Fan Mail From Some Flounder? Important? Just Look!

Jerome Hauer [photo], whom I have described as a 9/11 suspect awaiting indictment, sent me email last night, ostensibly to tell me that he enjoys reading my "nonsense" and that his friends send him my writing as "a source of great laughter."

Mr. Hauer didn't say what writing his friends had sent him, but I'm not surprised to learn he's a fan of this cold blog.

I have mentioned Mr. Hauer several times, primarily because of his television appearance on September 11, 2001, in which he told Dan Rather and Rather's audience that the twin towers of the World Trade Center had "collapsed" due to the impact of the planes that had hit them, and the "intense heat" of the resulting fires.

In the same segment, Hauer also told Rather that the attacks bore the "fingerprints of somebody like [Osama] bin Laden."

To me, the fact that Jerome Hauer was spreading both main parts of a clearly false story, that early and with that much confidence, indicates that his role in the events of the day was to help get the big lie in first.

I can't say for sure what prompted Mr. Hauer to write to me; I can say that in addition to referring to my writing as "nonsense", Mr. Hauer suggested that I "must have inherited a gene for creativity and one for stupidity." I already knew he had a good sense of humor, but in my opinion he's missed the point.

So I've replied to Jerome Hauer, as follows:

You may be quite correct about my genes for creativity and stupidity. But I also have genes for truth and justice.

If you can convince me that I'm wrong about you, I'll publish a retraction and an apology.

I can't say I'd do it gladly, but I'd much rather get the story right than pretend to be infallible.

So ... What do you mean "nonsense"? Specifically:

[1] Did you talk to Dan Rather on 9/11/2001?

[2] Did you tell him the towers "collapsed" because of the "intense heat" of the fires and the impact of the airplanes?

[3] Did you tell him the attack bore the "fingerprints of somebody like bin Laden"?

[4] And if so, how could you have know[n] these things at the time, when they still haven't been proven to this day?

I look forward to your response since I think it might help me to understand what actually happened.

I was serious about that. If I'm wrong about Jerome Hauer, I will have no problem saying so.

The ball's in his court. I'll keep you posted.

House Passes War Bill: $162B More For The Destruction Of Iraq And Afghanistan

The House of Representatives [sic] has passed a bill which would fund the continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan well beyond the twice-unelected president's scheduled date of departure. And that's the good news.

Republicans [...] applauded the passage of another war funding bill without a deadline for troop withdrawals, something Pelosi and many Democrats had sought [sic] since early last year.

"The measure provides this critical funding without bogging it down with politically motivated surrender language," Boehner said.

"Politically motivated surrender language"! These monsters are so transparent, they'd make me laugh if their actions weren't so deplorable. But that's the good news.

And now the bad news: the Democrats are calling it a victory!

Included in the bill that funds continued war without a deadline, are three provisions which president Bush has already threatened to veto. With apparent support for an override in Congress, the House has "stood up" to the president on those points.

"He is reversing three distinct veto threats and signing them into law. If that ain't a victory, I don't know what is," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus [photo].

Bush can reverse any of those clauses with signing statements, so what difference does it make to him?

The bottom line: the Democrats, who control the House of Representatives [sic] and therefore the national purse-strings, have chosen to spend another $162 billion -- $540 per person -- over the next year, to keep killing people you've never met, in wars of aggression in foreign countries, which are being fought on false pretexts. And

"If that ain't a victory, I don't know what is,"

according to the so-called leader of the so-called opposition party.

Nothing in my lifetime, and probably nothing in American history, has shown as clearly as the so-called Global War On Terror just how easily corruptible and utterly corrupt the American political system is.

But even having seen it -- even seeing it more clearly every day -- we continue to drift along, sliding ever closer to the edge of a horrible abyss.

What's another $162 billion? How many more innocent people will that kill? Enough?

No! It's never enough! Next year they'll need more, and they'll need even more than they needed this year. And even if we've got a Democratic president, even if we've got a solidly Democratic Congress, will they dare to vote against it?

You must be joking.

This is the same Rahm Emanuel who denied funding and national exposure to any Democrat who was fortunate enough to win a primary but not smart enough to toe the party line. So Bob Bowman (who supports 9/11 truth) and Clint Curtis (who supports electoral integrity) were on their own for the general election, while Cynthia McKinney (who supports both) was torpedoed in the primary.

And he's running the national Democratic caucus.

