John Sez:  This is a very strange story. It claims that these supposed innocent tourists started off in Turkey, went to Iraq (which, if you haven’t heard, is not tourist friendly due to a war going on there), traveled to the Kurdish section of the country (the Kurds have no great love of Americans, due to the fact that Saddam Hussein, who is responsible for massacring thousands of Kurds, was installed by the US in the first place), then decided to go hiking on the Iraq-Iran border (which, if you haven’t heard about Iran, is problematic due to the fact that the US keeps threatening war – or to back a war started by Israel – with Iran due to a supposed WMD program that we have no proof of; add to this the fact that Iran sits between two countries that the US is currently invading, Afghanistan and Iraq, which might make them a little, er, touchy), went too far on to the Iranian side and were captured by Iranian troops. 

 So, there are two logical explanations for this situation. First is that these were indeed tourists, who either haven’t picked up a newspaper in 30 years or are complete morons for traveling into a war torn region who’s people have no great love for Americans. Second:  that these men are spies or contractors hired by the DOD (or some other department) to do some recon or stir up some mischief, and that the ‘tourist’ story is their cover. Either way, I’ll bet that this will end up as part of the rhetoric that will propel us towards a stronger war footing with Iran.

Story from the AP:

Report: 3 American hikers arrested in Iran

By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq – The U.S. State Department said Friday it was investigating reports that three American tourists have been detained by Iranians while hiking near Iran's border with the self-ruled Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Two Kurdish officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information, said the Americans apparently were arrested after entering Iranian territory without permission.

U.S. helicopters were buzzing overhead and many U.S. Humvees had moved into the Kurdish city of Halabja to search for the Americans, said a Kurdish border force official.

According to a security official, a fourth American who stayed behind at a hotel because he was sick said the missing Americans were tourists hiking near Halabja and the border town of Ahmed Awaa.

According to this account, the four had traveled to Turkey, then entered the Kurdish region Tuesday through the Ibrahim Al-Khalil border point in Zakho, the official said. They visited the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Sulaimaniyah on Wednesday. The next day, three of them took a taxi to Ahmed Awaa where they told their companion that they planned to stay at a nearby resort, the official said.

READ MORE

 
 
John Sez: Let’s make this perfectly clear:  using US troops on US soil as a police force of any kind is ILLEGAL according to the Posse Comitatas Act.  Period. If this is done, it will be an illegal order given to our troops to follow. Although the words “Martial Law” are not uttered during the video, what else would you call a military enforced quarantine which would require the US to be split up into 5 “regional military zones”?

 Also, note that the report on the Flu is that ‘it keep changing” and mutating. If that is the case, how could a vaccine made from an earlier strain of the Swine Flu be effective once it mutates? 

 Video from FOX news(Note: I originally saw the video on Dprogram.net)
 
 
John Sez: To anyone who still thinks that the bailout programs (started by Bush and finalized with Obama) were for the good of the US economic system and not just to fill the pockets of the bankers, brokers, lobbyists and the politicians who love them: get yer friggen’ head out of yer friggen’ aft stink hole, you maroon!

So, NOW can we audit the Fed and start sending people to jail?

Story from the Daily Mail:

U.S. banks paid out $32.6 billion in bonuses as government spent $175 billion bailing them out
By Mail Foreign Service

Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and seven other American banks banks paid more than $32.6 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving $175 billion in taxpayer funds, according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.


Crippled Wall Street giant and major City employer Merrill Lynch led the way by paying 14 of its bankers more than $10 million (£6 million) last year despite racking up losses of nearly $28 billion.

Some 53 high-flyers at Merrill trousered more than $5 million as it paid a total of $3.6 billion in bonuses to its 59,000 staff worldwide, including thousands in London.

The lavish payments, mirrored at banks across Wall Street and the City, came after Merrill lost $27.6 billion last year and was forced into the hands of Bank of America in an emergency takeover to save it from collapse.

READ MORE

 
 
From New Scientist:

Scary music is spookier with eyes shut

by Ewen Callaway

Singers and guitar heroes alike have always employed what you might call the Celine Dion effect – closing your eyes to heighten the emotional impact of music.

Now, neuroscientists have discovered that a brain centre involved in sensing emotion and fear called the amygdala kicks into action when volunteers listen to scary music with eyes closed.

"A lot of time we do like to close our eyes when we listen to music, we feel like this is a more powerful experience," says Talma Hendler  a neuroscientist at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel, who led the new brain imaging study.

Shutting your eyes heightens people's emotional responses to the outside world, suggests previous research – not to mention everyday experience.

REDA MORE

 
 
John Sez: Last time tensions flared up in this region most of the TV news slanted the situation as a sneak attack by Russia on Georgia. This was, if one does a little homework, blatantly untrue; tensions had been flaring for months, and Georgia instigated the violence which soon turned into a massacre in South Ossetia until the Russian military show up.

South Ossetia is a protectorate of Russia. If Puerto Rico was attacked, wouldn’t you expect the American military to defend the island?

