US military sure of catching Osama this year (HindustanTimes.com)
"The US military is 'sure' it will catch Osama bin Laden this year, a spokesman said on Friday, but he declined to comment on where exactly the Al-Qaeda leader may be hiding. Bin Laden is widely believed to be holed up somewhere along the mountainous Pakistani-Afghan border." ... fresh on the heels of Michel Chussudovsky's recent revelation of Osama's location.

The McCollum Memo: The Smoking Gun of Pearl Harbor (What Really Happened)
"On October 7, 1940, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum of the Office of Naval Intelligence submitted a memo to Navy Captains Walter Anderson and Dudley Knox. Captains Anderson and Knox were two of President Roosevelt's most trusted military advisors. The memo detailed an 8 step plan to provoke Japan into attacking the United States. President Roosevelt, over the course of 1941, implemented all 8 of the recommendations contained in the McCollum memo. Following the eighth provocation, Japan attacked. The public was told that it was a complete surprise, an 'intelligence failure', and America entered World War Two."
Drawing the parallels between the Pearl Harbor 'intelligence failure' and the on 9/11 'intelligence failure' is an exercise left to you...

Judge Calls Schwarzenegger's $4 Million Campaign Loans Illegal (Tom Chorneau Associated Press Writer / Tampa Bay Online)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger broke a state law during the closing weeks of the recall race when he took out $4.5 million in bank loans to help his cash-starved campaign, according to a preliminary ruling from a superior court judge.

Fresh Fears Over Cellphones (Popular Science)
"Neuroscience: A Swedish study links mobile phones to brain damage."

Milk - Something Very Bad Has Happened And We May Never Learn The Truth From The FDA (notmilk / Rense)
"Representatives of dairy co-ops have been telling dairy farmers that cows treated with Posilac have been developing bone cancers. ... Monsanto shocked farmers by alerting them to the fact that Posilac would be in limited supply until: "Conditions and improvements in manufacturing are made..." Monsanto is accepting no new customers, and anticipated their "shortfall" to last for "several months." Monsanto's actions are criminal. So are FDA's."

America's War for Global Domination (Michel Chussudovsky / Centre for Research on Globalization)
The following is the background text of Michel Chossudovsky's public lecture at the Society for the Defense of Civil Rights and Human Dignity

'There ought to be limits to freedom.' -- G.W. Bush

'The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor' (2000) -- Project for a New American Century

'We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.' -- David Rockefeller

'Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death.' -- Adolf Hitler"

Dem Mena Bones & Kerry (Libertythink / Boston Globe)
"The Democratic leadership gave Kerry chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations and a charter to dig into the contra-drug connection. . . . The subcommittee published a report in 1989 that concluded the CIA and other US agencies had turned a blind eye to drug trafficking occurring on the fringes of the contra network. In many cases, traffickers were using the same airplanes, airfields, and other resources that the contras were using. During the investigation, an Oregon businessman claiming CIA ties, Richard Brenneke, whose testimony was taken by Kerry's committee [charged] that Vice President George H. W. Bush's office had sanctioned a contra-drug smuggling operation. [...] The committee dropped the Brenneke angle."

Every Picture Tells a Story

Paranoid shift (Michael Hasty / Online Journal)
"Just before his death, James Jesus Angleton, the legendary chief of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, was a bitter man. He felt betrayed by the people he had worked for all his life. In the end, he had come to realize that they were never really interested in American ideals of "freedom" and "democracy." They really only wanted "absolute power." The transformation of James Jesus Angleton from an enthusiastic, Ivy League cold warrior, to a bitter old man, is an extreme example of a phenomenon I call a "paranoid shift." I recognize the phenomenon, because something similar happened to me. ... In fact, my personal "paranoid shift" probably began with the disillusionment I felt when I realized that the story of American foreign policy was, at the very least, more complicated and darker than I had hitherto been led to believe. But for most of the next 30 years, I nevertheless held faith in the basic integrity of a system where power ultimately resided in the people, and whereby if enough people got together and voted, real and fundamental change could happen. What constitutes my personal paranoid shift is that I no longer believe this to be necessarily true. ... Did we think Dwight Eisenhower was exaggerating when he warned of the extreme "danger" to democracy of "the military industrial complex?" Was Barry Goldwater just being a quaint old-fashioned John Bircher when he said that the Trilateral Commission was "David Rockefeller's latest scheme to take over the world, by taking over the government of the United States?" Were Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt or Joseph Kennedy just being class traitors when they talked about a small group of wealthy elites who operate as a hidden government behind the government? Especially after he died so mysteriously, why shouldn't we believe the late CIA Director William Colby, who bragged about how the CIA "owns everyone of any major significance in the major media?"

Engineering Google Results to Make a Point
Interesting NYTimes article about Google Bombing

9/11 is low on White House priority list (Palm Beach Post)
The bipartisan panel investigating the attacks won't be finished by the May 27 deadline. The Bush administration's refusal to cooperate with the panel is the primary reason that it won't be ready to produce a comprehensive report. This week, The Washington Post reported that President Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., are determined to kill any attempts to extend the deadline. President Bush must be afraid that the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States will produce a report showing that he ignored warnings of an Al-Qaeda strike -- and possibly specific warnings about using hijacked airplanes as missiles. An extension would push any such revelations well into the reelection campaign."

The Seattle Times: Opinion: 9-11 is no reason to suspend the Constitution
"Essentially, the government is saying in these cases and others that 9-11 suspended the Constitution, and did so for all time, not just the immediate future. The nub of the Justice argument is that this is wartime, and the president has unusual powers in wartime. Granted, that has always been the case. But even a genuine declared war (the last time Congress declared a war was Dec. 8, 1941) still leaves a role for checks on presidential power.

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." -- Salvor Hardin

Infiltration of files seen as extensive (Boston Globe)
"Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media and Senate... Democrats now claim their private memos formed the basis for a February 2003 column by conservative pundit Robert Novak that revealed plans pushed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to filibuster certain judicial nominees. Novak is also at the center of an investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi nuclear programs."

Bush made Osama deal with Musharraf - (Times of India)
"Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has struck a deal with the US not to capture Osama Bin Laden, fearing this could lead to unrest in Pakistan, according to a special investigation by The Guardian. Ijaz believed an agreement was reached between Musharraf and US authorities shortly after Bin Laden's flight from his stronghold Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001. The paper reported Saturday that Bin Laden was being protected by three elaborate security rings manned by tribesmen stretching 192 kms in diameter in northern Pakistan."

Military Lawyer Slams U.S. Terrorism Tribunals (Reuters)
The U.S. Marine Corps lawyer assigned to defend an Australian terror suspect being held at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba Wednesday criticized the military tribunal process and said it will not allow a fair trial.

Bush May Seek Billions for Iraq After Election (Reuters)
President Bush may seek an additional $40 billion or more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year - on top of the $400-billion military budget he will send to Congress next month, congressional sources and budget analysts said on Wednesday.

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Iraq may be on path to civil war, CIA officials warn
CIA officers in Iraq are warning that the country may be on a path to civil war, current and former U.S. officials said yesterday, starkly contradicting the upbeat assessment President Bush gave in his State of the Union address.

CCR Files Freedom of Information Act on Behalf of United for Peace and Justice (Center for Constitutional Rights)

CCR filed a FOIA request on behalf of the anti-war group United for Peace and Justice in light of revelations of FBI spying on anti-war groups. CCR filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of the national antiwar coalition, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), seeking information from the FBI about a recently discovered FBI program to team up with local law enforcement agencies to monitor and investigate antiwar activists. The policy came to light when the New York Times reported on a leaked, confidential memo that described the tactics and training attributed to antiwar groups. That memo was then sent to local police agencies prior to large antiwar demonstrations organized by UFPJ and International Answer in San Francisco and Washington last month. Jeff Fogel, the Legal Director of CCR, noted that the memo included analysis of many lawful First Amendments activities. "Although purportedly about violence," Fogel explained, "the memo actually instructs law enforcement agencies to 'be alert to possible indicators of protest activity' including use of the internet to recruit members and raise money prior to demonstrations, training on how to deal interact with police officers, communication via cell phones during protests, videotaping of police actions during protests, and other protected and lawful actions."

