Friday, June 26, 2009
Neo-Nazi Threatmaker Accused of Working for FBI
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by Mark Potok
New Jersey radio host Hal Turner is well known as one of the most vicious neo-Nazis in America, a man who routinely suggests killing his enemies.
Hal Turner is one serious extremist. He may also be on the FBI payroll.
On Jan. 1, unidentified hackers electronically confronted Turner in the forum of his website for "The Hal Turner Show." After a heated exchange, they told Turner that they had successfully hacked into his E-mails and found correspondence with an FBI agent who is apparently Turner's handler. Then they posted an alleged July 7 E-mail to the agent in which Turner hands over a message from someone who sent in a death threat against Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.). "Once again," Turner writes to his handler, "my fierce rhetoric has served to flush out a possible crazy." In what is allegedly a portion of another E-mail, Turner discusses the money he is paid.
On Thursday, as the E-mail exchange was heatedly discussed on a major neo-Nazi website, Turner suddenly announced he was quitting political work. "I hereby separate from the 'pro-White' movement," he said, adding that he was ending his radio show immediately. "I will no longer involve myself in any aspect of it."
The FBI declined comment. "Longstanding FBI policy prohibits disclosing who may or may not provide information," Agent Richard Kolko of the agency's press unit said. Reached in New Jersey, Turner also declined all comment.
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/01/11/neo-nazi-threatmaker-accused-of-working-for-fbi/
Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein bluffed about WMDs fearing Iranian arsenal, secret FBI files show
The FBI interrogations of the toppled tyrant - codename "Desert Spider" - were declassified after a Freedom of Information Act request.
The records show Saddam happily boasted of duping the world about stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. And he consistently denied cooperating with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
Of all his enemies, Iraq's ex-president - who insisted he still held office during captivity - hated Iran most.
Asked how he would have faced "fanatic" Iranian ayatollahs if Iraq had been proven toothless by UN weapons inspectors in 2003, Saddam said he would have cut a deal with Bush.
Pentagon approves creation of cyber command
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* Command to bring together Pentagon's cyber efforts
* HQ will not oversee other government, private networks
* Command chief would also run National Security Agency
By Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - The Pentagon will create a Cyber Command to oversee the U.S. military's efforts to protect its computer networks and operate in cyberspace, under an order signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday.
The new headquarters, likely to be based at Fort Meade, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C., will be responsible for defending U.S. military systems but not other U.S. government or private networks, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
Asked if the command would be capable of offensive operations as well as protecting the Department of Defense, Whitman declined to answer directly.
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'Synthetic tree' claims to catch carbon in the air
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By Hilary Whiteman
Scientists in the United States are developing a "synthetic tree" capable of collecting carbon around 1,000 times faster than the real thing.
As the wind blows though plastic "leaves," the carbon is trapped in a chamber, compressed and stored as liquid carbon dioxide.The technology is similar to that used to capture carbon from flue stacks at coal-fired power plants, but the difference is that the "synthetic tree" can catch carbon anytime, anywhere.
"Half of your emissions come from small, distributed sources where collection at the site is either impossible or impractical," said Professor Klaus Lackner, Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University.
"We aim for applications like gasoline in cars or jet fuel in airplanes. We are going after CO2 that otherwise is nearly impossible to collect," he told CNN.
While the idea of carbon-catchers may sound far-fetched, an early model has been built and Lackner is in the process of writing a proposal for consideration by the U.S. Department of Energy.
He personally explained the concept in a 45-minute meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu last month at a three-day symposium on climate change in London.
"He was there and I was there and he showed interest," Lackner told CNN. "That's exciting, but I don't particularly want to discuss this in a public forum because I think this gives me a little bit of an opportunity to tailor my proposals to the Department of Energy in a way that makes them more palatable."
Lackner started working on the concept of an ambient carbon catcher in 1998. "I argued back then and I still argue that the reason this can be done, from a theoretical point of view, is that the CO2 in the air is actually surprisingly concentrated, therefore the device you need to collect CO2 is quite small."
The "synthetic tree" looks more like a public convenience block than a hi-tech method of reducing carbon emissions, but Lackner told CNN it is highly efficient for its size when compared, for example, to a modern power-generating wind turbine.