Once again the Georgians have apparently fired the first shot, so if the talking heads on your TV screen start telling you that Russia drew first blood again (and they probably will), you can rest assured that they are, based on track record, full of crap.

Story from RT:
 
South Ossetia under fire from Georgian territory

One year since the military conflict in the Caucasus, it is feared that hostilities might resume. South Ossetian authorities claim the republic’s capital Tskhinval was attacked from a Georgian village.



Two shells were reportedly fired from around five kilometers away from the Georgian village of Nikozi during the night. Luckily, no one was injured, a source at the Ossetian Defense Ministry told Interfax agency.  

According to a source at the South Ossetian information ministry, quoted by RIA Novosti agency, the shells targeted residential buildings.

The source added that it is the first case of Tskhinval coming under fire since the Georgian attack on South Ossetia in August last year.

At the same time, Tbilisi claims its village was also fired upon from South Ossetian territory.

The Georgian Interior Ministry has stated that fire was opened at around 11:30pm on Wednesday, targeting two villages – Khviti and Nikozi – and a police checkpoint. “Intensive shooting from assault rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers lasted for an hour.”

READ MORE

 
 
John Sez: Recently, Homeland Security director, Janet Napolitano, gave a speech on her department’s zeroing in on so called ‘homegrown terrorists’.  Perhaps I’ve grown accustomed to reading between the lines when it comes to politico speeches, but her words sent off electrical charges into my spidey-senses. 

Firstly, she gave the speech at the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR, a shady global organization run by the world’s power brokers) not a place which is normally reserved for disseminating information to the public but to speak directly to the powers that be. Recently, I posted about a speech given by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton at the CFR where she gushed to its members, “We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.”

 
Then Napolitano proceeded to speak about how she would like to utilize the public in spotting and reporting signs of terrorists, and made it a point that children could be part of this movement as well. These sentiments should sound off alarm bells in any one who has an inkling of the history of Germany just before WW2. Hitler used the same tactics after the Reichstag fire (which, as it turned out, was ordered by him as a false-flag set-up in order to rally the German people around him). First he called for citizens to band together to root out the terrorists in their midst’s, then he set up squads of citizen police to root out supposed terrorists (and we all know how that ended up). 

 One can say that I might be reaching a bit when I make these suppositions, but other recent events seem to go back up my suspicions. In a recent post, I wrote about BrightHouse Cable’s project to train its workers to spot and report crime and terrorist activities. Before that, larger non-law enforcement organizations (like the Post Office) were trained along the same lines. Additionally, similar programs have been rolled out across the country over the last few years (most recently in Colorado). And let us not forget that Obama himself called for the creation of a civilian police force as large and as well funded as our military (video of the statement at the end of the article).

 But one can easily say, “John, you friggen’ wing nut, if yer ain’t doin’ nuthn’ wrong you have nothin’ to worry about.” I would like to think so too. So, who exactly is a terrorist? What type of people does the government think we should be looking for?

 According to the MIAC report given to law enforcement, terrorists are  anyone who has bumper stickers of third-party political candidates (like Ron Paul or Bon Barr), or display certain flags from the history of our country (like the “Don’t tread on me”) or people who watch certain documentaries (like the film Zeitgeist). Or, perhaps, we’ll go by the FBI’s terminology which describes terrorists as people who utilize alternative news media (which is stated as ANY news source other than the accepted mainstream media) or as protestors (who are now considered ‘low level terrorists”).

 Considering all of this, I believe we definitely have something to be concerned about.

 Story from the AFP:

US enlists citizens in anti-terrorism strategy

By Sebastian Smith (AFP)

NEW YORK — A top US domestic security chief announced Wednesday a strategy to make ordinary citizens the first line of defense against an increasingly multi-faceted terrorist threat.

"For too long, we've treated the public as a liability to be protected rather than an asset in our nation's collective security," Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a speech in New York.

"This approach, unfortunately, has allowed confusion, anxiety and fear to linger."

Napolitano, who also announced an extra 78 million dollars in anti-terrorism funding for 15 mass transit systems nationwide, said modern communications had increased the sophistication of threats since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"The tools for creating violence and chaos are as easy to find as the tools to buy music online or restocking inventory," she said. "If 9/11 happened in a web 1.0 world, terrorists are certainly in a web 2.0 world now."

Napolitano urged a "much broader society response" in which the public helps curb a growing phenomenon of so-called home-grown terrorism.

READ MORE


 
 
John Sez: And yet another tid-bit that indicates that this push to vaccinate American citizens against the ‘Swine Flu” is either being totally mishandled, is being rushed along while the iron is hot in order to make a LOT of money, or is simply not in the best interest of the public.

Buried at the end of the following article is this quote:  

“The clinical trials are mainly aimed at calibrating the doses to give to patients, not to test if it is safe or not, officials stressed.

"We are not trying to find some yet unrecognized problem with the vaccine," said Osterholm.”

Obviously the safety of the vaccine is not a priority (nor is it even on the table, apparently), but dosage is (which determines both effectiveness and profit per unit). How can ANY health problem with the vaccine be recognized at this point if IT HAS NEVER BEEN TESTED?

