Tenacious D does Karate.

(note: strong language and serious karate contained in these vids...not reccomended for work or kids)
And here's the live version fer poops and giggles.
 
 
John Sez: Author Jeremy Scahill is still hot on the trail of XE (formerly Blackwater) and the killers-for-hire company’s clandestine actions being conducted at the behest of the Obama administration. The latest shocking report by Scahill wonders why no one seems to want to comment on exactly what XE is up to in Pakistan; or why,  when the question is posed by the press, a massive game of ‘pass-the-buck’ is perpetrated on the journalist who begs the question, much in the style of a classic cover up.

Even more concerning is the intimidation tactics being used by the Joint Chief of Staff’s office to scare Scahill off the story. A representative of Admiral Mullin (the chief muckety-muck of the Joint Chiefs) called Scahill to categorically deny Scahill’s findings – before the story itself was even published!

This pre-emptive strike on a journalist tells me that Scahill is very close to the truth of the matter, or he’s close enough to the mark  make some very powerful people very uncomfortable. Either way, this attempt to chill the freedom of the press and speech is dangerious.

Respect to Mr. Scahill – he is a very courageous man who should be the template for all modern journalists. Imagine if we saw this kind of dogged reporting on the TV news every night...

Story from Rebel Reports:

Why Is the State Department Speaking for JSOC?

By Jeremy Scahill

Interesting chain of command issues seem to be emerging in the official “denials” being offered about my story in The Nation magazine on Blackwater and the Joint Special Operations Command operations in Pakistan. A few hours before the piece was published, I received a call—unprompted—from the office of Admiral Mike Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I had not called them. The representative that called would not officially—named and on-the-record—deny the story. Instead, I was offered a comprehensive denial from a “defense official” on “background.”

The DoD spokesman Geoff Morell was asked about it on Tuesday. He said the appropriate agency to address this was the State Department, but he did characterize the story as “conspiratorial:”

""REPORTER: Thank you for taking the question.  Does the Pentagon have any comment on a report in The Nation today that, puts Blackwater, now Xe Services, firmly at the center of a covert operation in Karachi in Pakistan, from an anonymous source within the military.  And my question is —
MR. MORRELL:  Yes, I — I —
REPORTER:  The question is, you keep denying covert operations in Pakistan, but isn’t this yet more evidence of one?
MR. MORRELL:  Okay, the best person to address this would be the State Department spokesman, who has already put out a statement, or a correction, basically saying these accusations are entirely false. Okay?  But I — for more clarity and more specificity, I urge you to talk to them. As for what we are doing in Afghanistan — or in Pakistan, rather, I think we have been incredibly forthright about this.  And we have basically, I think, a few dozen forces on the ground in Pakistan who are involved in a train-the-trainer mission.  These are Special Operations Forces.  We’ve been very candid about this.  They are — they have been for months, if not years now, training Pakistani forces so that they can in turn train other Pakistani military on how to — on certain skills and operational techniques.  And that’s the extent of our — our, you know, military boots on the ground in Pakistan. Despite whatever conspiratorial theories that, you know, magazines or broadcast outlets may want to cook up, there is nothing to it. And obviously, we’ve also made it perfectly clear that we are willing and able and happy to help the Pakistani military in any other ways that they may see fit.  But at this point, that’s the extent to which they would like our help, in terms of American boots on the  ground.  And so we are totally respectful of that.  And that’s what it’s limited to at this point. ""

Since when is the State Department spokesman the official spokesperson for JSOC? Since when is the DoS the appropriate party to address allegations regarding US military operations?

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John Sez: The makers of this brew claim that is 32% alcohol; that’s more than enough to have a bottle knock you right on your ass. And the name is absolutely classic: Tactical Nuclear Penguin.

‘Nuff said.

Story from the BBC:

'World's strongest' beer with 32% strength launched

A controversial Scottish brewery has launched what it described as the world's strongest beer - with a 32% alcohol content.

 Tactical Nuclear Penguin has been unveiled by BrewDog of Fraserburgh.

A warning on the label states: "This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost."

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John Sez: Some interesting footage of a huge meteor coming down in South Africa. Or was it Dr. Evil returning to Earth in his giant Bob’s Big Boy?
 
 
John Sez: It seems that Tony Blair definitively knew that the whole WMD in Iraq story was based on bad intelligence, and yet he led his country into an alliance of war with the US against Iraq.