"If you give me one of those big windmills which have those big areas through which the rotor moves -- how much CO2 can I avoid? And if I had an equally sized CO2 collector -- how much CO2 can I collect? It turns out the collector is several hundred times better than the windmill."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/06/22/synthetic.tree.climate.change.ccs/index.html
In defense of PETA's total stupidity
�Who, pray who, will save the houseflies? And our sanity?
How easy it is to point at extremist groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as they come out and admit, in public, to an actual reporter, that they wish President Obama had not killed that fly, that tiny little hunk of bacteria and regurgitated food bits and death, but had instead taken a moment to capture it gently between his loving presidential palms like it was universal health care reform and then set it free outside, so it could go spread germs and fecal matter and disease to various flowers and small children and Republicans.
How delightful it is to point out how this group is, once again, so laughably insane and out of touch, how they have jumped the shark once again, which they seem to do with delightful, if obnoxious, frequency.
But hang on a sec. Maybe there was something in that hilarious little story that gave you pause. Maybe you decided to drill down into the idea for just a moment, just to see, and then perhaps realized, well, yes, OK fine, there is an actual point to be made in there, somewhere, just behind the roaring ludicrousness of it all.
It goes something like this: If you're going to truly revere life, if you're going to come out and claim that there is sanctity and divinity to all God's creatures, be they gleaming sex-crazed dolphins and sweet slobbering puppies, on down to gnats and sea slugs and giant hairy bird-eating tarantulas, then yes, you're sort of forced to admit that even houseflies deserve a hint of respect, a touch of empathy, the reluctant admission that even they don't actually deserve to die, per se.
You also know this is a rather extreme and lopsided perspective, totally unfeasible in daily, circle-of-life reality. But then again, when you hold it up to the light and turn in around a few times and let the facts of human life refract through it, it's really not all that insane. It sure as hell reveals more than a few ugly truths.
You have but to ponder: How many millions of living creatures do we slaughter every day on this planet in service of our top-of-the-food-chain gluttonous desires, from cattle to ducks, chickens to horses, pigs and lambs and just about all the rest, and let's not forget raping and pillaging and sucking dry our glorious oceans? Really, is there a living creature we humans have yet to slaughter, skin, eviscerate, consume, commodify, exploit in some relatively obscene way? Nope.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/06/24/notes062409.DTL
Does Obama read Michael Dare on bartcop.com?
What Michael Dare said yesterday:
The military budget doesn't need to be cut, it just needs to be spend differently.��For the cost of let's say one aircraft carrier, we could have a massive airdrop, not of bombs,��but of free iPhones and mini laptops and wifi for every citizen of Iran, and what the hell, North Korea.��
Invite them to experience the freedom of the internet. Win their souls and minds.��
Make the foreign governments look pretty bad when they complain about a�
massive giveaway that every citizen will applaud.�
�Michael Dare�
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The following is from motherjones.com after Michael's bright idea...
�Excerpt:
One reporter asked if the White House was considering beaming broadband capability into Iran via satellite so the� opposition forces would be able to communicate with themselves and the outside world. Gibbs said he didn't know�such a thing was possible. (Is it?) But he said he would check on the technological feasibility and get back with an answer.
That caused some head-scratching in the press room. If the United States could do that and was planning on doing so,� wouldn't this be one of those intelligence matters that Gibbs won't discuss? But maybe some telecom entrepreneur or� Silicon Valley whiz-kids can make this happen. The Google guys? The Twitter people? XM Radio?� This is the sort of covert action that could be worth outsourcing�with the project manager taking full credit.� Think of the endorsement possibilities: the Iranian Revolution...Brought to You by DIRECTV.
America winds down poppy eradication program
by Shaun Tandon in Washington
THE United States is winding down efforts to destroy poppies in Afghanistan, blaming its zealous approach for pushing peasants towards the Taliban.
Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said on Wednesday that President Barack Obama's Administration was making "significant adjustments" from the previous administration to try to root out Islamist extremism.
"We are downgrading our efforts to eradicate crops � a policy we think is totally ineffectual," Mr Holbrooke testified before Congress.
"Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars we've spent on crop eradication has not done any damage to the Taliban. On the contrary, it's helped them recruit," Mr Holbrooke said.