Also mentioned in the story are the statistics from the CDC (which I have mentioned numerous times in this blog) which show that almost 40,000 people die from the normal flu every year in the US, but the have only been confirmed 40,000 cases of swine flu so far and only 263 deaths. There is no reason, so far, to be pushing this vaccine as hard as the government is pushing it.

Story from AFP:

US gears for huge swine flu vaccination push

By Virginie Montet (AFP)

WASHINGTON(AFP) — Anxiously eyeing the approach of winter, US health officials are urgently gearing up for a huge vaccine campaign hoping Americans will swing behind efforts to protect them from swine flu.

"Ultimately, the number of people that we hope will be vaccinated before the fall winter wave of H1N1 arrives will exceed any of the previous vaccine campaigns that we've conducted in this country," Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told AFP.

"This is the largest vaccine effort the world has ever seen," agreed Robin Robinson, director of the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority (BARDA), quoted in the Washington Post.

But authorities also have to overcome a vocal debate in the United States about vaccinations, amid lingering suspicions among some parents that they are not safe for young children.

"At this point it is just really unclear to say how many will get vaccinated," said Osterholm.

READ MORE

 
 
John Sez: OK, folks, I’m not sure how clear I can make this: It is ILLEGAL for the armed forced of the United States to police or spy on the American public according to the Posse Comitatas Act. Whoever gave the order for military personnel to be deployed to infiltrate this anti-war group gave said order illegally in direct contravention of the law of the United States of America. That person needs to be exposed and court marshaled immediately.

And although such programs were apparently commonplace under Bush, it seems that we are getting more of the same from the current administration. If the green light for such clandestine activity is coming from civilian sources, then they need to be exposed and tried for breaking the very laws that they took an oath to uphold.

Story from The Huffington Post:
 
Obama's Military Is Spying on U.S. Peace Groups

Amy Goodman

Anti-war activists in Olympia, Wash., have exposed U.S. Army spying and infiltration of their groups, as well as intelligence gathering by the U.S. Air Force, the federal Capitol Police and the Coast Guard.

The infiltration appears to be in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act preventing U.S. military deployment for domestic law enforcement, and may strengthen congressional demands for a full-scale investigation of U.S. intelligence activities, like the Church Committee hearings of the 1970s.

Brendan Maslauskas Dunn asked the City of Olympia for documents or e-mails about communications between the Olympia police and the military relating to anarchists, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) or the Industrial Workers of the World (Dunn's union). Dunn received hundreds of documents. One e-mail contained reference to a "John J. Towery II," who activists discovered was the same person as their fellow activist "John Jacob."

Dunn told me: "John Jacob was actually a close friend of mine, so this week has been pretty difficult for me. He said he was an anarchist. He was really interested in SDS. He got involved with Port Militarization Resistance (PMR), with Iraq Vets Against the War. He was a kind person. He was a generous person. So it was really just a shock for me."

"Jacob" told the activists he was a civilian employed at Fort Lewis Army Base, and would share information about base activities, which could help PMR organize rallies and protests against public ports being used for troop and Stryker military vehicle deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2006, PMR activists have occasionally engaged in civil disobedience, blocking access to the port.

Larry Hildes, an attorney representing Washington activists, says the U.S. attorney prosecuting the cases against them, Brian Kipnis, specifically instructed the Army not to hand over any information about its intelligence-gathering activities, despite a court order to do so.

Which is why Dunn's request to Olympia and the documents he obtained are so important. The military is supposed to be barred from deploying on U.S. soil, or from spying on citizens.

READ MORE

 
 
John Sez:

Open letter to Rep. Conyers:

Representative Conyers, you have just proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are thoroughly unfit for the office in which you now serve. You Job is to vote on behalf of you constituency on bills which you are supposed to understand before you vote on them. If you feel that there isn’t enough time to read a bill before a vote, then find a way to delay the vote. If you feel that you need a lawyer to understand a bill, hire one. If you are not basing your vote on your understanding of a bill, then what exactly are you basing you’re vote on, sir? Are you simply doing what your party leaders tell you to do? Or are lobbyists with deep pockets making up your mind for you?

You, sir, are a reflection of everything that is wrong in government. I find your attitude despicable and simple minded, and I ask that you immediately resign. For the good of your constituency, and for the good of the country as a whole.

Sincerely,

John Crumley
 
 

An excellent band often overlooked by mainstream radio (with the exception of a slight hit with the song ‘Fafa’). I saw these guys live a few years back; not only did they put on a great show (not an easy task considering it was at an outdoor venue here in Florida, with the temp at around 100) but they were very gracious and funny at the little meet and greet afterwards.

It was on my girlfriend’s (now my wife’s) birthday that we saw Guster. I had been into them for a while, and my other-half had taken quite a shine to their music. I bought a copy of the CD from their swag crew and asked the guys in the band to sign it as a birthday present. Not only did they sign it, but they went about drawing little birthday cakes and such. Really nice of them and it made her day.

So, without further delay, here's Guster: