BBC Video Proves Georgia to Blame for Hostilities

The BBC video here was aired two days before Russia intervened to stop Georgia’s ethnic cleansing operation in South Ossetia. It needs to be viewed by Bush, Condi, Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, little Billy Kristol and all the neocons and their associated slavering bloggers and newspaper columnists calling for war against Russia, a nation bristling with thermonuclear weapons and an increasing desire to use the tactical variety of nukes against the United States, or rather its servile little clients such as Poland that are installing U.S. missile “defense systems” on Russia’s borders.

Forget neocon platitudes about the poor Georgians and their supposedly besieged “democracy” (i.e., their NED and CIA installed tinhorn dictatorship). As the video here demonstrates, the neocons support ethnic cleansers, butchers, snipers, child killers, and assorted psychopaths.

It really is quite amazing the BBC ran this report as it later put in extra duty to turn the entire event on its head and blame the Russians. So obvious are the outright lies and twisting of facts, the neocon propaganda outfit Sky News — owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, sort of a UK version of Faux News — “used the footage of Tskhinvali, which was literally ruined as a result of Georgia’s attacks, to make reports about the situation in the town of Gori, which the Russian aviation supposedly bombed,” according to Pravda. “The footage aired by the British TV channel was preceded with a picture of a road sign displaying the name of the town – Gori – written in Georgian and English languages. The report also said that a Sky News correspondent was reporting from the Georgian town.” Disgusting, although we can of course expect no less, as the point is to demonize Russia no matter the cost or the affront to reality.

Time Magazine, an integral part of the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, attempted to portray the Serbs as Nazi monsters. As it turns out, the man pictured with protruding ribs, Bosnian Fikret Alic, was “disturbed about the use of his image” to sell the U.S. and NATO mass murder campaign against Serbia.

All of this brings to mind the Trnopolje concentration camp hoax used to demonize the Serbs and pave the way to later bomb them with depleted uranium and laser guided munitions. Recall this hoax consisted of a photograph shot by Penny Marshall of ITN of a Bosnian Muslim “prisoner” interned behind barbed wire. As it turns out, the so-called prisoner was outside the supposed internment camp. “What became the picture that Mike Jeremy of ITN pegged ‘one of the key images of the war in the former Yugoslavia,’ (qtd. in Deichmann, p. 170) was, in fact, presented as to the Western world as something it was not, a concentration camp. The focus was on Fikret Alic, who’s protruding rib cage behind a fence conjured up images of Nazi death camps. This ‘death camp’ was a crude, sick lie and Fikret Alic, who survived the war, was disturbed about the use of his image” (see the Balkan Repository Project, The Criminal Race: The Demonization, Dehumanization and Criminalization of the Serbian People, Erin S. LaPorte, December 22, 1999).

The corporate media tried to perpetuated a Trnopolje trick in regard to South Ossetia and Gori, but this crude effort has fallen flat on its face, thanks to the Russian media, far more sophisticated then its Serb equivalent (not that the Serbs had a chance — NATO sent a cruise missile into Belgrade’s main TV station on 23 April 1999, killing 16 civilians and shutting down any possibility of media coverage able to counter the corporate propaganda onslaught).

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The Pentagon’s alarming project: Avian Flu Biowar Vaccine

There is alarming evidence accumulated by serious scientific sources that the US Government is about to or already has ‘weaponized’ Avian Flu. If the reports are accurate, this could unleash a new pandemic on the planet that could be more devastating than the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic which killed an estimated 30 million people worldwide before it eventually died out. Pentagon and NIH experiments with remains in frozen state of the 1918 virus are the height of scientific folly. Is the United States about to unleash a new racially selective pandemic through the process of mandatory vaccination with an alleged vaccine "against" Avian Flu?

"Given the shockingly obvious lack of any threat from an un-weaponized H5N1 virus, how can we explain the Bush Administration spending billions of dollars preparing each of the 50 States, for what it calls the ‘inevitable Bird Flu pandemic,’ which they say could kill half or more of all Americans and similar numbers of people around the globe?"