Washington's New World Order Weapons Have the Ability to Trigger Climate Change (Michael Chussudovsky / Centre for Research on Globalisation)
The important debate on global warming under UN auspices provides but a partial picture of climate change; in addition to the devastating impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the ozone layer, the World's climate can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated "non-lethal weapons." Both the Americans and the Russians have developed capabilities to manipulate the World's climate. In the US, the technology is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) as part of the ("Star Wars") Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). Recent scientific evidence suggests that HAARP is fully operational and has the ability of potentially triggering floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction. Potentially, it constitutes an instrument of conquest capable of selectively destabilising agricultural and ecological systems of entire regions. While there is no evidence that this deadly technology has been used, surely the United Nations should be addressing the issue of "environmental warfare" alongside the debate on the climatic impacts of greenhouse gases...

War Propaganda and the Capture of Saddam Hussein (Michel Chossudovsky / Centre for Research on Globalisation)

How to Unseat the War Criminals and Reverse the Tide of War? Expose the Links between Al Qaeda and the Bush Adminstration (Michel Chossudovsky / Centre for Research on Globalisation)
"When people across the US find out that Al Qaeda is not linked to Saddam but is in fact a creation of the CIA and that the terrorist warnings are fabricated, the legitimacy of the Bush Administration will tumble like a deck of cards. ... This relationship of the Bush Administration to international terrorism, which is a matter of public record, indelibly points to the criminalisation of the upper echelons of US State apparatus. The only way to prevent this war from happening in the weeks ahead is to unseat the rulers, who are war criminals. A precondition for breaking the legitimacy of the Bush Administration is to fully reveal its links to international terrorism and its complicity in the tragic event of 9/11. This objective can only be achieved by effectively curbing its propaganda campaign and spreading the truth through a grassroots citizen's information campaign."

The Awful Truth About General Wesley Clark (Dissident Voice)
Here's a good list of the problems with Wesley Clark for all my friends and family who haven't done their homework.

Proof of Peak Oil and Gas - CNN Reports Blackouts imminent as plants run out of Natural Gas to Northeast Heating Demand (From The Wilderness)
With CNN reporting electrical power stations running out of natural gas; with officials warning of possible rolling blackouts; with almost all new homes heated by gas; and with Australia touting a $50 Bn LNG project while acknowledging a severe US energy crisis, at least five people have frozen to death because there was no heat. It is time to re-examine current natural gas production and reserve figures. Immediately after the CNN story, Connecticut officials tried to spin the shrotages by saying that power companies had sold their gas on the spot markets for profit. But, as FTW Energy Editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer reports, the numbers tell a completely different story. The crisis we have predicted is here, and it will only get worse. North America is almost out of gas. For almost two years FTW has warned its subscribers that diminishing, irreplaceable supplies of natural gas might cause people to freeze to death this winter. As CNN reported yesterday, six people have already died and officials are concerned about a power grid that has no fuel substitutes and people who have no other way to keep warm.

Orange Code Terror Alert based on Fabricated Intelligence Michel Chossudovsky

U.S. may have further cases of Mad Cow, Japan says(Unknown News)
U.S. steps to guard against mad cow infection aren't enough to stop the disease from spreading south from Canada and giving rise to new cases on U.S. farms, Japan's Agriculture Ministry said in a report. Japan, the biggest overseas customer of the U.S., wants the U.S. to test all slaughtered cattle before it agrees to lift a ban on beef imports, which total about 240,000 tons a year. The U.S. has said it will double inspections on cattle to about 40,000 head this year, or 0.1 percent of the total slaughtered each year. "We've told the U.S. their surveillance isn't good enough," Kugita said.

Northwest's Disclosure of Passenger Data
"Northwest Airlines provided information on millions of passengers for a secret U.S. government air-security project... The nation's fourth-largest airline asserted in September that it 'did not provide that type of information to anyone.' But Northwest acknowledged Friday that by that time, it had already turned over three months of reservation data... In September, JetBlue Airways said that it turned over passenger records to a defense contractor and apologized to its customers... 'We do not provide that type of information to anyone,' Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch was quoted as saying in the New York Times on Sept. 23. An article in the following day's St. Paul Pioneer Press said: 'Northwest Airlines will not share customer information, as JetBlue Airways has, Northwest chief executive Richard Anderson said.'" [Let's all welcome Mr. Anderson to the big list of proven liars.]

