CONFESSIONS OF A SHADOW WARRIOR

TAU DOSITHEOS ATECLECTIC ARABIA GATHERING

2010-12-30T22:45:00.000-05:00

TAU DOSITHEOS ATECLECTIC ARABIA GATHERING

Current location:	Arabia Mt GA
Current mood:	grateful
Current music:	"The Heart of Reiki"
Entry tags:	arabia mt, congregational illuminism, gnosis, lama

TAU DOSITHEOS ATECLECTIC ARABIA GATHERING

Mt. Arabia Gathering – 1 November 2010

An account from Tau Dositheos, with illustrations by Tau Tula

http://lightofthegnosis.org/blog/2010/12/29/allsaintstalk/

On 1 November 2010 Ormus Lodge

http://www.lightofthegnosis.org/ormus.htm

had the great honor of hosting a gathering at Mount Arabia in Lithonia, Georgia USA. This gathering was part of a series of combined events

http://lightofthegnosis.org/blog/2010/10/28/events/

that were hosted by various Congregational Illuminist nodes in free communion.

Mt. Arabia

This post is limited to just one of these events, yet I want to send out a very special thanks to the entire crew of Templi de Niger Sol for initiating the idea of this shared week-long esoteric experience and for all your hard work seeing it through to completion, Bishop +Thomas Langley for his help with and participation in the Litany of Saints, Ezili Roots

http://www.eziliroots.com/

for hosting Fet Gede which is so dear to my heart, Lama Michael Crowley for his thoughtful participation at Fet Gede on the 30th, for leading us through a Chenrezig Sadhana at Kwan Yin House on the 31st, and for blessing us with a Mountain Incense Offering at the sacred power-spot (Mt. Arabia) on the 1st. I also want to thank Tau Aron for all his efforts in bringing Lama to our city, Tau Ishaviva for providing the means to record the audio, Tau Tula for the wonderful photos and to the facilitator of the Assembly of the Knowledge & Wisdom of Solomon – T Allen Greenfield – for your tireless Work in support of Congregational Illuminism.

TAU DOSITHEOS' TALK ON CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINISM

There are two audio tracks below.

The first audio track is an informal talk I gave about scrying the Rite of Memphis Degrees on November 1st at Mt. Arabia. You can also read the related outline and compare it to this reference document. For supplemental reading in regards to scrying, see Benjamin Rowe’s document.

Right click and “save as” to download the mp3 file or left click to have it play in your browser now (about 45 MB’s)

AUDIO LINK http://www.lightofthegnosis.org/download_lot/01_nov_2010_scrying_degrees.mp3

[It is unfortunate, but this recording had to be edited to remove valuable feedback from T Allen Greenfield, Tau Tula and Tau Ishaviva because the recording device was not able to pick up their dialog good enough to hear it on the playback. I had to cut out the inaudible bits. Next time we will remember to pass the recorder around when others are speaking].

The second audio track is actually two separate recordings of Lama Michael Crowley edited into one track. The track opens with Lama Crowley chanting two forms of mantra for Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig) followed by a mantra for Padmasambhava. The next segment is a recording of Lama Crowley performing the Mountain Incense Offering on November 1st at Mt. Arabia. The practice for the Mountain Incense Offering is said to originate with Padmasambhava, affectionately known as Guru Rinpoche.

Right click and “save as” to download the mp3 file or left click to have it play in your browser now (About 31 MB’s)

AUDIO LINK CLICK HERE

[We are experimenting, so the audio is admittedly very raw. We intend to improve upon this for future events.]

Preparing for the Incense Offering

LAMA MIKE IN TIBET

SHADOWS AT THE SUMMIT OF ARABIA MOUNTAIN

TAU ALLEN (L) AND TAU ARON

TAU TULA AND LAMA MICHAEL

POINTS CHAUDS WORK ON LAMA MIKE BY TAU DOSITHEOS, TAU ARON ASSISTING

SOME OF THE GROUP GATHERED NOVEMBER 1ST 2010 ON ARABIA MOUNTAIN

STIMULATING SHARING OF OPINIONS FROM DIVERSE ILLUMINISTS

THe Night I was all over History PART ONE

2010-12-19T06:06:00.000-05:00

THe Night I was all over History PART ONE

THE NIGHT I WAS ALL OVER HISTORY Part Two

2010-12-19T06:03:00.000-05:00

THE NIGHT I WAS ALL OVER HISTORY Part Two

SORT OFANCIENT ALIENS - VRIL

2010-11-26T16:34:00.000-05:00

SORT OFANCIENT ALIENS - VRIL

Current location:	Black Forest Germany
Current mood:	amused
Current music:	"Wonderland is dead" - Vril
Entry tags:	nazi ufos, secret societies, ufo, vril society

SORT OFANCIENT ALIENS - VRIL
Well, it was at the Redstone Arsenal, not Wright-Patterson AFB (which I've never visited) but - aside from some people's leaps and the conspicuous omission of Rudolph Hess (Vril Member from the start to the end - died in Spandau Prison under mysterious circumstances at 93) it restates the case with a bit of my commentary first advanced on "UFO Hunters".

Vril Society

as interpreted at Crystallinks

In November of 1996 I received a video about World War II Germany pre and post and a secret organization named Vril its name linked to Atlantean time lines and one of its language composed of sounds and clicks.

The video mentioned that in Germany at the turn of the century and particularly after WW I many secret societies developed. One of these groups was the Vril Society.

In 1917 four members of the Vril society met in a cafe in Vienna. There was one woman and three men. The woman was a 'spiritual medium'. They met under a veil of mystery and secrecy. They discussed secret revelations, the coming of the new age, the Spear of Destiny, the magical violet black stone, and making contact with ancient peoples and distant worlds.

Their source of power was the Black Sun, an infinite beam of light which, though invisible to the human eye, exists in anti-matter.

The Vril emblem became the Black Sun, a secret philosophy thousand of years old provided the foundation on which the occult practioners of the Third Reich would later build. The Black Sun symbol can be found in many Babylonian and Assyrian places of worship. They depicted the Black Sun - the godhead's inner light in the form of a cross. This was not much different from the German's Knight's Cross.

The woman allegedly channeled information from aliens after which the Thule was crteated. they went on to build something called the Vril Machine. It allegedly was a saucer shape interdimensional time travel machine. Their first flight was allegedly in 1934.

Much of their work was done in the Black Forest.

Thule Society members were allegedly the first group to attempt the back-engineering of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. "A German writer, John Von Helsing, describes the discovery of a crashed saucer in the Black Forest in 1936 and says that this technology was taken and combined with the information the Vril Society had received through channeling and was made into a further project called the Haunebu.

German aircraft historian Henry Stevens states, "Haunebu 1 was allegedlythe first large flying saucer developed in Germany. According to plans allegedly obtained from classified German SS files, the Haunebu 1 was approximately seventy-five feet in diameter and probably lifted off for the first time in August 1939, a few weeks before the outbreak of World War II.

Reference: UFO Sightings

The Coming Race (original title), also reprinted as Vril: The Power of the Coming Race is a novel published in 1870 by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The novel is an early example of science fiction, sometimes cited as the first of this genre. However, many early readers believed that its account of a superior subterranean master race and the energy-form called Vril was accurate, to the extent that some theosophists accepted the book as truth. Furthermore, since 1960 there is a conspiracy theory about a secret Vril-Society.

The origins of the Nazi version of the theory of the master race were in 19th century racial theories of Count Arthur de Gobineau, who argued that cultures degenerate when distinct races mix. It was believed at this time that southern European peoples were racially mixed with non-European Moors from across the Mediterranean Sea, while Northern Europeans remained pure. Proponents of Nordic theory further argued that Nordic peoples had developed innate toughness and determination due to the harsh, challenging climate in which they evolved. Thus the racial ideal of these theorists was the tall, blond and blue-eyed Nordic individual.

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the earliest proponents of the theory presenting a hierarchical racial model of history, attributing civilizational primacy to the "white races" who gained their sensitivity and intelligence by refinement in the rigorous North:

The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Indians and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer in colour than the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmans, the Incas, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention because those tribes that emigrated early to the north, and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual powers and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want and misery, which in their many forms were brought about by the climate. This they had to do in order to make up for the parsimony of nature and out of it all came their high civilization.

Nevertheless, such theorists usually accepted that considerable variety of hair and eye colour existed even within the racial categories they recognised. Contrary to a popular myth, the Nazis themselves did not discriminate against Germans who were not blonde or blue-eyed, or had only one of these features. Adolf Hitler and most Nazi officials (not to mention most Germans at the time) had dark hair and were considered to be "Aryans."

The postulated superiority of these people was said to make them born leaders, or a "master race". Other authors included Guido von List (and his associate Lanz von Liebenfels) and the British racial theorist Houston Stewart Chamberlain, all of whom felt that the white race and Germanic peoples were superior to others, and that given the purification of the white race and German people from the races who were "polluting" it, a new Millenarian age of Aryan god-men would arrive.

The term Aryan derives from the ancient peoples who lived in Iran (see also Iranian peoples) and the Indus Valley. Following the ideas of Gobineau and others, the Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg claimed that these were a dynamic warrior people who originated in northern climates, from which they migrated south, eventually reaching India. They were supposed to be the ancestors of the ancient Germanic tribes, who shared their warrior values. Building from Nietzsche, who stated "it is quite in order that we possess no religion of oppressed Aryan races, for that is a contradiction: a master race is either on top or it is destroyed" (The Will to Power, 145), Rosenberg claimed that Christianity was an alien Semitic slave-morality inappropriate to the warrior Aryan master race and thus supported a melange of aspects of Vedic and Zoroastrian teachings, along with pre-Christian European paganism, which he considered to be distinctively Aryan in character.

In Nazi Germany, marriage of an "Aryan" with an "Untermensch" was forbidden. To maintain the purity of the Germanic master race, eugenics was practiced. In order to eliminate "defective" citizens, the T-4 Euthanasia Program was administered by Karl Brandt to rid the country of the mentally retarded or those born with genetic deficiencies, as well as those deemed to be racially inferior. Additionally, a program of compulsory sterilization was undertaken and resulted in the forced operations of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Many of these policies are generally seen as being related to what eventually became known as the Holocaust.

The concepts involved in this theory of Germanic superiority is strongly contested. Most modern scholars see no connection between Indo-European population movements and alleged "Nordic" racial characteristics.

Fictional Representations

Aryan master race ideology was common throughout the educated and literate strata of the Western world until after World War II. Such theories are commonplace in early 20th Century fantasy literature. For example, a distinct belief in the status of Aryan humanity as the "master race" underlies much of the work of fantasists such as H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard's literature. Howard's most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian is supposed to have lived between the fall of Atlantis and the "rise of the sons of Arya" (i.e. the Aryans). In his story Wings In The Night, Howard also wrote,

The ancient empires fall, the dark-skinned peoples fade and even the demons of antiquity gasp their last, but over all stands the Aryan barbarian, white-skinned, cold-eyed, dominant, the supreme fighting man of the earth.

In other cases, while the phrase "master race" itself is seldom used, the inhumane and barbaric treatment of those not belonging to the "master race" in the fictional fascisms seems to imply that such an ideology is present. S.M. Stirling's Domination of the Draka is a fictional empire which is explicitly based on the "master race" concept. After World War I in the Draka universe, the Draka citizens adopt an ideology which calls for all non-Drakan humanity to be reduced to chattel slavery. The Chosen, from Stirling's previous General series (which no doubt inspired the Draka) portrays perhaps a more realistic look at the "master race" concept, including the consequences of such a policy on a society. The Chosen, who treat other peoples with contempt, calling them "animals", are eventually destroyed by their own slaves, the lowest of the low, despite the Chosen's superior weapons, training, and centuries of eugenic breeding. The fictional fascist "Freedom Party" that rules the Confederate States of America in Harry Turtledove's American Empire series of novels also echoes the concept.

The James Bond film Moonraker is another fictionalized account of a master race - the Adolf Hitler-like megalomanic villain Sir Hugo Drax pre-selected a diverse group of astronaut trainees to become the progenitors of a master race that will repopulate Earth after the planet has been nerve-gassed. Similar ideas are explored in science fiction. An episode of The X-Files is entitled Herrenvolk. It presents the story of Nazi scientists saved by Americans after the War - during the Operation Paperclip - and their connections with aliens, which led them to successfully create a superior race of alien/men hybrids. Likewise, in The Other Side, an episode of Stargate SG-1, the Eurondans are portrayed as white supremacists who have created a purified Nordic-like population, planning to annihilate other peoples, who they refer to as "Breeders" because of their indiscriminate breeding, in rejection of eugenics.

Enter the underworld
Enter vril-ya enter vril-ya
A step down the stairway
Enter vril-ya enter vril-ya

Inside earth there was a land of mystery
Lighted up by the black sun of underground
In this world they got the key to time and space
And forces too strong for mankind to know.

O land vril-ya
An vril-ya

Secret chiefs of agharti
Will reveal the lore of vril
And aldebaran, (and) aldebaran
Ansa agarthi

Yani-ya koom-zi vril-ya an sumer an drakon a-u-ran
Yani-ya glek-ya sol nax an sorat an drakon a-u-ran

When we unlock the hidden lore of vril
We fold space and travel across the time.
With this force man will become like god
And rule the earth through the light of the black sun.

Enter the underworld
Enter vril-ya enter vril-ya
A step down the stairway
Enter vril-ya enter vril-ya

Yani-ya koom-zi vril-ya an sumer an drakon a-u-ran
Yani-ya glek-ya sol nax an sorat an drakon a-u-ran

Enter vril-ya man of sumer
Enter vril-ya man of sorat
Enter vril-ya man of drakon
Enter it now man of vril-ya
Enter vril-ya man of sorat
Enter vril-ya enter it now.

2010-11-22T19:34:00.001-05:00

A NEWLY UPDATED LIST OF CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINIST BODIES & NODES

2010-11-19T18:42:00.000-05:00

A NEWLY UPDATED LIST OF CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINIST BODIES & NODES

Current location:	worldwide
Current mood:	busy
Current music:	"Oh Freedom" Civil Rights Song
Entry tags:	congregational illuminism, freedom, gnosis, local illuminist bodies

A NEWLY UPDATED LIST OF CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINIST BODIES & NODES
This list was compiled by + Dositheos, Facilitator of Ormus Lodge, updates by TAG (I update this list frequently):

LOCAL BODIES AND NODES IN FREE COMMUNION
PUBLIC ACCESS FREE ILLUMINIST BODIES

*** Congregational Illuminism ***

Australia
Inner Circle of The Australian branch
The Hermetic Order of the Great White Brotherhood of Light
via The Great Circle of the Order of the Red Rose
http://witchywisdom.com
sageylee@witchywisdom.com

Bulgaria
Sovereign Sanctuary for Bulgaria
Ancient & Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim
http://sites.google.com/site/memphismizraimbg/home-1
balcanmaster@yahoo.com

Canada

Vancouver, BC

Legba Lodge
http://legbalodge.110mb.com/
legba.lodge@gmail.com

Ottawa, Ontario
Brotherhood of the Secret Sun

Croatia

email: newinspiration@ymail.com

Split

Shiva Solar Temple, ( Shivin Solarni Hram)
Robin Goodfellow, Facilitator Templar
(EGnU)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=110229592339021
vortpendragon@gmail.com

Loza Krilate Kugle
http://www.inet.hr/~theba/html/mim.htm

Greece

Athens

Isis Sophia Holy Lodge
skiados7@yahoo.gr

Serbia
Misr Lodge Memphis-Misraim
L.V.X. Novae Aurorae
star.eleven418@gmail.com

Belgrade
Porta Lucis Temple
newinspiration@ymail.com
http://www.x718.blogspot.com

Poland

Warsaw

Autireba Lodge No. 11

jatryka@gmail.com

http://gnostikoi.net/?act=page&id=175

Russia

Moscow

Tau (Dr.) James L. Choron, Bishop EGnU for Moscow and Western Russia
lord_jim@mtu-net.ru

Planetarium/Balance Lodge
http://book93.info/

United Kingdom

Liverpool
Incarnadine Lodge
Email:amodali@f2s.com

Brighton

Akashic Lodge No.3
cameron777@gmail.com

Bristol (node)

wiki: http://kiamagic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bristol_Moot
mailing list: http://kiamagic.com/mailman/listinfo/bristol_kiamagic.com

United States

Alabama

Post Tenebras Lux Lodge No. 22
http://www.moderngnosis.org/post-tenebras-lux-lodge-no-22
http://www.moderngnosis.org/

California
Stockton
Sanctuary of Adam
EGnU Temple
sanctuaryofadam.egnu@gmail.com

Florida

Laevus Levus Semita
dzietz@hotmail.com

Georgia

Assembly of the Knowledge & Wisdom of Solomon

Lodge of the Sons & Daughters of Aaron
http://www.mindspring.com/~hellfire/bishop/

Ormus Lodge
http://www.lightofthegnosis.org/ormus.htm

Coptic Gnostic Church
http://cgc.lightofthegnosis.org/

Tau Naamah
http://taunaamah.wordpress.com/

Liberi Sanguinis Luciferi
http://www.solarphallic-cult.org/

Ezili Roots
http://www.eziliroots.com/

Bran’s Island
http://www.donaldcorrell.com/

TEMPLI DE NIGER SOL
http://www.niger-sol.org/
enkelisho@yahoo.com

Illinois

Phosphoros Lodge
23sirius@gmail.com

Louisiana
Shreveport
Order of St. George
herebepyrates@gmail.com

Massachusetts

Trinosophia Lodge No. 26
occultist@comcast.net

Michigan
North Branch
The Knights & Companions of St. John the Evangelist of Asia in Europe Lodge
http://hbofl.wordpress.com/
perarduaaddeus@gmail.com

Gwinn
TEMPLE OF LUNA
Perdurabo Lodge, A&P R MM
Frater Obligatus, Facilitator
brass_sunky@yahoo.com

Missouri

Thee Great Black Lodge on Sirius
alienprdkt@yahoo.com

*Temple Of Perpetual Change and Trans-Vision *
*Order Of Eros*
Rev. Jason Roberts
P.O. Box 1987
Columbia, Mo 65205

New Mexico

Beginner’s Mind Lodge #213
icarus93@hotmail.com

Santa Fe
Nous Erôn Lodge - a study circle of Memphis-Misraim
le_regard@lycos.com

The Holy Light Temple
www.bishopjoe.blogspot.com
www.bishop139@comcast.net

New York

Moorish Monastery
http://www.myspace.com/almoroccanlodge

Bayt El Amexem Temple No. 202
sharifbey21@yahoo.com

New York City
The Gnostic Temple of Our Lady of Light
Frater Sabbathiel
fra_sabbat@hotmail.com

New Jersey
Jersey City
Sothis Lodge, No. 68, Primitive Rite of Memphis & Misraim
http://alexandriangnostic.org/sothiswork.html

+Shin Asherah Iustus
Facilitator of Temple of Venus Genetrix &
Thee Loyal Royal Order of the Waterbuffalo Lodge
mbabalon@gmail.com

Pennsylvania

Golden Triangle Temple No. 31
http://www.temple31.org/

The Virgin’s Milk Lodge
JAron98449@aol.com

South Carolina
Desciples of Memphis
magickalbuddha418@yahoo.com

Tennessee
Sanctuary of Theoria
ishaviva@comcast.net ishaviva@comcast.net

Non localized body

Constellation of Abraxas
daonnan@gmail.com

RELATED DOCUMENTS

Facebook On Line Free Illuminism Center click here.

Statement of Mutual Support between Horus-Maat Lodge
and various nodes of Congregational Illuminism click here.

KIAMAGICK WIKI ON CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINISM click here

ANOTHER CONSECRATION AT MT HOLLY NJ POWER SPOT

2010-10-09T16:12:00.000-05:00

ANOTHER CONSECRATION AT MT HOLLY NJ POWER SPOT

ANOTHER CONSECRATION AT MT HOLLY NJ POWER SPOT

10/08/2010

from Shin Asherah Iustus's blog - click here

Consecration of Tau Harpocrates

Over the summer, a good upstanding man came to me and asked how he could form an EGNU temple in Indianapolis, IN. After several conversations and "feeling him out" we set up the date of his consecration for September 25th, 2010 in Mt. Holly, NJ.

I do not feel that the physical act of the empowerments is what makes a person, bishop material. It is a activation process - or a rite of passage, a ceremony that acts as an initiation or symbolic transformation into the inner mysteries of knowing thy self and coming to understand ones place in the Macrocosm. I believe that the spark is present and that the act brings into light or turns on the power that is already there. The universe buries a seed within each of us and as we come in contact with people and situations that bring the seed to life, it seems to manifest in the star bodies. After recognizing our own light bodies, we are able to recognize the spirit that dwells within others. One of my roles is to identify and help people recognize their own abilities and nurture and develop them. In my role as teacher, I take on a non-guru philosophy. I believe that life teaches us many lessons and every person or situation that we come into contact with helps us along our path. The experience for me was identifying the spark that was ready to shine. I have asked Tau Harpocrates to share the experience from his point of view.

Greetings Everyone –
I wanted to take a minute to publicly thank some very hard-working members of our community and give the group a quick recap of the work done in Mt. Holly, New Jersey – from the candidate’s point-of-view.

On Saturday September 25th I had the honor of being consecrated a Templar Priest and Bishop at the hands of Shin Asherah Iustus, Tau Koz and Tau Tula with Tau Sir Hasirim serving as wittness. I cannot thank these four Light Workers enough for their efforts and kindness in helping me with this portion of my Great Work. I would contend that this level of willingness to help a newcomer is one of the greatest calling cards of the Gnostic and Illuminist community. I’m truly humbled by the amount of work and energy extended by this group of quality individuals.

The work itself was beautiful and highly customized – I spent a significant amount of time with Shin Asherah Iustus and Tau Koz reviewing a wealth of scripture, symbols and other Gnostic texts. Shin Asherah Iustus used this occasion to do a dedicated Chakra opening – something that has been alluded to in my various initiatory activities but never performed directly.

Other components of the work (all highly personalized around my experiences and desires) included a strong dose of sacred geometry used as flashing symbols – including the same graphic that I used as the source for my first sacred geometry tattoo almost a decade ago. Readings from the Book of Enoch and The Woman With The Alabaster Jar were used to remind me of some very basic truths that I hold most dear.

It’s not really possible to convey the feeling of my bare feet digging into some of New Jersey’s most interesting soil while receiving the wave after wave of energy while being consecrated by three very dedicated Bishops.

I don’t think I need to recap to anyone in this community the lineage of my consecrating Bishops as a result of their having been consecrated at the hands of Tau Sir Hasirim. While I could not be more proud of the Line that chose to have me as a recipient, I cannot overstate the real-time presence and energy of the group that did this work. Centuries of well-researched history are impressive on paper, but being there - in the right mindset surrounded by truly amazing people is just different. It’s a bit like reading a book about riding a motorcycle versus actually riding one.

If you’ve never read anything about Mt. Holly, NJ and the “Holy Holy Holy” altar – it’s worth a little Google-time. It was a perfect setting for a sunset event.

The auxiliary blessing by Tau Tula *almost* made up for the quiz she gave me before the work started :)

As a result of all this work, Indianapolis, Indiana is home to a newly chartered EGnU body – The Sub Rosa Gnostic Circle. I’m working with a few local like-minded folks to figure out if we want to lease a space, use shared space with other groups or just wander around the cornfields until the spirit strikes us to start working. Small group workings are ongoing in my home as a few of us “try on” the various rites and roles.

Through the graces of Shin Asherah Iustus, Tau Sir Hasirim and Tau Apollonius I am in the process of being recognized as a Bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica Universalis with the near-term goal of celebrating several types of Gnostic Masses and helping members of the local Gnostic/Illuminist community attain toward Deacon and Priest/Priestess if it is their will.

Again – I can’t thank the team that did my consecration and those associated with my admission to the EGnU Episcopate enough for their work and dedication to spreading the Light of Gnosis.

Peace, Light and Understanding

Tau Harpocrates

from "Weird New Jersey"

Holy Holy Holds the Jersey Devil

There was a legend that the Jersey Devil is sealed inside a stone altar on top of a mountain. I've seen the altar and it's really strange, because it's up on this woodsy hill after which the town of Mt. Holly was named. The altar is a big stone sucker with the words “Holy Holy Holy” inscribed on the front.

When I was a kid, back in the early 70's, there was a story that the Jersey Devil was chained up inside that altar, and if you put your ear to it, you could hear his chains clanking and scratching against the stone. It was also told that the altar was the capstone for a deep shaft that went all the way to Hell.

There's an old graveyard, Mt. Holly Cemetery, right down the hill from it on Ridgeway Street., though you can't really see it from the altar. There's a gravestone in there... it was in the front of the graveyard, on the left side, if you enter from Ridgeway Street. The grave was of a young woman and it read something like, “Thus is the fate of all who turn from God,” and it was said that this was the woman who summoned the Jersey Devil. He killed her, and was caught and chained up inside that altar. –Ken N.

The Holy Holy of Mt. Holly

Laid out is a huge white concrete table (4 feet by 8 feet by 4 feet), almost like a sacrificial table of some sort. It has the words “Holy Holy Holy” written across it. In front of the slab are old wooden benches, more like telephone poles, set in a square.

The actual slab appears to have a seat on either end of it. Located on the other side of the Mount was an old shack that you could bang on the door and I swear it would knock back! Well the town decided to fence it off, which didn’t stop the kids from climbing over and harassing the old witch who lived inside. Then, for some strange reason, in the middle of the night the front door of the shed was barred with black iron bars. Now you cannot get near enough to knock. –Steve S.

The Mount and the Witches’ Well of Mt. Holly

There is a place located in Mount Holly called the Mount. The first happening that comes to mind from here is the “Holy, Holy, Holy” altar that is located in the woods. This site is where they hung witches, or people that the town believed were witches. The altar is actually an old judgment table. You can still see where the gallows pole was where they were hung. The pole was cut down, but there is a piece remaining.

Off to the left of this is the Witches’ Well. If you follow the trail to the left you will run into it. Supposedly, before the gallows were put up, there was a witch who started the whole practice in the town and was thrown down this well. The witch wasn't killed instantly. She screamed and banged on the inside of the well walls until her hands were bloody, begging to be helped. After she died, the townspeople still heard her cries for help and the sound of her bloody knuckles rapping on the walls. They later built a shed over the top of the well to end the haunting. It is said that if you go there at night and knock on the walls of the shed, you can hear her knock back for help. –Ghsthntr1978

Bruce Springsteen - A Night With The Jersey Devil (Official Music Video).

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ARABIA MT HEALING WORKSHOP 4 SEPTEMBER 2010

2010-09-21T22:38:00.000-05:00

ARABIA MT HEALING WORKSHOP 4 SEPTEMBER 2010

Current location:	Arabia Mountain GA
Current mood:	awake
Current music:	528 Hz
Entry tags:	congregational illuminism, gnosis, healing, points chauds

ARABIA MT HEALING WORKSHOP 4 SEPTEMBER 2010

Report on Mt. Arabia Gathering of 4 September 2010

a report by Tau Dositheos, photographs by Tau Roger

Free Illuminists and friends gathered at Mt. Arabia on 4 September 2010 to experiment with various techniques of empowering everyday physical objects through the hot points. Those present were T Allen Greenfield, Tau Aron, Tau Lamed, Tau Roger, Tau Ishaviva, Brother Darian, Sister Alicia, Tau Lucidus, Bishop Correll, Brother Conan, Tau Michelle and myself (+Dositheos).

As mentioned above, the main gist of the gathering was to experiment with using the hot points - or "energy" drawn from the hot points - to "empower" and/or "transform" everyday physical objects into...something else. The gathering was facilitated by T Allen Greenfield who performed similar experiments with the Brothers and Sisters who attended the recent Prague Working in July.