There is reason to believe that sections of the international pharmaceutical industry cartel are acting in concert with the US Government to develop a genetically modified H5N1 virus substance that could unleash a man-made pandemic, perhaps more deadly than the 1918 ‘Spanish Influenza’ pandemic claiming up to 30 million lives.1

Rima E. Laibow, MD, head of the Natural Solutions Foundation, a citizen watchdog group monitoring the pharmaceutical industry states, "Our best intelligence estimate is that pandemic Avian Flu has already been created through genetic engineering in the United States, fusing the deadly genome of the 1918 Pandemic, misnamed the ‘Spanish Flu’, with the DNA of the innocuous H5N1 virus in a growth medium of human kidney cells, according to the National Institutes of Health and the vaccine’s manufacturer. Some virologists believe that this would insure that the man-made mutant virus recognizes human cells and knows how to invade them." 2

If true, as Laibow points out, "A basic virological fact that the public has not been told is that it is impossible to make a vaccine against a virus that does not yet exist. Public relations efforts to the contrary, IF a vaccine is being made against the Avian Flu virus in its pandemic form, that means that the pandemic virus must already exist, period, end of discussion."3

The genome of the 1918 pandemic, the so-called "Spanish Flu", was recently intentionally resurrected by the United States government from a frozen corpse that died of the flu in 1918 in Alaska. Because of that resurrection, both the Avian Flu, and its "vaccine" are now a significant threat to public health.

The Spanish Flu, which was not Spanish at all, was created in the US through an early bioweapons program and injected into healthy young men (i.e., ’soldiers’) as the first mandatory vaccination in the military during World War I. The "Spanish Flu", which originated in Kansas on US Military bases, was one of the deadliest pandemics in modern history. It was also one of the most successful biological weapons ever created, until now.Aspartame and Tyson Foods doubts

To date, there have only been around 385 human cases of Avian Flu identified worldwide (assuming those identifications are trustworthy, of course), with 243 deaths. To put the absurdity of this effort into perspective, Laibow points out, Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD), which researchers believe is heavily associated with aspartame consumption, is a leading cause of death which, according to the CDC, for example, killed 460,000 Americans in 1999 and the numbers keep rising (www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5106a3.htm.)

But, aspartame is not under criticism. Interesting as a footnote on Aspartame, G.D. Searle, the Chicago drugs company that held the patent on Aspartame was in danger of losing its license from the US Government Food & Drug Administration in the 1980’s until Donald Rumsfeld, out of Government, was named President of Searle. Rumsfeld used his contacts in Washington to get the FDA to approve Aspartame despite known tests showing serious health effects on rats.

As I document in detail in my book, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, the same Don Rumsfeld went on to become chairman and principal stockholder of a California pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences Inc., which developed and patented Tamiflu in 1996, first as a drug for AIDS, later as a vaccine for H5N1 Avian Flu. In 1997 Donald H. Rumsfeld was named Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, where he remained until early 2001 when he became Defense Secretary. As Secretary he refused to sell his stock at the time he came under conflict of interest allegations when he ordered $1 billion worth of Tamiflu be bought to injected into the US military personnel as a "precaution." It was later proven that Tamiflu was in no antidote for H5N1 and its side effects were sometimes very severe.

Laibow adds, "Given the shockingly obvious lack of any threat from an un-weaponized H5N1 virus, how can we explain the Bush Administration spending billions of dollars preparing each of the 50 States, for what it calls the ‘inevitable Bird Flu pandemic,’ which they say could kill half or more of all Americans and similar numbers of people around the globe?"4

Ominously, on June 3, Associated Press reported, "Tyson Foods Inc. has begun killing and burying the carcasses of 15,000 hens from a flock that tested positive for exposure to a strain of the bird flu in northwest Arkansas, state officials said Tuesday."

Tyson Foods is the largest industrialized producer of chickens in the world and has been repeatedly under attack for its unsanitary conditions of breeding and slaughtering. In January 2005, a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to the US Senate, "Safety in the Meat and Poultry Industry," concluded that US meat and poultry processing plants had "one of the highest rates of injury and illness of any industry." They cited exposure to "dangerous chemicals, blood, faecal matter, exacerbated by poor ventilation and often extreme temperatures. Workers typically faced hazardous conditions, loud noise, must work in narrow confines with sharp tools and dangerous machinery."

The industrialization of chicken-raising and slaughtering in the USA has progressed to the point that by 2003 when the first cases of H5N1 Avian Flu virus were reported from Asia, five giant multinational agribusiness companies dominated the production and processing of chicken meat in the United States. The five companies were Tyson Foods, the largest in the world; Gold Kist Inc; Pilgrim’s Pride; ConAgra Poultry; and Perdue Farms.5 Most outbreaks of Avian Flu in Asia have been traced back to such mass chicken industrial factory centers.6

In May this year, The Canadian Press reported from Toronto, "An experiment mating H5N1 avian flu viruses and a strain of human flu in a laboratory produced a surprising number of hybrid viruses that were biologically fit, a new study reveals. And while none of the offspring viruses was as virulent as the original H5N1, about one in five were lethal to mice at low doses, showing they retained at least a portion of the power of their dangerous parent." 7

The Toronto article went on, "The work suggests that under the right circumstances - and no one is clear what all of those are - the two types of flu viruses could swap genes in a way that might allow the H5N1 virus to acquire the capacity to trigger a pandemic. That process is called reassortment. ‘This study is just showing exactly that: There is a risk this virus can successfully reassort with a human virus,’ said Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization’s collaborating centre for influenza research at St. Jude Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee." 8

Pentagon Bioweapon research

Prof. Mathew Meselson, a professor of molecular biology at Harvard, and well-respected scientist in the area of chemical and biological warfare, confirms that the United States government has extensively researched and developed biological weapons in the past. Meselson described an American facility, north of Terre Haute, Indiana, built in 1944 that would have produced 500,000 four pound anthrax bombs monthly once in full operation.

Meselson was part of a team that proved the accidental release of anthrax at a Soviet facility in 1979, disproved charges of biological warfare in Laos and Cambodia in the late 1970s, and was a driving force behind popularizing the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1994.

Since coming in office, the Bush-Cheney Administration has done much to weaken that Chemical Weapons Convention as well as ones on biological weapons. One of George W. Bush’s first acts as President in early 2001 was to oppose a proposed international Biological and Toxic Weapons Protocol, without explanation, leading to the death of the talks.

In a 2004 study, the British Medical Association warned that the world was perhaps only a few years away from "terrifying biological weapons capable of killing only people of specific ethnic groups," citing advances in genetic weapons technology. 9

The US Department of Homeland Security has ominously enough announced it is ordering production and stockpiling of a pandemic influenza vaccine: "The U.S. Government is taking steps to minimize the need to make vaccine allocation decisions by supporting efforts to increase domestic influenza vaccine production capacity. Significant funding is being

provided to develop new vaccine technologies that allow production of enough pandemic influenza vaccine for any person in the United States who wants to be vaccinated within six months of a pandemic declaration." 10The curious role of Sanofi Pasteur

The US Government has been financing the development of a vaccine against H5N1 on a "fast track" basis since 2004. Sanofi Pasteur in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of the giant French pharmaceutical firm, the third largest in the world, manufactured an inactivated vaccine made from an H5N1 virus isolated in Southeast Asia in 2004. Sanofi Pasteur, part of the French-based Sanofi Aventis Group, was awarded a contract by the US Government’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NIAID to manufacture the H5N1 vaccine in May 2004.11

In April 2007 the FDA approved the Sanofi Pasteur vaccine for H5N1 even though one year before the FDA cited Sanofi Pasteur for producing contaminated Fluzone vaccines.12 The FDA approved H5N1 vaccine is itself apparently not really effective in event of a human-to-human outbreak of Avian Flu. On announcing its approval, the FDA stated, "two injections given 28 days apart may provide ‘limited’ protection if a pandemic occurs. About 45% of people who got the vaccine in a study developed an immune response to the virus."13

Until now H5N1 has not mutated into a form that can easily spread from person to person. Is that what the researchers at Sanofi Pasteur and various labs under contract to the US Government are engaged in? If so it would be classified Top Secret, clearly. The respected British magazine, New Scientist, commented, "If H5N1 does mutate, it is unclear if vaccines developed now would still work against a pandemic strain. Manufacturers could tailor a new vaccine to that strain, but current production methods take months."14

The magazine noted that research on the Sanofi vaccine was conducted by the National Institutes of Health as part of the US Government’s efforts to prepare for a flu pandemic. The salient question is whether they prepare "for a flu pandemic" or whether they prepare a flu pandemic. Why is the US Government spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to stockpile this H5N1 vaccine which likely would not work against such a pandemic outbreak?

On July 2, 2008, the London Daily Telegraph newspaper reported, "Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus." 15

The report added that the medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, were being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus. Authorities claim that the alleged victims received €3 to be tested with what they thought was a conventional flu vaccine but, according to investigators, was actually an anti bird-flu drug. The director of a Grudziadz homeless centre, Mieczyslaw Waclawski, told a Polish newspaper that last year, 21 people from his centre died, a figure well above the average of about eight.

The Polish report did not specify if it was the vaccine being developed under contract to the US Government Department of Homeland Security by Sanofi-Pasteur. However, it is known that Sanofi-Pasteur has been producing large quantities of such a vaccine at a factory they have in China.

Dr. Laibow reports that the "Pandemic Avian Flu Vaccine" was scheduled to be delivered to the United States this month by the French vaccine maker, Sanofi Pasteur, from a facility they own in China, where it is being produced. The US Government issued its "Vaccine" allocation plan in July. Laibow fears that a most sinister scenario of a deliberate release of Avian Flu pathogens on the population that could activate martial law and forced vaccination with resulting deaths in the millions could be imminent. Spanish Flu virus revived by Pentagon

In 2003 US Army scientists created ‘Spanish Flu’ virus in the laboratory. According to a report at the time by the watchdog group, The Sunshine Project, which monitors biological and chemical weapons research of the United States Government issued a statement that "The ‘Spanish Flu’ influenza virus that killed 20-40 million people in 1918 is currently under reconstruction. Several genes of the extraordinarily lethal 1918 flu virus have been isolated and introduced into contemporary flu strains. These proved to be lethal for mice, while virus constructs with genes from a current flu virus types had hardly any effect. These experiments may easily be abused for military purposes, but provide little benefit from a medical or public health point of view."

They continued, "The 1918 Spanish Flu was highly infectious and – in comparison to contemporary flu viruses – killed a very high percentage of those infected, including many younger people. The Spanish Flu alone caused the medium life expectancy in the US in 1918 to drop by 10 years. Hence, flu viruses are perceived today as a serious biological warfare threat. Just two weeks ago, a 15 million dollar research grant was awarded in the US to develop protective measures especially against a bioterrorist attack with flu viruses."

The statement added, "Despite the very dangerous nature of the 1918 virus, efforts to reconstruct it started in the mid 1990s, when Dr Jeffrey Taubenberger from the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington DC succeeded in recovering and sequencing fragments of the viral RNA from preserved tissues of 1918 victims. In the current issue of the scientific journal Emerging Infectious Diseases new genetic details of the 1918 flu virus will be published."

Most ominously, they report, "But after (partially) unravelling the genetic sequence of the virus, the scientists went a step further and began bringing the Spanish flu back to life. Unnoticed by the public, they succeeded in creating a live virus containing two 1918 genes that proved to be very lethal in animal experiments. This experiment is only one genetic step away from taking the 1918 demon entirely out of the bottle." 16

They conclude, "A resuscitation of the Spanish flu is neither necessary nor warranted from a public health point of view. Allegedly, the recent experiments sought to test the efficacy of existing antiviral drugs on the 1918 construct. But there is little need for antiviral drugs against the 1918 strain if the 1918 strain had not been recreated in the first place. ‘It simply does not make any scientific sense to create a new threat just to develop new countermeasures against it.’ says Jan van Aken, biologist with the Sunshine Project, ‘Genetic characterization of influenza strains has important biomedical applications. But it is not justifiable to recreate this particularly dangerous eradicated strain that could wreak havoc if released, deliberately or accidentally.’"17

Let us sincerely hope not, but as Prof. Stephen Block, Stanford University biophysicist with years of experience in classified Pentagon and US Government biological research remarked in another context, "We’re tempted to say that nobody in their right mind would ever use these things." Block added, "But not everybody is in their right mind…" 18Sanofi Pasteur delivers H5N1 vaccine

On April 28 of this year in an official Press Release from Sanofi Pasteur US headquarters in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania and Lyon, France, the company stated, "Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis Group, announced today that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has accepted H5N1 bulk vaccine antigen to produce approximately 38.5 million doses of vaccine to protect against a new strain of avian influenza. Sanofi Pasteur has a multi-year contract with HHS as part of its pandemic program, and will receive a payment of $192.5 million booked in the second quarter of 2008 for acceptance of the bulk vaccine lot."19

Then, on June 16 of this year, Sanofi Pasteur issued the following release announcing that it will, "donate 60 million doses of H5N1 vaccine to the World Health Organization (WHO) over 3 years for the establishment of an H5N1 vaccine global stockpile."

The President and CEO of Sanofi Pasteur, Wayne Pisano, said in the release, "The H5N1 virus is currently circulating in some of the poorest regions of the world and an outbreak of pandemic influenza would most likely hit populations living in areas with limited access to vaccines. This donation of H5N1 vaccine aims to address the needs of those most vulnerable populations. In addition to supporting the efforts of governments," Pisano added, "it is essential that industry collaborates with international organizations such as WHO, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other global health players. This is the best way to build a stockpile of vaccines for developing nations, ready to be deployed on the ground in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak."20

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in addition to being a financial supporter of the so-called Doomsday Seed Vault in the Arctic, has dedicated its foundation billions to support population control especially inAfrica. Among other projects they, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation, are financing The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, whose head is former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. 21

As the world’s leading influenza vaccine manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur produces approximately half of the influenza vaccine distributed worldwide. In the US it produced more than 40 percent of the influenza vaccine distributed for the 2007-2008 influenza season. The fact that the US Government has revived the 1918 Spanish Flu virus to make "tests" indicates that anything is possible. There are in this world some people not in their "right mind." God forbid if it is so in this instance.

F. William Engdahl is author of Seeds of Destruction: the Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
He may be contacted through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net. (see details on William engdahl’s book below)

Notes

1Alfred W. Crosby, America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp.207-8. The Spanish Influenza was unusual in that it struck infants as well as elderly. Crosby described its effects: "a disease that turned people the color of wet ashes and drowned them in the fluids of their own bodies and inspired names like the ‘purple death.’

2 Rima E. Laibow, M.D., Weaponized Avian Flu Intelligence Report, in http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=742

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 F. William Engdahl, Saat der Zerstörung: Die dunkle Seite der Gen-Manipulation, Kopp Verlag, Rottenburg am Neckar,2007, pp. 269-271.

6 GRAIN, Fowl Play: The Poultry Industry’s Central Role in the Bird Flu Crisis, http://www.grain.org/go/birdflu , February 2006. In their report they note, "The transformation of poultry production in Asia in recent decades is staggering. In the Southeast Asian countries where most of the bird flu outbreaks are concentrated—Thailand, Indonesia, and Viet Nam—production jumped eightfold in just 30 years, from around 300,000 metric tonnes (mt) of chicken meat in 1971 to 2,440,000 mt in 2001. China’s production of chicken tripled during the 1990s to over 9 million metric tons per year." (Cited in Engdahl, Op. Cit., p. 288.).

7 As well, a report by a Canadian organization, Beyond Factory Farming, described the transmission likely pathways from the giant industrialized chicken centers: ‘In Thailand, China and Vietnam there is a highly developed industrial poultry industry which has expanded dramatically in the past decade. The large poultry companies raise millions of birds, hatch chicks to supply other intensive poultry operations, export live birds and eggs to countries such as Nigeria (where the first Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreak in Africa was recently reported) and produce and export feed which often includes "litter" (i.e., manure) in the ingredients.

[…]

‘Manure that may contain live virus is spread on surrounding farmland, or exported as fertilizer, and through run-off may end up in surface waters where wild birds feed and rest. Chicken manure is even found in fish farm feed formulations where it is introduced directly into the aquatic environment. Wild birds and poultry that

have fallen victim to HPAI in Asia, Turkey and Nigeria appear to have been directly exposed to HPAI virus originating in the factory farm system. In Asia, a flock of wild ducks died from HPAI—after having come into contact with the disease at a remote lake where a fish farm used feed pellets made from poultry litter from a factory farm. In Turkey a massive cull of backyard flocks—and the deaths of three children—took place after a nearby factory farm sold sick and dying birds to local peasants at cut rate prices. Nigeria has a large and poorly regulated factory poultry production sector which is supplied with chicks from factory farms in China.’ (Engdahl, Op. Cit., p. 289)

8 Study shows hybrids of bird flu and human flu viruses fit well, could occur, The Canadian Press, Toronto, undated. May 2008.

Ibid.

9 F. William Engdahl, Op. Cit., pp. 262-263.

10 United States Department of Homeland Security, Health & Human Services Department, Guidance on Allocating and Targeting Pandemic Influenza Vaccine, p. 2, accessed in http://www.pandemicflu.gov/vaccine/allocationguidance.pdf.

11 NIH News, NIAID Initiates Trial of Experimental Avian Flu Vaccine, Washington, D.C., March 23, 2005, accessed in http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2005/avianfluvax.htm.

12 Quoted in, sanofi pasteur, The Largest Company In The World Devoted To Human Vaccines, April 18, 2007, accessed at http://noonehastodie.blogspot.com/2007/04/sanofi-pasteur-largest-company-in-world.html

13 The New Scientist, US Approves First Bird Flu Vaccine for People, 17 April, 2007, accessed at http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/bird-flu/dn11626-us-approves-first-bird-flu-vaccine-for-people.html

14 Ibid.

15 Matthew Day, Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland, Daily Telegraph, July 2, 2008, accessed in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/2235676/Homeless-people-die-after-bird-flu-vaccine-trial-in-Poland.html.

16 The Sunshine Project, Lethal Virus from 1918 Genetically Reconstructed: US Army scientists create ‘Spanish Flu’ virus in laboratory - medical benefit questionable, 9 October 2003, accessed at http://www.sunshine-project.org/publications/pr/pr091003.html.

17 Ibid.

18 Cited in F. William Engdahl, Op. Cit., p. 277.

19 Press Release of Sanofi Pasteur, U.S. Government accepts $192 million of sanofi pasteur H5N1 bulk vaccine antigen for pandemic stockpile: Vaccine for new strain of virus broadens government readiness program, April 28, 2008, accessed at
http://198.73.159.214/sanofi-pasteur2/ImageServlet?imageCode=22971&siteCode=SP_CORP

20 Press Release of Sanofi Pasteur, Sanofi Pasteur to donate 60 million doses of H5N1 vaccine to WHO over 3 years for its influenza vaccine global stockpile, June 16, 2008, accessed at
http://198.73.159.214/sanofi-pasteur2/ImageServlet?imageCode=22987&siteCode=SP_CORP.

21 William Engdahl, ‘Doomsday Seed Vault’ in the Arctic: Bill Gates, Rockefeller and the GMO giants know something we don’t, in Global Research, December 4, 2007, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529

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Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered

Just a few weeks ago, predictions of Arctic ice collapse were buzzing all over the internet. Some scientists were predicting that the "North Pole may be ice-free for first time this summer". Others predicted that the entire "polar ice cap would disappear this summer".

The Arctic melt season is nearly done for this year. The sun is now very low above the horizon and will set for the winter at the North Pole in five weeks. And none of these dire predictions have come to pass. Yet there is, however, something odd going on with the ice data.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado released an alarming graph on August 11, showing that Arctic ice was rapidly disappearing, back towards last year's record minimum. Their data shows Arctic sea ice extent only 10 per cent greater than this date in 2007, and the second lowest on record. Here's a smaller version of the graph:

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)'s troublesome ice graph

The problem is that this graph does not appear to be correct. Other data sources show Arctic ice having made a nice recovery this summer. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center data shows 2008 ice nearly identical to 2002, 2005 and 2006. Maps of Arctic ice extent are readily available from several sources, including the University of Illinois, which keeps a daily archive for the last 30 years. A comparison of these maps (derived from NSIDC data) below shows that Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007. (2008 is a leap year, so the dates are offset by one.)

Ice at the Arctic: 2007 and 2008 snapshots

The video below highlights the differences between those two dates. As you can see, ice has grown in nearly every direction since last summer - with a large increase in the area north of Siberia. Also note that the area around the Northwest Passage (west of Greenland) has seen a significant increase in ice. Some of the islands in the Canadian Archipelago are surrounded by more ice than they were during the summer of 1980.

The 30 per cent increase was calculated by counting pixels which contain colors representing ice. This is a conservative calculation, because of the map projection used. As the ice expands away from the pole, each new pixel represents a larger area - so the net effect is that the calculated 30 per cent increase is actually on the low side.

So how did NSIDC calculate a 10 per cent increase over 2007? Their graph appears to disagree with the maps by a factor of three (10 per cent vs. 30 per cent) - hardly a trivial discrepancy.

What melts the Arctic?

The Arctic did not experience the meltdowns forecast by NSIDC and the Norwegian Polar Year Secretariat. It didn't even come close. Additionally, some current graphs and press releases from NSIDC seem less than conservative. There appears to be a consistent pattern of overstatement related to Arctic ice loss.

We know that Arctic summer ice extent is largely determined by variable oceanic and atmospheric currents such as the Arctic Oscillation. NASA claimed last summer that "not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming". The media tendency to knee-jerkingly blame everything on "global warming" makes for an easy story - but it is not based on solid science. ®

Bootnote

And what of the Antarctic? Down south, ice extent is well ahead of the recent average. Why isn't NSIDC making similarly high-profile press releases about the increase in Antarctic ice over the last 30 years?

The author, Steven Goddard, is not affiliated directly or indirectly with any energy industry, nor does he have any current affiliation with any university.

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Georgian President mentions 'non-existant' New World Order

Dem National Platform: Ban Semi-autos, Close Down Gun Shows

Beware of what the Democrats are saying about guns in their party platform, a Second Amendment group says.

The draft 2008 Democratic National Platform includes the “Utopian fantasy that gun control laws will somehow make neighborhoods safer,” said the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

“While promising to preserve our Second Amendment rights, the party platform demonizes semiautomatic sport utility rifles and wants them banned, calls for anti-gun show legislation and proposes so-called ‘common-sense’ gun laws,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb.

“Boiled down, all it really means is that the Democrats are still the party of gun control no matter how they try to re-package the rhetoric.”

The Draft 2008 Democratic National Platform includes the following single paragraph on firearms:

We recognize that the right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ continued Second Amendment right to own and use firearms. We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation, but we know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact and enforce common-sense laws and improvements, like closing the gun show loophole, improving our background check system and reinstating the assault weapons ban, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals. Acting responsibly and with respect for differing views on this issue, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe.

In their party platform, Democrats are “shamelessly telling American gun owners that they embrace the rights of millions of shooters, hunters and gun collectors,” but that isn’t true, Gottlieb said.

Democrats believe most gun bans are “common sense.” In their platform, they are calling for a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” and they want to “regulate gun shows out of business.”

Gottlieb says the semi-automatic weapons ban signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton “accomplished nothing” except to cost Democrats control of Congress in 1994.