All we can do at this point is drop to our knees and beg for mercy.

Mission Almost Accomplished: Immunity For Telecoms Is On The Way

Immunity is on the way for our spying-without-a-warrant telecoms, as Eric Lichtblau reports in the New York Times:

After months of wrangling, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress struck a deal on Thursday to overhaul the rules on the government’s wiretapping powers and provide what amounts to legal immunity to the phone companies that took part in President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The deal, expanding the government’s powers in some key respects, would allow intelligence officials to use broad warrants to eavesdrop on foreign targets and conduct emergency wiretaps without court orders on American targets for a week if it is determined important national security information would be lost otherwise. If approved, as appears likely, it would be the most significant revision of surveillance law in 30 years.

The agreement would settle one of the thorniest issues in dispute by providing immunity to the phone companies in the Sept. 11 program as long as a federal district court determines that they received legitimate requests from the government directing their participation in the warrantless wiretapping operation.

With some AT&T and other telecommunications companies now facing some 40 lawsuits over their reported participation in the wiretapping program, Republican leaders described this narrow court review on the immunity question as a mere “formality.”

“The lawsuits will be dismissed,” Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican in the House, predicted with confidence.

Somehow we won't be surprised. Even the supposedly liberal NYT can't help piling on:

The proposal — particularly the immunity provision — represents a major victory for the White House after months of dispute. “I think the White House got a better deal than they even they had hoped to get,” said Senator Christopher Bond, the Missouri Republican who led the negotiations.

The White House immediately endorsed the proposal, which is likely to be voted on in the House on Friday and in the Senate next week.

While passage seems almost certain in Congress, the plan will nonetheless face opposition from lawmakers on both political wings, with some conservatives asserting that it includes too many checks on government surveillance powers and liberals asserting that it gives legal sanction to a wiretapping program that they contend was illegal in the first place.

It WAS illegal in the first place. And worse than that: The system it was designed to replace was illegal too!

FISA was established to circumvent the Fourth Amendment. The new law is designed to take out the few teeth that remain in FISA. And the passage seems almost certain in Congress, which once again is preparing to give the White House even more than it ever expected to get -- all of which is blatantly illegal.

But the law doesn't matter anymore, and neither does the truth. Not to the White House, and not to the New York Times.

You probably noticed that long ago ... but everybody needs a reminder now and again.

Mission Accomplished: Western Oil Companies Set To Return To Iraq

Andrew Kramer in the New York Times:

Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

Weapons of mass destruction? Complicity in the attacks of 9/11? Central front in the Global War on Terror? Or just the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production?

Oh well, what's the difference? Or, as Andrew Kramer puts it:

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract.

Yeah, that's it. There was suspicion. But there's no suspicion anymore, right?

Well, it doesn't matter. Or it soon won't.

While small, the deals hold great promise for the companies.

“The bigger prize everybody is waiting for is development of the giant new fields,” Leila Benali, an authority on Middle East oil at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in a telephone interview from the firm’s Paris office. The current contracts, she said, are a “foothold” in Iraq for companies striving for these longer-term deals.

And so it goes. Business is business, and oil is oil, and we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.

It's not that you'll believe anything; it's just that your neighbors do.

[i]n a twist of corporate history for some of the world’s largest companies, all four oil majors that had lost their concessions in Iraq are now back.
...

In an interview with Newsweek last fall, the former chief executive of Exxon, Lee Raymond, praised Iraq’s potential as an oil-producing country and added that Exxon was in a position to know. “There is an enormous amount of oil in Iraq,” Mr. Raymond said. “We were part of the consortium, the four companies that were there when Saddam Hussein threw us out, and we basically had the whole country.”

They'll have the whole country again, from the look of things. No matter how many Americans -- and no matter how many Iraqis -- have to die.

Big Surprise In Buffalo: The Art Professor Wasn't A Terrorist After All!

After a four-year nightmare, art professor Steve Kurtz has finally shaken free of the Department of Homeland Terror.

The trouble for Kurtz started in May of 2004, when his wife died suddenly in her sleep. Police came out to investigate the unexpected death, and while searching the home, they found harmless scientific and art supplies, which they claimed were evidence of terrorism.

Over the next almost-four years, a bundle of alphabet agencies did their best to misrepresent Kurtz and his art supplies as a threat to our security, but -- amazingly -- the case against him was thrown out of court, with a federal judge calling the government's entire indictment "insufficient on its face."