"In my experience," the US diplomat and negotiator said, "this is the least effective program ever."
US reneges on Iraq withdrawal promises
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The United States retracts its initial promise of commitment to withdrawing its troops from Iraqi cities by the end of the month of June.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the US military in Iraq, Brigadier General Steve Lanza, said a number of the country's troops are to remain in the urban areas after the June 30 deadline, Reuters reported.
Earlier, the US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, had claimed that the military was 'absolutely committed' and had largely honored the US security agreement signed with Baghdad.
The security agreement envisages a withdrawal from the war-torn country.
Lanza cited "stability" concerns for maintaining some troop level in "Joint Security Stations" to train and advise Iraqi security forces.
The remaining contingents are to be 'extremely small", he claimed.
The US official added that "on 1 July we're not going to see this big black puff of smoke as everybody leaves the cities" based on the military's claim that it had managed to bring about a respite in al-Qaeda-linked attacks.
This is while Pentagon officials have been using "rises in violence" to prolong the US military presence in the oil-rich country.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the US military in Iraq, Brigadier General Steve Lanza, said a number of the country's troops are to remain in the urban areas after the June 30 deadline, Reuters reported.
Earlier, the US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, had claimed that the military was 'absolutely committed' and had largely honored the US security agreement signed with Baghdad.
The security agreement envisages a withdrawal from the war-torn country.
Lanza cited "stability" concerns for maintaining some troop level in "Joint Security Stations" to train and advise Iraqi security forces.
The remaining contingents are to be 'extremely small", he claimed.
The US official added that "on 1 July we're not going to see this big black puff of smoke as everybody leaves the cities" based on the military's claim that it had managed to bring about a respite in al-Qaeda-linked attacks.
This is while Pentagon officials have been using "rises in violence" to prolong the US military presence in the oil-rich country.
Iraq opens fields; Exxon, Shell seek foothold
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IRAQ is set to welcome back foreign oil companies into the war-torn nation to develop the world's third-largest crude reserves three decades after expelling them.
Eight of the world's top 10 nonstate oil producers, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, are vying for the right to help Iraq develop six oilfields and two natural-gas deposits. More than 30 companies in total are bidding for $16 billion worth of technical service contracts for producing fields that will be awarded in Baghdad on June 29 and 30.
"Iraq is the big prize in the region," said Raja Kiwan, a Dubai-based analyst at consultants PFC Energy. "It is one of the only remaining areas that provide the level of upside for companies who want to access reserves."
The Opec producer is struggling to increase output and revenue from crude sales after six years of conflict and prior sanctions destroyed the country's economy and infrastructure.
The government, also running a second bidding round for 11 oil and gas fields, aims to boost production to about 6 million barrels a day by 2015, from 2.4 million barrels in May. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, produces 8 million barrels a day.
Companies investing in Iraq are looking to take a stake in the long-term potential that the country's 115 billion barrels of reserves hold after gaining a foothold through the service contracts for operational fields. Iraq may offer foreign companies direct stakes in deposits and allow them to sign production-sharing agreements for future fields, according to Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.
Iraq will earn 100 times more than the foreign companies it hires to develop the deposits, the minister told parliament in Baghdad on June 23. The deposits being offered in the first licensing round may yield $1.7 trillion in profit for the country, based on an oil price of $50 a barrel, while oil companies seeking service contracts will gain $16 billion over the 20-year life of the contracts, he said.
Eight of the world's top 10 nonstate oil producers, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, are vying for the right to help Iraq develop six oilfields and two natural-gas deposits. More than 30 companies in total are bidding for $16 billion worth of technical service contracts for producing fields that will be awarded in Baghdad on June 29 and 30.
"Iraq is the big prize in the region," said Raja Kiwan, a Dubai-based analyst at consultants PFC Energy. "It is one of the only remaining areas that provide the level of upside for companies who want to access reserves."
The Opec producer is struggling to increase output and revenue from crude sales after six years of conflict and prior sanctions destroyed the country's economy and infrastructure.
The government, also running a second bidding round for 11 oil and gas fields, aims to boost production to about 6 million barrels a day by 2015, from 2.4 million barrels in May. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, produces 8 million barrels a day.