And he noted that a study done for the Justice Department found that gun shows are rarely the source of firearms used by criminals.

“As Democrats descend on Denver to nominate a candidate who is on record in opposition to sensible concealed carry laws, we encourage gun owners across the country, and especially in Colorado, to remind the party that the Supreme Court in June held that gun bans are unconstitutional.

“Democrats have an opportunity to reject and repudiate this platform,” Gottlieb concluded. “If they do not, that tells American gun owners everything they need to know about Democrats as November approaches.”

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FCC Commissioner: Fairness Doctrine Could Lead To Government Regulation Of Web

McDowell says reinstated powers could be tagged on to net neutrality debate by leading Democrats

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell says that the potential re-introduction of the Fairness Doctrine under a Democratic administration could lead to “government dictating content policy” on the Internet.

The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation mandating broadcasters afford time to opposing viewpoints. It was abolished in 1987 by the Supreme Court after it was found to be harmful to journalistic freedom and anathema to the First Amendment.

Speaking to the Business and Media Institute, McDowell stated that the Fairness Doctrine could return under a different name and be tagged on to the net neutrality debate, opening the door for the government to regulate content on the Web.

McDowell said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

Watch the clip.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem,” said McDowell.

“Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?” he added.

The reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine has strong support amongst top Democratic powerbrokers and an effort to push it through under a different name is expected should Barack Obama secure the presidency.

In June, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that the Democratic caucus was interested in bringing back the Fairness Doctrine. Senators Richard Durbin and John Kerry have also publicly supported its return.

Neo-Con radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh have long railed against the Fairness Doctrine, but its impact would be felt by all alternative news outlets, who would be forced to devote some of their time to parroting government talking points while enduring constant harassment and threat of closure.

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Pro-impeachment group sues over ‘Free Speech Zones’ at Republican convention

Impeach for Peace, a Minnesota-based group which plans to demonstrate at the upcoming Republican National Convention at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, has sued for space to demonstrate within sight and hearing of convention attendees.

Backed by the ACLU, the group calls the designated spaces to demonstrate “inadequate and unacceptably small,” and too far from the venue to allow for free speech to be effectively executed.

The City Council and police also denied Impeach for Peace their due process, such as a window for public comment and public hearing, by not giving notice of the restrictions to be placed on demonstrators, the suit alleges. In addition, the city has reserved the right to change its guidelines at any time in ways that the ACLU contends violates the Minnesota State Constitution.

The entire complaint can be read at this link, courtesy of the American Civil Liberties Union.

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Experts disagree on fluoride in drinking water

Fluoride can have a detrimental effect on a child’s IQ and should be removed from drinking water, anti-fluoride activists said Thursday.

Members of the Fluoride Action Network and Citizens for a Safe Environment said they have found studies from China and other countries that prove fluoride exposure may inhibit the development of a child’s brain.

Video here

An international group of scientists who study fluoride in drinking water appeared with members of the two advocacy groups at a Queen’s Park press conference.

“Does fluoride cause problems? Absolutely,” Paul Connet, director of the Fluoride Action Network, told reporters. “Fluoride lowers thyroid function, fluoride damages the bone and fluoride lowers IQ. All of these have been demonstrated in India and China.”

However, a prominent Ontario dentist defends the presence of fluoride in drinking water, and refutes claims that it can cause a range of health problems in children.

Dr. Larry Levin appeared on CTV Newsnet on Thursday and dismissed concerns that fluoride is linked to health problems such as lower IQs in children.

Levin referred to a recent report posted on Health Canada’s website that recommended reducing the amount of fluoride in drinking water but found no evidence to suggest a link between fluoride and an increased risk of cancer, developmental or reproductive problems or a lower IQ.

“They’ve brought together six top experts who have carefully looked at all of the details and they have come to a very clear result that there is not a link that would suggest fluoride is going to cause the problems that some people would suggest,” Levin said.

The report, which was dated April 2008, recommends reducing the amount of fluoride, a chemical that prevents tooth decay, in drinking water.

The report says fluoride levels should be lowered to 0.7 parts per million from the current range of 0.8 to one ppm.

However, this recommendation is designed to lower the incidence rates of a stain that fluoride can leave on teeth.

The report also recommends that children up to age three use low-fluoride toothpaste, and says that fluoride levels in infant formula should be reduced.

Health Canada told CTV News last month that it accepts the recommendations, but would leave it up to the individual municipalities to implement them.

Levin said that children should be exposed to fluoride in drinking water to ward off dental problems later in life.

“The fluoride gets incorporated into the enamel of the tooth at the time that the tooth is forming, so this makes a stronger coating on the tooth which is more resistant to decay right from the very start,” Levin said.