That being said, if Blair knew about this intelligence is there any doubt at all that Bush and company knew what Blair knew – and probably a whole lot more as well. The only question left is this: why are these people not being brought before a trail or tribunal for lying their respective countries into war against a sovereign nation and causing millions of deaths in the process? Wouldn’t that send a clear and simple message that the people of the world will no longer tolerate half-assed, greedy dictators to spill the blood of innocent lives (while raking in untold billions in profit)?

Or is that just the message that the powers that be are afraid will resonate with people around the world?

Story from the Daily Mail:

Blair lied and lied again: Mandarins reveal that 10 days before Iraq invasion PM knew Saddam couldn't use WMDs
By Tim Shipman

The full extent of how Tony Blair misled the public about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction before and after the Iraq War was laid bare yesterday.

The Chilcot Inquiry heard that just ten days before the invasion of Iraq Mr Blair was told Saddam had no way of using weapons of mass destruction.

And weapons experts revealed that the former Prime Minister took Britain to war based on intelligence that his own spies rated just 'four out of ten' for accuracy.

On the eve of the conflict, intelligence chiefs told Mr Blair that the Iraqi dictator had no warheads capable of delivering chemical weapons, dramatically undermining the Prime Minister's case for war.

Yet Mr Blair gave the go-ahead for the invasion despite strong evidence that Iraq was no threat to Britain.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230824/Iraq-fourth-WMD-risk-list-inquiry-hears.html#ixzz0Y6jWqiTA
 
 
John Sez: Wow, just a few days after ‘Climategate” breaks and now we have even more pieces of the puzzle falling into place.

The next few weeks should be interesting for this story.

Story from the Telegraph:

Climategate: the scandal spreads, the plot thickens, the shame deepens…

Wow! The scandal just gets juicier and juicier. Now it seems that the Kiwis may have been at it too – tinkering with raw data to make “Global Warming” look scarier than it really is. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That; Ian Wishart)

The alleged villains this time are the climate scientists at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NiWA) – New Zealand’s answer to Britain’s Climate Research Unit. And to judge by this news alert by the Climate Science Coalition of NZ, both institutions share a similarly laissez-faire attitude to scientific accuracy.

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John Sez: I’ve seen these stories popping for quite a few years now. Most often, they are reported on in very local news papers, investigated by people interested in UFOlogy, then decried as conspiracy theories by those who love to shout that term at the top of their lungs. This is one of the few times I’ve seen a story about this subject covered in national media, so I thought I’d share it.

Story from Breitbart:

Bizarre calf mutilations found on Colorado ranch

SAN LUIS, Colo. (AP) - A creepy string of calf mutilations in southern Colorado has a rancher and sheriff's officials mystified. Four calves were found dead in a pasture just north of the New Mexico state line in recent weeks. The dead calves had their skins peeled back and organs cleared from the rib cage. One calf had its tongue removed.

But rancher Manuel Sanchez has found no signs of human attackers, such as footprints or ATV tracks. And there are no signs of an animal attack by a coyote or mountain lion. Usually predators leave pools of blood or drag marks from carrying away the livestock.

Two officers from the Costilla County Sheriff's Office have investigated the mutilations but say they don't know what's killing the calves. "There's nothing really to go by," said Sanchez, who's ranched for nearly 50 years. "I can't figure it out."

A spokesman for the sheriff's office told The Pueblo Chieftain that investigators doubt a person butchered the calves because there is no blood at the scene. "I've butchered a cow before and I know what kind of a mess it leaves," Sgt. James Chavezsaid

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John Sez: It seems that hackers have broke into the e-mail system of the University of East Anglia (the most prominent center for research into the supposed theory of ‘global warming’) and what they found and later released are thousands of correspondences that seem to indicate that the most prominent people in the movement have fudged scientific data, manipulated research to suit their agenda, concealed evidence that went against their theory, made a concerted effort to publicly demonize anyone who argued with their agenda, and even suppressed doubt from scientists in their own community about the theory of global warming itself.

One could say that the data recovered by the hackers is a fake perpetrated by those who oppose the theory…after all, the debate (where it is allowed to happen) is hot and heavy. But representatives of The University of East Anglia have admitted to the press that these are indeed their e-mails.

In other words, everything that we have been told by proponents of the global warming theory is a potential fraud.

Science, no matter the discipline, is always plagued by a certain amount of politics and internal pressure. But the outright lies which have built up the case for global warming have caused a great deal of global damage.