As I recall, T Allen divided the presentation into three "chapters" as follows:

First Chapter - a presentation of energy work in general

Allen discussed various theories of energy work with a special emphasis on the Brazilian Psychic Healer - José Arigó, the "Surgeon of the Rusty Knife". Some of the bits that stood out to me were the three approaches Arigó was said to have taken when people came to him for healing. The first was to advise the patient to "go home and pray". These were said to be cases where Arigó felt like it wasn't for him to do anything further (or perhaps cases where he felt he couldn't do anything) and that if the patient did indeed go home and pray they might gain some healing that way. [The cultures he worked in were primarily Roman Catholic, so "prayer" here has an assumed context]. The second approach Arigó took was to offer specific advice for a patient. I take this to mean he consulted with them or "read" their symptoms, made a "diagnosis" and offered a specific "treatment". The third approach was to "operate" on the patient, apparently using his psychic surgeon techniques to cure people of various ailments. Allen also mentioned other healers such as Edgar Cayce and contrasted Cayce himself with the group that purports to carry on his work - the Cayce Foundation. In each and every example that we discussed, there was an underlying theme - the healer opens up to the "Universal Source" and becomes a channel to allow that "Source" to work *through* the healer. Regarding the "Universal Source", specific terminology is, to say the least, quite problematic here (God, Spirit, the One, the Absolute, Dark Matter, Chi, Prana, etc., etc., etc.). I can say from experience with both facilitating hot points empowerments as well as ordaining and consecrating various people, that this is EXACTLY what I experience subjectively as well when doing those things. I open myself up to receive Spirit, become a channel and ,if I am successful, "it" comes through. For example, if I am facilitating hot points empowerments, I become the conduit or vessel through which the "spirit" of that particular hot point moves, I merely direct the "live energy" to the "target" region for the recipient. When this "live energy" connects with the "target" (i.e. "enters" or "infuses" the corresponding region of the recipients energetic body connected to that specific hot point), the hot point is then "activated" or "empowered" for the recipient. In another context, I have also experienced this "opening up and becoming a channel for Spirit" (using my terminology here) when having the honor of ordaining and consecrating other co-workers in the Gnosis. Passing Orders to another is, for me, very much an opening up to the Divine, allowing Spirit to enter through me, being a channel for the Spirit to pass the Gift of Holy Orders to the recipient. My consecrators, whom I honor greatly and who are also very close friends of mine and comrades in the Work, these dear consecrators did not give me something from themselves, but rather they became a vessel for SOMETHING ELSE to come through. At least, that is how it worked with me. I received this way, I give this way. So I could really resonate with this during our discussions of the various healers and energy workers who appear to be saying the same thing (albeit with different terminologies).

Second Chapter - a personal anecdote of successful healing work

During this segment, T Allen shared a touching story of a successful healing he did for his mother some years back. Without recounting all of the specific details (I'll leave that for Allen if he decides to share them in open forum), essentially Allen's mother experienced sudden and unexpected symptoms of an illness, was at one point hospitalized, not doing very well at all, and was considering medical treatment that in itself may have caused further serious complications. Allen decided to create a talisman consecrated to healing, using correspondences related to the specific illness, and magically empowering it. He then gave this talisman to his mother with simple instructions to touch it once upon the forehead and once upon the heart every night before going to bed (Correct me if I'm off on the details here Brother Allen). Allen's mother followed these simple instructions and the serious condition she was facing was in fact healed (without undergoing the proposed treatment) which enabled her to live in good health for many years after the incident.

Third Chapter - hands on experimentation

This is where we changed from theory to practice. The method we used was fairly straight forward.

1) Pass around an item "as is", meaning before we attempted to empower or transform it. This was so each member of the circle could note energetically what the item "felt" like to them.

2) Empower (consecrate, activate, charge, etc.) the item and then pass it around again, each taking note of any change (energetically) of the item.

There were variations of the specifics, such as one person empowering the item and passing it around to the rest vs. each person empowering the item and then passing it around to "sense" it, etc. Other folks that were present can probably fill in more details. I do recall with one particular item (the Water) that three of us all had a similar experience of the Water being reminiscent of Abramelin Oil, which was interesting, because it was water with nothing else added to it (meaning no oils, herbs, etc.), but was apparently already consecrated and given as a gift to Allen during his recent travels. So for the record, I just note it was the one item that already had an association to esoteric or spiritual empowerment before we attempted to add to it ourselves and three of us independently sensed or felt like it was akin to Abramelin Oil.

The overall message Spirit offered me from this gathering was to remind me of *putting to use* the consecrations and empowerments I have so graciously been transmitted. The ordinations, consecrations, point chauds empowerments - all of these things and more - are not the end, not even a goal in themselves (that would be pure vanity), but rather, I receive these consecrations and empowerments to better enable me to perform Service, or as some say, to perform the Work. There was a special emphasis on healing which, for me, has been more of a focus ever since my own ordination and later more fully with my consecration, but the same principle can be applied to innumerable areas of interest (not just healing). This potential diversity of application speaks to one of the essential principles of what I mean when I say "free communion". I look forward to more such Workings with a focus on experimentation to fine tune and hone techniques that I can apply toward Service and the Work.

In free communion,

+Dositheos

WELL OVER 1200 MEMBERS AND GROWING DAILY!
Cause URL - click here
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SCHOLAR GETS SIRIUS

2010-08-24T23:44:00.000-05:00

SCHOLAR GETS SIRIUS

SYNOD OF CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINISTS IN PRAGUE

2010-07-22T04:33:00.000-05:00

SYNOD OF CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINISTS IN PRAGUE

Current location:	Prague CZ
Current mood:	optimistic
Current music:	Sedm kajících žalmů pětihlasem vyzdobených
Entry tags:	congregational illuminism, gnosis, memphis-misraim, prague

SYNOD OF CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINISTS IN PRAGUE

About two months ago I was invited to spend a week in Prague CZ by a group of talented Congregational Illuminists. I set my goal as teaching, consecrating and facilitating autonomous congregational illuminist bodies during that week, 11 July 2010-19 July 2010, and enjoyed some considerable success. There were attendees from Prague and other Czech cities of various types of illuminists, from Bertiaux-style Gnostic_Voudon practitioners to Memphis-Misraim aspirants to ecclesiastical Gnostics. Beginning in a remote, legendary never-completed medieval church widely considered a power spot (it is) doing consecrations, ordinations and other sacramental rites, we proceeded through several workshops on the nature of the Great Work, giving hundreds of points chauds as appropriate, opening a full A&P R MM Lodge and communicating all Blue Lodge Degrees plus communicating the complete Fratres Lucis system, and concluding with a "test workshop" of those empowered to empower objects and "render profane things sacred" as well as administer points chauds. We still found time for splendidly productive private meetings with delegations from all over Europe. Five countries were represented, and we were able to consecrate and cross-consecrate with old friends of the Work from Serbia, Croatia, the UK, and the Czech Republic.

TAU SUNCE (CROATIA) AND TAU SIR HASIRIM (USA) LONG-TIME CO-WORKERS CROSS-CONSECRATE AND CONFER

PARTICIPATION IN WORKSHOPS WAS BOTH INTENSE AND REWARDING

Prague is a city of much magick, of Dee and Kelley and Rabbi Lowe and the Golem. This initial report only touches the surface....the egregore in Europe and netween free illuminists and America is much enriched by the events.

Old PRAGUE - SCENES

JOHN DEE
The Polish Albert Laski, Count Palatire of Siradz, descendant of the Anglo-Norman Lacies, came to England in search of Dee and Kelly. He was duped by Edward Kelly and his scrying ability, into believing great things were meant him. Indeed a great many messages were received from the Spirit realm concerning Laski, Kelly, Dee, and European politics.

In 1583 Dee and Kelly convinced Laski to return to Poland, taking the two Englishmen and their wives with him. They set about trying to transmute iron into gold to fund their regeneration of Europe. Although they were always just on the brink of success, the experimental transmutation experiments never worked.

While Dee was away in Europe things were not boding well at home. In 1583 a large mob attacked Dee's home in at Mortlake in Surrey destroying his collection of books, occult instruments and personal belongings. The attack was probably in response to rumours that Dee was a wizard.

Meanwhile back in Poland Kelly and Dee's experiments proved very costly, Laski lost his fortune and lands funding the two alchemists work, and when it became apparent that he could no longer afford to continue paying for their experiments, the spirits, including Uriel, expressed their doubts through Kelly that Laski may not have been the right man to bring about the changes in Europe.

To ease his financial burden, Laski offered to pay for the pair to visit Prague, and provided a letter of introduction to Emperor Rudolph II. Amazingly this offer coincided with a command from the spirits via Kelly, urging Dee to deliver a divine message to the Emperor. They arrived in Prague in 1586 to courteous welcome from Emperor Rudolph II, who became intrigued with the idea of the Philosophers Stone. Their stay was cut short after a few months when the Pope demanded that the Emperor should dismiss them, either that or they should be imprisoned or burned at the stake.

Yehuda Loew — The Maharal
(1525-1609)

Yehudah Loew of Prague, also known as the Maharal, was one of the outstanding Jewish minds of the sixteenth century. He wrote numerous books on

Jewish law, philosophy, and morality, and developed an entirely new approach to the aggada of the Talmud. The Maharal rejected the idea that boys

should begin instruction at an early age, insisting instead that children be taught in accordance with their intellectual maturity.

He was held in great esteem by his contemporaries and has had a profound impact on all streams of Judaism. Rabbi Kook stated that the "Maharal was

the father of the approach of the Gaon of Vilna on the one hand, and of the father of Chasidut, on the other hand." Rabbi Shneur Zalman, founder of

Chabad Chasidism, and a direct descendant of the Maharal, bases much of his famous work - the Tanya - on the teachings of his great grandfather.

Ironically, he is credited with the creation of a golem, an activity he would probably have opposed. A golem is a human figure created from clay and

brought to life by use of the Ineffable Name of God. Since the letters of that name were considered to be the original source of life, it is thought

possible for one knowledgeable in the secrets of the Divine Power to use them to create life.

Discussions of golems go back to the Talmud. Rava is said to have created such a man. In the sixteenth century numerous golems were said to have

been created, but in each case their power increased and threatened human life, so they were destroyed by their makers.

Yehudah Loew of Prague was said to have created a golem to protect the Jewish community from Blood Accusations. It was close to Easter, and a

Jew-hating priest was trying to incite the Christians against the Jews. The golem protected the community from hard during the Easter season.

However, the creature threatened innocent lives, so Yehudah Loew removed the Divine Name, thus rendering the golem lifeless.

Today someone who is large but intellectually slow is sometimes called a golem. Pete Hamill has written a book called Snow in August about a golem

created in the late 1940's in Brooklyn.

The Maharal was very active in community work. He did much to improve social ethics. He was a far-seeing educator whose many ideas for educational

reform struck deep chords in many people.

His resting place in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague is still visited today by thousands of people.

EPISCOPAL FUNCTIONS AT POWER SPOT July 12, 2010

EXPERIMENTAL EMPOWERMENT OF WATER, ORDINARY OBJECTS - ALL "PASSED"!

RECENT NEWS http://tausirhasirim.livejournal.com/121085.html
Positions
1. Spiritual growth is incompatible with authoritarian structure.
2. Scientific Illuminism requires a non-dogmatic, experimental approach.
3. A free society linked in free communion should be actualized.
4. We facilitate, we do not lead. We do the Work, we do not extract oaths or dues, or require dogmatic beliefs.

UPDATED NEWS http://tausirhasirim.livejournal.com/123010.html
Cause URL: http://www.causes.com/causes/152090?recruiter_id=14256853

http://tausirhasirim.livejournal.com/121198.html
and
http://tausirhasirim.livejournal.com/121432.html

http://allengreenfield.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/masonic-dignities-egregoric-successions-updated-april-27-2010/

1100 MEMBERS Cyberspace Congregational Illuminism

2010-07-08T17:37:00.001-05:00

1100 MEMBERS Cyberspace Congregational Illuminism

Actually, it was 1111 by the day of the celebration, and 1125 by this post!

1100 MEMBERS Cyberspace Congregational Illuminism

Before we could even have the formal celebration for reaching the landmark one thousand members, we have reached 1100. This seems to be indeed an idea which has reached its time!

CYBERSPACE ILLUMINISM MEMBERSHIP REACHES ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED!

CONSECRATION ROCK, JUNE 2010

CROSS CONSECRATION KWAN YIN TEMPLE 2010

This would not have happened without you and the other members of the cause who invited their friends so thank you.

Congratulate the Cause

To reach the next pixel crowd, Tribe, we need 2,500 members.

Thank you and keep it up!
The Causes Team

P.S. Don't forget to congratulate the cause!

Positions

1. Spiritual growth is incompatible with authoritarian structure.
2. Scientific Illuminism requires a non-dogmatic, experimental approach.
3. A free society linked in free communion should be actualized in this New Aeon.
4. We facilitate, we do not lead. We do the Work, we do not extract oaths or dues, or require dogmatic beliefs.

RECENT NEWS click here
ON LINE MEMBERSHIP click here

HEALING CIRCLE, ARABIA MOUNTAIN 2010

AFTER A SUCCESSFUL WORKING

CHARTERING BODIES WORLDWIDE

BRETHREN IN THE UK

MEMPHIS-MISRAIM WORKING IN CROATIA

RECENT NEWS click here
ON LINE MEMBERSHIP click here

"Basement" Thelema, Magick and Vodou

2010-07-04T16:21:00.000-05:00

Tantra Excerpt from Magical & Ritual Use of Aphrodisiacs

2010-05-31T00:56:00.000-05:00

Tantra Excerpt from Magical & Ritual Use of Aphrodisiacs

YouTube - Thelema is DEAD.mov

2010-05-04T20:46:00.000-05:00

YouTube - Thelema is DEAD.mov

Fractal of the Day

2010-04-22T14:30:00.000-05:00

Fractal of the Day

Sleep has long been known to improve performance on memory tests. Now, a new study suggests that an afternoon power nap may boost your ability to process and store information tenfold -- but only if you dream while you're asleep.

"When you dream, your brain is trying to look at connections that you might not think of or notice when [you're] awake," says the lead author of the study, Robert Stickgold, the director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. "In the dream...the brain tries to figure out what's important and what it should keep or dump because it's of no value."

In the study, Stickgold and his colleagues asked 99 college students to memorize a complex maze on a computer. The researchers then placed the students inside a virtual, 3-D version of the maze and asked them to navigate to another spot within it. After doing this several times, half of the participants took a 90-minute nap while the other half stayed awake and watched videos.

Health.com: What's keeping you awake at night?

When the students were given the maze test again five hours later, the nappers did better than the students who had stayed awake, even those who had reviewed the maze in their heads. However, the nappers who dreamed about the maze -- one described being lost in a bat cave -- performed 10 times better than the nappers who didn't.

The students who dreamed about the maze did poorly on the test the first time around -- which may not be a coincidence, the researchers say. If a task is difficult for you, your brain seems to know it, and you may be more likely to dream about it than if the task were easier.

"If you're not good at something, and you dream about it, you seem to get better at it -- especially if the information can be used in different situations," says Michael Breus, the clinical director of the sleep division for Arrowhead Health, in Glendale, Arizona, who was not involved in the study.

"The sleeping brain seems to be processing information on one level, but on a higher level it helps evolve your memory network if the information is relevant or helpful in your life experience," adds Breus, who is also the author of "Beauty Sleep."

The study's findings, which appear in the journal Current Biology, underscore just how important sleep is to our memory and mental function.

Health.com: 8 natural remedies that may help you sleep

It doesn't even need to be a deep sleep, as the researchers found when they monitored the brain activity of the students while they slept. Although the deep slumber known as rapid eye movement (REM) is most closely associated with dreaming, the students' dreaming and learning occurred after as little as one minute of non-REM sleep.

Health.com: Turn your bedroom into a sleep haven

The type of learning that occurs while you dream can be illustrated by the classic dream that many people have in which they show up for an exam that they haven't studied for, Stickgold says.

"When you're in school -- especially college -- there's this ongoing sense that you haven't done enough," he says. "Maybe you didn't make it to a lecture, or you had a paper due in three days that you hadn't started, so you're laying down memories that say, 'I haven't done anything that I need to do.'"

When someone has the exam dream (or nightmare), he says, "Your brain is taking the knowledge of what happened to help you behave differently in the future."

You may be able to harness the dream power displayed in the study to perform better in your everyday life, Breus says.

Health.com: How to sleep easier and avoid midday fatigue

"If you're studying something tough, get the basics down and take a nap. If you dream about it, you will probably understand it better," he says. "Or, go to bed a little earlier the night before, wake up early, review the material, and then take a quick nap to solidify your understanding."

That's good advice, says Dr. Rafael Pelayo, an associate professor of sleep medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, in Palo Alto, California.

"Instead of cramming, study intensely, catch a nap, and then maybe do some more studying," he says. "A nap may be a good tool to enhance your ability to remember information."

THE COMPLEAT APRIL 3rd CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINIST WORKING

2010-04-09T16:33:00.001-05:00

THE COMPLEAT APRIL 3rd CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINIST WORKING

Posted using ShareThis

2010-04-04T08:37:00.001-05:00

A NEWLY UPDATED LIST OF CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINIST BODIES

2010-04-01T16:46:00.001-05:00

A NEWLY UPDATED LIST OF CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINIST BODIES & NODES

Posted using ShareThis

MORE LATIN AMERICAN UFO NEWS!

2010-03-30T17:08:00.001-05:00

MORE LATIN AMERICAN UFO NEWS!

Posted using ShareThis

http://tausirhasirim.livejournal.com/120241.html

2010-03-28T19:03:00.001-05:00

http://tausirhasirim.livejournal.com/120241.html

Posted using ShareThis

2010-01-04T03:02:00.000-05:00

http://tausirhasirim.livejournal.com/117015.html

Tau Allen Greenfield

2009-10-09T22:43:00.001-05:00

Tau Allen Greenfield

Shared via AddThis

MY PODCASTS ON "OCCULT OF PERSONALITY"

WHAT I DO FOR THEGREAT WORK

2009-08-05T03:01:00.006-05:00

CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINISM ON FACEBOOK - http://www.causes.com/congregational_illuminism CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINISM ON MYSPACE - http://groups.myspace.com/congregationalilluminism

LOCAL ILLUMINIST BODIES- http://tausirhasirim.livejournal.com/104467.html

HOW TO FORM A FREE ILLUMINIST BODY - http://tausirhasirim.livejournal.com/101298.html

PODCAST ON CONGREGATIONAL ILLUMINIST MAGICK - http://www.occultofpersonality.net/wp-content/uploads/OoP_Podcast57_PointsChauds_it.mp3

PODCAST ON GNOSIS -http://www.occultofpersonality.net/podcast-43-gnosticism/

THE ROOTS OF MODERN MAGICK pdfhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/12992392/Green-Field-Allen-The-Roots-of-Modern-Magick-1700-Thru-2000SECRET CIPHER OF THE UFONAUTS pdfhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/3255122/SECRET-CIPHER-OF-THE-UFONAUTSSECRET RITUALS OF THE MEN IN BLACK pdfhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/4966668/Secret-Rituals-a-of-the-Men-in-Black
Donations greately appreciated by the author athttp://www.mindspring.com/~hellfire/bishop/

Iran June 22, 2009 Security Forces Move In On Protesters

2009-06-22T18:52:00.001-05:00

The jackboot drops.

WHAT A YEAR!

2008-12-30T04:40:00.001-05:00

T ALLEN GREENFIELD PODCAST & RADIO GUEST SHOTS 2007-2009

December 29 2008
Paranormal Radio with Captain Jack, WPRT Radio
2 hours on Freemasonry, UFOs, and the Paranormal
http://www.contacttalkradio.com/hosts/captainjack.html

December 14 2008
"The Paracast"
http://www.theparacast.com/podcasts/paracast_081214.mp3
Another of our highly-informative UFO and Paranormal Roundtables, featuring T. Allen Greenfield, Jeff Ritzmann and Jeremy Vaeni.

November 28 2008
Untamed Grassy Knoll with Adam Gorightly
The return of Allen Greenfield, noted ufologist and ritual magician
http://beyondthegrassyknoll.com/audio/greenfield11-28.mp3

"The Occult Sentinel" #11
November 20, 2008
http://eastern-syndicate.com/occultsentinel/?p=16

"X ZONE Radio"
November 19, 2008
http://www.xzone-radio.com/

"The Untamed Grassy Knoll" with Adam Gorightly
October 31 2008
http://www.johnkennethmuir.com
http://beyondthegrassyknoll.com/audio/muir.mp3

"The Paracast" May 25, 2008
http://theparacast.com/podcasts/paracast_080525.mp3

"ABRAXAS - Coffee, Cigarettes,and Gnosis"
CCG #91-- Egyptian Freemasonry and the English Kabbalah,Saturday, March 29th, 2008
http://thegodabovegod.com/

"Occult of Personality"
Podcast 43 - Gnosticism - February 29, 2008 by rochester92
http://community.livejournal.com/the_unexplained/66851.html

"Occult of Personality"
Podcast 35 - An Inquiry Into Suppressed Information
December 20th, 2007 by rochester92
http://www.occultofpersonality.com/podpress_trac/web/56/0/OoP_Podcast35_Inquiry_it.mp3

Podcast 31 - Scrying the Universe with T Allen Greenfield
October 21st, 2007 by rochester92
http://www.occultofpersonality.com/podpress_trac/web/51/0/OoP_Podcast31_Greenfield_it.mp3

Podcast 17 - T Allen Greenfield and the Secret Cipher
June 16th, 2007 by rochester92
http://www.occultofpersonality.com/podpress_trac/web/35/0/OoP_podcast17_TAG_au.mp3

Adam Gorightly's "Untamed Dimensions"

Kerry Thornley Tribute
http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-12-12T23_38_34-08_00

Mothman Extravaganza
http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-09-27T09_07_14-07_00
Allen Greenfield Revisits the Early Days of UFOlogy

http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-08-22T22_12_31-07_00

Allen Greenfield (Part Two)
http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-08-02T09_28_25-07_00
Allen Greenfield joins Adam to talk about his early days in UFOlogy

http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-07-12T21_34_59-07_00

"The Paracast"

January 21, 2007
http://www.theparacast.com/
www.blogcatalog.com/post-tag/the%20paracast/
An extended conversation with T. Allen Greenfield, author of "Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts" and "Secret Rituals of the Men In Black." You'll hear his fascinating viewpoints about UFOs and their possible connection with other strange phenomena.

August 26, 2007

http://theparacast.com/podcasts/paracast_070826.mp3
UFO and paranormal investigators T. Allen Greenfield, author of "Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts" and "Secret Rituals of the Men In Black," and Jeff Ritzmann, explore the incredible reality behind the occult/paranormal/UFO connection.

"Magick Mind Radio"
July 6, 2007
http://www.magickmindradio.com/

"Le Hermitage" Podcast # 5
April 13, 2007
Interview with T Allen Greenfield
http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-07-12T21_34_59-07_00

AND MY FILM CHANNEL

T ALLEN GREENFIELD PODCAST & RADIO GUEST SHOTS 2007-2009

December 29 2008
Paranormal Radio with Captain Jack, WPRT Radio
2 hours on Freemasonry, UFOs, and the Paranormal
http://www.contacttalkradio.com/hosts/captainjack.html

December 14 2008
"The Paracast"
http://www.theparacast.com/podcasts/paracast_081214.mp3
Another of our highly-informative UFO and Paranormal Roundtables, featuring T. Allen Greenfield, Jeff Ritzmann and Jeremy Vaeni.

November 28 2008
Untamed Grassy Knoll with Adam Gorightly
The return of Allen Greenfield, noted ufologist and ritual magician
http://beyondthegrassyknoll.com/audio/greenfield11-28.mp3

"The Occult Sentinel" #11
November 20, 2008
http://eastern-syndicate.com/occultsentinel/?p=16

"X ZONE Radio"
November 19, 2008
http://www.xzone-radio.com/

"The Untamed Grassy Knoll" with Adam Gorightly
October 31 2008
http://www.johnkennethmuir.com
http://beyondthegrassyknoll.com/audio/muir.mp3

"The Paracast" May 25, 2008
http://theparacast.com/podcasts/paracast_080525.mp3

"ABRAXAS - Coffee, Cigarettes,and Gnosis"
CCG #91-- Egyptian Freemasonry and the English Kabbalah,Saturday, March 29th, 2008
http://thegodabovegod.com/

"Occult of Personality"
Podcast 43 - Gnosticism - February 29, 2008 by rochester92
http://community.livejournal.com/the_unexplained/66851.html

"Occult of Personality"
Podcast 35 - An Inquiry Into Suppressed Information
December 20th, 2007 by rochester92
http://www.occultofpersonality.com/podpress_trac/web/56/0/OoP_Podcast35_Inquiry_it.mp3

Podcast 31 - Scrying the Universe with T Allen Greenfield
October 21st, 2007 by rochester92
http://www.occultofpersonality.com/podpress_trac/web/51/0/OoP_Podcast31_Greenfield_it.mp3

Podcast 17 - T Allen Greenfield and the Secret Cipher
June 16th, 2007 by rochester92
http://www.occultofpersonality.com/podpress_trac/web/35/0/OoP_podcast17_TAG_au.mp3

Adam Gorightly's "Untamed Dimensions"

Kerry Thornley Tribute
http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-12-12T23_38_34-08_00

Mothman Extravaganza
http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-09-27T09_07_14-07_00
Allen Greenfield Revisits the Early Days of UFOlogy

http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-08-22T22_12_31-07_00

Allen Greenfield (Part Two)
http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-08-02T09_28_25-07_00
Allen Greenfield joins Adam to talk about his early days in UFOlogy

http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-07-12T21_34_59-07_00

"The Paracast"

January 21, 2007
http://www.theparacast.com/
www.blogcatalog.com/post-tag/the%20paracast/
An extended conversation with T. Allen Greenfield, author of "Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts" and "Secret Rituals of the Men In Black." You'll hear his fascinating viewpoints about UFOs and their possible connection with other strange phenomena.

August 26, 2007

http://theparacast.com/podcasts/paracast_070826.mp3
UFO and paranormal investigators T. Allen Greenfield, author of "Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts" and "Secret Rituals of the Men In Black," and Jeff Ritzmann, explore the incredible reality behind the occult/paranormal/UFO connection.

"Magick Mind Radio"
July 6, 2007
http://www.magickmindradio.com/

"Le Hermitage" Podcast # 5
April 13, 2007
Interview with T Allen Greenfield
http://gorightly.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-07-12T21_34_59-07_00

AND MY FILM CHANNEL

http://www.youtube.com/user/tausirhasirim

MORE ON TEXAS UFO-AIR FORCE CHASE?

2008-01-26T02:48:00.000-05:00

UFO Witness Lee Roy Gaitan on Larry King Live Tonight

By Jennifer LitzSan Angelo Live1-24-08 A recent Air Force Reserve news release claims UFO sightings in Stephenville, Texas, on Jan. 8 were really ten of their F-16 fighter jets on a nighttime training mission. This information contradicts their earlier denying of activity in the area. “In the interest of public awareness, Air Force Reserve Command Public Affairs realized an error was made regarding the reported training activity of military aircraft," the news release says.Witnesses aren’t so sure.“I’ve had one of the news people read the [Air Force] news release to me over the telephone,” says Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan, who says he saw bright, flashing white lights on Jan. 8 that circled and bounced before aligning in a formation and taking off faster than his eyes could follow.“I’m a little bit—disappointed that our military could make a mistake,” Gaitan says. “I don’t think it was a mistake. I really believe there was so much pressure put on the military that eventually someone said ‘okay’ . . . I’m not saying this was a flying aircraft, flying spaceship from another universe. I really believe it’s some type of military project, experiment that was going on. And they never expected to have as many people come out, saying what they did. And the media didn’t let it go.“I believe it was something, in the long run, they were doing something that was in our best interest. Security . . . But I don’t respect the fact that they come back two weeks later and say, ‘We made a mistake.’ We are supposed to be a lead military in the world.”Gaitan says if the military had as many fighter planes in the air as they claimed, they should have just told the truth originally. “Don’t get on the news and say, ‘We didn’t have any planes in the air that night,’” he says. “But I did not see fighter jets. [Those were] certainly not the lights I saw. If [they] were F-16s, they were doing something I’ve never seen them do.”Larry King Live staff is trying to get a media truck from Dallas to Gaitan’s house by 8 p.m. Central time to do an on-site update interview. Gaitan assumes King will want to talk about the new military findings. Local Mandatory FM morning talk show host Pamela Stone, who has interviewed past Larry King guest James Fox, author of UFO documentary “Out of the Blue,” says she’s heard the story will be about the military’s possible harassment of some Stephenville witnesses.