Companies investing in Iraq are looking to take a stake in the long-term potential that the country's 115 billion barrels of reserves hold after gaining a foothold through the service contracts for operational fields. Iraq may offer foreign companies direct stakes in deposits and allow them to sign production-sharing agreements for future fields, according to Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.
Iraq will earn 100 times more than the foreign companies it hires to develop the deposits, the minister told parliament in Baghdad on June 23. The deposits being offered in the first licensing round may yield $1.7 trillion in profit for the country, based on an oil price of $50 a barrel, while oil companies seeking service contracts will gain $16 billion over the 20-year life of the contracts, he said.
As MA Slashes Health Insurance Coverage, Doctors Offer Alternative: "National Single Payer Program"
Somerville, MA - Saying that Americans already are paying more in taxes (and private insurance premiums) for medical care than any other country in the world but having worse "health outcomes" than citizens of other western industrialized nations, Dr. Rachel Nardin, President of the MA chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, explained Monday why her organization thinks a "single payer, universal coverage" type plan must be adopted as soon as possible.
Citing administrative costs - compared to Canada, health care in the U.S. cost 40% more, she said - Nardin called for a plan that virtually wipes out the private insurance industry.
Unlike corporate driven health care management, which can deny money for health care services based on market forces, Dr. Nardin, a neurologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said a program under which the federal government reimburses doctors and other care providers would result in a system where "�payment would never be denied" for an "expansive" set of treatments.
"Some decisions will have to be made. It's not that everything can be reimbursed. But you will have a system within which everything that is allowed; and that the view of what is allowed will be expansive; I mean Americans are not going to stand for having care that's not of good quality. But we've seen in these other countries that are already spending less than us, they give people everything they need. And their health outcomes are better.
"So I don't think we need to worry that we won't be getting enough. And within that rubric, everything will be covered; all that fighting [to convince insurance companies to pay for treatments] is done away with."
In contrast to the single payer concept, the health care reform plan envisioned by President Obama uses the Commonwealth Connector system established in Massachusetts three years ago as a model. That system uses a mix of public funds and private insurance coverage to reach towards a stated goal of universal health care.
But costs for the Massachusetts program are rising rapidly. A Physicians for a National Health Program sponsored report released in February of this year found the "Massachusetts plan has also failed to make health care sufficiently affordable or to control costs�"
Welcome to Tucson, you zany alternative-newsweekly people
This weekend, the Tucson Weekly is hosting the annual convention of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. Yes, for all you haters out there, Tucson has shown itself capable of attracting somebody other than the Jehovah's Witnesses during the summer.
You're probably wondering what such a gathering would look like. If you see a bunch of people who look like a renaissance fair collided with Woodstock, where the women resemble what Janis Joplin would look like today (dead or alive), and the men look like Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider (or at just about any other stage of his life), that's not the AAN convention; that's the Fourth Avenue Street Fair.
I've been told by my esteemed editor that the people at these things look and act surprisingly normal-ish. In calculus terms, they approach normal as a limit. For better or worse, they're pretty much mainstream. They don't drive cars made out of hemp. Most of them never took Ron Paul seriously. And many of them will only claim to be vegetarian if they happen to be attracted to a woman with armpit hair.
However, being normal-ish, they also fall prey to normal human emotions. After battling the grey ladies in their respective towns for decades, they now find themselves watching as, one by one, the once-great dailies (sadly) blink out of existence, their ownership muttering something about how maybe trying to maintain a 40 percent profit margin wasn't such a good idea.
Now, their innate competitiveness is being turned against one another. They'd probably deny it, but I'm guessing that, deep down, they're constantly trying to see who can out-alternative the others. As they stroll through the JW Marriott Starr Pass this week, they'll be eyeballing each other and thinking, "I'm way more alternative than that dude."
My editor is a gay ex-Mormon. That alone should allow him to pimp through the convention like Kramer wearing that velvet trench coat. You don't get any more alternative than that.
I've always been a big fan of alternative papers. My first experience was with the old Los Angeles Free Press, the one with Ron Cobb as the cartoonist. I picked up a copy once, opened it up and saw an ad that read:
"SAAB: The No-Bullshit Car."
I thought, "Wow, how cool, a newspaper that will print the word 'Saab.'"
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