Kurtz spoke with Amy Goodman the other day; here's an excerpt from their conversation:

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to our next story, almost unfathomable, but true, about art in a time of terror. Even Kafka might have had trouble conjuring up this one.

Steve Kurtz is a professor of visual studies at SUNY, Buffalo — that’s State University of New York, Buffalo — a founding member of the award-winning art and theater group, Critical Art Ensemble. On May 11, 2004, his wife Hope tragically died in her sleep. When he called 911 for help, a nightmare that would last for the next four years began to unfold.

The police became suspicious of his art supplies and harmless bacteria cultures that he was using for an antiwar project about the public health impact of germ warfare programs. Kurtz was detained as a suspected bioterrorist, his home raided by the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Homeland Security. His belongings, his cat, even his wife’s body, were seized.

After a federal grand jury refused to charge Kurtz with bioterrorism, Kurtz and his colleague Robert Ferrell of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health were charged with federal mail and wire fraud concerning the acquisition of $256 of harmless bacteria. Under the PATRIOT Act, they could have faced up to twenty years in prison.

After four harrowing years, on April 21, a federal judge dismissed the government’s entire indictment against Kurtz as “insufficient on its face.” He’s been cleared of all charges.
...

Why don’t you tell us your story, beginning that day, May 11, 2004?

STEVE KURTZ: Well, that was a very dark day for me. I woke up that morning and found that my wife had died in her sleep. And kind of after a moment of shock that slowly broke into a kind of panic, I made my way to the telephone, called 911. They came quite rapidly. And as they looked around, they did as they had to do when a woman who, quite young at this age, forty-five, dies in their home and called the police. And the police came out and secured my home, and then three detectives showed up. And for the rest of that day, I was pretty much interrogated as a murder suspect.

And one of the things that caught the police attention’s eye was my home lab, which was filled with pretty basic innocuous equipment that I primarily use for molecular biology, for DNA experiments. And they wondered why I had that, and I explained to them that I was a professor at UB, University of Buffalo, and that my specialty was the intersection between art and science, and this was part of the basic equipment I needed to have, that the university didn’t supply us studios, so we had to create our own space for it. And, you know, I showed them work I had done online, showed them my resume, showed them catalogs. But they weren’t particularly convinced by that, and they were more convinced by the idea that if someone has scientific equipment in their home that they’re probably up to something nefarious. And as the detectives left that afternoon, they were of the opinion that the FBI was going to want to talk to me.

So the following day, as I went out to go to the funeral home to make arrangements for my wife’s cremation, about three or four FBI cars came screeching up, and I was put into illegal detention and basically soft-rendered, meaning I didn’t have to get drugged and flown off to Guantanamo. It was much nicer than that. It was the pleasant way to get rendered. They take you to a hotel and hold you there without charge, without being Miranda-ized, and put you through a lighter style of interrogation.

Thus began the incredible -- but true -- saga. Well, maybe it's not so incredible anymore, not in BushLand. If a skyscraper a quarter of a mile tall can disintegrate in 10 seconds -- just because of gravity -- and if that can happen three times in the same day -- but only on that day -- then nothing's incredible anymore, is it?

When the police initially searched the Kurtz home, they found an invitation with Arabic writing on it. They used this bit of Arabic to "prove" that Steve Kurtz was a terrorist, and this "proof" was then used to "justify" a warrant.

Nothing could have been further from the truth, but it doesn't matter anymore, not in BushLand.

STEVE KURTZ: And when the prosecutor was questioned about it in the first hearing, the judge asked, "You mean if he had a Koran in his house, you would have confiscated that and used that in this manner?" And the prosecutor said, "Yes."

Well, there you have it. If you can read or write Arabic, or if you possess the tiniest sample of Arabic writing, even if you doesn't understand what it says, you may not actually be a bioterrorist, but you'd better be very wary of the police, especially if your wife happens to die in the middle of the night.

But don't worry; they're keeping us safe from art teachers.

Blacker Than Obama, More Sane Than McCain ... Look! Up In The Sky! It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's ... Running For President!!

We've been bored to tears as the Elephants have spent countless months choosing yet another White Male Warmonger, and moved to nausea as the Donkeys have spent even more months choosing between a White Female Warmonger and a Half-White, Half-Black Male Warmonger.