Study used census information for terror profile (Washington Times)
"U.S. census information provided by millions of Americans was used in a government study to profile airline passengers as terrorist risks... The NASA experiment used 5 million census records from each of two data sets it created, 'one that stores household records and another that stores person records.' The National Aeronautics and Space Administration also obtained for its study the private information of hundreds of thousands of passengers flying Northwest Airlines, an action NASA denied to The Washington Times in September. The government documents describing the study and its contents were obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center under Freedom of Information Act requests and posted on its Web site.

Operation Siberia links the CIA to Colombian narcos (pravada.ru)
Peru's former powerfull spy, Vladimiro Lenin Montesinos, in prison since June 2001, is accused of being behind "Operation Siberia", an undercovered deal to smuggle 10.000 AK-47 rifles to the FARC with support from the CIA. Vladimiro Lenin Montesinos, the man who ran Peru from the shadows all along the nineties, as former President Alberto Fujimori right-hand man, appears in courts on Tuesday accused of planning a huge gunrunning operation to the most powerful Colombian rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, late in the 1990s. At that time, spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos was Fujimori close advisor and an ally of the CIA in the fight against drugs in South America.

Hack Attack: The GOP journalist gunning for Bush in New Hampshire. (NYPress/Paul Krassner)
Although the facts of the Bush family/Nazi Germany connection have been whirling around in cyberspace for years, veteran journalist John Buchanan was among the first to confirm the story in print. Now he's running against George W. in the New Hampshire Republican primary. "I got a really hotshot young turk agent in Hollywood who told me on September 2 that he could sell the script if I could 'prove' the Bush-Nazi past and publish the documentation. So, technically speaking, motivated more by sheer greed than patriotism, I set out to sell a movie script for millions of dollars by landing a huge scoop. He spent a few days at the National Archives and the Library of Congress, where he found "smoking gun" information in the personal papers of former New York governor Averell Harriman, only to learn that the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC News, CNN-even his hometown paper, the Miami Herald-all refused to acknowledge the documentation of his discovery. "I submit that, based on the unreported facts, [Bush] is guilty of treason because of the sinister and longstanding relationship he and his family have with the Saudis and the bin Laden family, both via the Carlyle Group and prior to that via Bush's Texas oil ventures in the 70s. I am running for president as a grand experiment to see whether the truth matters anymore in this country-and whether we can deal with it if it can be gotten out for open debate in a presidential election cycle. I am going to focus on 9/11 and how Bush & Co. have exploited it purely for financial gain and name the businesses and what they've made to date. We are talking in the billions of dollars being skimmed off by insiders like Halliburton. I will raise the serious issue of unanswered questions about 9/11 and the ongoing cover-up. I am now supported by Ellen Mariani, the 9/11 widow who is suing Bush under the RICO statute. ... The real reason I'm running is to raise the question, 'Who owns the government, them (the corporate elite) or us (we the people)?' If it is us, then we face a big challenge in terms of demonstrating that peacefully and legally under the Constitution. If it's 'them,' then we should face up to that and accept the consequences. The real question, of course, is do people even really care at this point, having been lulled into silence (and a failure to even vote) by their material comforts?" -- John Buchanan

(Belleville News-Democrat)
Congressman calls for impeachment hearings for Cheney because of no-bid Halliburton contracts.

PBS Documentary: Silverstein, FDNY Razed WTC 7 (InfoWars)
In a stunning and belated development concerning the attacks of 9/11 Larry Silverstein, the controller of the destroyed WTC complex, stated plainly in a PBS documentary that he and the FDNY decided jointly to demolish the Solomon Bros. building, or WTC 7, late in the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Silverstein's comments stand in direct contradiction to the findings of the extensive FEMA report.

No 'Mad Cow' testing in Washington state(Unknown News)
"Federal agriculture officials did not test any commercial cattle for mad cow disease through the first seven months of 2003 in Washington state according to records obtained by United Press International.... no animals were tested for the past two years at Vern's Moses Lake Meats, the Washington slaughterhouse where the mad cow case was first detected. No mad cow tests were conducted during the two-year period (2001-2003) at any of the six federally registered slaughterhouses in Washington state. The testing records, obtained by UPI under the Freedom of Information Act, which the USDA delayed releasing for six months, also show a number of other gaps in the agency's national surveillance strategy for mad cow disease, including: Tests were conducted at fewer than 100 of the 700 plants known to slaughter cattle. Some of the biggest slaughterhouses were not tested at all."

Dominance and its Dilemmas (Noam Chomsky / Information Clearinghouse)
The Space Command released plans to go beyond US "control" of space for military purposes to "ownership," which is to be permanent, in accord with the Security Strategy. Ownership of space is "key to our nation's military effectiveness," permitting "instant engagement anywhere in the world..."

Court secrecy at new level with appeal of Sept. 11-related case (AP Wire)
"When you get to the point where you have people convicted and sentenced and are sitting in a federal prison for multiple years and there is no record of how they got there, it's obvious to me things have gone way too far"

NASA to axe Hubble telescope (Mirror)
NASA has announced it will cancel a space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, a decision that dictates an early demise for the most storied science program in the space agency's history.

The $500 billion fire sale (Guardian Unlimited)
"To be honest," says Ed Kubba, a consultant and board member of the American Iraqi Chamber of Commerce, "I don't know where the line is between business and corruption." He points to US companies subcontracting huge taxpayer-funded reconstruction jobs for a fraction of what they are getting paid, then pocketing the difference. "If you take $10m from the US government and sub the job out to Iraqi businesses for a quarter-million, is that business, or is that corruption?"

Mars Mission a Trojan Horse? (Wired)
Bush's plan may well be to get NASA to cancel the shuttle and the space station with the promise of a Mars mission, then kill the Mars mission later on.

Get ready for the alternative minimum tax (SeattlePI)
And it's about to get personal for lots of other taxpayers, too. Absent action by Congress and President Bush, one in four households will owe the alternative minimum tax by 2010. Some 52 percent of them will be families making $100,000 or less a year, including 73 percent of households making $75,000 to $100,000 and 37 percent making $50,000 to $75,000. Married couples -- especially couples with lots of children -- are most apt to be hit by the alternative minimum tax, which prohibits deductions for dependents along with write-offs for mortgage interest, state and local taxes, medical expenses and the like.

Did the US Attorney General accept excessive campaign contributions on the sly? Is he a tax evader? Has he engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cover his tracks?
These are the questions five public interest groups want investigated. They have written a letter to the Department of Justice formally requesting a special prosecutor, one outside of John Ashcroft's control, be appointed. At issue are events almost four years ago, when Missouri handed Ashcroft bragging rights as the first Senator in American history ever to lose an election to a dead man. It was a hard-fought race; and Ashcroft's side broke the rules. Federal regulators last month finally got around to confirming this and fining his campaign $37,000 for having accepted illegal and excessive contributions. In the process, the regulators released new information and documents on the matter, and the five public interest groups say the case against the anointed one is actually more damning than ever. They say there is now substantial evidence that Ashcroft himself was involved in accepting an illegal campaign contribution -- a valuable, expensive-to-develop, fundraising mailing list -- worth at least $255,000; and that since then, Ashcroft and his various political committees have "engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cover up the illegal contribution."

CBS Cries Foul on PETA, MoveOn Super Bowl Ads (Reuters)
Boycott the SuperBowl: CBS chickens out and refuses to show MoveOn.org's ad, which asks "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?", as well as PETA's ad featuring scantily clad vegitarians. Apparently some money is more green than others. In a letter, CBS told PETA that it would not run advertisements on "controversial issues of public importance." CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said the policy had been in place for years. "We have a policy against accepting advocacy advertising." Yet, they'll accept advertising that advocates the sale of a commercial product? Very hypocritical. The fact that the MoveOn ad is being refused is an important indicator of the extent to which the mianstream media has come under total government control.