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Shasta County Board of Supervisors Discusses Chemtrails

A conspiracy theory that says government agencies are using jets to dump poisonous heavy metals into the atmosphere moves today from the realm of late-night talk radio call-in shows to the Shasta County supervisors chambers.

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors, acting as the Air Pollution Control Board, will hear at its 1:30 p.m. meeting a presentation by Dane Wigington and others about “heavy metal contamination” — referred to by some as the “chemtrails” conspiracy.

Wigington, a 46-year-old renewable energy consultant from Bella Vista, like a growing number of conspiracy theorists, thinks a government cabal is using jets to dump metals into the atmosphere to combat global warming — or for other, more nefarious purposes.

The theorists say the contrails of the jets provide the most visible evidence of the dumping, since on clear days, the vapor trails are unnaturally slow to dissipate and often appear in gridlike patterns.

But the proof locally is in soil and snow samples, Wigington said.

Area scientists have taken more than 40 samples in the north state, including on the sides of Mt. Shasta, and all of them showed abnormally high levels of heavy metals like aluminum, he said.

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Censoring the Internet: A Collection of Essential Links

Major International Transport Hub Censors Political Websites

Paul Joseph Watson
While media accuses China of blacklisting sensitive information, censorship is taking place right here at home.

MySpace Is The Trojan Horse Of Internet Censorship

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com
MySpace isn’t cool, it isn’t hip and it isn’t trendy. It represents a cyber trojan horse and the media elite’s last gasp effort to reclaim control of the Internet and sink it with a stranglehold of regulation, control and censorship.

MySpace Admits Censorship Of Prison Planet.com

Paul Joseph Watson
Moderator says anything containing URL of website is filtered out.

2012: The Year The Internet Ends

Secret Plan To Kill Internet By 2012 Leaked?

Paul Joseph Watson
Some question if report that pay-per-view system to be introduced is a hoax, but wider march to regulate the web is documented.

AOL Time-Warner Censors Alex Jones Websites

Prison Planet
Nationwide blackout a clear attempt to shut down free speech or just an error?

Internet Censorship Clampdown Begins In One Month In Australia

The Medasite
A new wave of “restrictions” on mobile phone content, websites, chatrooms and message boards will be introduced in Australia by late January, 2008.

The Alex Jones Show, June 11, 2008: : Death of the Internet

Google Censors Another 9/11 Documentary

Steve Watson
A spate of viewings prompts shut down of classic Alex Jones film.

Google Video Caught Censoring Loose Change?

Steve Watson
Online version of 9/11 film not featured in top 100 despite still having huge viewing figures.

Japan To Censor The Internet?

Infowars reporter arrested; Media blackout

Gather
Infowars reporter Matt Lepacek was led out of the spin room by Goffstown PD last night, at the behest of a Giuliani staffer who didn’t like the question he and his crew were asking of a spokesman.

Google Censorship - How It Works

Seth Finkelstein
This report describes the system by which results in the Google search engine are suppressed.

Yahoo 9/11 Internet Censorship

Google Censorship FAQ

Google Blogoscoped
The figure of censored sites might be somewhere between millions to hundreds of millions.

You Tube Censors Hugely Popular “Question Your Reality” Video

Prison Planet
After receiving over 50,000 views in a few hours and on its way to shoot to the top of the most viewed chart, You Tube brazenly pulled a popular video from their rankings system.

"Smart-Mob" Censorship at Google and YouTube

Marc Baber
Three days after I posted a college lecture on the Google-Video website, it disappeared. The lecture was about measuring “warmongering” as a psychological trait using surveys and statistics.

Alex Jones: Internet 2 Takeover

Federally Funded Researchers Want To Scrap The Internet

Steve Watson
Seeking further funding from Congress for "clean slate" projects.

The Internet is Dead, Long Live the Internet

Steve Watson
Total regulation rules are close at hand, a new internet will kill free speech and weed out anything deemed "inappropriate."

Pentagon Carpet Bombs the Opposition in Cyberspace

Kurt Nimmo
The Pentagon puts forward a DDoS scheme.

More Nanny State Attacks on Internet Freedom

Kurt Nimmo
A nanny state proposal would jack the cost of running a website or blog through the ceiling.

Internet Censorship UK

Dan Gilmour on how web censorship is affecting citizen media

Doomsday For The Internet As We Know It?

Paul Joseph Watson
Several developments that are coming to the fore indicate a noticeable advance towards a government regulated, taxed and controlled system that spells doomsday for the Internet as we know it.

Tolls could dot the Internet highway

Associated Press
On the Internet, the traffic cops are blind — they don’t look at the data they’re directing, and they don’t give preferential treatment.

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