(The Donkeys, being the party of change and hope, cannot afford to run yet another Completely White Male Warmonger themselves, much as they'd love to.)

So what do we want? What sort of President might bring us genuine change and hope -- and hope for even more change?

Can you imagine a candidate with the "best" qualities of the main Donkey contenders [black, female] and the "best" quality of the Elephant candidate [he speaks his mind], but who stands against the shared agenda of the two major parties?

What if our hypothetical candidate were also smart, brave, pro-truth, anti-war, pro-people? ... What if the Elephants hated her and the mainstream Donkeys did too ... What if she'd been targeted by powerful pro-Zionist groups and the national "news" media [or was that redundant?] ... What if she was the first member of Congress who dared to stand up and ask embarrassing questions about 9/11? ...

What if she wasn't hypothetical? And what if she needed your help?

Nothing comes from nothing, folks. Here's a message from Cynthia McKinney:

Hello my friends,

I am writing to thank you for your sustained support for my campaign and to urge you to give me an extra boost in the next three weeks to help me qualify for federal matching campaign funds.

I have long supported public funding in all aspects of our campaigns, but now we really have the opportunity to participate in the power of public funding. However, that participation can only happen when the Power to the People Campaign has demonstrated its broad appeal in at least 20 states with each having raised $5,000 where the first $250 of each contribution is matchable. In other words, in order to qualify for public matching funds, you've got to qualify me.

I have traveled to 24 states and I've heard from many of you. I've tried to put a foundation in place for the Power to the People Committee. But the fact is that I want to be able to give you the kind of campaign that you all deserve and that I envisioned, but that takes money to buy the yard signs and handbills, pay the airfare necessary for my travels, and to meet the payroll necessary to staff the campaign.

To meet our campaign needs in the new and exciting period ahead, we have to turn the corner on our finances -- and the first step in this direction is raising at least $5,000 in each of at least 20 states to qualify for federal matching funds. So far, we have only met this objective in seven states -- though 11 additional states are well on their way toward that goal. The deadline for raising these funds is July 12th.

My campaign is not funded by the military-industrial-financial-media complex, nor the energy, pharmaceutical or other corporate interests that bankroll the parties of war: the Democrats and Republicans. I can only count on you, the people who produce the wealth in this country, to finance my campaign.

I need your support to get out the political message of our Power to the People campaign to voters all across the country.

The message of our campaign is necessary now, more than ever: Congress is on the verge of caving in on more funding for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan; our country bombs Somalia and Pakistan with impunity and none of the major party contenders mentions it; the American people are losing their homes at a record pace, Congress is yet to offer a solution; and our country is even more mired in debt. Our platform is the only one that genuinely addresses the needs and aspirations for real change that have been expressed by voters nationwide.

With your help, we can achieve our goal of raising the $100,000 in 20 states needed to obtain the federal matching funds. Please go to our website today (http://www.runcynthiarun.org) and make as generous a donation as you can. Then send all your friends, coworkers, and neighbors to this site, asking that they match or exceed your donation. I do believe in the power of the people.

Please help me put this first campaign milestone behind us, so we can get the Power to the People campaign on every ballot possible nationwide -- so that we can provide a genuine alternative to the No Impeachment, War Parties and their candidates. Our communities deserve so much more and the Power to the People campaign is ready to deliver. Your donation now will help us deliver with an impact. Thank you in advance for your contribution to this effort.

In struggle and solidarity,
Cynthia McKinney,
Presidential Candidate,
Power to the People Campaign

--
"And advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."
PNAC, Rebuilding America's Defenses, p. 60

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.
-- Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time

Where else are you going to find a presidential candidate who speaks openly -- and critically -- about the war crimes being committed in Pakistan and Somalia, not to mention the PNAC and their bio-warfare wet-dreams?

What's not to like about her?

Other than the occasional "bad hair day" ...

... and now that I think about it, we'd be a lot better off with a President who had bad hair days!

Mike Gravel Supports Citizens' Ballot Initiative To Investigate 9/11 -- And You Can, Too!

Do you feel like doing a little volunteer work for the truth?

Former Senator Mike Gravel does; he's thrown his support behind a NYC citizens' ballot initiative to force a full investigation of the "terrorist attacks" of September 11, 2001.

He spoke with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and the transcript has been posted here.

The citizens' group supporting the initiative has a website here, and whether you live in NYC or not, they need your help to get this process moving along a little more quickly.

There aren't many ways in which ordinary citizens can chip away at the bogus foundation of the Global Terror War, so I hope you will support this initiative.

Put it this way: What have you got to do today that's more important?

Dennis Kucinich: Bush Obstructed Investigation Into 9/11

The 34th of 35 Articles urging the Impeachment of the president, from Dennis Kucinich:

Article XXXIV
OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed", has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, obstructed investigations into the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Following September 11, 2001, President Bush and Vice President Cheney took strong steps to thwart any and all proposals that the circumstances of the attack be addressed. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was forced to renege on his public promise on September 23 that a "White Paper" would be issued to explain the circumstances. Less than two weeks after that promise, Powell apologized for his "unfortunate choice of words," and explained that Americans would have to rely on "information coming out in the press and in other ways."

On Sept. 26, 2001, President Bush drove to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia, stood with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and said: "My report to the nation is, we've got the best intelligence we can possibly have thanks to the men and women of the C.I.A." George Tenet subsequently and falsely claimed not to have visited the president personally between the start of Bush's long Crawford vacation and September 11, 2001.

Testifying before the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004, Tenet answered a question from Commission member Timothy Roemer by referring to the president's vacation (July 29-August 30) in Crawford and insisting that he did not see the president at all in August 2001. "You never talked with him?" Roemer asked. "No," Tenet replied, explaining that for much of August he too was "on leave." An Agency spokesman called reporters that same evening to say Tenet had misspoken, and that Tenet had briefed Bush on August 17 and 31. The spokesman explained that the second briefing took place after the president had returned to Washington, and played down the first one, in Crawford, as uneventful.

In his book, At the Center of the Storm, (2007) Tenet, refers to what is almost certainly his August 17 visit to Crawford as a follow-up to the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US" article in the CIA-prepared President's Daily Brief of August 6. That briefing was immortalized in a Time Magazine photo capturing Harriet Myers holding the PDB open for the president, as two CIA officers sit by. It is the same briefing to which the president reportedly reacted by telling the CIA briefer, "All right, you've covered your ass now." (Ron Suskind, The One-Percent Doctrine, p. 2, 2006). In At the Center of the Storm, Tenet writes: "A few weeks after the August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to Crawford to make sure that the president stayed current on events."

A White House press release suggests Tenet was also there a week later, on August 24. According to the August 25, 2001, release, President Bush, addressing a group of visitors to Crawford on August 25, told them: "George Tenet and I, yesterday, we piled in the new nominees for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice Chairman and their wives and went right up the canyon."

In early February, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney warned then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that if Congress went ahead with an investigation, administration officials might not show up to testify. As pressure grew for an investigation, the president and vice president agreed to the establishment of a congressional joint committee to conduct a "Joint Inquiry." Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the Inquiry, opened the Joint Inquiry's final public hearing in mid-September 2002 with the following disclaimer: "I need to report that, according to the White House and the Director of Central Intelligence, the president's knowledge of intelligence information relevant to this inquiry remains classified, even when the substance of the intelligence information has been declassified."

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was created on November 27, 2002, following the passage of congressional legislation signed into law by President Bush. The President was asked to testify before the Commission. He refused to testify except for one hour in private with only two Commission members, with no oath administered, with no recording or note taking, and with the Vice President at his side. Commission Co-Chair Lee Hamilton has written that he believes the commission was set up to fail, was underfunded, was rushed, and did not receive proper cooperation and access to information.

A December 2007 review of classified documents by former members of the Commission found that the commission had made repeated and detailed requests to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and had been told falsely by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had "produced or made available for review" everything that had been requested.

In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Donuts In The Parking Lot: Toronto "Terror Plot" Not What It Seemed, Says Gov't Mole

Thomas Walkom in the Toronto Star:

In the first full-fledged trial coming out of the case of the Toronto 18, the Crown is arguing that a youth (who cannot be named) participated in a "shocking and sensational" terrorist plot "to cause harm and death by attacking innocent lives."

But in a Brampton courtroom yesterday, RCMP informer Mubin Shaikh – the government's star witness – acknowledged that while this particular youth may have been an unsuccessful shoplifter (he was caught – twice), he knew nothing about alleged schemes to blow up buildings or behead politicians.

Rather, Shaikh said, he knew the young man as a quiet, shy, considerate teenager – a recent convert to Islam – who wanted to please the alleged ringleaders of the alleged plot but who, in the main, was just trying to fit in.