Pentagon Withholds Cold War Medical Data (iWon)
The US Government tested biological weapons on US sailors, then lied about it, then after being ordered to turn over all the documents to the US Congress on the matter, kept many hidden.

9/11 director gave evidence to own inquiry (UPI)
"The panel set up to investigate why the United States failed to prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, faced angry questions Thursday after revelations that two of its own senior officials were so closely involved in the events under investigation that they have been interviewed as part of the inquiry."

Venezuela Decriminalizes Drug Possession (Big, Left, Outside)
"The democratically-elected government of Venezuela has survived attempted coups - military, economic, and mediatic - and keeps moving forward with the most sweeping reforms and advances in democracy and human rights in the hemisphere today. This is truly revolutionary. How and why did it happen? This giant step for drug policy reform and human freedom in this hemisphere happened because Venezuelan democracy was defended and US-backed coups were defeated."

Public Service Announcement: New Credit Card Scam
This one is clever. You receive a telephone call from someone purporting to be from your credit card company. They claim to be from something like the security and fraud department, and question you about a fake purchase for some amount close to $500. When you say that the purchase wasn't yours, they tell you that they're tracking the fraudsters and that you will receive a credit. They tell you that the fraudsters are making fake purchases on cards for amounts just under $500, and that they're on the case. They know your account number. They know your name and address. They continue to spin the story, and eventually get you to reveal the three extra numbers on the back of your card. That's all they need. They then start charging your card for amounts just under $500. When you get your bill, you're unlikely to call the credit card company because you already know that they're on the case and that you'll receive a credit. It's a really clever social engineering attack. They have to hit a lot of cards fast and then disappear, because otherwise they can be tracked, but I bet they've made a lot of money so far.

The Wrath of Linux (Motley Fool)
"This week, SCO's rivals went on the offensive. Novell released papers to support its claim that it still owns the UNIX code in question. And Novell also began a well-publicized program that offers its Linux customers protection should they be sued by SCO. Then SCO's three-front war exploded into a lopsided battle royale. A consortium of Linux developers called the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) launched a $10 million legal fund to protect any Linux user from SCO's courtroom hounds. The OSDL's roster includes: Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, Nokia, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Toshiba, and others."

U.S. Journalist Quits Pentagon Iraqi Media Project Calling it U.S. Propaganda (Democracy Now!)

America accused of war crimes in Iraq - www.theage.com.au
The US military is committing war crimes by demolishing homes of suspected insurgents and arresting the relatives of Iraqi fugitives, a top human rights group said today. The military denied the charges by Human Rights Watch, saying it only destroyed homes that were being used to store weapons or as fighting positions and all Iraqis detained were suspected of taking part in attacks on coalition forces."

Danish Tests Show Arms Found in Iraq Not Chemical (Reuters)
All that noise... was just all a lie.

Scientist's 'perfect' cheese sandwich (BBC)
Dr Fisher, of the University of Bristol, revealed that to ensure optimum 'cheesiness', Cheddar should be 2.8 millimetres thick, while Caerphilly should measure 4.5 millimetres, and Blue Stilton three millimetres. Dr Fisher, the author of 'How to Dunk a Doughnut: The Science of Everyday Life', has previously calculated the best type of bread with which to mop up gravy. And in 1999 he was awarded the Ig Nobel prize for physics for his work on the ideal way to dunk a biscuit in a mug of tea.

Scientists create 'perfect' toast (BBC)
The equation - which details butter and toast temperature - took three months and cost £10,000 to develop. H represents thickness, Cp the specific heat, P density, T the initial temperature of the toast, w the weight, and subscript a and b toast and butter respectively.

Bush admits he targeted Saddam from the start
President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that he was mapping preparations to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as soon as he took office.

The Awful Truth (Pual Krugman / NY Times)
"Having a few months of good news doesn't excuse a consistent pattern of dishonest, irresponsible leadership. And that pattern keeps getting harder to deny."

Bush deceit on Iraq exposed (Jesse Jackson)
Stunningly, all of it was a lie. And slowly the truth is coming out. There was and is no evidence of a connection to al-Qaida, Powell admitted last week. Saddam had nothing to do with Sept. 11, the president admitted. Saddam's weapons existed only on paper, the Washington Post reports. And the administration knew this.

