed the reputation of being both cutting edge and user friendly. But now, as climate change overwhelms a crumbling infrastructure, proud, autonomous Catalonia has to seek help from outside.


May 24, 2008



Use your Go Back and Go Forward commands to get to where you were in a previous file.