The entire ‘climate bill’ passed by Congress a few months ago (which basically sets up a frame work for  a new economic stock market of sorts centered around carbon emissions as well as an excuse for the government to spy on your home with carbon emission monitors) and similar laws passed in numerous countries around the world, the amount of money that has gone to organizations who are supposedly on the ‘right side’ of the debate and into the pockets of the already super-wealthy (like Al Gore), and the hundreds of billions  of tax dollars which have been sunk into projects to combat something which may not even exist, are now shown in a new light – a light that tears down the wall put up by the cronies of the corporations and politicians who have been fronting this special interest group, and replaces it with a large, open field of debate which will hopefully destroy this fraudulent movement once and for all.

Now don’t get me wrong – I know full well that the amount of pollution on our planet can only prove disastrous to everything that lives upon it. We can only rape the planet for so long, before ‘mother’ decides to scold her children.

But imagine if all the energy, money and political power were going towards stopping the real reasons our planet is falling apart (in my opinion the massive dumping of waste by corporations, the suppression of real alternative energy by the powers that be, the amount of junk floating around in our orbit, and the wanton destruction of the last remaining bits of untamed land are great places to focus these resources) instead of backing a fraudulent neo-religion, which does nothing more than allow for a destruction of civil liberties and moves massive amounts of wealth into the same pockets of those who have screwed up our planet in the first place.

What a wonderful world.

For the full story read here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

And here is video break down of the story and what it could mean from film maker and radio host, Alex Jones:

 
 
Picture
LEGGO MY EGGO...SERIOUSLY
John Sez: A warning to all you folks who have a hankering for those toaster crisped tasties known as EGGO waffles: stock up now, as you might be hard pressed to get your fix in the near future.

Two of the major plants that make the frozen yummies have closed down indefinitely – one due to storm damage and the other for a major overhaul. As a result, according to Kellogg, there will be a nation-wide shortage of EGGO waffles for the foreseeable future.

Just when I thought the world couldn’t get any worse.

Story from CBS:

Kellogg Warns of Eggo Waffle Shortage

Dear Kellogg: Leggo my Eggo!

Kellogg Co. says there will be a nationwide shortage of its popular Eggo frozen waffles until next summer because of interruptions in production at two of the four plants that make them.

The company's Atlanta plant was shut down for an undisclosed period by a September storm that dumped historic amounts of rain in the area. Meanwhile, several production lines at its largest bakery in Rossville, Tenn., are closed indefinitely for repairs, company spokeswoman Kris Charles said in an e-mail.

It will take until the middle of 2010 before shelves around the country are stocked at pre-shutdown levels, Charles said.

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John Sez: I profiled this story a little ways back. A Maricopa sheriff rifled through a defense attorney’s paperwork (while her back was turned and she was addressing the Judge); he then removed a document, hands it off to another sheriff (who quickly scuttles away, apparently to make a photocopy) while the defense attorney is trying to let the Judge know what the officer had done. Then the second sheriff replaces the document (again, while the attorney’s back is turned). One might think the story fantastic, but it was all caught on the courts camera (see previous post on this story for the video).

The officer has now been given the following sentence: apologize or go to jail. This is an incredible light sentence; if this fellow was anything other than a cop he would have been immediately jailed for contempt (among other things).

To make matters worse, the sheriff’s boss (the infamous Joe Arpiao) has stated that his officer will not comply with the court order.

Given the reaction of the Judge who’s watch this happened on, the Judge who handed down the sentence, Joe Arpiao, and the officers who were involved, it’s a safe bet that the rule of law, proper protocol, attorney confidentiality privileges, and the Constitution have no place in the legal system of Maricopa County.

Story from Law Scholar Jonathan Turley’s blog:

Court Rules Against Arizona Deputy on Swiping Lawyer’s Note — Arpaio To Defy Court

There has been a ruling in the Arizona case where an officer, Officer Adam Stoddard with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is clearly shown on this videotape reading and then swiping the confidential papers of defense attorney Joanne Cuccia in court. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe found against Stoddard and ordered him to either apologize or report to jail — a remarkably light sentence. However, his boss is Sheriff Joe Arpaio who has said that his officer will defy the order.
Stoddard swiped the papers while defense attorney Joanne Cuccia was addressing the court on behalf of her client, Antonio Lozano. The response of Judge Lisa Flores was remarkably understated and restrained given the horrific breach of confidentiality.

Before Donahoe, Stoddard’s explanation only magnified his misconduct. He claimed that he saw the words “going to,” “steal,” and “money” on a handwritten sheet of paper sticking out of Cuccia’s file, which led him to believe that Lozano posed a security threat. This confirms that he read the document as opposed to a cursory review of material for contraband or weapons. It is also ridiculous that such words would cause an officer to remove confidential notes — written by an attorney — in a criminal case. Most of the attorneys in that courthouse are representing people with records and have notes including such nouns and verbs

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