Anger at leaked secret Bush dossier (NEWS.com.au)
The Bush White House just admitted to the world that the documents are genuine.

Top Ten Drug War Stories of 2003 (AlterNet)
3) On February 12, a federal jury in Philadelphia awarded $1.5 million in compensation to two narcotics agents -- John McLaughlin and Charles Micewski -- who claimed their boss -- the Pennsylvania attorney general -- retaliated against them because they uncovered a drug-trafficking ring that diverted profits to a CIA-backed Dominican presidential candidate. Pittsburgh's Tribune Review reports: McLaughlin and Micewski said they had uncovered a Dominican drug-trafficking ring operating in Philadelphia, New York and other Eastern cities that funneled drug profits to the Dominican Revolutionary Party, which they claimed was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department.

" A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" - Atrocities and War Crimes committed by the American Governement around the world (Robert Fisk)
Warning: Extremely Disturbing
"On the left, are links to Websites that believe that "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" and they will present their pictorial evidence to prove the case. We will let you be the Judge. An honest and Just Judge. Not one that is prejudiced and influenced by corporate Media (that is heavily controlled by governments and commerce) but one that still retains his/her common sense and has some human compassion still left in him/her. Not one that sees other human beings through the colour of their skin, but through the colour of their blood. Not one that considers human life and their suffering as a justifiable price to pay for our cheap oil and luxuries, but one that does not consider the blood of the innocent to be cheaper than their oil resources."

How Deregulation Let the Power Industry Steal $71 Billion from California (ConsumerWatchDog.org)

AlterNet: Cheney Target of Criminal Investigation (AlterNet)
"Though neglected by major media in the United States, international news sources report that French law enforcement authorities have made Vice President Dick Cheney the target of a criminal investigation for his role in a massive bribery scandal during his time as CEO of Halliburton."

President Served Personal 9-11 RICO Complaint (tomflocco.com)
"U.S. media blackout continues as New Hampshire widow’s attorney also served multiple government officials and moved to examine new evidence while preparing subpoenas and written interrogatories for individual depositions. This, as corporate media execs continue to withhold important stories about presidential foreknowledge of attacks, military stand-down, and evidence of controlled demolition of third WTC Building 7, containing critical Securities and Exchange Commission corporate fraud investigation documents."
also of note: "Senators Gave Immunity to 9-11 Airport Security Firms, Face Voters in 2004: Lack of a public criminal investigation of the largest mass murder case in United States history has raised worldwide questions about why career prosecutors and grand juries are not permitted to interrogate government officials about their prior knowledge of reports about "Arabs training to use planes as weapons to fly into United States buildings," why multiple legislators and cabinet officials met with the Pakistani General funding the terrorists during the week prior to and on the morning of the attacks, and why the President, the Defense Secretary, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not take immediate action. All three knew a half-hour before the first crash that hijacked planes were headed to New York City, via Secret Service secure phone communication bridges. This, as congressmen voted, in effect, to tie up evidence linked to airport security companies which would shed light on any 9-11 investigation."

Humor: Rumsfeld Accuses Saddam of Camping (BBspot)

Bush was demanding excuse to invade Iraq in January 2001, says ex-treasury secretary (Independent.co.uk)

Pentagon auditors doctored documents (Independent.co.uk)
"The Pentagon's auditors spent 1,139 hours altering their own files in order to pass an internal review, say investigators who found that the accounting sleuths engaged in just the kind of wasteful activity they are supposed to expose."

Supreme Court Allows Secrecy for 9/11 Detainees (Reuters)
"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Bush administration to keep secret the names and other basic details about hundreds of people questioned and detained or arrested after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Without comment, the top court refused to hear an appeal by civil liberties and other groups challenging the secret arrests and detentions for violating the Freedom of Information Act and constitutional free-speech rights under the First Amendment. Although the high court stayed out of the dispute involving the names of those detained, it has agreed to hear other cases arising from the administration's war on terror. ... Those cases involve the president's power to detain American citizens captured abroad and declared "enemy combatants," and whether foreign nationals can use American courts to challenge their incarceration at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

International Law: Is the US military torturing Iraqis with electricity? (Electronic Iraq)
Hideous Evidence US Military Tortures Iraqis With Electricity

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." -Hermann Goering, Nuremberg Trials.