And he described the antics of those attending a Washago training camp as a comedy of errors, where the alleged jihadis melted holes in the soles of their running shoes, locked one vehicle's keys in the car, almost set a sleeping bag on fire and – instead of keeping a low profile – did doughnuts in a Canadian Tire parking lot.

This is the same Mubin Shaikh who said last week that this alleged training camp was actually quite serious and not just an exercise in "picking daisies."

But that was when he was being questioned by Crown prosecutor John Neander.

Yesterday, under questioning from defence lawyer Mitchell Chernovsky, Shaikh agreed that, really, nothing much happened during the December 2005 camping trip.

This is the big deal that the Canadian media have been scared of for the past two years? This is the face of international terrorism?

A camping trip where nothing much happened, according to the government's star witness!

Malkom continues:

He said a recorded lecture on jihad played to the group of teens and young men was so boring that some dozed off.

He said the so-called military training consisted of getting the campers to march up and down a road to keep warm.

He said that when an illegal handgun was used for target practice, the youthful campers were "freaked out" by the noise.

He agreed that the campers wore camouflage outfits mainly to protect their clothes during paintball games.

Last week, Shaikh testified that one of the alleged ringleaders gave a long allegorical speech in which he spoke of the need for Muslims to bring down "Rome" – which the RCMP informer said was a reference to the U.S.

Yesterday, Shaikh acknowledged that many of those present – including the person now on trial – wouldn't have a had a clue what the speech meant.

And he summed up the Washago adventure with these words: "Nobody knew what they were doing ... Idiocy seemed to be a constant theme."

I would go farther and suggest that idiocy seems to be a constant theme among those who support the so-called "Global War On Terror".

But it's not the only theme. Some people are getting rich. And some are getting their jollies. And many are getting killed, and more are having their lives destroyed, and even those who do not appear to be affected by terrorism or counter-terrorism are having their futures sucked out from under them, not to mention the futures of their children, and their grandchildren, and so on ... and on and on ...

And it's all bogus. Or at least most of it is. 9/11 was clearly bogus. The London 7/7 bombings were bogus. Neither attack was even investigated; instead the governments involved spent millions telling us what they want us to believe. The same thing has happened with the Madrid bombing and both bomb attacks in Bali -- and since then we've had a long string of bogus terror plots that were infiltrated if not created by government moles, and actual terror strikes by groups of actual terrorists who are funded and motivated by our government -- and that's bogus too, but in an even worse way!

And we can't even talk about any of this in the national media -- because why?

Because it's all bogus, that's why! The terror is bogus and the media is bogus! And every now and then they let a little bogus detail slip out, and a reporter writes a column about it, and then it disappears under a carpet of lies, never to be seen again -- except in blogs like this, which nobody reads anyway.

And there you have it: justification for the destruction of humanity. And it's all bogus!

An Infinitessimal Loss: How Hard Is It To Lob The Ball?

According to ABC News, the late Tim Russert,

the moderator of NBC News' "Meet the Press,"

was known for

posing hard-hitting questions to America's leading politicians and newsmakers.

Congratulations to ABC on a hot scoop!

In view of this breaking news, and the elevation of "Meet the Press" to the realm of actual journalism, will NBC feel compelled to replace Russert with an actual hard-hitting journalist?

Will they hire Chris Floyd, perhaps, or maybe John Pilger?

No, I didn't think so.

Tom Toles: If You Work Hard ...

Are You With The Truth Or Against It? Obama Makes His Position Clear

Barack Obama has left his church of 20 years, in the wake of controversial [i.e. truthful] remarks made by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and more recent remarks by another pastor, Michael Pfleger.

I would write more about this episode except:

-- the incident is essentially meaningless and will certainly be overblown,

-- throughout the "controversy", Jeremiah Wright has shown far more historical knowledge, compassion, intelligence and integrity than Obama himself, not to mention the national media, and

-- I have to leave soon because I need to get to church early. I'll be doing some tech work this morning, playing a bit of bass, too, and hoping our pastor might finally say something controversial, inflammatory, divisive and incendiary: perhaps a horrifyingly educational message about how God wants us to treat one another, with concrete examples drawn from current world affairs.

But I'm not expecting that, any more than I'm expecting Barack Obama to suddenly start telling the truth about anything. As I've noted elsewhere, he doesn't have to, because his lies are officially sanctioned.