BULLETIN!

By Don Ledger1-25-08 I am beginning to suspect that the reason for the jets eing in the area was due to concerns about these anomalies being within 20 miles of the restricted airspace surrounding the Bush ranch. The edge of the restricted zone designated as Class D airspace is only about 16 miles southeast of the center of Stephenville. Pilot Davis's sighting was about halfway between Stephenville and the northwestern arc of the Class D airspace in Selden. In the center of that circular airspace is a 4-5 nautical mile circle designated prohibited airspace. The outer circle is 60 nautical miles [69 statute miles] in diameter centered on the ranch.In effect this prohibited area is scant minutes away from the sightings areas.The launching of F-16s into the areas outside the MOA Military Operational Area] southwest of Stephenville now makes sense as do the hamfisted attempts to cover up the presence of F-16s in the area. I would be surprised if military assets were not tasked to that area if they suddenly had unknowns showing up on their radar and near such a sensitive area. This need not be because of a UFO event but some unknown "aircraft" suspected of - and being treated as - terrorist in nature.What puzzles me is this. It is no secret that the Bush ranch is close-by, how come the press never picked up on this? I had no idea that this was the case until I saw it on Joel's scan of the air chart. I can be excused living 4,000 miles away in Nova Scotia but where are the local newspapers in this from Dallas for example. Dallas-Fort Worth Air Traffic Control (Dallas TRACON) would have been well aware of the F-16s since they came from that field and which should have been squawking military Transponder Codes southwest of their field for safety's sake.Anyway It has me wondering if the reason for the fibbing about the F-16 presence wasn't more to do about concerns about the anomalies violating the airspaces I mentioned above.
* Special Thanks To Don Ledger, UFO Updates and Joel Carpenter

Prequel to Today's Conference

2007-11-13T01:53:00.001-05:00

CNN News - At the National Press Club in Washington DC - UFOs

The Disclosure Project -- In a historical press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on May 9th 2001 several respectable high ranking government, military and intelligence community witnesses testified to their direct, personal, first hand experience with UFOs, ETs, ET technology, and a cover-up that keeps that information secret. These witnesses have stated that extraterrestrials are real, that highly advanced craft called UFOs indeed exist and that covert and clandestine programs are in the possession of revolutionary and fully operational energy generation and antigravity propulsion technologies. About 450 more witnesses are willing to testify under oath if they are given protection through official Congressional hearings. The event was broadcasted in the Internet and has been watched by several hundred thousands of people at that time a record in terms of streaming media. Most of the major media outlets such as CNN, The Voice of America, Larry King, ABC News, MSNBC, Washington Post, FOX News, BBC and several others have reported on the conference. Even though the credentials of the witnesses are virtually indisputable, the event has not been covered by a single German media outlet until this day.

UFOs:PILOTS SPEAK OUT!

2007-11-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

National Press Club UFOs & Pilots

UFO ANONCEMENT

UFO CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
PRESENTED BY LESLIE KEAN

The reality as Seen by Former High Level Government Military Officials Pilots.

Pilots To Tell Their Stories For the First Time!

Group to Call on US Government to RE-Open It’s Investigation
(Seven Countries)

Monday 11AM November 12 National Press Club Ballroom
Moderated by Former Arizona Governor Fife Symington

We should try and support this by paying attention.

I will quote from the readout I was given.

“I believe our government should take an active role in investigating this very real phenomenon. This panel consists of some of the most qualified people in the world with direct experience in dealing with this issue, and they will bring incredible evidence, some never presented before, that we simply cannot dismiss or ignore.
Former Gov. Symington ( Phoenix light Fame)

WHO's Who:
Fify Symington, Former Gov.
Ridrego Bravo, Captain Pilot Aviation Army Chile
John Callahan, Chief Of Accidents and Investigations FAA (Ret.)
Dr, Anthony Choy, Founder 2001 OIFAA, Peruvian Air Force
Jean Claude Deboc, Capitan Air France (Ret)
Charles Halt. Col USAF (Ret.) Former Dir. Inspection Directorat DOD I.G
General Parviz Jafari, Iranien Airlines (Ret)
Trig Johnston Northwest Airlines Captain (Ret.)
Jim Penniston TSgt USAF (Ret.)
Dr. Claude Poher, Centre National d’Etudes Spartiales, founder French GEPAN
Nick Pope Ministry of Defense, UK, 1985 -2006
Dr. Jean-Claude Rabes, Central National de la Recherche Scientifique, France, 1963-08
Commandante Oscar Santa Maria, Péruvien Air Force (Ret)
Contacts : Jamie Fox :415 519-9631 Leslie Kean 415 259 9791

“While on active duty , the panelist have either witnessed a UFO incident or have conducted an official investigation into UFO cases….”

Video:
Daniel Sheehan, is a famous civil rights attorney provided legal counsel for the Karen Silkwood case, Iran-Contra and the Pentagon Papers. He is the former chief legal counsel to the United States Jesuit Headquarters. The story speaks for itself. DVD X-Conference Panel Discussion. Carter, Clinton Administration and UFOs.

Vampires - La Danse Macabre Du Vampire.wmv

2007-10-04T17:05:00.001-05:00

vampire hunter d, hellsing, blood: the last vampire --

anime can be most real!

Theatres des Vampires - Lilith Mater Inferorum

2007-09-27T23:48:00.001-05:00

Shadows Walking

kosovo 2007

2007-09-27T23:44:00.001-05:00

BBC NEWS
Crucial talks on Kosovo's future
By Kim Ghattas
BBC News, New York

The leaders of Serbia and its breakaway province of Kosovo are preparing to hold their first face-to-face talks at the United Nations in New York.

Foreign ministers of the six major powers involved in negotiating the ongoing dispute between the two sides have urged them to seek common ground.

Serbia has rejected a UN plan to grant Kosovo supervised independence.

The UN has administered Kosovo since a Nato bombing campaign forced out Serbian troops in 1999.

Ahead of Friday's historic talks, Serbian President Boris Tadic warned the UN General Assembly in New York of unforeseeable consequences if Kosovo declared independence unilaterally.

'Unacceptable'

He clearly reaffirmed his country's position that an independent Kosovo would be unacceptable.

And he warned that if there was a one-sided recognition of that independence, it would set a precedent, with separatist movements everywhere seizing on it.

After a meeting of the so-called Contact Group - made up of the US, Britain, Russia, France, Germany and Italy - UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged Belgrade and Pristina to show a "constructive spirit".

Kosovo's quest for independence has the backing of the US and most of the EU, although countries like Spain fear the impact it would have on separatists like Spain's Basque movement.

Serbia's ally at the UN Security Council, Russia, also opposes independence for the province.

The Serbs say they plan to propose a comprehensive blueprint for autonomy and hinted they might give up control over Kosovo's borders.

But Kosovo has made clear it will accept nothing short of independence under UN supervision at the end of the negotiating process on 10 December.

With both sides sticking to their positions, it is unlikely the negotiations in New York will lead to any breakthrough at this stage.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7017438.stm

Published: 2007/09/28 03:52:39 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Kosovo 2007

2007-09-27T23:43:00.001-05:00

VERY SCARY VIDEO OF GHOSTS AND EVP

2007-09-22T17:50:00.001-05:00

The Jena Six

2007-09-19T17:41:00.001-05:00

The Jena 6 need your help. Please sign the petition at http://colorofchange.org/jena/
and at http://www.petitiononline.com/aZ51Cqm... (more) (less)

Mothman Again?

2007-08-01T03:53:00.001-05:00

Sightings of mysterious giant bird continue in San Antonio

Web Posted: 07/28/2007 01:30 AM CDT

Joe Conger
KENS 5 Eyewitness News

Loch Ness has its monster. Does San Antonio have one, too?

Strange sightings of a huge flying creature have been reported as recently as six months ago. Is it a monster or myth?

Guadalupe Cantu III was busy working his newspaper route, but he says the big news of that day 10 years ago flew right over his car. He says he's seen what most have not — an unidentified flying object, one that still scares him.

"We were afraid that it would come at us. So we stayed in the car till it passed this way," witness Guadalupe Cantu III said. "This thing's all feathers, all black. Much bigger than me. It looked at us. It had very stooped-up shoulders." The beast has been spotted from the Rio Grande Valley to the mountains of New Mexico.

"(It) looked like what was possibly two people standing on top of a mountain up there," said David Zander, who saw the monster in New Mexico. "Something that big ... I guess it kinda makes you feel like it could come over and carry you off if it wanted to."

More coverage
KENS video: Watch the broadcast
• Web link: Cryptozoology.com

San Antonio's Ken Gerhard has written a book on these dark birds as big as planes, with wingspans from 15 to 20 feet.

Native Americans called them thunderbirds: depicted in their art, their flapping wings were said to cause explosive noises.

"What's interesting is that the reports of these giant, raptor-like birds do continue into modern times," said Gerhard, a cryptozoologist. Cryptozoology is the study of and search for legendary animals to prove their existence.

He says there's solid evidence something is overhead.

"I believe there's a good chance that a lot of large, prehistoric animals, if you will, remain undiscovered by modern science," he said.

So what could the giant birds be? Some witness sketches eerily resemble prehistoric creatures, like the pteronadon of 160 million years ago.

However, Gerhard theorizes it could be a creature that's a little less extinct — if that's possible — a pteratorn.

"These are the surviving ancestors of modern condors and vultures. They lived up until 6,000 years ago, we know for sure, in parts of North America," Gerhard said. "In fact, over 100 specimens have been recovered from the La Brea tar pits in California."

But critics have another take: human error.

"Was it really as big as he thought it was?" asks Ben Radford, editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" magazine. "When there's enough information to come to a determination, I've always found an explanation for it."

Radford says the eye can be deceived.

"Eyewitness testimony is very unreliable. And so it's hard for a person to tell — even experts to tell — 'Is that thing I'm seeing out there, is it small and nearby? Or is it huge and farther away?' " Radford said.

But in one sighting in San Antonio, three people gave similar accounts, witnessing the same fly-by of a huge, winged creature. A trio of South Side teachers traveling a deserted road had their cars "buzzed" by the monsters, and it made the papers in February 1976.

In fact, for decades papers throughout South Texas have chronicled the flying creatures. In the age of the Internet, the reports continue, like this one from a recent sighting near Huebner and Babcock roads.

"The creature was large, at least 6 feet," the report reads. "I don't know if I ever want to see another one."

"If I were outside there walking, it would've gone after me," witness Cantu said.

Cantu believes most sightings go unreported because people are afraid of the ridicule they could face.

However, he says a face-to-face encounter with the creature would be much worse.

"I think if you do see it, then you might wind up missing," Cantu said.
Online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA072707.mysterybird.KENS.ba5c450e.html

Islamism Spreads to Turkey

2007-07-22T15:32:00.001-05:00

July 22, 2007
Turkey’s Ruling Party Leading National Elections
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

ISTANBUL, July 22 — The ruling party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a strong lead in the national elections today, according to preliminary results, setting the stage for a final confrontation over who should run Turkey.

With 57 percent of the national vote counted, Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development party had taken more than 48 percent of the vote, far higher than the 18 percent garnered by the secular opposition Republican People’s Party and the 14 percent taken by the Nationalist Action Party.

The results, broadcast on Turkish television at 8 p.m. local time, represent a slap to the state establishment, whose secular and nationalist parties were predicting that voters would punish Mr. Erdogan’s party for trying to push what they said was an Islamic agenda.

But while Mr. Erdogan’s party is expected to garner the largest portion of the vote in this young, predominantly Muslim democracy of 73 million, it will have to share the Parliament with the two opposition parties and with a broad new array of independents. Though Mr. Erdogan’s party will be able to rule alone, it does not appear to have won enough of the vote to approve constitutional amendments on its own, and will need to seek coalitions.

“I believe our democracy will emerge much stronger with this election,” Mr. Erdogan said, voting with his wife Emine in Istanbul, the Anatolian News Agency of Turkey reported. “This isn’t just a message to our country, but a message to the world.”

Turkey is a NATO member and a strong American ally in a troubled region and its stability is crucial. The election comes after three months of political uncertainty, after a showdown over the presidency led to today’s elections ahead of schedule.

Turkey’s secular state elite, backed by its military, used a legal maneuver in May to block Mr. Erdogan’s candidate from becoming president. Their objection was that the wife of the candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, wears a Muslim headscarf.

The episode brought out strong emotions in Turks and deeply divided the nation. In its essence, the disagreement is a power struggle between Mr. Erdogan and his religious colleagues, and the secular state elite — judges, military officers and bureaucrats — who have steered the state since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s secular revolution in 1923.

There is also a fear among secular, urban Turks that politicians from Mr. Erdogan’s party, who come from a religious, merchant class in Turkey’s countryside, will change Turkey’s secular system and limit freedoms for their own secular way of life.

“They are trying to tear apart the basic values of our republican life,” said Ekrem Tekbalta, 57, a well-dressed lawyer, who voted in an affluent neighborhood in central Istanbul.

But supporters of Mr. Erdogan’s party, known by its initials in Turkish, A.K., say that the party has done little to arouse secular fears and that the objection to it has more to do with class than with creeping Islamism.

“For me, we have to be democratic — I don’t care what his wife wears,” said Latif Ererli, a 38-year old textile worker who said he had cast his vote for the A.K. party out of protest to the struggle over the presidency in the spring. “Gul was liked and favored in Europe, but because of his religious identity, they rejected him.”

Others voted for the ruling party because the economy has been growing since it came to power and undertook a series of political changes aimed at achieving membership in the European Union.

“I’m not that conservative, but I voted for them because of the economy,” said Refik Akin, a 27-year-old catering company worker. “We’re happy with the situation.”

A.K. party officials welcomed the early results.

“We’re moving towards a very good result,” said Salih Kapusuz, a senior A.K. Party official, speaking on NTV, a Turkish television station. “ Our nation has approved A.K. party’s five years in government and granted the authority for another five years. Republic, democracy and Turkish nation are winning.”

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting.

TRICKSTERS AMONGST US

2007-07-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

Brad Steiger, our ole buddy, called my attention to this. Henry_Allen

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Tim Binnall, Brad Steiger, and Trickster

Tim Binnall’s season two finale interview with Brad Steiger was inspiring, reminding me of what I consider to be the crucial points of esoteric research and phenomena. (Including UFOs.)

Steiger stressed that at the core of all these anomalous events (always keeping in mind this includes UFOs) is the Trickster element. (Steiger isn’t the only researcher that believes this; see George P. Hansen’s The Trickster and the Paranormal.)

Another point Steiger made was that no one has the answer, (which should seem obvious) and yet so many come out and insist that that is exactly what they have.

There was also the point made that younger researchers sometimes are ignorant of the older, previous researchers that have gone before and set the way for others; Steiger himself, Keel, Sanderson, Fodor, etc. Young ghost busters tromping through haunted houses with high tech equipment, or UFO “researchers” who read one or two books and think they know it all. I’d add to this that it isn’t just young people, nor all young people, but that this attitude is found among all age groups. There are calls to ignore the history and focus on the now, which is a disservice to all research. (At the same time, you don’t want to get stuck in the past.)

The chronic skeptics, in all their varieties, point to the fact that after so many years -- whether it’s sixty years or a thousand -- we haven't found any answers. That’s true, if one means, by “answer,” the final one size fits all solution to the UFO question. We haven't found “the answer.” The point is, we very likely won’t. That’s unacceptable for some. For others, it’s a non-issue, since we heavily suspect we’ll never find the “answer” and anyway, that’s beside the point.

(Painting: section of Boticelli's Adoration of the Magi 1475)

The persistently skeptical also tell us us that much of UFO and anomalous phenomena seems silly and downright pointless. Conflicting information given by “aliens,” their general behavior, the elusive nature; it’s too uselessly complex and nonsensical.

But that’s what makes it fun; and it’s what the Trickster does; confuse and play cruel jokes. Maybe it makes sense to itself; tough if we can’t get it. Or maybe it knows we can’t get it, and that’s why it delights in doing what it does. Maybe it’s nothing personal at all and we’re personifying; it just is what it is, and we are what we are. No matter, for the Trickster is still at it, regardless of what we think about it.

None of this means there really aren’t Martians living beneath the surface of Mars, or that there are bases on the back side of the Moon. (Maybe.) If any of that is so, that’s only a fraction of the Big Paranormal Picture. A lot more is still to come.

And actually, I suspect that it is really very “simple” in a way: as Steiger called it, we live parallel to a “shadow” world/reality. They do their thing, we do ours. Sometimes, more often than some of us would acknowledge, we meet each other, We find ourselves plunked into their world, or we meet up with “visitors” from theirs. The boundaries between the two aren’t all that firm, as much as some of us like to pretend it is. Indeed, one of the main functions of the Trickster is crossing boundaries.

So thanks to Tim Binnall for all his great work in bringing us (and for free) solid interviews with all kinds of UFO and esoteric researchers, including Brad Steiger.

Resources:
Binnall of America
Brad and Sherry Steiger
The Trickster and the Paranormal

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY THERE

2007-07-08T22:04:00.001-05:00

Rise of Islam rankles Malaysia's minority faiths
Sun Jul 8, 2007 9:55PM EDT

By Liau Y-Sing

KAMPUNG JIAS, Malaysia (Reuters) - Deep in the heart of a Malaysian jungle, a preacher holds a meeting under the scorching midday sun, urging followers not to lose faith after their church was demolished by the government.

The razing of their simple brick church, among a spate of demolitions of non-Muslim places of worship in Malaysia, has heightened fears that the rights of minority faiths are being eroded despite provisions in Malaysian law guaranteeing every person the freedom to profess his own religion.

"Why did the government tear down our church when they say we are free to choose our religion?" asked preacher Sazali Pengsang.

"This incident will not stop me from practicing my faith," Sazali said, as he watched children in ragged clothes playing catch in a poor village populated by indigenous tribespeople who recently converted to Christianity from their tribal faith.

The church in northeastern Kelantan state bordering Thailand is one of several non-Muslim places of worship recently pulled down by the authorities, a trend that's fuelling concern about a rise in hardline Islam in this moderate Muslim country.

State governments have charge over matters relating to Islam in Malaysia and in Kampung Jias, the authorities contend that the building was erected without their approval.

But the natives say the land on which the church was erected is theirs and no approval is required under Malaysian law to build a church on their own property.

In a country where race and religion are inextricably linked, rising religious tension also throws the spotlight on the privileges of the majority ethnic Malays, who are Muslims by birth.

Mosques are found in every nook and cranny in Malaysia but religious minorities say it is difficult to obtain approval to build their own places of worship.

Non-Muslims have also complained, mainly in Internet chatrooms, about city hall officials permitting construction of huge mosques in areas with small Muslim populations.

State television routinely broadcasts Islamic programs but forbids other religions to be preached.

Muslims make up about 60 percent of Malaysia's population of 26 million, Buddhists about 20 percent, Christians 10 percent and Hindus about 6 percent.

RACIAL HARMONY

The smoldering discontent is a worry for this multi-ethnic country which has tried hard to maintain racial harmony after bloody racial riots in 1969 in which 200 people were killed.

"If the authorities do not intervene it would indirectly encourage extreme Islamists to show their muscle and their aggression towards other religious practices," said Wong Kim Kong, of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship Malaysia.

"That would threaten the religious harmony, national unity and national integration of the nation."

Simmering religious tensions could undermine support for the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, an Islamic scholar who champions a moderate brand of the religion.

"Many people of other faiths in Malaysia view the gradual erosion of their rights," said Reverend Hermen Shastri, an official at Malaysia's Council of Churches.

"The government, which asserts to be a coalition that looks to the interests of all Malaysians, is not firm enough with authorities who ... take actions arbitrarily," he added.

Racial and religious relations have long been a thorny point in this melting pot of Malays, Chinese and Indians.

In the early 1980's, the government proposed laws that placed curbs on the establishment of non-Muslim places of worship, prompting minority faiths to set up the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism.

This year, Chong Kah Kiat, a Chinese state minister apparently quit in protest over the state government's refusal to approve his plan to build a Buddhist statue next to a mosque.

In 2004, federal authorities intervened after state officers in the central state of Pahang flattened a church, according to Moses Soo who pioneered the church in Kampung Jias.

Appeals to the prime minister resulted in compensation of about $12,000 and permission to rebuild the church, Soo said.

A similar plea was made to the authorities for Kampung Jias

but unlike Pahang, Kelantan is controlled by the opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), which wants to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state that punishes rapists, adulterers and thieves with stoning and amputation.

APOSTATES

The issue of religion has also been controversial for Muslims. They are not allowed to formally renounce Islam, and apostates are sent for counseling and, ultimately, fined or jailed if they do not desist.

Lina Joy, a Muslim by birth who converted to Christianity, recently lost a six-year battle to have the word "Islam" removed from her identity card.

Since taking power in October 2003, Prime Minister Abdullah has espoused "Islam Hadhari", or "civilisational Islam", whose focus includes faith and piety in Allah and mastery of knowledge, with the aim of promoting tolerance and understanding.

"Malaysia is one of the Muslim countries that practices moderation in all spheres," said Abdullah Md Zin, a minister for religious affairs.

Some blame a small group of Muslim extremists for attempting to hijack the debate.

"There are enough fair-minded Malaysians in the country who are standing together to hinder the hardliners from dominating the discourse about Islam and the relationship between state and religion," said Shastri, from the Malaysian Council of Churches.

But that is little consolation for the villagers of Kampung, who will have to pray under a flimsy tent next time it rains.

(Additional reporting by Jalil Hamid)

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Reuters journalists are subject to the Reuters Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.

1947 - YEAR OF THE SAUCER

2007-07-05T23:33:00.001-05:00

BBC NEWS
Saucers in the sky

By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine

It's 60 years since the term flying saucer was coined and the most celebrated "extraterrestrial" episode - Roswell. Alien believers are dismissed as cranks, but even the earthly explanations of objects in the sky are fascinating.

Sixty years ago Kenneth Arnold saw something which changed his own life and the lives of millions of others, and impacted on popular culture like a shockwave.

Flying his plane near Mount Rainier in the US state of Washington, he observed a line of strange objects either crescent-shaped or disc-like, flying with the motion of a saucer skimming on water.

Arnold's sighting, quickly picked up by the press, was followed a fortnight later by the revelation of perhaps the most notorious episode in the history of UFOs, at Roswell in New Mexico.

FAMOUS SIGHTINGS
1980, Rendlesham Forest: US airbase staff see strange lights in woods
1957, RB-47 encounter: US jet followed by UFO for 700 miles
1979, Livingston: Forestry worker sees dome-shaped object
1950, McMinnville: Farm couple photograph saucer
1961, Betty and Barney Hill incident: Couple see UFO and under hypnosis describe abduction

Having announced it had recovered a "flying disk", the Army airfield backtracked and referred only to a weather balloon.

What followed was perhaps one of the greatest conspiracy theories of all time, involving post-mortem examinations of swollen-bellied grey aliens, the cloning of sophisticated extraterrestrial technology and an epic cover-up. Or not, as the case may be.

In the 60 years since 1947's first major wave of sightings, thousands of ordinary people have claimed to have seen inexplicable objects in the sky.

When the Ministry of Defence released papers on its own investigations into the phenomenon in 2006, it was revealed more than 10,000 eyewitness accounts had been collected.

And for every sceptic who prefers explanations of weather balloons and freak atmospheric conditions there is someone who genuinely believes intelligent life is visiting the planet.

Alien belief

A national newspaper survey in 1998 suggested 33% of men and 24% of women thought aliens had already visited the earth.

Such polls are testament to the powerful impact of six decades of media coverage, disputed science, heated mythology and Hollywood films. We have now completed six decades of projecting our hopes and fears onto the UFO phenomenon.

David Clarke, a lecturer in journalism, has spent 30 years studying UFOs and the sociology of the flying saucer sighting.

He is no believer in little extraterrestrial men, but believes mainstream scientists should recognise the rational explanations for sightings are themselves worthy of study.

"They wouldn't touch it," he says. "It's got such a bad press. Anything that people don't have an immediate explanation for - it must be little green men."

The "ufologists" who study the phenomenon comprise both sceptics and believers. They seek to "resolve" each incident, explaining away each aspect. And there is a wealth of explanations for most sightings that is as fascinating for sceptical enthusiasts as the notion of space visitors.

Cold War projection

Sundogs, or strange refractions of the sun in another part of the sky, burning space debris, weather balloons, ball lightning, meteors, disc-shaped or lenticular clouds, mirages, even the planet Venus low in the sky, are all classic methods of resolving UFO sightings.

But underlying them is a need also to explain people's desire to believe that a UFO sighting can be explained by alien activity. The timing of the start of the golden age of the UFO, in a Western world recovering from World War II and gearing up for the start of the Cold War, is significant.

"We were projecting things to reflect our fears and concerns about the Cold War," Mr Clarke says.

EXPLANATIONS
Sundogs: Refracted image of the sun
Space debris: Burning satellites or rocket fragments
Meteors: Such as bolides or fireballs
Clouds: Lenticular or disc-like
Mirages: Hot or cold-air induced images
Stars/planets: Such as Venus
Planes: Such as experimental aircraft
Ball lightning: Unpredictable brilliant spheres
Weather balloons: Classic explanation
Hallucination: Viewer under stress
Mass hysteria: Early explanation
Earthlights: Caused by electromagnetic fields in seismic activity areas

"Organised religion was in decline but when worried or concerned it is comforting to feel there is a greater power looking after us. It is quite nice to think there is another civilisation that has been able to overcome the things destroying our civilisation."

The UFO phenomenon is also linked with the modern reliance on conspiracy theories, a mixture of a need to believe in something more than the mundane in an increasingly rational world and an all-pervading distrust of authority.

As the Fortean Times, which this month dedicates an entire issue to the UFO anniversary, puts it: "UFOs fill a niche in the human spirit that thrives on wondrous ideas."

Earlier generations had also seen UFOs but without the term flying saucer in existence, they were labelled as other things.

UFO students say there are peaks and troughs in sightings that are probably based on cultural, social and political trends.

Golden age

Expert Paul Devereux says a new golden age during the 1990s, particularly after the broadcast of the cult television series the X-Files, has given way to a current wave of indifference.

Mr Clarke concurs, suggesting: "It could be the case that post-9/11 people are more concerned about the threat from terrorism or the environment."

Mr Devereux has drawn on the work of controversial Canadian academic Michael Persinger and believes many unresolved UFO sightings can be explained by "earthlights", clouds of plasma being charged by strong electromagnetic fields occurring in areas of seismic activity.

Having witnessed a UFO that could not initially be explained, Mr Devereux has dedicated his life to research.

"It bugged the hell out of me, almost gave me a mental breakdown. I couldn't make it fit into the everyday mundane world view."

Pilot Ray Bowyer was the principal witness to the most recent publicised UFO sighting in the UK.

Flying a commercial plane from Southampton to Alderney in the Channel Islands in April this year, Mr Bowyer saw two objects up to a mile across in the sky over Guernsey.

"I saw a bright yellow object, a light in the sky some miles ahead. I could see this specific shape of a flattened disc, like a CD on its edge, slightly tilted."

He says some of his passengers, as well as another pilot, saw the objects and he has been told they were picked up on radar.

Mr Bowyer's sighting may be a prime candidate for the "earthlights" theory, coming just days before the Dover earthquake. He accepts this as a possible explanation.

"I'm open-minded about everything. It would be a fairly perverse universe if we were the only inhabitants."

Despite the drop-off in interest in UFOs, the ufologists and their acolytes carry on their work, and the UFO-loving public continues to believe in conspiracies.

"No matter how much material the authorities produce and release the people who want to believe a conspiracy to hide aliens will never be satisfied," Mr Clarke says.

"It is such an emotional thing. They are convinced they are here, that they are walking among us."

Below is a selection of your comments.

Mobile phones are near-useless for snapping UFOs on account of their wide angle lens, tiny CCD sensors and poor resolution. The point about satellites warding off UFOs is a good one, though...
Michal, Warsaw, Poland

Two mile-wide UFOs are seen by pilots near Guernsey. Not clouds, balloons, geese, etc. I really do think it's time for the authorities to own up about what they know or don't know. The objects were on radar for nearly an hour. I hope the story does not get the usual treatment.
Johann, Salford

About 10 years ago, I was woken by my father (I was at home during university vacation) telling me to look out of my bedroom window. He was already at the window, filming with hs video camera. What we saw can only be described as large, white, the shape of a teardrop on its side, and flying very fast. At that time, we lived in southwest Cornwall, and watched as it flew behind St Michael's Mount, and reappeared the other side after a second or so. My father got all of this on video, and had it analysed by several experts shortly after. The results were inconclusive, but we were advised categorically that it was not a cloud, and that it was, indeed, very large, some way in the distance, and travelling at great speed. As it happens, we weren't the only witnesses to this, and a large feature appeared a week later in the local paper. Certainly changed me from a die-hard disbeliever into your common or garden sceptic!
Kay, Plymouth, UK

I note the Roswell 'Cover Up' quoted that the debris contained indestructable, light as a feather material. If it was so light and indestuctable how come it crashed into the ground leaving debris?? It should still have been perfectly formed if it was indestructable!!
Mark, London

I have actually seen the electromagnetic discharge about 5 minutes before the earthquake that was centred around Clun in Shropshire struck in the early nineties and it didn't look like no UFO. It just looked like all the air surrounding me just lit up. I walked for one building to the other , heard a rumble, looked out of the window and the ground just looked like a series of waves running towards me then the building shook.
Pablo, UK

I saw a huge black triangle over a Roman town called Vienne in France. Using crude estimations with a tv aerial as point of reference, I guess it was perhaps 3-400 metres across. It was silent, moved very slowly and blocked the stars out as it passed over. It was very chilling indeed
Rene Pasini, Hammersmith

I find it strange that the UFO over Singapore in the 1970s never gets a mention in lists of sightings. It was around for days and thousands of people must have seen it, so why are the reports supressed?
John, Chesterfield, England

I personally doubt that we've been visited, because even if there is a possibility of other life in the universe, you have to reduce that possibility to life existing within a reasonable distance of earth, say 500 light years. On the other hand, a recend drying up of sightings could be due to an increase in the number of satellites that look down, ie. observe the skies and ground beneath them. This might cause an investigating visitor keep to a distance higher than satellite orbits, which would have a knock-on effect of reducing accidental naked-eye observations.
Luke, London

Pretty much all sightings are explainable, which leaves some which are "unidentified flying objects". Just because they're unidentified it doesn't mean they're alien spaceships - by definition they're unexplained. They could be spaceships but there's no way of knowing. If you want a real conspiracy theory try this one: the furore around government cover-ups of UFOs to make us think they're from another world is to divert us away from what they're really up to - and heaven alone knows what thet might be!.
Mark Grady, Southampton, UK

Yesterday evening at exactly 18.06:06 hrs I was walking on the Great Orme in Llandudno when to my amazement I saw a very strange object in the skies over the Irish sea. The object was shaped similar in configuration to a crucifix, as if you were looking at it side on but with a slight tilt, it also appeared to have a green symbol/shape on the side of it. The symbol/shape looked something like this: Ryanair.
paul richardson, Deganwy North Wales

My wife and her parents were scared by a low flying very fast UFO one night in South Yorkshire over 20 years ago. Last year I had my wife carefully draw what she saw then I loaded up google... what she saw was an F-117 stealth fighter years before the US admitted they existed. I suspect most of the 'credible' UFO sightings are new, top secret military aircraft.
Peter, Nottingham

I don't know if UFOs are real but it seems pretty obvious that intelligent life must exist elsewhere in the universe. I remember reading that scientits had calculated that with the number of stars in our galaxy, the milky way alone must contain at least 100,000 advanced civilisations. People who say extra terrestrial life doesn't exist seem to be the crank to me. It's like claiming the earth is flat, because it looks that way from our perspective on the ground. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that they will be friendly.
Andrew, Edinburgh

I've always found it fascinating that UFO images are so rubbish, when people are regularly taking pictures of aircraft etc that look just fine. The western world now seems to have a camera in every pocket (camera phones?) and yet there have been no new photos for years. Military video allows us to see missiles slamming into bunkers in great detail but no UFOs with the same detail. Perhaps.... because they simply don't exist? Now open the lines to the conspiracy theorists... "Of course that's what THEY want you to think!"
Dan Thurgood, Liverpool UK

Another attempt at debunking.One of the leading officers who organised the Roswell 'Cover Up' recently died, but wrote an afadavit to say that he saw the craft debris, handled the material which was silver, indestructable and as light as a feather. He also organised the local undertaker to supply four child sized coffins for the UFO occupants and oversaw the entire weather balloon story. This was in a recent Daily Mail spread about the Roswell Truth.
Stuart Chambers, Mill Hill London

I served with the UK forces in the Falklands in the 90s and from our hill top perch one night, the 3 of us saw a bright blue light moving fast over the water in the distance (map showed about 50 miles away) You could see the blue reflecting off the sea. We reported it and had to fill out a classified report.. 2 Phantom jets were scrambled and we confirmed the light had also been picked up on a radar station. They followed the light for a while as we watched... It travelled up Falkland sound then just switched off leaving the jets flying in circles looking for it.
Witheld, UK

If there are aliens amongst us they can't be very intelligent, otherwise they would have started an immediate cull of the most destructive life form in the universe - humans!
Mike Preston, Blackpool

The idea that aliens would bother to travel across vast reaches of time and space to buzz grannies in cars, experiment with farmers in the mid-west of the USA and emit some kind of ray that only produces ambiguous grainy images on cameras is just - rediculous.
David Case, Westgate on Sea

Strange with the advent of digital phones with cameras and videos that UFO sightings have dried up....isn't it?
Puggy, Glasgow

With everyone these days carrying a camera in their mobile phones surely we should have a half decent photograph of a UFO by now. Or have the aliens stopped coming becouse the weather is so bad?
TeeGee, Belfast

If you type Area 51 itno Google Earth you will see an amazing area which does get the imagination going. Whether or not the Government knows about it, the chances of 'others' are very high. If we have evolved and survived this long, there are bound to be others. We may never see or hear from them but to think we are the sole beings in the universe is a bit naive.
Lewis, Portsmouth

I read about all these sceptics saying 80% or 90% or 99% of sightings are earthlights, or moonlight on geese or the planet Venus - and they quietly don't mention that fact that still leaves more than a few sightings that aren't explained. Doesn't it worry anyone that there are things in the sky and we don't know what they are? I'm not saying they're aliens, just that these sightings should be studied properly, not swept under the carpet and dismissed as cranks or drunks or idiots not be able to recognise a plane when they see it.
Nona, London

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/6268708.stm

Published: 2007/07/04 13:49:16 GMT

© BBC MMVII

OUR FRIENDS THE ARABS

2007-07-01T22:47:00.001-05:00

British prime minister links incidents to al-Qaeda associates

With five suspects in custody following a series of apparent terrorist incidents in London and Glasgow, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said during an interview today with BBC One that it is "clear that we are dealing in general terms, with people who are associated with al-Qaeda."

"It's obvious that we have a group of people - not just in this country, but round the world - who're prepared at any time to inflict what they want to be maximum damage on civilians, irrespective of the religion of these people who are killed or maimed are to be," he said.

Yesterday, the British government raised the terrorist alert to critical, meaning that "an attack is expected imminently."

Sky News says police are searching a house in Glasgow thought to be connected to the airport incident.

Earlier: A Glasgow eyewitness says "I managed to knock the Asian fellow to the ground"

(Photo taken today at Glasgow airport by Andy Buchanan, AFP/Getty Images.)
Posted by Mike Carney at 10:21 AM/ET, July 01, 2007 in

Ghost Hunting

2007-06-25T19:45:00.001-05:00

Ghosts in GA- My old haunt_ Henry_Allen

Meta-Film Mini Documentary about Ghost Hunting. This is an early short version of what will eventually be an hour long film about ghost hunting.

The final version will feature more attention to detail within the scientific aspects of the field.

Chapter Two, and Three will feature more paranormal subjects such as EVP, ITC (instrumental transcommunication), and UFOs.

Directed By Colin Michael Quinn
Georgia State University Film School Project
Spring 2007

Hometown Tales - The Horror of Andersonville

2007-06-25T19:39:00.001-05:00

Published: June 22, 2007 03:06 am print this story email this story comment on this story

Andersonville filled with numerous ghostly encounters
From Staff Reports
AMERICUS TIMES-RECORDER (AMERICUS, Ga.)

ANDERSONVILLE, Ga. — Haunted stories have an affect that send a tingling sensation up the spine. But sometimes these tales of ghosts, haunted houses and spooky cemeteries are recorded as actual accounts experienced by ordinary people and by those who investigate these tales of horror.

The City of Andersonville has been marked as one of the many cities that is filled with numerous encounters of the supernatural. One of the sites that has been recently investigated is the St. James Pennington Church.

On June 16, a team of paranormal investigators from the group Southern Paranormal Researchers (SPR) of Prattville, Ala., visited the church to experience any form of anomalous phenomena. St. James Pennington Church was founded by Brother Jimmy Lawrence in 1927. The church is a log cabin that has been relocated and restored by the Andersonville Guild. The SPR learned of the church from the website of the Shadowlands Haunted Places where numerous stories have been recorded of different encounters with the supernatural in Andersonville.

SPR uses a wide variety of investigative methods to help determine what type of haunting is present, if any, and how the particular haunting will be dealt with after it has been identified. The group does extensive research of the particular location that is being investigated before hand and compiles a complete report outlining the investigation and the results obtained. The group has experience in investigating historical sites, hotels, inns, private residences and demonic and dark energy.

The findings at the St. James Pennington Church were described by the SPR director, Shawn Sellers, as slim. Equipped with cameras and the basic equipment used in these types of investigations, Sellers said the group spent a total of eight hours at the church.

“This is a site that we will like to further investigate. During our time at the church, we picked up an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) but we have not figured out quite what was being said,” said Sellers.

Sellers along with another member of the team took pictures within the church and did pick up an image of the late pastor of the church. According to Sellers, he took several shots from different angles but did not pick up anything. However, the other member took shots focusing on the same angle and the image of the pastor appeared in one of the photos. The photo showed the silhouette of what seemed like the pastor’s nose bleeding.

“When we do these investigations, we use a variety of equipment — from cameras to personal interviews. We did a thorough investigation for eight hours and seemed to be a little skeptic when nothing appeared on audio or video. But the photograph proved that there was a presence in the church. We also picked up orbs or ghosts that are seen in the form of balls of light. It gives hope and proof for what we do and we will be back in the future to further investigate the area.”

For more information, visit www.southernparanormalresearchers.com or theshadowlands.net.

White People For Peace

2007-06-16T18:02:00.001-05:00

Thought I'd share this. Thanks to imagine for calling it to my attention. Henry_allen

GETTING A LIFT FROM AZERBAIJAN

2007-06-08T19:23:00.001-05:00

Giving them anti-missile radar is a great idea - look at what they've done with Viagra. Henry_Allen
Azerbaijan amenable to anti-missile radar
MOSCOW (AP) — Officials in Azerbaijan, a nation with a huge oil reserves and a record that has been criticized by human rights advocates, on Friday welcomed Moscow's call to use a Russian-leased radar installation in their country as the cornerstone of a proposed U.S. anti-missile system.

Elmar Mammadyarov, Azerbaijan's foreign minister, said in the capital of Baku that the proposal "can only bring more stability into the region because it can lead to more predictable actions in the region."

Novruz Mamedov, head of the Azerbaijani presidential administration's international relations department, told Russia's Rossiya TV that "such cooperation can have a very strong and positive impact on the situation in the world as a whole.

"If such countries as Russia and the U.S. cooperate, they will have common interests and it will prevent tensions," he said.

For weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the U.S. plan to build a missile interceptor base in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic, saying the system was aimed at Russia's strategic arsenal.

Then on Thursday, Putin caught President Bush off guard by urging that the Soviet-era radar installation at Gabala, in northeast Azerbaijan, be used instead as part of a joint U.S.-Russian missile shield. On Friday, he suggested the missile intercepter base could be in Turkey or at sea.

A Russian military expert said the Gabala installation was built to track U.S. bombers and submarine-launched missiles from the Indian Ocean.

The Bush administration has said it seeks to counter future missile threats to Europe from Iran, which Washington fears is developing nuclear weapons.

Azerbaijan, a former Soviet nation of 8.5 million about the size of Maine, is on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, flanked by Russia to the north and Iran to the south. It is one of the countries in Central and South Asia that the U.S. has turned to since the Sept. 11 attacks, despite their mixed records on human rights and democracy.

The government in Baku has contributed 150 soldiers to the war in Iraq and 20 to coalition military forces in Afghanistan.

According to a Council of Europe report last year, Baku has served as a refueling stop for CIA aircraft shuttling terror suspects to secret prisons.

The country has rich oil and natural gas deposits — Baku was one of the first oil boomtowns in the 19th century. But according to government statistics, nearly one-fifth of the population lives in poverty.

Azerbaijani authorities have been criticized by rights groups and the U.S. government for their hostility to independent and opposition journalists.

Human Rights Watch says that over the past year or so, authorities have prosecuted and imprisoned seven journalists, mostly on charges of criminal libel and "insult." Journalists are also attacked and threatened with violence, the group said.

The State Department's human rights report for 2006 said the Azerbaijani government engages in the arbitrary arrest and detention of political opponents.

The country is also the site of one of the "frozen conflicts" left over from the post-Soviet era. Azerbaijan and Armenia are at odds over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that is inside Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic Armenian forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Maury Island UFOs, 1947

2007-06-08T00:09:00.001-05:00

The book (Thomas, Kenn: "Maury Island UFO: The Crisman Conspiracy" GA: IllumiNet, 1999)was from my former publisher at IllumiNet Press, who died under mysterious circumstances. The first major editor to have a field investigator on hand was my late coworker Ray Palmer. While Roswell is the case of this period most discuss, Maury Island contains everything from crashed saucers, men in black, silencings, dead investigators -- all the UFO mythos of subsequent years san abduction. That it took place at the Summer Solstice, the "dog star" days is worth of comment as well. Henry_Allen

The Maury Island incident is said to be an early modern UFO encounter incident, which allegedly took place shortly after the sighting of the original flying saucers by Kenneth Arnold. It is also one of the earliest reported instances of an alleged encounter with so-called "Men in black". Opinions remain divided as to the case on whether it was genuine or a hoax.

The incident took place shortly after June 21, 1947. On that date, seaman Harold Dahl, out scavenging for drifting logs, claimed to have seen six UFOs near Maury Island (which is now a peninsula of Vashon Island, in Puget Sound, near Tacoma, Washington, United States). Dahl, his son, and their dog were on the boat. Dahl claimed to have taken a number of photographs of the UFOs, and reported that one UFO shed some type of hot slag on to his boat. The slag, he said, struck and killed his dog and injured his son.

The next morning, Dahl reported, a man arrived at his home and invited him to breakfast at a nearby diner. Dahl accepted the invitation. He described the man as imposing at over six feet tall and muscular, and wearing a black suit. The man drove a new 1947 Buick, and Dahl assumed he was a military or government representative.

While the two men ate, Dahl claimed the man told him details of the UFO sighting, though Dahl had not related his account publicly. The man also gave Dahl a nonspecific warning which Dahl took as a threat that his family might be harmed if he related details of the sighting.

Some confusion and debate over Dahl's statements have occurred. Dahl would later claim the UFO sighting was a hoax, but has also claimed the sighting was accurate, but he had claimed it was a hoax to avoid bringing harm to his family.

Investigation

In spite of the threat Dahl had reported the incident to his immediate superior, Fred Crisman, who had long claimed to have experience with unusual phenomena (and who was later linked to the John F. Kennedy assassination)[1]. Crisman gathered more of the slag, then called in the press, who in turn called in Kenneth Arnold to investigate the incident.

Albert K. Bender seized on Dahl's story, and printed it in his newsletter. In 1953, Bender claimed three men in black visited him, and warned him to stop his UFO research.

Arnold, realizing the story was beyond his capacity to investigate, called in the United States Army Air Corps, which dispatched two investigators. The investigators were largely unimpressed with Crisman and with his evidence, but agreed to take some of the slag with them for further inquiry.[1] The plane carrying the two investigators and the UFO evidence crashed shortly after leaving Tacoma, killing both men.[2] In April 2007 it was reported that the crash site had been found and some material recovered. [3] [4]

Capt. Edward Ruppelt, chief of Project Blue Book in the early 1950s, wrote that he was convinced that the entire sighting story was a hoax.

Hoax Claims

To some in the UFO community, the Maury Island Incident is still highly controversial, dismissed by many as a complete fabrication by the wildly imaginative and conspiracy-obsessed Crisman, while others think it may be among the most important encounters in modern times.[citation needed] Others speculate that the incident, although clearly a hoax, was employed by the US government to draw public attention away from claims hazardous waste from a breeder reactor located in Hanford was being secretly and unlawfully dumped on Maury Island.

References

1. ^ Randles, J: "MIB: Investigating the Truth Behind the Men In Black Phenomenon", page 33. Piatkus, 1997
2. ^ Randles, J: "MIB: Investigating the Truth Behind the Men In Black Phenomenon", page 33. Piatkus, 1997
3. ^ B-25 wreckage found after 60 years, listed as carrying a UFO
4. ^ Wreckage from secret 1947 mission found

* Ruppelt, Edward J: "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects" Doubleday, 1956.
* Thomas, Kenn: "Maury Island UFO: The Crisman Conspiracy" GA: IllumiNet, 1999
* Mcnerthney, Casey (April 23, 2007). Is strange rock from UFO or just a piece of poppycock?.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved on 2007-05-05.

Kelso mineral sample:

2007-06-07T19:34:00.001-05:00

See previous entry.

LOYAL OPPOSITION?

2007-06-02T02:18:00.001-05:00

nsurgents destroy major bridge in northern Iraq

Sat Jun 2, 2007 2:11AM EDT

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Insurgents destroyed a major bridge that connects the Iraqi capital Baghdad with the northern cities of Kirkuk and Arbil early on Saturday, police said.

They said the insurgents used explosives to destroy the Sarha Bridge, near the town of Tuz Khurmato on the Chinchal river, some 150 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad. The blast severely damaged the bridge, forcing motorists into detours and traffic jams.

Several bridges have been targeted in Iraq, most notably the popular Sarafiya bridge which was destroyed in April in a truck bombing that sent large sections of the steel structure crashing into the Tigris in central Baghdad.

Many Iraqis believe insurgents target bridges to physically separate Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim areas in central Iraq, but some say the attacks are meant to frustrate people who have to endure time consuming detours into dangerous areas.

The Iraqi government recently imposed restrictions that ban trucks from traveling on all but two of the capital's 13 bridges in fear of another major attack.

consortiumnews.com

Dem Consultants: Calculations of War

By Brent Budowsky
May 30, 2007

Editor's Note: Since 2002, Democratic consultants have been whispering in the ears of party leaders to give George W. Bush what he wants on the Iraq War as a way to avoid accusations that they are "soft" or "unpatriotic" or "against the troops." The results of those calculations can now be measured in the growing lists of dead and wounded as well as in the Democrats' plummeting poll numbers.

In this guest essay, political analyst Brent Budowsky traces this thinking and its consequences:
Now we read in the Boston Globe how John Kerry, preparing to campaign to be Commander in Chief, voted in 2002 for the Iraq War after his political consultants informed the would-be leader of the free world that he would not be “politically viable” unless he voted yes.

This followed the disclosure that Bob Shrum advised John Edwards to send young men and women to die as a way of improving his weak national-security resume in 2002.

Why Democratic officials listen to this is beyond me.

Here are the presidential campaigns that Bob Shrum lost: 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004. Here are the presidential campaigns Mr. Shrum won: none.

Nice work, if you can get it.

By the way, Republican consultants are no better. They loved the Iraq War when they could use it to run television ads, accusing Democrats of being unpatriotic. Now they are reduced to gibberish about “surrender dates” while their members run to the White House and whine to the President, waving their polls, then vote for it again.

From the moment of the Democratic victory in the congressional elections of 2006, many of these Democratic consultants told party leaders that it would be wrong to make a powerful and principled stand against the Iraq War policy.

The majority consultant view was summed up early in the Democratic Congress by Celinda Lake, quoted in the Washington Post as believing that Democrats were not elected to solve the Iraq War, and that waging a politically heroic fight for change would be a distraction.

Think about it, folks: The Democratic 2000 nominee for vice president (Joe Lieberman) is one of America’s leading neoconservative theoreticians in favor of the war. The Democratic leaders in 2002 joined Messrs. Cheney and Perle in advocacy of the war.

The Democratic nominees for president and vice president in 2004 (John Kerry and John Edwards) both supported the Iraq War in 2002 after hearing the voice of the consultant class. They then lost an election they should have won through vacillation on the war, made famous by the quote about what one voted for before one voted against.

From the beginning, at every stage, Democrats did better in elections, to the exact degree that they spoke out strongly. In 2002, they voted for the war and lost. In 2004, they moved daintily in opposition and did better, but lost again. In 2006, they took their strongest position yet, and won, and Democrats in Congress surged ahead of the Republican Congress and Republican President in early 2007 opinion polls.

Enter the Democratic consultants.

Here, again, is their handiwork. We entered 2007 with one of the most unpopular presidents in history and one of the most unpopular Republican Congresses in history. Now, after a few short months of not fighting courageously for change, the Democratic Congress shows up in polls as equally unpopular as George W. Bush.

Great work.

Here are some truths that you haven’t read yet in the Washington Post or The Hill or seen on the cable talkies, though you will.

The Democratic consultant class likes the Iraq War because it gives Democrats the chance to play pretend with non-binding actions, issue talking points about how they fought to change the policy, then lose everything in the end, at which point they can blame the Republicans for the war.

The majority view of Democratic consultants is they don’t want to win a change in policy, because then they have ownership. They want to look like they tried, then lose, and then blame Republicans for the war.

Morally speaking, this is dead wrong; in politics, this is half-right. Here is something else you have not seen from the pundit class, but it’s true, and you will. There is a gigantic difference in the objective political interest between Senate Democrats and House Democrats.

With 21 Senate Republicans running for reelection, the Democrats will pick up seats. There is a chance the Democrats pick up many seats, based purely on the math.

The Bob Shrum award for lack of courage and principle on war votes, coupled with an uncanny ability to lose elections, goes to the Senate Republicans. They support a war that few privately believe in, and commit political hari-kari by doing so. Anyone who believes “we can work this out in September” is dreaming.

On the House side, with an overwhelming majority of Americans loathing this war, the vulnerability is in the freshman class of new Democrats and those Democrats who won narrow victories. Their objective interest politically is doing far more than the current Congress for troops and vets and offering principled opposition to the hated status quo.

Projecting current trends, it is very possible that Democrats increase their margin in the Senate while losing control of the House. Remember where you heard it first.

Here’s my view, as an unyielding opponent of the war policy and unyielding supporter of troops and vets: Who cares about the politics? War is a moral and patriotic matter that should be decided on the grounds of high principle and high honor.

We have just ended one election, which neither party now honors with regard to Iraq, and the next election is about a year and a half away.

Here is the state of play, rounding off the numbers. Seventy percent of the American people disapprove of the current policy; disapprove of President Bush; disapprove of Republicans in Congress; and now disapprove of the Democratic Congress.

It is America versus Washington.

On matters of patriotism, honor, war and peace, reasonable people can disagree about the policy. What is extraordinary and unique in my experience is that on this matter the truth is that 98 percent of Democrats in Congress, 70 percent of Republicans in Congress, perhaps 100 percent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly oppose the current policy in private but then act to continue it in public.

On the most authoritative poll, in Military Times, the president’s popularity among active-duty troops in the military is under 40 percent. Think about it.

Meanwhile, the Marine Corps makes an urgent appeal for life-saving equipment in 2005, which is 90 percent held in contempt, i.e. ignored, by the very politicians who vote for a war they don’t believe in, then give Memorial Day speeches proclaiming their love for the troops.

Who do they think they’re kidding?

It is America versus Washington, and what Washington insiders don’t get is this: When 70 percent disapprove of them all, and they issue talking points proclaiming their own greatness, all this does is make Americans disapprove of them even more strongly.

On all issues involving the war and the troops, we have the most educated Americans in history. They cannot be fooled; politicians who insult them, with obviously untrue talking points, do so at their peril.

Here’s my advice: First, tell the truth. Second, support the troops and vets in ways that are far more comprehensive and honorable than what either party is doing today. Third, fight like hell to change the policy.

When Washington begins to respect America, Americans will no longer feel 70 percent disrespect for both parties in Washington.

The way to win the election in 2008 is to respect the election of 2006.

Brent Budowsky was an aide to U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen on intelligence issues, and served as Legislative Director to Rep. Bill Alexander when he was Chief Deputy Whip of the House Democratic Leadership. Budowsky can be reached at brentbbi@webtv.net. (A version of this story originally appeared at The Hill.)

UPDATE ON DISCARNATES

2007-05-23T02:23:00.001-05:00

Modern ghost stories vary. This one is of more than

passing interest. Henry_Allen

Dave Juliano's Story from

http://theshadowlands.net/ghost/story.html

It started when I was three years old. One night I

awoke to find a small child-like figure in my bed

with me. He was about 2 feet tall and had the

features of a small child, but its head was swollen

well beyond a normal size. It was wearing a blue gown

with the hands not visible at the end of the sleeves.

It was moving its mouth and talking in gibberish. The

figure was as real as I was, and it was surrounded by

a kind of glowing haze. I ran to my parents' bedroom

and woke up my dad, but, of course, he told me to go

back to sleep. So I returned to my room and now the

figure was standing on my bed. I grabbed a pillow and

covered my face and jumped on the bed. It was gone.

That started something that would last the next 26

years.

I'll condense the years up until 1990. Those

appearances, while still frightening, never really

made me feel threatened. During this period, which

included teenage years, I saw the figure with the

same frequency. My bedroom is located at the end of a

hallway with 2 other bedrooms before mine. At the

other end of the hallway is a landing that blocks the

view to the steps. From my bed I could look out my

door and down the hall to the landing and the top of

the steps. I always knew right before the figure

would appear, because the hair on the back of my neck

would stand up and I would get uncontrollable chills.

The figure would then appear either on top of the

landing or come around the base of the landing and

start down the hall toward my room. It never seemed

to pay any attention to the other rooms at all. I

would normally panic and either shut my door or run

into my parents' room and sleep on the floor. Imagine

finding your 18 year old son curled up on your

bedroom floor when you wake up in the morning. My

parents and sister didn't really fully believe that I

was seeing this apparition. I also would stay up

late, being the night person that I am, and watch TV.

In my living room, we have the stairs that lead up to

the 2nd floor. It has a wooden railing on it that

goes the length of the last 4 steps. I would often

see the figure on the steps watching me from the 3rd

or 4th step and then disappear. The only real changes

during this time period were that the figure was

losing its color and becoming more transparent.

Now things will change drastically. A neighbor, with

some knowledge of this sort of activity, told me to

confront the figure and tell it to leave and never

come back. I was to tell it that I was its power

source and I was shutting off the power. I did this

and enjoyed about a year of no sightings. Around this

time, I told the story to my girlfriend of the time.

She thought that its description sounded like a baby

with water on the brain and still wearing its gown

from the hospital. She thought that it was a lost

soul trying to contact me to help it with some task,

so that it could finally rest in peace. I started to

look into the house's history and my family's. The

house sits on land that was farmland and a dirt road

only 150 years ago. The land was owned by one man and

he had his farm and homestead around the area of my

house (the main house of his estate is one block from

my house and is still standing) My house is 40 years

old and we are the 2nd family to live in it. The

couple before us had no children that we know about.

I have a sister 3 years younger than me and no other

siblings. I have asked my parents if they had a child

that died that I was unaware of, but they didn't. So

after all my checking, I found nothing that could

explain the apparition.

After a week of thinking about the interpretation my

girlfriend had given, guilt of banishing the figure

overcame me. I asked it to come back one night and

told it I would help it. The very next night the

sightings started again , but with much greater

intensity. I can say now, NEVER do what I did, once

it's gone, let it stay gone. The sightings would

happen more frequently and sometimes they would

terrify me. The figure looked the same but something

was very different. I was sure what it was, but now

there was another force in addition to the familiar

figure. I began to see small black colored creatures

which I can only describe as imps. They were solid

black, 1-2 feet tall and ran around on all fours.

They appeared mostly in the living room and coming

from the hall closet.

Now to explain the rest of the house set up that

pertains to the story. The man that lived here before

us started to dig out a basement, but he never

completed it. All that remains is a 3-4 foot crawl

space accessible from outside the house. The hall

closet was to be the stairs down to the basement. He

had started making the stairs going down but he

boarded it all up when he stopped digging the

basement. The stairs going up to the 2nd floor are

directly over the would-be basement step and the hall

closet. So there are 2 ways from inside the house to

access the crawl space, if you really wanted to, rip

up the 3rd or 4th step of the stairs or knock out the

back of the closet. I began to make the connection

between where the figures appeared and where the

access ways were.

The sightings got more intense and sometimes they

even drove me from my house. Normally, my dog would

sense the small figure and act funny when it was

around, but now when the imps appeared my dog would

be in a very deep sleep and I could never wake him

up. I would either leave the house and stay over at a

friends. Sometimes I would be knocking on her door at

2 a.m. terrified. Other times, if I was able to get

between them and the steps, I would make a run for it

to my room or my parents' room, because, even these

creatures would not venture in the bedrooms. My

mother was noticing my moods and I had told her about

the new happenings so she told me to get her the next

time I saw the figure or imps. The next time I saw

the figure upstairs coming down the hall, I ran into

her room and woke her up. I led her out into the hall

where the figure still was. I pointed to it and it

began to back away and go down the steps. I chased it

down to the 3rd step where it vanished. While she

could not see it, she could tell by my eye movements

that I was watching something moving across the hall

and steps. I think that's when my family started to

believe a little.

I became used to these new additions because they

never did any harm but they did make me feel very

uneasy. The figure was becoming even more

transparent. Certain lamps in the house would go on

and off by themselves often with other witnesses

around. I would hear the TV go on in the middle of

the night when I knew no one was downstairs. I had

theorized that the figure needed help to appear

because it was slowly fading away. I assumed the imps

were helping him, but the figure was still fading. I

was waiting for a new addition to the cast, so the

figure could still appear, since I still hadn't

figured out what it wanted me to do.

The sightings stopped again for a few months. I spoke

with a parapsychologist , but then decided to leave

well enough alone. I didn't want things getting

worse. I decided to go into the crawl space and check

out the area under the stairs. I took my dog down

there with me and I crawled to the area. There had

not been anyone under there for years before this. I

found an Old Maid playing card with not a bit of dust

on it right under the 3rd step. We have wall to wall

carpeting so this did not fall through the joints. I

hadn't seen that deck of cards for over 20 years, but

here was one. It had one corner that looked like it

had been dipped in acid, but the rest was in good

shape. I took it and put in a pocket bible and put it

in my car.

The sightings started again, only very small. I would

call my girlfriend on the cordless phone and tell her

it's happening again and then walk upstairs while

still on the phone with her. The next time was the

worst of all. The figure appeared very bright, like

it did years ago, but it didn't look very happy. The

imps appeared again but they were more bold this

time. Then a 7 foot tall man- shaped black figure

appeared. It looked like it was either made of smoke

or some liquid. It looked semi-solid and you couldn't

see through it. At the same time, the room was filled

with imps and a bearded old mans face took shape on

the wall and started mumbling. The face was about 6

foot high and 4 foot wide. The familiar figure looked

like it was sorry for doing this to me. I left the

house and sat in my car until dawn.

I knew I had to confront this new entity and try to

drive it away. I also figured that if it wanted me,

it was going to get me either way, so I had nothing

to lose. My sanity, life and maybe my soul were on

the line and I honestly believed this was the only

way to stop it before it branched out. I was the

original power source, so I was going to shut off the

power. The next night I prayed for protection and the

strength to drive this evil away. I had a bible handy

as I sat up as usual listening to my CD's. About 2

a.m., I noticed my dog was in one of those deep, deep

sleeps and I began to look around. The figure and the

Tall black figure appeared along with the rest of the

apparitions. I informed them in the calmest voice I

could get at this time, that I was taking away their

power and they had no hold on me or power over me. I

told them I, my family and house was protected by God

and they could not harm us. I walked right past the

tall figure and the imps moved out of my way. I

walked right up the steps and never looked back.

That was about 2 years ago and I have not seen them

since. We placed a bible on the stairs and a cross in

the closet to block off their entrances. I still feel

there is a presence there that tries to get me to let

in it. I still hear bumping and walking around, but

the apparitions are gone, banished to the crawl space

I assume. They will not get another portal in here so

they will remain there. We did have the house blessed

years ago, every where except the crawl space. I

think that might be the answer to end it all for

good.

Footnotes 1998:
I have learned alot since I first put my story to

paper. I now realize that many of my reactions to

the majority of the encounters were, while natural,

not necessary. The house was haunted by an

earthbound spirit and when I had asked it to leave,

it stopped contacting me, but was still there. It

never harmed me and was only trying to get my

attention. Because I didn't understand what was

happening, I reacted the way everyone else would,

with fear. I did tell it it could come back and the

way I did it caught the attention of other earthbound

spirits in the area and one non human one. The

majority of the experiences after I opened the door

back up were with human spirits, some not as friendly

as the original one who also came back. While there

was one encounter with something I believe was a non

human entity, the majority of the other spirits were

earthbound human spirits. In regards to the black

imps, let me just say that these may have been either

type of spirit, I'm still not sure at this point. I

have researched them further but I am unable to say

with out a doubt that they were evil. I believe

the tall black figure was evil though.

Updated Happenings in the Dave Juliano's House: Jan.

1997

Alot of people ask me what's been happening recently

so here is a brief account.

I moved out of my parents house last January, not

because of the hauntings, but I moved in with my

fiancé. This is the last "event" that occurred about

2 weeks before I left.

I had been doing my normal work on the web pages and

decided to go to bed about 2 am. I walked up the

stairs and down the hall. As I passed my parents

bedroom door I dropped a paper that I was carrying

and I bent over to pick it up. As I was getting back

up, the door knob of my parents room starting turning

and the door opened up about 4 inches. A female

called my name and I said "what?". I was startled at

first because it had surprised me, then I said

"what?" again and opened the door myself. Both my

parents were sounds asleep and my mother who was

laying closes to the door, was facing away from the

door. This was not the first time I had heard a

woman's voice talking to me, but this time it was

very close, like she was talking right next to me. I

got a little spooked by this simply because the

hauntings had been relatively quiet for almost a

year, with the exception of the "knocking" I had

heard in the attic on and off. I went back downstairs

to get my dog and bring him upstairs with me. He

noticed nothing and we went to bed. As I lay there I

started to notice some collectibles I had hanging

from the ceiling on fishing line began to move. The

windows were closed and no air movement in the room

enough to move these items at all. As I watched, and

my dog noticed this too, the items began to swing

wildly around the room. I was still shaken up a bit

by what happened earlier with the voice. I began to

go through my ritual of banning the spirits from

being there and sending them away. After about 10

minutes of this, it all stopped. I got the

impression that the spirits knew I was leaving

shortly and wanted to give me one last parting shot.

I hadn't been through an episode this active and

confrontational in a while , so me and the dog paid a

late night visit to my fiance and spent the rest of

the night there to insure uninterrupted sleep.

The, Uhhh, "Real" Kazakhstan

2007-05-22T18:17:00.001-05:00

You'll have fun, fun, fun till Big Daddy takes your freedom away..Henry_Allen

Kazakh president scraps term limits -- for himself

Reukazakhstanpresident_ Kazakhstan's president signed a constitutional amendment today that would allow him to remain president for the rest of his life.

Buried at the end of a Kazakhstan Today story that lists all the changes that Nursultan Nazarbayev approved is this paragraph: "Besides, Kazakhstani parliament voted for Constitution amendment that says that the first president Nursultan Nazarbayev is able to be elected without number of terms limit."

The amendment suspends term limits for the country's first president -- Nazarbayev -- and allows him to run for re-election for as long he lives.

The head of the parliamentary commission on constitutional amendments explains his thinking to Russia's RIA Novosti news agency.

"Given the first Kazakh president's historical role, we have decided to approve lawmakers' proposals to lift restrictions on the number of [consecutive] presidential terms for him," Yermek Zhumbayev says.

Earlier postings:
• The burdens of a Kazakh journalist named 'Bolat' in the wake of 'Borat'
• Borat, defender of a free press!
• State Department: Borat's been victimized
• Only in Kazakhstan ... they didn't spell check their currency

Posted by Mike Carney at 01:42 PM/ET, May 22, 2007 in Asia

The Other "Immortality"

2007-05-18T18:16:00.001-05:00

....But the blood is still the life. Chart the DNA, or Draw the Knife. The blade is made of glass and steel, the Monitor reveals the Code that
Explodes the mythology or mere mortality. Helpless is not Knowing, Know the stain that strains fiction from truth. Henry_Allen

Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death!
By RU Sirius
May 18th, 2007

Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death!

According to transhumanist Michael Anissimov, there’s an even chance that we’re

looking at immortality or existential destruction in the next 20-40 years.

Anissimov is only 23-years-old but he’s already become an important figure in

the transhumanist movement. While still in high school, he became founder and

director of the Immortality Institute. He’s been active with the World

Transhumanist Association (WTA), and he is currently Fundraising Director, North

America for the Lifeboat Foundation.

Lifeboat Foundation describe themselves as “a nonprofit organization dedicated

to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive

existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies,

including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI as we move toward

a technological singularity.”

Anissimov also blogs regularly at Accelerated Future.

I interviewed him for my NeoFiles Show. Jeff Diehl joined me.

RU SIRIUS: Let’s start off talking about immortality. And let’s talk about it

personally. Do you want to live forever?

MICHAEL ANISSIMOV: Oh, absolutely! For sure!

RU: Why?

MA: Because I have at least a thousand years of plans already. And in those

thousand years, I’ll probably make another thousand years of plans, and I don’t

see any end to that cycle.

RU: Do you see the quality of life improving for yourself and for most human

beings?

MA: Yes, I do.

RU: Because I don’t know if I want to live forever under Darwinian conditions.

It gets tiring.

MA: I agree. It does. We need to take control of our own evolution before this

would be a planet really worth living on. I don’t think that thousands of years

of war would be good for anyone. So things do need to improve.

RU: Yeah. Even having to pay… who can afford a thousand years?

MA: (Laughs) Well, you’ll work for a thousand years…

RU: It’s very expensive!

MA: Yeah, people are dying to retire. So it would help out if we had the robots

doing a little bit more of the work.

JEFF DIEHL: So what’s your itinerary for the next thousand years?

MA: I want to go spelunking in every major cave. I want to climb the highest

peak on every continent. I want to write, like maybe at least ten nonfiction

books and ten fiction books. Mmmm…

RU: Some people have done that in a lifetime.

MA: I know!

JD: Yeah, you’re not very ambitious, man — come on!
See also…
» Create an Alien, Win A-Prize
» Why Chicks Don’t Dig The Singularity
» Death? No, Thank You
» Prescription Ecstasy and Other Pipe Dreams

MA: (Laughs) Think of ten possible lives you could live, and then think that you

don’t necessarily need to choose between them. You could live them back to back.

RU: On the other hand, you could pop your consciousness into several bodies and

have them all living simultaneously for only a hundred years. Would that be the

equivalent of living a thousand years?

MA: I don’t think so. I think that would just be like having kids. Copying

yourself would give rise to multiple independent strains of consciousness.

RU: Maybe there could be some kind of central person who could be taking in all

of the experiences.

MA: There could be some information exchange, but…

RU: Aubrey de Grey, of course, is the hacker-biologist who has become very well

known for saying that this is quite plausible in the near future. Is there any

progress that he’s pointed to, or that you can point to, since he really

proclaimed the plausibility of immortality some time around the beginning of

this century?

MA: Yeah. Recently Peter Thiel, former CEO of Paypal, offered three million

dollars in matching funds for projects related to this. And they’ve started

coming up with ways to actually use over a million dollars, I believe. They have

the MitoSENS project and the LysoSENS projects.

RU: What are these projects about?

MA: Well, with LysoSENS — lysomal junk is this stuff that builds up between

cells. And our natural metabolism doesn’t currently have any way of breaking it

down. So researchers are trying to exploit the law of microbial infallibility —

the notion that no matter what organic material you’re talking about, you’re

going to be able to find a microbe that can eat it. So they’re searching for

microbes that are capable of breaking down this junk. And they’ve been looking

in places like… next to a Burger King, because people throw burgers on the

ground and stuff like that. So there are special bacteria there that learn how

to break down these organic compounds. And some of these researchers have even

gotten permission to get soil samples from the people that run graveyards

because that’s where you’d expect to find the bugs. Basically, they’re looking

for specialized microbes that can dissolve that lysomal junk.

RU: IBM recently announced a naotechnology breakthrough. They said that “the

breakthrough marks the first time chips have been made with a self-assembling

nano-technology using the same process that forms seashells or snowflakes.” This

sounds like a really big deal.

MA: Yeah, it is! It’s not the same thing though as molecular manufacturing,

where you basically have a molecular assembly line that places each atom, one by

one. It’s not quite as intelligently controlled or productive, but it is a large

breakthrough.

RU: Yeah, the word jumps out at me — “self-assembling.” That sounds… you’re not

too excited?

MA: (skeptically) Ehhh. I mean, it’s pretty exciting but people have been

playing around with this stuff for a while

RU: OK. Let’s move on to your current work — The Lifeboat Foundation This

foundation is focused on existential risk, which is a board game, I think: Camus

v. Sartre.

MA: (laughs) Not exactly!

RU: I don’t know how you win. It’s probably like Waiting for Godot: A

Tragicomedy in Two Acts — the board game never arrives.

Anyway, in the discourse currently going around among people who are part of the

transhumanist schemata and transhumanist world — there seems to be a turn from

optimism towards a dialogue that’s sort of apocalyptic. And the Lifeboat website

seems to reflect that. Do you think that’s true?

MA: I think it is true to a small extent. I think it’s actually reflective of

the maturing of the transhumanist movement. Because it’s easy to say…

RU: “It’s gonna be great!”

MA: Particularly when the dotcom boom was happening, everyone was, like, “Oh,

the future’s gonna be great. No problems.” You know… “We’re making shitloads of

cash. Everything’s going to go well.”

Now, we’ve had seven years of George Bush. We’ve been involved in two wars. We

understand that reality isn’t always peachy keen and we’re going to have to deal

with the consequences.

RU: So are people in the transhumanist world as worried as they sound, or is it

partly political – trying to be responsible and ease concerns among people who

are perhaps more paranoid than technophiles like yourself?

MA: No, it’s very genuine. The more you understand about powerful technologies,

the more you understand that they really do have the potential to hose us all,

in a way that nuclear war can’t.

RU: Give me your top two existential risks.

MA: Well, as Dr. Alan Goldstein pointed out on your show a couple of weeks ago,

Synthetic Life is a huge risk because life is inherently designed to replicate

in the wild. So life based on different chemical reactions could replicate much

more rapidly than what we’re accustomed to, like some sort of super-fungus. I

think that’s one of the primary risks. And the second risk would be artificial

intelligence — human-surpassing artificial intelligence.

RU: So you’re concerned about the “robot wars” scenario — artificial

intelligence that won’t care that much for us? Do you have any particular

scenarios that you’re following?

MA: Well, I’d like to caution people to be careful what they see in the movies.

Because this is one of those areas where people have been speculating about it

for quite a few decades, and so much fictional material has been built around

it…

RU: Actually, I believe everything in Terminator I.

MA: (Laughs) If you really look through those shows in a critical way, you see

that they’re full of blatant holes all over the place. Like, they can send a guy

through time, but they can’t send his clothes with him through time? (Laughs) In

reality, I think that artificial intelligence is potentially most dangerous

because it might not necessarily need to have a robotic body before it becomes a

threat. An artificial intelligence that’s made purely out of information could

manipulate a wide variety of things on the internet. So it would have more power

than we might guess.

RU: You’ve written a bit about the idea of Friendly AI. (We had Eliezer

Yudkowsky on the show quite a while back, talking about this.) Do you see steps

that can be taken to ensure that A.I. is friendly?

MA: Yeah! I’m totally in support of Eliezer and the Singularity Institute. I

think that they’re one of the few organizations that has a clue. And they’re

growing. I think that you’ve got to put a lot of mathematical eggheads working

together on the problem. You can’t just look at it from an intuitive point of

view. You can actually understand intelligence on a mathematical level. It’s a

lot to ask. I think that friendly A.I. will be a tremendous challenge because

there’s just a lot of complexity in what constitutes a good person. And there’s

a lot of complexity in what constitutes what we consider common sense.

RU: Do you think the breakthrough might come through reverse engineering the

human brain?

MA: It’s possible but probably not.

RU: Good, because I don’t think human beings are that friendly. I think the

friendly A.I. has to be friendlier than human beings.

MA: It definitely does. And one way we could do that is by creating an A.I. that

doesn’t have a self-centered goal system. All creatures built by Darwinian

evolution inherently have a self-centered goal system. I mean, before we became

altruistic, we were extremely selfish. A reptile has eggs, and then the eggs

hatch and he just walks off. He doesn’t care about his kids. So this altruism

thing is relatively recent in the history of evolution, and our psychology is

still fundamentally self-centered.

JD: Isn’t trying to plan for the nature of these future AI’s kind of absurd

because of the exponential superiority of their reasoning… if they even have

what we would call reasoning? Can we really plan for this? It seems like once

you hit a certain threshold, the Singularity, by definition is incomprehensible

to us.

MA: I initially had the same issue. It seems impossible. But ask yourself, if

you could choose, would you rather have an A.I. modeled after Hitler or would

you rather have an A.I. modeled after Mother Teresa?

Regardless of how intelligent the A.I. becomes, it starts off from a distinct

initial state. It starts off from a seed. So whatever it becomes will be the

consequence of that seed making iterative changes on itself.

JD: But maybe in the first nano-second, it completely expunges anything that

resembles human reasoning and logic because that’s just a problem to them that

doesn’t need to be solved any more. And then beyond that — we have no fucking

clue what they’re going to move onto.

MA: It’s true, but whatever it does will be based on the motivations it has.

JD: Maybe. But not if it re-wires itself completely…

MA: But if it rewired itself, then it would do so based on the motivations it

originally had. I mean, I’m not saying it’s going to stay the same, but I’m

saying there is some informational similarity — there’s some continuity. Even

though it could be a low-level continuity, there’s some continuity for an A.I.

Also, you could ask the same question of yourself. What happens if a human being

gains control over its own mind state.

RU: How we understand our motivations might be distinct from how we would

understand our motivations if we had a more advanced intelligence.

MA: That’s true.

RU: I’m going to move on to something that was on the Lifeboat web site that

confounded me. It’s labeled a News Flash. It says, “Robert A. Freitas Jr. has

found preliminary evidence that diamond mechanosynthesis may not be reliable

enough in ambient temperatures to sustain an existential risk from microscopic

ecophagic replicators.”

JD: (Joking) I had a feeling that was the case. (laughter)

RU: What the hell does that mean?!

MA: Robert’s a bit of a wordy guy, but maybe I can explain it. You have an STM

(Scanning Tunneling Microscope.) It’s like a little needle that’s able to scan a

surface by measuring the quantum difference between the two surfaces. Diamond

mechanosynthesis would just be the the ability to have a tiny needle-like

robotic arm that places a single or perhaps two carbon atoms onto a pre-

programmed place. So, in life, we are all based on proteins. Carbon isn’t

slotted in like in a covalent sense, which is the way that people that are

working on nanotechnology are thinking of working. They’re thinking of putting

together pieces of carbon, atom by atom, to make a covalently bonding carbon.

Robert’s saying that it might be that the ambient temperature of the environment

is too hot for that needle to work. So you’d need to have it in a vacuum or

super-cooled environment for it to work.

RU: You did a good job of explaining that. Moving on, there’s some talk on your

site of the idea of relinquishment, which is deciding not to develop

technologies. Is that even possible?

MA: Instead of relinquishment, I like to talk about selective development. You

can’t really relinquish technology too easily. But you can develop safeguards

before technologies reach their maturity. And you can develop regulations that

anticipate future consequences instead of always taking a knee-jerk reaction and

saying: “Oh, this disaster happened; therefore we will now regulate.”

RU: Of course, it’s not really possible to regulate what everybody everywhere on

the planet is doing.

MA: No, it’s not.

RU: Are you familiar with Max More’s Proactionary Principle?

MA: (skeptically) Mmmm I’m…

RU: Too obvious?

MA: No, I don’t fully agree with it. I do think that the Precautionary Principle

has a point.

RU: Maybe I should say what it is. Basically, the Precautionary Principle says

that with any technology we’re developing, we should look ahead and see what the

consequences are. And if the consequences look at all dire, then we should

relinquish the technology. And Max More argues that we should also look at the

possible consequences of not developing the technology. For instance, if we

don’t develop nanotechnology, everybody dies.

MA: Well, I don’t think that would happen.

RU: I mean, eventually… just as they have for millennia.

MA: Oh — everyone will age to death!

RU: Right

MA: No, I agree that the balanced view looks at both sides of the equation. The

Precautionary Principle’s kind of been tarnished because there are people that

are super-paranoid; and people who use it as an excuse to rule out things that

they find ethically objectionable like therapeutic cloning.

RU: Well, you could take anything as an example. Look at automobiles. If we had

looked ahead at automobiles — we could debate for hours whether they were a good

idea. There would probably be less humans on the planet and there would probably

be less distribution of medicine and food and all those things. On the other

hand, we might not be facing global warming. It might be nice that there are

less humans on the planet.

MA: Yeah, but in practice, if some invention is appealing and has large economic

returns, then people are going to develop it no matter what.

RU: On the Lifeboat site, you have a list of existential risks. And people can

sort of mark which existential risk they want to participate in or work on. I’d

like to get your comments on a few of the risks that are listed. But before I go

down a few of these things on the list, what do you think is up with the bees?

MA: The bees?

RU: The honeybees are dying off. Einstein said we wouldn’t survive if…

JD: … there’s some contention about whether he actually said that. I heard that

somebody tried to find that quote, and they weren’t able to find it.

MA: What does this have to do with the bees?

RU: Einstein said that if all the honeybees died off, we’d all be dead in four

years, or something like that.

JD: Yeah, because of the natural cycles that they support. Somebody else

debunked that.

RU: Well, he was no Einstein. You better look into the bees because that could

be an existential risk.

So here’s one of the risks – or the risk aversion possibilities — listed on the

site: Asteroid Shield.

MA: Well, someone once said that we’re in a cosmic shooting gallery and it’s

only a matter of time before we get nailed. I wouldn’t consider this to be a

high priority, but in the interest of comprehensiveness, it would be a good idea

if we had a way to deflect asteroids. Serious scientists have been looking at

this issue and they decided that knocking it out with a nuclear bomb wasn’t

really going to work so well. It’s too expensive and too unpredictable. So

they’re talking about attaching small rockets to slowly pull an asteroid off

course.

JD: I recently read one idea — collect a lot of space junk and create one big

object to alter the gravitational…

MA: Or you can put a little electro-magnetic rail gun on the surface and

progressively fire off chunks of the asteroid, which will also alter its course.

Even if you altered the trajectory of an incoming asteroid by a tiny amount, it

would probably miss because earth is just kind of like a tiny dot in space. But

right now, we don’t have the capability. So if an asteroid were coming next

year, we would be screwed.

RU: Right. And people have started talking about it. I mean, there has been sort

of an advance in the level of paranoia about asteroids that come anywhere near

us in recent years.

MA: One asteroid came about half of the way between us and the moon a while ago.

JD: Was it big enough to kill us?

MA: No. It was a hundred feet across, though — not bad.

RU: So how much chaos would that cause? I guess that would depend on where it

landed.

MA: Measured in megatons, I think it would be about one Hiroshima.

JD: Oh, okay. We can handle that… as long as it doesn’t land in San Francisco.

MA: (laughs) Exactly! So I don’t think the asteroids are an immediate concern.

But it helps people comprehend the notion of extinction risks.

RU: The former NASA astronaut Rusty Schweickart has become involved in fighting

off the asteroids. He used to be part of the L5 Society. I think Ronald Reagan

would say it’s a way of uniting all the people of earth to fight against an

enemy.

MA: Yeah!

RU: I think he talked about that in terms of aliens, not in terms of asteroids.

MA: Well, I think all existential risks, including the more plausible ones, do

serve a function in uniting humanity, and I think that’s a nice side effect.

RU: The particle accelerator shield — what’s that about?

MA: Some people think — as we engage in increasingly high-powered particle

accelerator experiments — something bad could happen. One standard idea is a

strangelet, which is similar to an atom but much more compact. If a strangelet

could absorb conventional matter into itself, and do so continuously, it could

absorb the entire planet.

RU: Sort of like a black hole.

MA: Yes, very much like a black hole. It’s another one of those situations where

we want to instill a sense of caution in the minds of scientists. We don’t want

them to just dismiss these possibilities out of hand because it potentially

threatens their funding. We want them to actually give it a little bit of

thought.

RU: OK, what about “seed preserver.”

MA: Oh, yeah! Well that’s actually being done right now! The Norwegian

government built a seed bank on some far north Arctic island. They’re shoving

some seeds in there, so I guess when the nanobots come, or the nuclear war comes

and 99% of humanity is all gone, then we’ll be able to go there, withdraw the

seeds, and create life anew.

RU: You seem to be a believer in the Singularity. For me – maybe yes, maybe no.

But I find it amusing that Vernor Vinge could give a talk titled “What if the

Singularity Doesn NOT Happen”, the implication being that the idea that it might

not happen is a real stretch. Do you ever feel like you’re in a cult — that

people who believe in this share a peculiar reality?

MA: The word Singularity has become a briefcase word. People kind of want to put

their pet ideas into it, so the actual idea has become kind of unclear in the

minds of many people. To me, the Singularity is just the notion of an

intelligence that’s smarter than us. So if you say that you don’t believe in the

Singularity, it means that you believe that human beings are the smartest

possible intelligence that this universe can hold.

RU: I guess what I don’t believe is that it necessarily becomes a complete

disjunction in history.

MA: But don’t you think that homo sapiens are a quite complete disjunction from,

say, homo erectus or chimps? We share 98% of the same DNA. So what if you

actually used technology to surpass the human mind? I think you’d have something

substantially more different from homo sapiens than homo sapiens was from their

predecessors.

RU: Do you think it’s more likely that we’ll develop machines that are more

intelligent than us and keep them exterior to us; or will we find some way of

incorporating them into us? It seems to me, if you look at the passion that

people have for being on the net, and being able to call up and get and link to

all the information and all the intelligence on the planet, people are going to

want this inside themselves. They’re going to want to be able to have as much

information and as much intelligence as everybody else. They’ll want to unite

with it.

MA: I think that would be a great thing, as long as people don’t go using their

intelligence for negative ends.

JD: Do you think this would happen gradually. Or do you think there would be

this point in time where lots of people make choices like whether or not to

merge? And then, maybe, the people who are afraid of that will want to stop

people from doing it, and conflict…

MA: I think it could actually be somewhat abrupt, because once you have a

superior intelligence, it can create better intelligence enhancement techniques

for itself. So it could be somewhat abrupt. But I think that these smart

entities could also find a way of keeping humanity on the same page and not

making it like: “Oh, you have to choose… If your brother or your sister is not

going into the great computer, then…”

RU: I think if it happens soon enough, it will be viewed as just another way of

going online. You know, to young people, it will be just… “Yeah, this is how

everybody’s going online now.”

MA: But if you had implants in your brain, it would be permanent.

RU: Do you think chaos is built into life? As the Artificial Life people have

been saying, life happens on the boundary between order and chaos. If chaos is

an element of life, can machines include chaos?

MA: Well, uh — hmm. I think that people overestimate the power of chaos.

RU: As a Patti Smith fan, I have to disagree.

MA: (Laughs) Well, it’s such an appealing idea — chaos. But if you take a look

at human blood and compare it to some random bit of muck you find in the ground,

you’ll see that it’s highly regulated, and there are huge complements of

homeostatic mechanisms in bodies that are constantly ordering things. Relative

to the entropy in the air array outside; inside my body is a very orderly place,

Life forms are very well organized pieces of matter.

RU: Right, but if you achieve complete homeostasis, then nothing happens.

MA: That’s true. Life does have to be on that boundary so it is challenging

RU: Here’s a quote from an interview with you: “The idea of the Singularity is

to transcend limitations by reengineering brains or creating new brains from

scratch, brains that think faster with more precision, greater capabilities,

better insights, ability to communicate and so on.” OK. That sounds good, but

what about pleasure, play, creativity, eroticism… and whatever it is you get

from magic mushrooms? Where does all that go?

MA (Laughs) I think all that’s very important. I think about all those things.

RU: So you think that can be built that into the singularity?

MA: Yeah. Oh, for sure…

RU: David Pierce is the one person who really sort of deals with those ideas.

MA: Well, it’s not really too PC to talk about it. But when you take a

psychedelic, you’ve changed your brain chemistry. With mushrooms, you flood your

brain with this one psilocybin chemical. With technologies that let you actively

change your own mind, it would be less of a shot in the dark. More precision

modifications would be possible. And you could turn it on and off like a light

switch, too. You could have much more control over it.

RU: Looking forward to it!

A SAMPLE CHAPTER

2007-05-10T18:25:00.001-05:00

The ideosyncratic early French Chapter Serial "Les Vampires" is the subject of an essay in process now I am working on. The youtube flic is Chapter II. Is it about crooks, cupernatural crooks, vampires, or sort of vamps? Stay tuned....Henry_Allen

From http://goatdog.com/moviePage.php?movieID=598 goatdog's movies

In Paris, in the depths of World War I, a vast criminal empire, the Vampires

(not the blood-sucking variety), holds the city in a death grip. Nobody knows

who might be a member, and nobody knows when they will strike next. Residents

are so terrified of the gang—it can't be fear of the war, which is never

mentioned—that they don't leave their homes. Into this terrifying situation goes

Philippe Guerande (Edouard Mathe), an intrepid reporter who vows to solve the

mystery of the Vampires. With the assistance of his somewhat faithful and mostly

hapless sidekick Mazamette (Marcel Levesque), he attempts to track down the gang

and their leaders, the Grand Vampire (Jean Ayme) and his consort, the beautiful,

mysterious, and dangerous Irma Vep (Musidora).

This grand and sprawling serial, produced in 1915 by auteur Louis Feuillade, is

one of the great masterpieces of the cinema. In its ten episodes, ranging in

length from 15 to 60 minutes, Feuillade and company use the entire city of Paris

as their set, and they create something unlike anything I've seen before. That

it manages to be gripping through almost all of its nearly seven hours of screen

time is an amazing feat. It combines slapstick comedy, edge-of-your-seat

suspense, pretty amazing outdoor shooting and stunt work, and dramatic pathos in

a thoroughly enjoyable mix. The film isn't like a lot of Hollywood serials: each

episode has its own story, but each one advances the plot a little more, and the

episodes don't all end in cliffhangers. It doesn't need them. Each episode is so

perfectly mounted that a cliffhanger at the end might have been a little too

much. It's enough to be left wondering what horrible things the Vampires would

be up to next; thankfully, since I rented it on DVD, I got to find out right

away.

Over the course of the episodes, Guerande and Mazamette come closer and closer

to defeating the Vampires. The film doesn't pull any punches: in the first

episode, the gang has beheaded a city official, and Feuillade and company

weren't afraid to have the head show up in a hatbox. For this, its glorification

of the criminal element, and its depiction of the Paris police as a bumbling

bunch of fools, several episodes of the film were banned from French screens.

Guerande and Mazamette do most of their sleuthing with guns blazing and by

themselves, with little assistance from the police, who tend to mess things up

anyway. Among their adventures, they solve the murder of a famous ballerina,

decode the Vampires' secret code book, capture the leader of a rival gang,

recover money stolen from a rich American businessman, and foil an elaborate

bank robbery. Captures and escapes abound, as does wanton murder and mayhem,

including the Vampires' free use of cannons to achieve their ends. Along the

way, the cast of the Vampires changes: the Grand Vampire gives way to Moreno,

the rival gang leader; Satanus, the true head of the Vampires; and Venomous, an

expert poisoner who ends up in charge. But Irma Vep is always present.

It's a travesty that Irma Vep and Musidora, the actress who played her, weren't

household names in the United States. She's one of the most magnetic characters

in film history. She's a strong female character, which is rare, and she's a lot

smarter than most of the men around her. Throughout the film, she reveals

herself as a dancer, an expert in disguise, an expert shot, an acrobat, and

surprisingly resilient woman. She often appears, to our pleasure, wearing the

uniform of the Vampires, a skintight black outfit that she fills most admirably.

She's a breath of fresh air to those of us who are sick of modern stick-figure

anorexic movie starlets. As the film progresses, the Vampires modify their

goals: instead of involving themselves in crime, they just want to kill off

Guerande and Mazamette. Through it all, both heroes find true love, which

ratchets up the stakes, as the Vampires target everyone and anyone involved in

their lives.

The DVD contains a beautiful restoration of the film. It includes the original

color tinting, which was used in silent films to indicate location or time of

day: blue for night, brown for indoors, yellow for outdoors, etc. The last

episode is a little washed out from age, and sometimes characters' faces appear

as white blobs, but overall it's very watchable. There's an orchestral score,

and while I don't know if it is based on the music that originally accompanied

the film, it works perfectly. There aren't a lot of extras, which is too bad,

because for once I would like to have read a little more about the film.

A lot of silent films, to be honest, are little more than historical artifacts,

and most viewers don't have the patience to sit through them. This is one

example of a relic from a bygone era that stands on its own as a great film with

both historical importance and relevance. The film's plotlines will be familiar

to just about everyone who has ever seen a mystery or an action film, but

they're presented here in a way that few of us have seen before. It's completely

accessible to modern audiences, and I hope that some of you go out and rent it.

It's worth the six-hour time investment.

Shock And Awe-We pay the price of Lies

2007-05-10T03:25:00.001-05:00

1. We owe the Kurds,they like us. We should guarantee an Independent Kurdistan.
2. Otherwise, we are unwelcome, it was a lost and wrong cause - not responsive to Islamism, but an exacerbation of it.
3. Out now. Screw their sectarian war.Henry_Allen
consortiumnews.com

The Right's Parallel Universe

By Richard L. Fricker
May 9, 2007

To understand how the United States got itself into its current fix, it’s helpful to understand that the American Right and its powerful media apparatus have created a kind of parallel universe that has its own internal logic that sort of makes sense even if the “reality” isn’t exactly real.

So, on the Iraq War, everything is going pretty well except, as Fox News reminds its viewers, the “liberal media” keeps hiding all the positive developments from the American people. Plus, the only way to explain hostility toward George W. Bush is to postulate that his critics are consumed by irrational hatreds. The Right’s reality-divergent narrative exists on domestic policy, too.

For instance, Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and a medical doctor, explained in an April 23 speech at the Tulsa Press Club why a single-payer health insurance system like Canada’s is a sure failure and why the U.S. system of private insurance, often paid by employers, works so much better.

Coburn noted that the auto industry and many other old-line U.S. companies want a national health insurance program to get medical costs off the backs of employers and help them compete with foreign rivals that don’t pay for employee health insurance. But the senator offered anecdotes why that wouldn’t be a good idea.

“I talked to the head of General Mills,” the giant food manufacturer, Coburn said. “They have lots of employees in Canada. … I said what do you do when one of your Canadian employees gets really sick? They said they bring them to America because the Canadian system isn’t working well for acutely ill people.”

Commenting on the British medical system, the senator said, “When you look at England, the average length of time from the diagnosis of cancer to the onset of chemotherapy in England now is eight months. How many of you would be satisfied with that?”

However, like much of Fox’s happy talk about Iraq, Coburn’s scary comments about the health programs in Canada and the United Kingdom don’t square with the facts.

General Mills denies it has a program to send Canadians to the United States for treatment of serious illnesses and the U.K. cancer treatment program operates well within acceptable medical standards.

“It is true that, in certain circumstances, a General Mills employee in Canada could visit a doctor in the U.S.,” General Mills spokesman Tom Forsythe told me. “It would likely involve a U.S.-based employee on assignment in Canada. It does not happen often, and it could not be described as routine.

“However, there could be and have been cases where routine surgery, for example, (hernia, knee arthroscopy, some scans) could be done more quickly in the U.S., and an employee may visit a doctor in the U.S. for that procedure. I do not know the number, but it would be small.”

David Jensen of the government-run Health Canada said the health care budget for fiscal year 2005-06 was $37.9 billion, of which only $55.6 million was paid to U.S. doctors and healthcare facilities. That included care or treatment for Canadians vacationing in the U.S., students, and persons assigned to the U.S. by Canadian companies.

In short, there was no stream of Canadians surging into the United States for medical treatment as suggested by the senator from Oklahoma.

UK Care

When I sought comment from the Kings Fund, the health care oversight organization for the United Kingdom, I was directed to a 2006 study on cancer treatment.

According to the study, “Patients who visit their GP with symptoms that suggest cancer must be given urgent referral to secondary care under the two-week target established by the Cancer Plan. In June 2006, 98.9 percent of people with suspected cancer were seen by a specialist within the target time.”

The report continued, “The plan also set a target of a maximum one-month wait from diagnosis to first treatment for all cancers, which was meant to be achieved by the end of 2005. Some 99 percent of patients diagnosed with cancer start treatment within 31 days.”

Kings Fund senior associate Tony Harrison said Coburn’s information was “not correct, assuming that chemotherapy is the first line of treatment, which of course it may not be.” In reference to the 2006 study, Harrison said, “You will see that targets that have been set for referral to start of treatment are now largely met.”

As for Coburn’s claim about an eight-month wait for chemotherapy, Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy director of the American Cancer Society, said the point could be misleading since any treatment plan depends on a patient’s condition when the cancer is discovered.

“We do not have a single standard of care,” Lichtenfeld said. “We really don’t have good studies from diagnosis to cure.”

In other words, Coburn’s assertion about an eight-month window has no real point of reference in treatment plans since other strategies might be employed besides chemotherapy.

Still, Coburn’s horror stories about medical care in Canada and the U.K. have been part of the Republican mantra in the ongoing fight to prevent a universal health care system from being established in the United States.

Bizarre Myths

The Oklahoma senator has become notorious for making extreme statements that are later revealed as bizarre urban myths.

During his 2004 race for the Senate, for instance, Coburn was taped saying a campaign worker from Coalgate, Oklahoma, told him “lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they’ll only let one girl go to the bathroom.”

The Coalgate superintendent of schools expressed outrage at the ludicrous claim, which was met with ridicule by many other Oklahomans. Nevertheless, Coburn was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Coburn also has argued that condoms promote sexually transmitted disease, that abstinence education prevents teenagers from having sex, and that silicone breast implants are good for women’s health. All these positions have been challenged by government studies and expert medical opinion.

Coburn, as a new member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005, opined while pondering a bill restricting class-action suits, "You know I immediately thought about silicone breast implants and the legal wrangling and the class-action suits off that.

"And I thought I would just share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants. If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows. . . . In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier."

At the time, Coburn made that statement silicone breast implants had been banned in the United States for more than a decade because of cases of implant leakage and other health complaints from women.

In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration did approve the implants return to the U.S. market, although a subsequent European study and many doctors have continued to raise questions about possible protein buildup around the implants and other safety issues.

Other medical experts, including the scientists cited by the FDA, argue that the preponderance of studies fail to show that silicone implants are detrimental to a woman’s health, but they don’t claim the implants make women healthier.

Richard L. Fricker is a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based freelance reporter/writer and two-time winner of the American Business Press Editors Award for Investigative Journalism. He writes regularly for the Swiss newsweekly Sonntags Blick and Consortiumnews.com. Fricker can be reached at rlfricker@hotmail.com .

MARS GLOBAL WARMING

2007-05-02T18:42:00.001-05:00

Related? Unrelated? Good? Bad? The long hot Summer on the red planet. What if the ice melts? The Times of Londo says its getting hot; the BBC says there is ice enough for an ocean. Sail the Martian Sea? Henry_Allen

From The Sunday Times
April 29, 2007
Climate change hits Mars

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet’s temperature.

Fenton’s team unearthed heat maps of the Martian surface from Nasa’s Viking mission in the 1970s and compared them with maps gathered more than two decades later by Mars Global Surveyor. They found there had been widespread changes, with some areas becoming darker.

When a surface darkens it absorbs more heat, eventually radiating that heat back to warm the thin Martian atmosphere: lighter surfaces have the opposite effect. The temperature differences between the two are thought to be stirring up more winds, and dust, creating a cycle that is warming the planet.

'Up to half' of Mars may have ice

By Neil Bowdler
BBC News

Scientists in the US say that initial data from a new way of scanning Mars has shown up to half of the Red Planet's surface may contain ice.

The new method of scanning for water offers vastly more accurate readings than before, they say.

The data could prove vital for the Phoenix Mars Mission which launches this August and which will put a lander on the surface to dig for ice.

The new data shows wide variation as to how deep below the surface ice exists.

Seasonal changes

The deposits - far beyond the ice that is known to exist in the planet's North Pole - could be so large that were they to melt, they would deluge the planet in water forming an ocean.

Up until now, scientists had been able to search for water deposits using a spectrometer fixed to the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

It is a device that measures nuclear radiation coming from a planet to detect different materials.

However, only readings that are accurate to within several hundred kilometres can be obtained.

Now Dr Joshua Bandfield of Arizona State University has devised a new method for detecting ice.

By comparing seasonal changes in thermal infrared patterns, detected by the same Odyssey spacecraft, he says he can make readings accurate to within just hundreds of metres.

Dr Bandfield said water ice in terms of surface area would be "probably roughly a third to a half".

Though there is plenty of water ice, the new thermal imaging data also shows that there is considerable variation across the planet in terms of how far down ice can be found.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6617851.stm

Published: 2007/05/02 22:17:13 GMT

© BBC MMVII

NEW CREDIBLE UFO

2007-05-01T00:29:00.000-05:00

TV REPORT SEE IT HERE http://www.channelonline.tv/videoplayer/itv_channel_report_wednesday.htm

Pilot spots 'UFO' over Guernsey

A commercial airline pilot has reported seeing two unidentified flying objects in the sky near Guernsey.

The bright yellow flat disc shapes, estimated to be twice the size of a Boeing 737, were spotted on Monday, 12 to 15 miles north east of the island.

Captain Ray Bowyer was flying an Aurigny plane from Southampton to Alderney when he saw the objects through binoculars.

Mr Bowyer said he was "pretty shook-up" by the sighting.

"This is not something you see every day of the week - it was pretty scary," he said.

At first he thought it was the sun reflecting from greenhouses in Guernsey. He said the objects were bright like the sun, but did not hurt his eyes when he looked at them.

The stationary objects were also observed by other aircraft and the passengers on the plane.

Disappearing pilot

John Spencer, deputy chairman of the British UFO Research Association, said: "These types of sightings have been reported by pilots - generally accepted to be reliable and sensible observers - since the 1940s and they have excited attention to this day.

"Such light effects are often popularly thought to represent alien visitors but many UFO researchers believe they more likely represent natural, atmospheric, phenomena not yet fully understood by science.

"However, a similar encounter in 1978 over the Bass Straits in Australia, where the pilot was in radio contact with the ground throughout, resulted in the pilot never being heard from again, so these phenomena are important to study."

This is the sort of sighting that is taken seriously and should be investigated thoroughly
Nick Pope, former UFO investigator for the MOD

Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFOs for the Ministry of Defence said: "While no witnesses are infallible, pilots are trained observers and less likely than most people to misidentify something mundane.

"The MoD's UFO case files contain several reports from civil and military pilots, some of which were correlated by radar. This is the sort of sighting that is taken seriously and should be investigated thoroughly.

"While most UFOs can be explained as misidentifications of aircraft, weather balloons, satellites and suchlike, a small percentage are more difficult to explain. This is one of the most intriguing sightings I've heard about in recent years."

A current spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence, said that while it does monitor air space for any unusual foreign objects which might pose a threat, they would not be carrying out an investigation in this instance.

Are you in the area? Did you witness these unidentified flying objects? Send us your experiences using the form below.

You can send your pictures and moving footage to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 07725 100 100

When taking photos or filming please do not endanger yourself or others, take unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.

Name:

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Comments:

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/guernsey/6591365.stm

Kurds and Armenian Genocide

2007-04-29T19:42:00.001-05:00

Published on Jewcy.com (http://www.jewcy.com)
Daily Shvitz: Blogging with the heat turned up
Free Kurdistan
by August 21, 2006

Judging by Peter Galbraith's excellent The End of Iraq, the advent of Kurdistan as a distinct country has occurred in all but name. The language is different, the identity is different (most Kurds are Sunnis, but declare themselves Kurds first), and you won't find the flag of democratic Iraq flapping in Suleimania, Erbil or Dohuk. To drop "Sevres" into casual conversation in any of these three Iraqi governates would be like mentioning "Balfour" in 1945 Brooklyn. The spark of self-determination awaits the right wind to catch fire, if you'll pardon the hoary Orientalist metaphor. And if sectarian killing and anarchy in the rest of Iraq reaches the parliamentary level -- where, with a preeminent Kurd as president, it has yet to divide state with demands for secession -- then the Kurds are ready to put the official stamp of independence on the de facto variety they've been enjoying for over a decade. It is their constitutional right as Iraqis to do this, not to mention their moral right as victims of genocide and centuries-long persecution. With 30,000 million in diaspora, they're as much entitled to their own state as the are Palestinians, or as were the Jews or Ukrainians. The precedent for a unified "Iraq" isn't all that compelling. This is Michael Totten in Reason:

If Middle Easterners had drawn the borders themselves, Iraq wouldn’t even exist. Blame the British for shackling Kurds and Arabs together when they created the post-colonial, post-Ottoman map. The Kurds do. Like the English, they refer to a toilet as “a W.C.”—but they insist that stands for “Winston Churchill.”

History has suffered incalcuably by having valid arguments mouthed by the worst human beings. Tariq Aziz was fond of reiterating the Saddamist line during the first Gulf War that Kuwait "belonged" to Iraq because the latter territory was delineated by arrogant English cartographers after the World War I and was therefore subject to native reassessment. To accept this was to accept that Kuwaitis, too, had a legitimate grievance with their own boundaries and just as much of a claim to redraw them through conquest and annexation... Where does post-colonalism end? How far back do we have to go to "remake" the Middle East? With Kurdistan, the destination has already been reached by on-the-ground realities. No less important, so has justice.

Michael is an associate editor of Jewcy and a contributor to Slate. His blog is Snarksmith.

Source URL:
http://www.jewcy.com/daily_shvitz/free_kurdistan

Why Bush will never pull out of Iraq

2007-04-25T23:13:00.001-05:00

The old box trick has caught many a monkey. Let's not monkey around...Henry_Allen

House Passes Iraq Troop Pullout Bill
WASHINGTON, April 25, 2007(CBS/AP) A sharply divided House of Representatives brushed aside a veto threat and passed legislation that would order President George W. Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by Oct. 1.

The 218-208 vote Wednesday came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq told lawmakers the country remained gripped by violence but was showing some signs of improvement.

Passage puts the bill on track to clear Congress by week's end and arrive on the president's desk in coming days as the first binding congressional challenge to Bush's handling of the conflict now in its fifth year.

“Our troops are mired in a civil war with no clear enemy and no clear strategy for success,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — the Democrat most credited with leading Congress into this head-to-head confrontation with President Bush — laid low on Wednesday, reports CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. She skipped the meeting with Gen. David Petraeus, opting for a phone briefing instead.

Republicans promised to stand squarely behind the president in rejecting what they called a “surrender date” handed to the enemy.

“Al Qaeda will view this as the day the House of Representatives threw in the towel,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis, a Republican who is on the House Appropriations Committee.

The $124.2 billion bill would fund the war, among other things, but demand troop withdrawals begin on Oct. 1 or sooner if the Iraqi government does not meet certain standards. The bill sets a nonbinding goal of completing the troop pull out by April 1, 2008, allowing for forces conducting certain noncombat missions, such as attacking terrorist networks or training Iraqi forces, to remain.

House and Senate appropriators agreed to the legislation earlier this week. The Senate was expected to clear the measure Thursday, sending it to the president.

While Bush was confident the bill would ultimately fail because Democrats lacked the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto, he kept up pressure on lawmakers.

On the same day as the House vote, the president dispatched his Iraq commander, Petraeus, and other senior defense officials to Congress to make his case: Additional forces recently sent to Iraq are yielding mixed results and the strategy needs more time to work.

Petraeus told reporters sectarian killings in Baghdad were only a third of what they were in January, before Bush began sending in additional U.S. forces. He added that progress in the troubled western Anbar province was “breathtaking,” and that he thought Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was “doing his best” at leading the country.

But “the ability of al Qaeda to conduct horrific, sensational attacks obviously has represented a setback and is an area in which we're focusing considerable attention,” Petraeus said.

Petraeus said he would not touch on the “minefield of discussions about various legislative proposals,” but he noted that the new strategy in Iraq was just beginning. He said he planned to provide more details in early September.

Petraeus briefed his findings to lawmakers in a private room, where protesters outside chanted “Troops home now!” Republicans and Democrats alike emerged to say Petraeus had only confirmed their positions.

“This briefing reinforced our view that the solution in Iraq is a political solution,” Hoyer told reporters. Also confirmed, he said, was “our belief that we must hold the Iraqis accountable for achieving real progress.”

Rep. John Boehner, the House Republican leader, said Petraeus acknowledged there were challenges. “But considering where we are, I think the general feels good about the progress thus far,” Boehner said.

Bush said he stands firm on his latest strategy for winning the war and dismisses as counterproductive the Democratic call for withdrawal.

“That means our commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from legislators 6,000 miles away on Capitol Hill,” Bush said this week. “The result would be a marked advantage for our enemies and a greater danger for our troops.”

Petraeus' comments Wednesday put a finer point on when the much-awaited decision about the length of the U.S. troop buildup may come, saying he will make an assessment of the conditions in Iraq in early September, and report back to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other military leaders.

Gates has said he expects the assessment this summer, but this is the first time military leaders said it would not be until September.

© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WHAT IS "COMING THROUGH"?

2007-04-23T15:51:00.001-05:00

I'm not a Christian, but a very convinced Monotheist. So much so that I simply

can't take either of the easy ways out when evil triumphs; I can't just mumble

something about "mysterious ways" of the True Believer, nor can I be dismissive

in the manner of the atheist. What I can do - what any of us can do - is assume

that I don't know everything, that our maxmum capacity may be to evolve to the

limit "inside the box" as Stephan Wolfram's "New Kind of Science" would have the

coherent universe -- and assume, ipso facto, that (A) there is an "outside the

box" but (B) my trying to figure that out would require a Great Whatsit beyond

my ability to understand....nevertheless, I can observe the box we are within

and infer whether I think the Whatsit exists (I do) and that it is by nature

benovolent (I do). I do not infer that the Whatsit doesn't come through, I

assume that's our job mostly, and we are not in any case capable of what "coming

through" means. Henry_Allen

Where Is God?
Written by Rick Vassar
Published April 23, 2007

There's a dyin' voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair
Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.

- Bob Dylan, Every Grain of Sand 1981

In the beginning, God...

- Genesis 1:1

When a tragedy occurs in the magnitude of the shootings last week at Virginia

Tech, we look for answers. How could such evil be in the heart of one man, and

why did this evil take the lives of 32 innocent lives? Has evil and hate taken

over the world?
And one question many will ask:

Where was God when this happened? How can a loving God stand by and watch such

evil and not stop it?

I don't have the answers, and I'm not even close to understanding. I do know

that all of us are confronted by evil and hate every day. We all know right from

wrong, and sometimes, despite our greatest efforts, we succumb to the wrong and

somehow are able to justify it at the end of the day.

Bad things happen. When they happen to bad people, we understand. An eye for an

eye, we say. But when bad things happen to good people, we don't get it. And

many question God, his place in their lives, and his very existence.

Here are just a few of the horrific examples of evil that have cut to our

hearts:

- On July 27, 1981, Adam Walsh was abducted from a shopping mall. His

dismembered body was found 16 days later...

- On October 1, 1993, Polly Klass was abducted from her home at knifepoint

during a slumber party. Her body was found 65 days later...

- On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris entered Columbine High School

in Littleton, CO and killed 12 classmates, a teacher and injured 20 before

taking their own lives...

- On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia Tech, kills 32 before

taking his own life...

If your faith is shaken by this event or one that is much more personal, then

the evil has won. God is here, and He is great. Evil exist in all our hearts,

and God loves us enough to allow us to make these choices yourself. God could

force you to love and obey him, but what kind of love would that be? He wants

you to come to Him of your own free will and love Him because you want to and

not because you have to.

God mourns for the dead, and He did not want this to happen. From this tragedy,

He will work to show His love to all in this world and He will ensure that none,

especially the innocent, have died in vain.

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now

being done, the saving of many lives...

- Genesis 50:20

- Adam Walsh's father, John Walsh, co-founded the National Center for Missing

and Exploited Children in 1984; the television show America's Most Wanted has

led to the arrest of 932 criminals to date; in 2006, President George W. Bush

signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.

- Mark Klass, father of Polly, founded The Klasskids Foundation which is

dedicated to educating the public on the necessity of stronger laws and

cooperation among law enforcement agencies to protect our children. The first

line on their website is 'The KlaasKids Foundation arose like a phoenix out of

the ashes of despair.'

- Cassie Bernall was killed at Columbine after refusing to deny her faith, a

symbol of faith in a fallen world, doing what Peter could not...

These are just a few examples of how God has taken the evil in this world and He

has used it for good. God did not intend for the horror of Virginia Tech to

occur, but from it, His love will shine through.

God is good. God is here. Your distance from Him is up to you. Draw near.

He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord

Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen

- Revelation 22:20-21

"God"
Tori Amos

God, sometimes you just don't come through
God, sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you
God, sometimes you just don't come through

You make pretty daisies, pretty daisies love
I gotta find what you're doing about things here
A few witches burning gets a little toasty here
I gotta find
Why you always go
When the wind blows

God, sometimes you just don't come through
God, sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you
God, sometimes you just don't come through

Tell me you're crazy maybe then I'll understand
You got your 9 iron in the back seat just in case
You heard you've gone south
Well, baby, you love your new 4 wheel
I gotta find
Why you always go
When the wind blows

Will you even tell her
If you decide to make the sky fall
Will you even tell her
If you decide to make the sky fall

God, sometimes you just don't come through
God, sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you
God, sometimes you just don't come through

George W Bush - American Idiot

2007-04-21T22:01:00.001-05:00

More on Bush - is fearless leader of Kazakhstan...I wish Henry_Allen

Liquid Sky Should be here

2007-04-19T18:39:00.001-05:00

I'll have my own list for you at an early date. Meantime, here's one guy's

version of bizarre. Henry_Allen

Retro 10 List: Bizarre Films
Written by Chris Beaumont
http://draven99.blogspot.com/
Published April 30, 2005
See also:

Originally posted on Draven99's Musings on 7/28/04:

The list is compiled from films that I own and I have limited myself to one

film per director, as some directors make a lot of strange films. The list is in

no order of weirdness.

Ten Bizarre Films
1. Mulholland Dr.: One of the most unexplainable films (except for the hard to

find Lost Highway) I have ever seen, this film from David Lynch started it's

life as a pilot for a television show that got rejected.

2. City of Lost Children: From the director of Amelie, comes this sci-fi film

about a circus strongman searching for his little brother and getting ensnared

in a child thievery ring. More strange than it sounds.

3. Happiness of the Katikuri's: A Japanese remake of a Korean film (The Quiet

Family), and directed by Takashi Miike, this film is part musical, comedy,

drama, and horror. It is about a family that runs a remote cabin, where the

clientele keep dying.

4. A Clockwork Orange: I remember disliking this the first time I saw it, my

opinion has clearly changed, but it still remains one strange film. Great use of

the old Ludwig Van, plus an anti-violence message.

5. Vanilla Sky: Cameron Crowe and Tom Cruise team up to deliver one strange film

of jealousy, sex, and science fiction. A thinking man's Total Recall.

6. Suicide Club: A film about a string of unexplainable suicides, including a

group of 54 school girls, and the cop investigating them takes a surreal turn

into the realm of the unexplainable at the end.

7. Naked Lunch: "Exterminate all rational thought." That would apply to most

films on this list. Based on the work of William S. Burroughs this film

incorporates drugs, bugs, and typewriters into surreal fantasy starring Peter

Weller and directed by David Cronenberg.

8. Pi: Darren Arronofsky's debut is a tale of a mathematician working to unlock

the secrets of the stock market while everything else falls around him and he is

pursued by stock brokers and religious zealots. Very strange.

9. Six String Samurai: What if Elvis lived? what of there was another World War

and Elvis ruled the last city, Las Vegas? What if he died and we need to find a

new King? Sound interesting?

10. Songs from the Second Floor: I have no idea how to explain this film from

Sweden, it is not to everyone's tastes but it does help to show the absurdity

that is all around us.

I love strange films, as evidenced by the list above. The more bizarre, the

better. These films push the boundaries of the film medium, and at times show

that a linear narrative is not necessarily needed to tell an insightful story.

Whoever believes a film must exist in a straightforward way has not experienced

all that the film medium has to offer. Please let me know what you think of

these films, and feel free to suggest others that you think may interest me.

Julian Curry - HARSH WORDS CAN BE HARD TRUTHS

2007-04-16T22:44:00.001-05:00

Report: Black Men Mired In Social Crisis
NEW YORK, April 16, 2007(AP) Citing bleak data on incarceration, joblessness and AIDS, the National Urban League said Monday that problems facing black men represent America's most serious social crisis and proposed an aggressive campaign to provide them with more opportunities.

The 97-year-old black empowerment organization, in its annual "State of Black America" report, called for universal early-childhood education, more second-chance programs for school dropouts and ex-offenders, and expanded use of all-male schools emphasizing mentoring and longer class hours.

"Empowering black men to reach their full potential is the most serious economic and civil rights challenge we face today," said Urban League President Marc H. Morial. "Ensuring their future is critical, not just for the African-American community, but for the prosperity, health and well-being of the entire American family."

According to the report, African-American men are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as white males while earning 74 percent as much per year. They are nearly seven times more likely to be incarcerated, with average jail sentences about 10 months longer than those of white men, the report said.

In addition, it said, black males between 15 and 34 are nine times more likely to be killed by firearms and nearly eight times as likely to suffer from AIDS.

"I could rattle off the names of African-American men who have overcome the odds and have risen to national prominence," Morial said. "But for all the Barack Obamas, Tony Dungys and Colin Powells out there ... there are many more black men who face very limited opportunities and diminished expectations."

"It's not enough to have role models to give them hope," he added. "We need a public commitment in the form of concrete policy strategies to help lift them out of their state of underachievement and put them on equal footing with white men in this nation."

Obama, the Illinois senator who is a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, wrote the report's foreword.

"The crisis of the black male is our crisis," he wrote. "It is in our shared interest and in the interest of every American to stop ignoring these challenges and start finding the solutions that will work."

On several key measurements, the report found greater disparities between black and white men than between black and white women.

For example, it said unemployment for black men was 9.5 percent, compared to 4 percent for white men, while the jobless rate for black women was 8.5 percent, compared to 4.1 percent for white women.

In terms of annual median income, black men earned less than 75 percent of what white men did, $34,443 vs. $46,807. Black women made 87 percent of what white women made even though they earned $5,000 less than black men — $29,588 a year.

The report did highlight a few bright spots for blacks of both genders, for example in the improved readiness level of children entering elementary school.

However, the report cited a widening gap after elementary school as blacks begin to fall behind on standardized tests. In fourth grade, the report said, blacks perform at a level of 87 percent of whites; by the time they reach 12th grade, their scores are at 74 percent of whites.

By high school, blacks are more likely to drop out — 15 percent compared to 12 percent for whites. For black males, the percentage rises to 18 percent compared to 14 percent of white males, the report said.

In an essay accompanying the report, University of California, Berkeley, lecturer Christopher Knaus said the rising emphasis on standardized testing would not yield major improvements as long as heavily minority schools had the least experienced teachers and highest faculty turnover.

"The curricula in most public schools also fails to adequately engage black students," Knaus wrote. "Disinterested students who are labeled as problems or disruptive often become the victims of 'zero tolerance' policies. ... contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline, especially among black males."

The report suggested that all-male schools with a strong emphasis on mentoring could help keep black boys "focused on their education and away from distractions that could lead them down the wrong paths."

The Urban League also recommended increased federal support for a summer jobs program in cities nationwide, and stressed that any overall progress will need a boost from parents.

"They must continually talk to their children about how much better off they will be by graduating from high school and college," it said.

For more information visit the National Urban League Web site at www.nul.org.

© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Islamic Fascism

2007-04-16T01:38:00.001-05:00

Pearl honored with Holocaust victims
MIAMI BEACH (AP) — Daniel Pearl was added to the 30,000 names etched on the Holocaust Memorial Wall here on Sunday to honor the American journalist who was abducted and killed by terrorists in 2002.

Although Pearl's death and the Jews of the Holocaust were executed by people of different faith, language and agendas, there is a common thread of hatred, his father Judea Pearl told a crowd of hundreds as his son's name was unveiled as the first non-Holocaust victim to be remembered at the wall in Miami Beach.

"The forces of barbarity and evil are still active in our world. The Holocaust didn't finish in 1945," Judea Pearl said.

Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief, was abducted Jan. 23, 2002, while working on a story about Islamic militants in Karachi, Pakistan.

Four days later, the Journal and other media outlets received pictures of Pearl with a pistol to his head. A group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and demanded that suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters be released from U.S. custody.

The journalist's body was found months later in a shallow ditch in a compound on the outskirts of Karachi. His throat had been slit.

Three Islamic militants are serving life sentences in Pakistan for the killing; a fourth was sentenced to death. A Pentagon transcript released last month revealed that suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to personally beheading Pearl, among several attacks and plots he took credit for.

During the ceremony, famed violinist Ida Haendel played a song as Judea Pearl lit a candle.

He said he would always think of his son, a classically trained violinist, as "the journalist who is roaming the roads with a fiddle and a laptop spreading friendship and goodwill into the human faces behind the news."

Daniel Pearl's last words, "I am Jewish," are the title of a book his parents wrote in 2004. A movie starring Angelina Jolie based on the memoirs of Pearl's widow, Mariane, is scheduled to be released this year.

Daniel Pearl's parents also started a foundation that bears his name and aims to eradicate hatred.

"We have a unique weapon — the legacy of a person that earned respect on the east, west divide so we feel compelled to use that legacy as much as we can."

Members of Temple Emanu-El also lit candles and sang in honor of other survivors during the ceremony. Miami-Dade County is home to nearly 3,800 Holocaust survivors, according to the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-15-pearl-honored_N.htm?csp=34

So It Goes. (Kurt Vonnegut 1922 - 2007)

2007-04-12T20:49:00.001-05:00

- 10 Zen Monkeys (a webzine) - http://www.10zenmonkeys.com -

When Kurt Vonnegut Met Sammy Davis

Posted By Destiny On April 12, 2007 @ 12:14 pm In All Articles, Pop Culture, Celebrity | No Comments

When Kurt Vonnegut published Slaughterhouse Five, he was 47. He’d struggled for 20 years to earn a living as an American writer, working as a public relations man for General Electric, an advertising copy writer, and even a car salesman. “All I wanted to do was support my family,” Vonnegut wrote in 1999. “I didn’t think I would amount to a hill of beans.”

But this forgotten period of his life also includes a haunting story about television, a World War II story, and Sammy Davis Jr.

With two children, “I needed more money than GE would pay me,” Vonnegut wrote in his introduction to [1] Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction. “I also wanted, if possible, more self-respect.” Vonnegut hoped to spend his life writing short stories for magazines, and began tapping his experiences in World War II — and in the world that followed. But in the 1950s the magazines publishing his fiction were exterminated by the ultimate juggernaut: television.

“You can’t fight progress,” Vonnegut wrote bitterly. “The best you can do is ignore it, until it finally takes your livelihood and self-respect away.” In 1958 his sister died — and then her husband a few days later — and the 36-year-old would consider abandoning writing altogether.

In another world, Sammy Davis Jr. was a rising star. Though the 32-year-old had yet to join Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack, he was making a name for himself as an entertainer in Las Vegas and on Broadway. In a [2] 1989 biography, Sammy remembered asking his agency for a role in TV dramas, and being told a black actor would be too jarring for audiences in the south.

“Baby,” he replied, “have you any idea how jarring it must be for about five million colored kids who sit in front of their TV sets hour after hour and they almost never see anybody who looks like them? It’s like they and their families and their friends just plain don’t exist.”

Sammy’s genuine pain found echoes in one of Vonnegut’s stories. D.P. — published in [3] Welcome to the Monkey House — tells the story of the only black boy in a German orphanage. (”Had the children not been kept there…they might have wandered off the edges of the earth, searching for parents who had long ago stopped searching for them.”) When the boy spots a black American soldier, he mistakes him for his father.

Though television was killing his career, Vonnegut ended up as the co-author on this single teleplay, which was to appear in a showcase of half-hour dramas sponsored by his old employer: G.E. Theatre. The published story ends with the young boy explaining his newfound hopes to the other skeptical orphans.

“How do you now he wasn’t fooling you?”
“Because he cried when he left me.”

In the teleplay, the heart-wrenching scene is played out. The alienated soldier — an orphan himself — finds himself abandoning the boy, yelling “Go away! I’m not your father!

“I don’t need you!”

Then he realizes he can’t do it. He collapses to his knees, and sobs “I need you.”

And he promises he’ll be back.

Sammy remembers that “everybody on the set was crying.” Future President Ronald Reagan even wandered in — then the host of GE Theatre — and said warmly that “It’s going to be a wonderful episode.”

And according to Sammy’s biography, his Hollywood agent Sy thought it was a milestone for America. “Well, sweetheart, you’ve made television history. When they write the books about the tube, they’ve got to write that Sammy Davis Jr. was the first Negro actor to star in episodic television… You’ll have opened those doors for others to follow.” Sammy remembered that “It didn’t matter what as long as they broke out of it being just maids and butlers.”

But there was one problem. General Electric worried that nearly two-thirds of their products were sold “below the Mason-Dixon line,” according to Sammy’s agent. His biography remembers that painful conversation. “They say they will be ostracized by their white customers and dealers. So there’s no way we can use that show.

“The sponsor is the boss… GE paid for the show, and it’s GE’s right to bury it.”

The show finally aired — in a doomed time slot competing against Rock Hudson’s first television appearance ever. But surprisingly, it beat Hudson’s ratings in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles — and was only a half point behind nationwide. The reaction was surprisingly positive, and GE even cast Sammy in two more episodes. And somewhere, America began to change.

Vonnegut struggled through another 10 years of writing. In Bagombo Snuff Box he complained that when he published [4] Mother Night and [5] The Sirens of Titan, “I got for each of them what I used to get for a short story.”

But eight years before his death he’d look back on that time of his life for what it was — “a golden age of magazine fiction… a time before there was television, when an author might support a family by writing stories that satisfied uncritical readers of magazines, and earning thereby enough free time in which to write serious novels.

“This old man’s hope has to be that some of his earliest tales, for all their mildness and innocence and clumsiness, may, in these coarse times, still entertain.”

Civil War - No Place to Fight Terrorism

2007-04-10T19:40:00.001-05:00

The War on Islamist Fascism is a 4GenWar. Our approach to Iraq has been to pretend it is Normandy and the liberaytion of Europe. Iraqis aren't becoming democrats. They are becoming theocrats. This is the wrong war....Watcch these pages for the Right Way to Fight Islamo-Fascism...Henry_Allen

Army prosecuting more deserters
WASHINGTON (AP) — With the nation fighting two wars, the number of soldiers deserting has increased and the Army is stepping up prosecutions.

Army statistics released this week show the number of desertions rose in the four years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America prompted the Bush administration's war on terrorism. Desertions then fell for three years but they have been rising steadily again in the last three years as the increasingly unpopular campaign in Iraq has worn on.

ON DEADLINE:Marines claim Target kicked them out because they were thought to be recruiters

Even with the recent increases, less than 1% of the Army's active duty force of 507,000 soldiers desert, according to Army data. That compares with 3.4% of the 1971 force that fought the Vietnam war, Maj. Anne Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman, said Tuesday.

And even with a sizable boost in the rate of prosecutions, the overwhelming majority of cases still are handled through administrative discharge. Some 5% of cases go to trial, Edgecomb said.

Junior enlisted soldiers are the most likely to desert, Army researchers say.

More than 60% of deserters over the past 1½ years had less than a year in service, Edgecomb said. More than 80% have less than three years of service.

"The three primary reasons deserters cite for their actions are dissatisfaction with military life, family problems and homesickness," she said.

The problem "tends to increase in magnitude during wartime" and the Army treats the offense more seriously during war, she said, because it can affect a soldier's unit and its mission.

"We prosecute for desertion much more heavily in a time of war than in a time of peace," said Paul Boyce, another Army spokesman.

Army statistics include the following:

• Desertions rose steadily from about 1,800 in budget year 1998 to about 4,400 in the budget year ended Sept. 30, 2001.

•After the Sept. 11 attacks, desertions trended down for three years. There were roughly 4,000 in fiscal year 2002, 2,600 in 2003, and 2,450 in 2004.

•Desertions rose in 2005 and 2006 and appear to be slightly higher again in the 2007 fiscal year that started Oct. 1. They went from approximately 2,700 in 2005 to 3,300 last year and are at about 1,700 for the first half of this budget year.

•Army statistics for prosecutions were impossible to match exactly against the number of desertions because deserters were counted by fiscal year and prosecutions by calendar year. But as an example of the increased rate of prosecutions in recent years, the Army said 167 soldiers were prosecuted in the calendar year started January 2002 against roughly 4,000 desertions counted in the fiscal year started October 2001. That compared with 59 prosecuted the previous year out of 4,400 desertions.

When a soldier is reporting missing or AWOL — absent without leave — the military attempts to find him or her. After 30 days of consecutive absence, the soldier is classified as a deserter, Edgecomb said.

When the soldier returns or is apprehended, a commander has discretion to prosecute the deserter through a court-martial, discharge, retain and rehabilitate, as well as apply a wide range of administrative punishments.

"Our primary course of action is to attempt to rehabilitate the soldier — reintegrate him/her back into their unit," Edgecomb said.

Administrative actions include counseling, a reprimand, forfeiture of pay, reduction in rank and involuntary discharge.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-10-army-prosecutions_N.htm?csp=34

Iraq Battle(s) For an Iranian Colony?

2007-04-08T20:13:00.001-05:00

Six U.S. Soldiers Killed In Iraq
BAGHDAD, April 8, 2007(CBS/AP) Six U.S. soldiers died in Iraq on Sunday, the U.S. military announced.

Three were killed by a roadside bomb during a patrol south of Baghdad, the military said. One soldier was wounded in that incident.

Another soldier died and three were wounded by a mortar or rocket attack in a separate incident south of the capital, the military said in another statement.

Two more soldiers died Sunday from wounds sustained in combat, the military said — one each in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, both north of Baghdad.

Earlier, the military announced that four U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday in an explosion near their vehicle in Diyala. Another soldier was also wounded in the attack, and evacuated to a U.S. military hospital, a statement said.

The victims' names were withheld pending family notification.

At least 3,280 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.

Violence in Iraq remained as relentless as the deepening debate in the United States about the way forward in the war four years after Marines and the Army's 3rd Infantry Division swept into the Iraqi capital 20 days into the American invasion.

In Other Developments:

# The powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his militiamen on Sunday to redouble their battle to oust American forces and argued that Iraq's army and police should join him in defeating "your archenemy."

# Security remained so tenuous in the capital on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the U.S. capture of Baghdad that Iraq's military declared a 24-hour ban on all vehicles in the capital from 5 a.m. Monday. The government quickly reinstated Monday as a holiday, just a day after it had decreed that April 9 no longer would be a day off.

# The Senate will not stop paying for the Iraq war nor relent from insisting that President George W. Bush keep pressing the Baghdad government for a negotiated end to the violence, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, said Sunday.

# Iran's foreign minister warned Sunday that cooperation with Iraq could deteriorate if five Iranian diplomats detained by U.S. troops in Iraq are not set free.

© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Les Vampires (1915) - Stacia Napierkowska

2007-04-07T21:37:00.001-05:00

Another fragment....perhaps inspirational of the "Theatres des Vampires" in "Interview With The Vampire" Henry_Allen

HOWARD HUNT AND JFK - TAKE ONE THOUSAND

2007-04-05T01:14:00.000-05:00

From Rolling Stone, discussion of E. Howard Hunt's "deathbed confession" re JFK assassination, thanks again to our friend Brad Steiger for calling this to our attention.. When Gerald Ford passed on, the Warren Commission passed into history. When Hunt passed on, the mystery of who killed John Kennedy deepened once again. I'm not much on conspiracy theories, but Hunt was a key "dirty tricks" player, and what he said at the end of his life needs to be considered. Henry_Allen

URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13893143/the_last_confessions_of_e_howard_hunt

Rollingstone.com

Back to The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt
The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt
He was the ultimate keeper of secrets, lurking in the shadows of American history. He toppled banana republics, planned the Bay of Pigs invasion and led the Watergate break-in. Now he would reveal what he'd always kept hidden: who killed JFK

ERIK HEDEGAARD

>> Who assassinated JFK? The conversation continues in our politics blog, National Affairs Daily.

Once, when the old spymaster thought he was dying, his eldest son came to visit him at his home in Miami. The scourges recently had been constant and terrible: lupus, pneumonia, cancers of the jaw and prostate, gangrene, the amputation of his left leg. It was like something was eating him up. Long past were his years of heroic service to the country. In the CIA, he'd helped mastermind the violent removal of a duly elected leftist president in Guatemala and assisted in subterfuges that led to the murder of Che Guevara. But no longer could you see in him the suave, pipe-smoking, cocktail-party-loving clandestine operative whose Cold War exploits he himself had, almost obsessively, turned into novels, one of which, East of Farewell, the New York Times once called "the best sea story" of World War II. Diminished too were the old bad memories, of the Bay of Pigs debacle that derailed his CIA career for good, of the Watergate Hotel fiasco, of his first wife's death, of thirty-three months in U.S. prisons -- of, in fact, a furious lifetime mainly of failure, disappointment and pain. But his firstborn son -- he named him St. John; Saint, for short -- was by his side now. And he still had a secret or two left to share before it was all over.

They were in the living room, him in his wheelchair, watching Fox News at full volume, because his hearing had failed too. After a while, he had St. John wheel him into his bedroom and hoist him onto his bed. It smelled foul in there; he was incontinent; a few bottles of urine under the bed needed to be emptied; but he was beyond caring. He asked St. John to get him a diet root beer, a pad of paper and a pen.

Saint had come to Miami from Eureka, California, borrowing money to fly because he was broke. Though clean now, he had been a meth addict for twenty years, a meth dealer for ten of those years and a source of frustration and anger to his father for much of his life. There were a couple of days back in 1972, after the Watergate job, when the boy, then eighteen, had risen to the occasion. The two of them, father and son, had wiped fingerprints off a bunch of spy gear, and Saint had helped in other ways, too. But as a man, he had two felony convictions to his name, and they were for drugs. The old spymaster was a convicted felon too, of course. But that was different. He was E. Howard Hunt, a true American patriot, and he had earned his while serving his country. That the country repaid him with almost three years in prison was something he could never understand, if only because the orders that got him in such trouble came right from the top; as he once said, "I had always assumed, working for the CIA for so many years, that anything the White House wanted done was the law of the land."

Years had gone by when he and St. John hardly spoke. But then St. John came to him wanting to know if he had any information about the assassination of President Kennedy. Despite almost universal skepticism, his father had always maintained that he didn't. He swore to this during two government investigations. "I didn't have anything to do with the assassination, didn't know anything about it," he said during one of them. "I did my time for Watergate. I shouldn't have to do additional time and suffer additional losses for something I had nothing to do with."

But now, in August 2003, propped up in his sickbed, paper on his lap, pen in hand and son sitting next to him, he began to write down the names of men who had indeed participated in a plot to kill the president. He had lied during those two federal investigations. He knew something after all. He told St. John about his own involvement, too. It was explosive stuff, with the potential to reconfigure the JFK-assassination-theory landscape. And then he got better and went on to live for four more years.

They sure don't make White House bad guys the way they used to. Today you've got flabby-faced half-men like Karl Rove, with weakling names like "Scooter" Libby, blandly hacking their way through the constraints of the U.S. Constitution, while back then, in addition to Hunt, you had out-and-out thugs like G. Gordon Liddy, his Watergate co-conspirator and Nixon's dirty-tricks chief, who would hold his own hand over an open flame to prove what a real tough guy he was. It all seems a little nutty now, but in 1972 it was serious business. These guys meant to take the powers of the presidency and run amok. Hunt, an ex-CIA man who loved operating in the shadows and joined Nixon's Special Investigations Unit (a.k.a. "the Plumbers") as a $100-a-day consultant in 1971, specialized in political sabotage. Among his first assignments: forging cables linking the Kennedy administration to the assassination of South Vietnam's president. After that, he began sniffing around Ted Kennedy's dirty laundry, to see what he could dig up there. Being a former CIA man, he had no problem contemplating the use of firebombs and once thought about slathering LSD on the steering wheel of an unfriendly newspaperman's car, hoping it would leach into his skin and cause a fatal accident. But of all his various plots and subterfuges, in the end, only one of them mattered: the failed burglary at the Watergate Hotel, in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1972.

The way it happened, Hunt enlisted some Cuban pals from his old Bay of Pigs days to fly up from Miami and bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters, which was located inside the Watergate. Also on the team were a couple of shady ex-government operators named James McCord and Frank Sturgis. The first attempt ended when the outfit's lock picker realized he'd brought the wrong tools. The next time, however, with Hunt stationed in a Howard Johnson's hotel room across the way, communicating with the burglars by walkie-talkie, the team gained entry into the office. Unfortunately, on the way into the building, they'd taped open an exit door to allow their escape, and when a night watchman found it, he called the cops. The burglars were arrested on the spot. One of them had E. Howard's phone number, at the White House, no less, in his address book. Following this lead, police arrested Hunt and charged him with burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping. Abandoned by his bosses at the White House, he soon began trying to extort money from them to help pay his mounting bills, as well as those of his fellow burglars, the deal being that if the White House paid, all those arrested would plead guilty and maintain silence about the extent of the White House's involvement.

That December, his wife, Dorothy, carrying $10,000 in $100 bills, was killed in a plane crash, foul play suspected but never proved. Two years later, impeachment imminent, Nixon resigned his presidency. And in 1973, E. Howard Hunt, the man who had unwittingly set all these events in motion, pleaded guilty and ultimately spent thirty-three months in prison. "I cannot escape feeling," he said at the time, "that the country I have served for my entire life and which directed me to carry out the Watergate entry is punishing me for doing the very things it trained and directed me to do."

After his release, Hunt moved to Miami, where he remarried, had two more children and spent three decades living a quiet, unexceptional life, steadfastly refusing to talk about Watergate, much less the Kennedy assassination. His connection to the JFK assassination came about almost serendipitously, when in 1974 a researcher stumbled across a photo of three tramps standing in Dallas' Dealey Plaza. It was taken on November 22nd, 1963, the day of Kennedy's shooting, and one of the tramps looked pretty much like E. Howard. In early inquiries, official and otherwise, he always denied any involvement. In later years, he'd offer a curt "No comment." And then, earlier this year, at the age of eighty-eight, he died -- though not before writing an autobiography, American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate & Beyond, published last month. Not surprisingly, those things he wrote down about JFK's death and gave to his eldest son don't make an appearance in the book, at least not in any definitive way. E. Howard had apparently decided to take them to the grave. But St. John still has the memo -- "It has all this stuff in it," he says, "the chain of command, names, people, places, dates. He wrote it out to me directly, in his own handwriting, starting with the initials 'LBJ' " -- and he's decided it's time his father's last secrets finally see some light, for better or for worse.

Out in eureka, a few days before his father's death, St. John is driving through town in a beat-up mottled-brown '88 Cutlass Sierra. He is fifty-two. His hair is dark, worn long, and despite his decades as a drug addict, he's still looking good. He has a Wiccan girlfriend named Mona. He's also an accomplished and soulful guitar player, leaning heavily toward Eric Clapton; he can often be found playing in local haunts during open-mike nights and is working on putting a band together, perhaps to be called Saint John and the Sinners or, though less likely, the Konspirators. He's got a good sense of humor and a large sentimental streak. The last time he saw his father, in Miami, was a week ago.

"I sat by his bedside holding his hand for about ten hours the first day," St. John says somberly. "He hadn't been out of bed in ten weeks, had pneumonia twenty-seven times in the last sixteen months. He's such a tough old motherfucker, that guy. But he had all this fluid in his lungs, a death rattle, and I thought, 'Any minute now, this is it, his last breath, I'm looking at it right here.' A couple of times my stepmom, Laura, would say, 'Howard, who is this?' He'd look at me and her, and he didn't have a clue. Other times, he would quietly say, 'St. John.' He said he loved me and was grateful I was there."

At the moment, Saint doesn't have a job; his felonies have gotten in the way. He has to borrow money to put gas in his Cutlass. Beach chairs substitute for furniture in the tiny apartment where, until recently, he lived with an ex-girlfriend, herself a reformed meth addict, and two kids, one hers, one theirs. "I would've loved to have lived a normal life," he says. "I'm happy with who I am. I don't have any regrets. But all the shit that happened, the whole thing, it really spun me over."

And not only him but his siblings, too -- a brother, David, who has had his own problems with drugs, and two older sisters, Kevan and Lisa, who still hold their father responsible for the tragedy of their mom's death. Dorothy Hunt was staunchly loyal to her husband and, after his arrest, helped him with his plans to blackmail the White House. On December 8th, 1972, carrying $10,000 in what's regarded as extorted hush money and, some say, evidence that could have gotten Nixon impeached, she boarded United Airlines Flight 553 from Washington to Chicago. The plane crashed, killing forty-three people onboard, including Dorothy. The official explanation was pilot error, but St. John doesn't believe it. He thinks that the Nixon White House wanted to both get rid of his mother and send a message to his father. Nonetheless, he says he tries not to place blame.

"She got on that plane willingly and lovingly, because that's the kind of woman she was," he says. "They had lots of marital problems, but when it came down to it, she had his back, and she could hang in there with the big dogs. She was really pissed at Nixon, Liddy, all those guys, and she was saying, 'We're not going to let them hang you out to dry. We're going to get them. Those motherfuckers are going to pay.' So I've never held what happened against him. I had bitterness and resentment, but I always knew he did what he had to do given the circumstances."

And at times, he even seems to think of his dad with pride: "Did you hear that the character that Tom Cruise plays in the Mission: Impossible movies is named after him? Instead of Everette Hunt, they named him Ethan Hunt. I know he's been portrayed as kind of an inept, third-rate burglar, but burglary wasn't really his bag. My dad was a really good spy, maybe a great spy."

But then he starts talking about what it was like growing up the eldest son of Everette Howard Hunt, and a different picture emerges. "He loved the glamorous life, cocktail parties, nightclubbing, flirting, all that," Saint says. "He was unfaithful to my mom, but she stayed with him. He was a swinger. He thought of himself as a cool dude, suave, sophisticated, intellectual. He was Mr. Smooth. A man of danger. He was perfect for the CIA. He never felt guilt about anything."

In the early days of the cold war, the CIA's mandate was simple: to contain the spread of communism by whatever means necessary; it was tacitly given permission to go about its dirty business unfettered by oversight of any kind. For much of the Cold War, it was answerable to no one. And if you were lucky enough to become one of its agents, you had every right to consider yourself a member of an elite corps, a big swinging all-American dick like no other.

The middle-class son of a Hamburg, New York, attorney, E. Howard Hunt graduated from Brown University in 1940 with a bachelor's in English, joined the Navy during World War II, served in the North Atlantic on the destroyer Mayo, slipped and fell, took a medical discharge and wound up in China working under "Wild" Bill Donovan in the newly formed Office of Strategic Services. When the OSS was transformed into the CIA, Hunt jumped onboard. He loved action as much as he hated communism, and he soon began operating with a level of arrogance entirely typical of the CIA. He was instrumental, for instance, in planning the 1954 coup in Guatemala that overthrew the left-leaning, democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, and ushered in forty years of military repression, which ultimately cost 200,000 Guatemalans their lives. Years later, when asked about the 200,000 deaths, E. Howard said, "Deaths? What deaths?" Like Saint says, he never felt guilt about anything: "He was a complete self-centered WASP who saw himself as this blue blood from upstate New York. 'I'm better than anybody because I'm white, Protestant and went to Brown, and since I'm in the CIA, I can do anything I want.' Jew, nigger, Polack, wop -- he used all those racial epithets. He was an elitist. He hated everybody."

In the early Fifties, his father could often be seen cruising around in a white Cadillac convertible; he loved that car. He also loved his cigars and his wine and his country clubs and being waited on by servants and having his children looked after by nannies. He was full of himself and full of the romantic, swashbuckling, freewheeling importance of his government mission. He had quite an imagination, too. When he wasn't off saving the world from Reds, he spent much of his time in front of a typewriter, hacking out espionage novels, some eighty in all, with titles such as The Violent Ones ("They killed by day, they loved by night") and I Came to Kill ("They wanted a tyrant liquidated, and cash could hire him to do it").

Wherever E. Howard was stationed -- he'd pop up Zelig-like in hot spots from Japan to Uruguay to Spain -- he and his family lived lavishly and well, all presumably to lend credence to his cover job as a high-ranking embassy official. One estate was as large as a city block, and one dining table as long as a telephone pole, with the parents sitting at distant opposite ends. Sadly, he treated his children the way he and the CIA treated the rest of the world. They were supposed to bend to his will and otherwise be invisible. God forbid during a meal one of them should speak or rattle a dish.

"Whenever I made a sound, he looked at me with those hateful, steely eyes of his, a look of utter contempt and disgust, like he could kill," St. John says. "He was a mean-spirited person and an extremely cruel father. I was his firstborn son, and I was born with a clubfoot and had to have operations. I suffered from petit-mal seizures. I was dyslexic and developed a stutter. For the superspy not to have a superson was the ultimate disappointment, like, 'Here's my idiot son with the clubfoot and glasses. Can we keep him in the closet, Dorothy?' "

Later, E. Howard moved the family to the last home it would ever occupy as a family, in Potomac, Maryland. It was called Witches Island. It was a rambling affair, with a horse paddock, a chicken coop, the Cold War bonus of a bomb shelter, and a fishing pond across the way. E. Howard wanted Saint to attend a top-flight prep school and one night took him to a dinner at St. Andrew's School, to try and get his son enrolled. In the middle of the meal, Saint leaned over to his dad and whispered, "Papa, I have to go to the bathroom." His father glared at him. Pretty soon Saint was banging his knees together under the table. "Sit still," his father hissed. Saint said, "Papa, I really have to go."

"I ended up pissing in my pants at the dinner," Saint says. "Can you imagine how humiliating that was? Unbelievable." He didn't get into St. Andrew's. He ended up settling for a lower-tier boarding school called St. James, near Hagerstown, Maryland. His second year there, in 1970, after being repeatedly molested by a teacher, he broke down and told his mother what was going on. She told his father. And rumor had it that E. Howard came up to St. James with a carload of guns to make the teacher disappear. "He was really, really pissed off," says Saint. "He wanted to kill." In any case, at the school, neither the teacher nor St. John was ever seen again.

That same year, his father retired from the CIA after being relegated to the backwaters for his role in the Bay of Pigs. He went to work as a writer for a PR firm. He was bored and missed the hands-on action of the CIA.The following year, however, his lawyer pal Chuck Colson, who was special counsel to Nixon, called him up with an invitation to join the president's Special Investigations Unit as a kind of dirty-tricks consultant. He signed on. He really thought he was going places.

Around the time of st. john's Miami visit in 2003 to talk to his ailing father about JFK, certain other people were also trying to get things out of E. Howard, including the actor Kevin Costner, who had played a JFK-assassination-obsessed DA in the Oliver Stone film JFK and had become somewhat obsessed himself. Costner said that he could arrange for E. Howard to make $5 million for telling the truth about what happened in Dallas. Unbeknown to St. John, however, Costner had already met with E. Howard once. That meeting didn't go very well. When Costner arrived at the house, he didn't ease into the subject. "So who killed Kennedy?" he blurted out. "I mean, who did shoot JFK, Mr. Hunt?"

E. Howard's mouth fell open, and he looked at his wife. "What did he say?"

"Howard," Laura said, "he wants to know who shot JFK."

And that ended that meeting, with E. Howard grumbling to himself about Costner, "What a numskull."

But then St. John got involved, and he knew better how to handle the situation. For one thing, he knew that his stepmother wanted to forget about the past. She didn't want to hear about Watergate or Kennedy. In fact, E. Howard swore to Laura that he knew nothing about JFK's assassination; it was one of her preconditions for marriage. Consequently, she and her sons often found themselves in conflict with St. John.

"Why can't you go back to California and leave well enough alone?" they asked him. "How can you do this? How dare you do this? He's in the last years of his life."

But Saint's attitude was, "This has nothing to do with you. This stuff is of historical significance and needs to come out, and if you're worried that it'll make him out to be a liar, everybody knows he's a liar already. Is this going to ruin the Hunt name? The Hunt name is already filled with ruination."

So when Saint arrived in Miami to talk to his dad, the two men spent a lot of time waiting for Laura to leave the house. Saint painted the living room and built a wheelchair ramp. In the mornings, he cooked breakfast. In the afternoons, he plopped a fishing hat on E. Howard's head and wheeled him around the neighborhood. They drank coffee together. And watched lots of Fox News. And when Laura finally left, they talked.

Afterward, another meeting was arranged with Costner, this time in Los Angeles, where the actor had fifty assassination-related questions all ready to go. (The actor declined comment for this article.) Though the $5 million figure was still floating around, all Costner wanted to pay E. Howard at this point was $100 a day for his time. There would be no advance. St. John called Costner.

"That's your offer? A hundred dollars? That's an insult. You're a cheapskate."

"Nobody calls me a cheapskate," said Costner. "What do you think I'm going to do, just hand over $5 million?"

"No. But the flight alone could kill him. He's deaf as a brick. He's pissing in a bag. He's got one leg. You want him to fly to Los Angeles and for $100 a day? Wow! What are we going to do with all that money?!"

"I can't talk to you anymore, St. John," Costner said. And that was the end of that, for good. It looked like what E. Howard had to say would never get out.

One evening in Eureka, over a barbecue meal, St. John explains how he first came to suspect that his father might somehow be involved in the Kennedy assassination. "Around 1975, I was in a phone booth in Maryland somewhere, when I saw a poster on a telephone pole about who killed JFK, and it had a picture of the three tramps. I saw that picture and I fucking -- like a cartoon character, my jaw dropped, my eyes popped out of my head, and smoke came out of my ears. It looks like my dad. There's nobody that has all those same facial features. People say it's not him. He's said it's not him. But I'm his son, and I've got a gut feeling."

He chews his sandwich. "And then, like an epiphany, I remember '63, and my dad being gone, and my mom telling me that he was on a business trip to Dallas. I've tried to convince myself that's some kind of false memory, that I'm just nuts, that it's something I heard years later. But, I mean, his alibi for that day is that he was at home with his family. I remember I was in the fifth grade. We were at recess. I was playing on the merry-go-round. We were called in and told to go home, because the president had been killed. And I remember going home. But I don't remember my dad being there. I have no recollection of him being there. And then he has this whole thing about shopping for Chinese food with my mother that day, so that they could cook a meal together." His father testified to this, in court, on more than one occasion, saying that he and his wife often cooked meals together.

St. John pauses and leans forward. "Well," he says, "I can tell you that's just the biggest load of crap in the fucking world. He was always looking at things like he was writing a novel; everything had to be just so glamorous and so exciting. He couldn't even be bothered with his children. That's not glamorous. James Bond doesn't have children. So my dad in the kitchen? Chopping vegetables with his wife? I'm so sorry, but that would never happen. Ever. That fucker never did jack-squat like that. Ever."

Not that it was all bad back then, in Potomac, at Witches Island. E. Howard played the trumpet, and his son was into music too, so sometimes the pair went down to Blues Alley, in Georgetown, to hear jazz. Back home, E. Howard would slap Benny Goodman's monster swing-jazz song "Sing, Sing, Sing" on the turntable, and the two would listen to it endlessly. And then, sometimes, during the stomping Harry James horn solo, E. Howard would jump to his feet, snapping his fingers like some cool cat, pull back his shirt sleeves, lick his lips and play the air trumpet for all he was worth. It was great stuff, and St. John loved it. "I would sit there in awe," he says. But the best was yet to come.

It was well past midnight on June 18th, 1972. Saint, eighteen years old, was asleep in his basement bedroom, surrounded by his Beatles and Playboy pinup posters, when he heard someone shouting, "You gotta wake up! You gotta wake up!"

When he opened his eyes, Saint saw his father as he'd never seen him before. E. Howard was dressed in his usual coat and tie, but everything was akimbo. He was a sweaty, disheveled mess. Saint didn't know what to think or what was going on.

"I don't need you to ask a lot of questions," his father said. "I need you to get your clothes on and come upstairs."

He disappeared into the darkness. Saint changed out of his pajamas. Upstairs, he found his father in the master bedroom, laboring over a big green suitcase jumble-filled with microphones, walkie-talkies, cameras, tripods, cords, wires, lots of weird stuff. His father started giving him instructions. Saint went to the kitchen and returned with Windex, paper towels and some rubber dishwashing gloves. Then, in silence, the two of them began wiping fingerprints off all the junk in the suitcase. After that, they loaded everything into E. Howard's Pontiac Firebird and drove over to a lock on the C&O Canal. E. Howard heaved the suitcase into the water, and it gurgled out of sight.

They didn't speak on the way home. St. John still didn't know what was going on. All he knew was that his dad had needed his help, and he'd given it, successfully.

The next day, dressed in one of his prep-school blazers, he drove to a Riggs Bank in Georgetown and met his father inside the safety-deposit-box cage. His father turned him around, lifted his blazer and shoved about $100,000 in cash down the back of his pants. The boy made it home without picking up a tail. Then his father had him get rid of a typewriter. Saint put the typewriter in a bag, hoofed it across the Witches Island property onto the neighboring spread and tossed it into the pond where he and his brother David used to go fishing.

"Don't ever tell anybody you've done these things," his father said later. "I could get in trouble. You could get in trouble. I'm sorry to have to put you in this position, but I really am grateful for your help."

"Of course, Papa," Saint said.

Everything he had done, he'd done because his father and his gang of pals had botched the break-in at the Watergate Hotel. Soon his mother would be killed in a plane crash, and his father would be sent to jail, and Nixon would resign, and his own life would fracture in unimaginable ways. But right now, standing there with his father and hearing those words of praise, he was the happiest he'd ever been.

Years later, when saint started trying to get his father to tell what he knew about JFK, he came to believe the information would be valuable. He both needed money and thought he was owed money, for what he'd been through. Also, like many a conspiracy nut before him, he was more than a little obsessed.

"After seeing that poster of the three tramps," he says, "I read two dozen books on the JFK assassination, and the more I read, the more I was unsure about what happened. I had all these questions and uncertainties. I mean, I was trying to sort out things that had touched me in a big way."

Touched him and turned him upside down, especially the death of his mother. He had been particularly close to her. She was part Native American and had sewed him a buckskin shirt that he used to wear like a badge of honor, along with a pair of moccasins. At the same time, Saint feels that he never got to know her. She told him that during World War II, she'd tracked Nazi money for the U.S. Treasury Department, and Saint believes that early in her marriage to his father, she may have been in the CIA herself, "a contract agent, not officially listed." But he isn't sure about any of it, really.

"In our family, everything was sort of like a mini-CIA," he says. "Nothing was ever talked about, so we grew up with all of these walls, walls around my father, walls around my mother, walls around us kids, to protect and insulate us. You grow up not knowing what really happened. Like, who was my mom, for Christ's sake? Was she a CIA agent? What was her life really like?" The one thing he does know is that when she died, so in large part did the Hunt family.

Once his father went to prison, Saint moved to Wisconsin, where he worked in a potato-processing plant and spent the rest of his time dropping acid. In 1975, he moved to the Oakland, California, area, started snorting coke and for five years drove a bakery truck. He was in a band and hoped to become a rock star, though touring alongside Buddy Guy was about the biggest thing that ever happened. Then he gave up coke and took up meth and a while later started dealing meth. Twenty years flew by. He had wild sexual escapades; he shacked up with two sisters -- "nymphs," he calls them. But mainly his life, like his father's, was a rolling series of misfortunes. He received insurance money after his mom died, and bought a house; a week later, it burned down in some drug-related fiasco. His brother David followed a similar path; leaving boarding school, he hooked up with Saint, and together they set about snorting and dealing away the years.

Finally, in 2001, on the heels of two drug busts, Saint decided to go straight. With his ex-girlfriend, their daughter and her son, he stayed in a series of shelters, then took them to live in Eureka, several hours north of Oakland. He's since earned a certificate in hotel management, but jobs don't last. And the questions and uncertainties about his father continue to circulate in his head.

"In some ways we turned out similarly," he says. "He was a spy, into secrets and covert activity. I became a drug dealer. What has to be more covert and secret than that? It's the same mind-set. We were just on opposite sides of the -- well, actually, in our case, I guess we weren't even on opposite sides of the law, were we?" That time in miami, with saint by his bed and disease eating away at him and him thinking he's six months away from death, E. Howard finally put pen to paper and started writing. Saint had been working toward this moment for a long while, and now it was going to happen. He got his father an A&W diet root beer, then sat down in the old man's wheelchair and waited.

E. Howard scribbled the initials "LBJ," standing for Kennedy's ambitious vice president, Lyndon Johnson. Under "LBJ," connected by a line, he wrote the name Cord Meyer. Meyer was a CIA agent whose wife had an affair with JFK; later she was murdered, a case that's never been solved. Next his father connected to Meyer's name the name Bill Harvey, another CIA agent; also connected to Meyer's name was the name David Morales, yet another CIA man and a well-known, particularly vicious black-op specialist. And then his father connected to Morales' name, with a line, the framed words "French Gunman Grassy Knoll."

So there it was, according to E. Howard Hunt. LBJ had Kennedy killed. It had long been speculated upon. But now E. Howard was saying that's the way it was. And that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the only shooter in Dallas. There was also, on the grassy knoll, a French gunman, presumably the Corsican Mafia assassin Lucien Sarti, who has figured prominently in other assassination theories.

"By the time he handed me the paper, I was in a state of shock," Saint says. "His whole life, to me and everybody else, he'd always professed to not know anything about any of it. But I knew this had to be the truth. If my dad was going to make anything up, he would have made something up about the Mafia, or Castro, or Khrushchev. He didn't like Johnson. But you don't falsely implicate your own country, for Christ's sake. My father is old-school, a dyed-in-the-wool patriot, and that's the last thing he would do."

Later that week, E. Howard also gave Saint two sheets of paper that contained a fuller narrative. It starts out with LBJ again, connecting him to Cord Meyer, then goes on: "Cord Meyer discusses a plot with [David Atlee] Phillips who brings in Wm. Harvey and Antonio Veciana. He meets with Oswald in Mexico City. . . . Then Veciana meets w/ Frank Sturgis in Miami and enlists David Morales in anticipation of killing JFK there. But LBJ changes itinerary to Dallas, citing personal reasons."

David Atlee Phillips, the CIA's Cuban operations chief in Miami at the time of JFK's death, knew E. Howard from the Guatemala-coup days. Veciana is a member of the Cuban exile community. Sturgis, like Saint's father, is supposed to have been one of the three tramps photographed in Dealey Plaza. Sturgis was also one of the Watergate plotters, and he is a man whom E. Howard, under oath, has repeatedly sworn to have not met until Watergate, so to Saint the mention of his name was big news.

In the next few paragraphs, E. Howard goes on to describe the extent of his own involvement. It revolves around a meeting he claims he attended, in 1963, with Morales and Sturgis. It takes place in a Miami hotel room. Here's what happens:

Morales leaves the room, at which point Sturgis makes reference to a "Big Event" and asks E. Howard, "Are you with us?"

E. Howard asks Sturgis what he's talking about.

Sturgis says, "Killing JFK."

E. Howard, "incredulous," says to Sturgis, "You seem to have everything you need. Why do you need me?" In the handwritten narrative, Sturgis' response is unclear, though what E. Howard says to Sturgis next isn't: He says he won't "get involved in anything involving Bill Harvey, who is an alcoholic psycho."

After that, the meeting ends. E. Howard goes back to his "normal" life and "like the rest of the country . . . is stunned by JFK's death and realizes how lucky he is not to have had a direct role."

After reading what his father had written, St. John was stunned too. His father had not only implicated LBJ, he'd also, with a few swift marks of a pen, put the lie to almost everything he'd sworn to, under oath, about his knowledge of the assassination. Saint had a million more questions. But his father was exhausted and needed to sleep, and then Saint had to leave town without finishing their talk, though a few weeks later he did receive in the mail a tape recording from his dad. E. Howard's voice on the cassette is weak and grasping, and he sometimes wanders down unrelated pathways. But he essentially remakes the same points he made in his handwritten narrative.

Shortly thereafter, Laura found out what had been going on, and with the help of E. Howard's attorney put an end to it. St. John and his father were kept apart. When they did see each other, they were never left alone. And they never got a chance to finish what they'd started. Instead, the old man set about writing his autobiography and turned his back on his son. He wrote him a letter in which he said that Saint's life had been nothing but "meaningless, self-serving instant gratification," that he had never amounted to anything and never would. He asked for his JFK memos back, and Saint returned them, though not before making copies.

There is no way to confirm Hunt's allegations -- all but one of the co-conspirators he named are long gone. St. John, for his part, believes his father. E. Howard was lucid when he made his confession. He was taking no serious medications, and he and his son were finally on good terms. If anything, St. John believes, his father was holding out on him, the old spy keeping a few secrets in reserve, just in case.

"Actually, there were probably dozens of plots to kill Kennedy, because everybody hated Kennedy but the public," Saint says. "The question is, which one of them worked? My dad has always said, 'Thank God one of them worked.' I think he knows a lot more than he told me. He claimed he backed out of the plot only so he could disclaim actual involvement. In a way, I feel like he only opened another can of worms." He takes a deep breath. "At a certain point, I'm just going to have to let it go."

Out in Eureka, Saint has been reading an advance copy of E. Howard's autobiography, American Spy. In it, his father looks at LBJ as only one possible person behind the JFK killing, and then only in the most halfhearted, couched-and-cloaked way. He brings up various other possibilities, too, then debunks each of them.

But of all the shadings and omissions in the book, the only one that truly upsets St. John has to do with the happiest moment in his life, that time in 1972, on the night of the Watergate burglary, when he helped his father dispose of the spy gear, then ran money for him and ditched the typewriter.

The way it unfolds in the book, St. John doesn't do anything for his dad. And it's E. Howard himself who dumps the typewriter.

"That's a complete lie," Saint says, almost shouting. "A total fabrication. I did that. I mean, he never took me aside and thanked me in any kind of deep emotional way. But I'm the one who helped him that night. Me! And he's robbing me of it. Why?"

Like so many other things, he will never know why, because the next day, on January 23rd, in the morning, in Miami, the old spymaster dies.

Later in the day, Saint started reading a few of the obituaries.

One starts off, "Sleazebag E. Howard Hunt is finally dead."

"Oh, God," Saint says and goes looking for how The New York Times handled his father's death. The obit reads, "Mr. Hunt was intelligent, erudite, suave and loyal to his friends. But the record shows that he mishandled many of the tasks he received from the CIA and the White House. He was 'totally self-absorbed, totally amoral and a danger to himself and anybody around him. . . .' "

"Wow," Saint says. "I don't know if I can read these things. I mean, that is one brutal obituary."

But the Times is right, of course. E. Howard was a danger to anybody around him, and any list of those in danger would always have to include, right at the top, his firstborn son, St. John.

>> Who assassinated JFK? The conversation continues in our politics blog, National Affairs Daily.

Posted Mar 21, 2007 1:15 PM

WAKING UP AND GETTING OUT

2007-03-27T23:42:00.001-05:00

A little late, but better just to go. It isn't the troops, its a givernment that thinks we can fight terrorists by reworking Viet Nam. No way. TIMZ video says it, now congress is starting to...late out is better than another four years. Henry_Allen

Will Bush Go Up That Lazy River?

2007-03-26T18:57:00.001-05:00

Look, Bill Clinton just got a blow job. Bush is America's blow job. Time to change. Can we wait two years? Henry Allen

Justice official to plead the Fifth before Senate panel
Story Highlights
• NEW: White House says decision shows how investigation has become political
• Justice official to refuse to answer questions about attorneys' firings
• Democrats disappointed that Monica Goodling will not testify
• Former Gonzales chief of staff Sampson expected to defend firings

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Justice Department official will refuse to answer questions during a Senate committee hearing on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself, her lawyer said Monday.

In a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling's lawyer said she would not testify because senators have already decided that wrongdoing occurred.

"The public record is clear that certain members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have already reached conclusions about the matter under investigation and the veracity of the testimony provided by the Justice Department to date," John Dowd, Goodling's lawyer, said in a letter to the committee's chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

The letter said Goodling learned that a senior Justice Department official blamed her and other Justice Department officials for any misleading statements he had made to one of the Democratic senators who has pushed for answers about the firings, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York.

Goodling is a senior counsel and White House liaison to Gonzales. She is taking a leave of absence from the department.

The committee has subpoenaed Goodling to testify Thursday. Democratic and Republican senators have raised questions about the firings, which e-mail released by the Justice Department suggests may have been done for political reasons.

Democrats said they continue to want Goodling to testify.

"It is disappointing that Ms. Goodling has decided to withhold her important testimony from the committee as it pursues its investigation into this matter, but everybody has the constitutional right not to incriminate themselves with regard to criminal conduct," Leahy said in a written statement. "The American people are left to wonder what conduct is at the base of Ms. Goodling's concern that she may incriminate herself in connection with criminal charges if she appears before the committee under oath."

Goodling's decision to plead the Fifth Amendment "raises even more questions concerning the potential misconduct and legal violations by the administration in this ongoing scandal," said Rep. John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who leads the House Judiciary Committee. That committee also wanted to hear Goodling's testimony on the firing.

The White House said Goodling's decision shows how political the investigation has become.

"It is unfortunate that a public servant no longer feels comfortable that they will be treated fairly in testimony in front of Congress," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"The attorney general, with the president's support, has urged members of the Justice Department to cooperate with Congress' request for testimony," Perino said. "However, we must respect the constitutional rights of the people involved and the decision of those individuals and their counsel to protect those rights."
Gonzales under fire

Partially due to conflicting accounts of how the firings were carried out, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has come under increasing political pressure, with a growing number of lawmakers calling for his resignation. (View a timeline of the firing of the U.S. attorneys)

Gonzales has said he had a limited role in last year's firings, which have triggered a dispute between Congress and the White House over the testimony of top presidential aides. After his chief of staff's resignation in the firings uproar, the attorney general told reporters that he "was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on."

But documents released Friday night show Gonzales attended a meeting in late November in which the firings were discussed. Justice Department officials said that meeting does not contradict Gonzales' previous statements that he was not involved in the details of the dismissals or in selecting specific prosecutors -- a task he said was left to his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. (Read more about Sampson's role and his upcoming testimony)

President Bush continues to stand by his attorney general and expressed confidence in him in a White House statement Friday. (Watch how the president shows no signs of backing away from his attorney generalVideo)
Sampson expected to defend firing

Sampson will testify on the firing of the U.S. attorneys before the committee on Thursday.

Sampson was the key Justice Department official in charge of deciding who should be dismissed and the main liaison with the White House over the process. Gonzales has said that Sampson was "charged with directing the process."

Friends familiar with his expected testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee say he will testify that he did what he was told and will defend the power of the Justice Department to be able to fire the prosecutors, because they serve at the pleasure of the White House.

"Kyle is very much a supporter of the president and the attorney general," one friend told CNN. "His main interest is in telling the truth."

The friend said Sampson would "never do anything to hurt any of them" and doesn't believe his version of events will do that.

Friends say Sampson believes innocent bungling was more to blame for the firestorm over the firings than anything malicious.

Friends also say Sampson will tell the truth and is not expected to go on the attack against any former officials. They say he is very quiet, very loyal and isn't the type of person who will try to "get" anyone.

What is not known is how Sampson will answer questions from lawmakers such as how the specific U.S. attorneys were chosen, what specific role did the attorney general play in the process given some of the conflicting evidence, and how much influence the White House exerted.

Sampson has said he did not resign because he had misled anyone or withheld information, but for "failing to appreciate the need for and organize a more effective political response to the unfounded accusations of impropriety in the replacement process," according to a statement his attorney, Bradford Berenson, released on March 16.

The statement also said, "The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing this subject for several years was well known to a number of other senior officials at the department."
Specter: Firings have left a 'cloud' over department

A leading GOP senator Sunday questioned whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "has been candid" about the firings of the attorneys, while another said the issue has left a "cloud" over the Justice Department chief.

Sen. Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that Gonzales would have a chance to "present his case" but had some explaining to do. The attorney general is scheduled to appear before the committee April 17.

"We have to have an attorney general who is candid, truthful," Specter said. "And if we find he has not been candid and truthful, that's a very compelling reason for him not to stay on."

President Bush has said he stands solidly behind Gonzales, who was White House counsel before becoming attorney general in 2005.

Two other Republican lawmakers -- Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska -- also expressed doubt about Gonzales' credibility Sunday.

CNN's Kevin Bohn and Dana Bash contributed to this report.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/26/fired.attorneys/index.html

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