Horowitz again spewing his poison (Gail Schoettler/Denver Post)
"Now, Horowitz is seeking funds to develop a huge database of so-called 'leftist' and 'liberal' individuals and organizations, a massive snitch file. In a 'confidential' memo floating around the Web, he asked for help in financing this database, which will 'make transparent the network of the left, including individuals, organizations, groups, and government legislators and officials along with the funding sources that underpin them.' These groups, according to the memo, include 'peace groups, anti-nuke groups, civil liberties groups, Muslim groups, anti-Israel groups and immigration groups.' Soon to be added will be 'science groups, labor groups, business groups, gun-control groups, abortion groups, and various special interest lobbies.' Presumably not included, however, are those lobbies that represent right-wing views."

Subatomic Tracking Finds Clues to the Unseen Universe (NY Times)

Stop the Florida-tion of the 2004 election (Act for Change)
A worthwhile computer voting integrity petition to John Ashcroft

Cheney Target of Criminal Investigation (AlterNet)
"Though neglected by major media in the United States, international news sources report that French law enforcement authorities have made Vice President Dick Cheney the target of a criminal investigation for his role in a massive bribery scandal during his time as CEO of Halliburton. ... According to a gas and oil trade publication (picked up by the international AP newswire on October 11, 2003) the judge is "looking into who may have benefited from nearly $200 million in potentially illegal commissions allegedly handed out from 1990 to 2002." In May, Halliburton admitted that, under Cheney's stewardship, it paid "$2.4 million in bribes to Nigerian officials to get favorable tax treatment." Halliburton now says it is cooperating with a simultaneous review by the Security and Exchange Commission"

Flight Sim enquiry raises terror alert (The Register)
"A mother's enquiry about buying Microsoft Flight Simulator for her ten-year-old son prompted a night-time visit to her home from a state trooper... So alarmed was the Staples clerk at the prospect of the ten year old learning to fly, that he informed the police... Shortly before Christmas, the FBI issued a terror alert to beware of drivers with maps, or reference books" All I have to say is: WOW... They seem to have done quite an exceptional job at whipping the sheeple into this endless frenzied state of fear.

News Mounting evidence shows Iraq didn't have WMDs (Boston.com)
This was an important week to remember that Vice President Dick Cheney once said, "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." And that President Bush once said there is "no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." And especially that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said, "We know where they are."

Iraq war a big mistake, says report (Herald Sun)
Colin Powell eats crow and finally admits "there was never any concrete evidence Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaida.... No solid evidence of a co-operative relationship between Saddam Hussein's government and al-Qaida, and no evidence Iraq would have transferred WMDs to terrorists. The US intelligence community overestimated the chemical and biological weapons in Iraq and was "unduly influenced by policymakers' views". Iraq's chemical weapons production capabilities were effectively destroyed by the 1991 Gulf War, the 1998 Operation Desert Fox and UN inspections and sanctions. The Bush Administration misrepresented the threat from Iraq's supposed weapons and ballistic missile findings."

Saddam Hussein Has Cancer (Sofia Morning News/Propaganda Matrix)
This is going to be their excuse for why Saddam is dead before he goes to trial and testifies about some rather unpleasant issues that the US Govt. would much rather remain a secret from the public. Now they're going completely against their initial claims that Saddam was in good health at the time of his capture. Now they're claiming he's in the later stages of cancer of the lymph glands. How convenient.

The Year of the Law and of Living Dangerously (From The Wilderness)
"The Bush administration has backed itself into several deadly legal corners. The Supreme Court is going to rule in July on the release of secret records of Dick Cheney's energy task force, German courts have thrown out a 9/11 terror case and the only 9/11 conviction ever obtained is about to be overturned. In the meantime, US Appeals court rulings have made it inevitable that 9/11 arrestees like Khalid Shaikh Muhammad and Ramzi bi al-Shibh must come into public view and speak. With an election looming the administration has little choice but to bypass the law in the coming year. Only a major disaster or terrorist attack can achieve that end."