Waterboarding sessions brought detainees ‘close to death’: report

Grotesque.

Raw Story -

The waterboarding sessions that terrorist suspects were subjected to during the Bush administration were "administered with meticulous cruelty" and were in part designed so that detainees acted as "guinea pigs" for future interrogation sessions, says an exhaustive new report.

The report also shows that the interrogation methods were so harsh that some detainees "simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown."

Drawing on numerous documents about the CIA's torture program that have been released over the past year, Mark Benjamin at Salon.com reports that interrogators went to extreme lengths to ensure that detainees were pushed to their physical limits, including feeding the detainees a liquid diet to make them more capable of ingesting large quantities of water, and replacing their water with a saline solution that would keep detainees from dying when they ingested too much water.

Read it all.

Census hiring blitz of 750,000 to cut jobless rate

This is just one of the myriad ways government cooks the books (lies) to make the situation look better than it really is. If government jobs were a viable path to full employment, why not just have everyone work for the government? Perhaps it's because the government cannot produce real wealth - it can only take from some and give to others. If everyone worked for the government, where would government get its revenue from? This, it seems to me, is common sense, and yet there are people who believe socialism is a sensible path to economic freedom and equality.

Meanwhile, the census is held every ten years. Not mentioned by the administration is what will happen to these 750,000 people after the census is conducted.

The Hill -

The U.S. Census Bureau expects to add up to 750,000 workers to its payroll by May, a hiring binge that could knock the unemployment rate down by as much as a half-point.

The once-a-decade census is coming at the best possible time for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, who have taken political lumps for more than a year over a jobless rate that stands at 9.7 percent.

Some think the administration will get good news as soon as the next monthly labor report, which will be released the first Friday in April.

“This is the best-timed census you could ever dream of,” said Heidi Shierholz, who tracks the labor market at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. She believes the March unemployment report will show the economy added jobs instead of subtracting them.

Read all of it.

Poll: By 2-to-1 Margin, Americans believe government econoimic terrorism is greater threat than jihadism

Not exactly what the poll question was, but let's call a spade a spade here.

CNS News -

By a two-to-one margin, American adults believe the amount of money the U.S. owes China to cover the U.S. national debt is now a greater threat than radical Islam.

According to a Zogby International poll, 58 percent said the debt was a greater concern, versus just 27 percent who chose terrorism perpetrated by “radical Islamists.”

The polling firm asked respondents: “When you think about the long-term security and well-being of the U.S., which of these do you believe is a more serious threat?”

Political ideology did not change the results significantly, the pollster pointed out.

Read it all...

Local news station confirms barium in chemtrails

It takes exceptional powers of denial to disregard the fact that there is something not right about the skies, particularly what is being emitted from planes high above us. Disregarding the fact that the government admits - brags - they're doing it. Just open your eyes and look up. Or watch this local news story.

Photos of chemtrails I've taken over the past few months:

The Autism - Environment Link

I still find it ludicrous to think that, knowing what is in vaccines, they do not play a roll in the exploding autism epidemic. It's obvious to anyone who pays even a little attention that, even vaccines without Thimerisal are horribly toxic, particularly to children without a well-developed blood-brain barrier (and elderly people with a depleted blood-brain barrier).

Vaccines aren't listed as a cause of autism by Higgs, but at least someone is attempting to show a cause. Most proponents of vaccines are prone to say they haven't the slightest idea what causes autism, they're only sure it's not the vaccines. There's no doubt that there are other causes of autism, and we must discover and expose all of them, so parents can make intelligent choices about their children's safety.

Steven Higgs
Counterpunch -

One of the nation's leading voices on children's environmental health has called for focused and expanded research into the cause-effect relation between industrial chemicals and autism.

"Long and tragic experience that began with studies of lead and methylmercury has documented that toxic chemicals can damage the developing human brain to produce a spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders," Dr. Philip Landrigan from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine wrote in a Jan. 16, 2010, article in the medical journal Current Opinion in Pediatrics.

Today's children, he noted, "are at risk of exposure to 3,000 synthetic chemicals produced in quantities of more than 1 million pounds per year, termed high-production-volume (HPV) chemicals. HPV chemicals are found in a wide array of consumer goods, cosmetics, medications, motor fuels and building materials."

Eight of those 3,000 have been "implicated" in the development of "neurodevelopmental disabilities," Landrigan wrote. And a recent review of the world's literature identified roughly 200 industrial chemicals that have been documented to be neurotoxic in adult humans.

"These are primarily industrial chemicals -- metals, solvents and pesticides -- and nearly half are HPV materials," Landrigan wrote in the paper titled What causes autism? Exploring the environmental contribution. "This search also produced a second list of approximately 1,000 chemicals that have not been examined in humans but that are neurotoxic in experimental models."

Read all of it.

China ready to end dollar peg

Not like you have to be an expert in economics to foresee bad things due to the world's economic policies, particularly our own, but from what I gather from listening to experts such as those found at the Mises Institute and LewRockwell.com, China dumping the dollar is the equivalent to the lamb opening the sixth, maybe seventh seal of the economic apocalypse.

The head of China’s central bank has given the strongest signal yet that the country will move away from pegging its currency to the dollar, but he said any changes would be gradual

London Telegraph -



At the annual session of the legislative National People’s Congress in Beijing, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said that the days of the “special yuan” policy were numbered. He described the dollar peg as a “temporary” response to the global financial crisis, but gave no timescale for any change in policy. The currency has been pegged at about 6.83 yuan per dollar since July 2008.

Many economists expect China to allow the yuan to appreciate slightly this year, but the cautious tone by Mr Zhou means that any change may not happen for some time. He said that the central bank would maintain the “basic stability” of the currency. So, despite the fact that the Chinese economy grew by 10.7pc in the fourth quarter of last year, the country’s loose monetary policy looks set to continue.

Read all of it.

Ill. judge won't toss torture suit naming Rumsfeld

Try this pig and find him guilty and wipe that smirk off his filthy face.

Associated Press -

A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm.

U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen's ruling did not say the two contractors had proven any of their claims. But it did say they had alleged enough specific mistreatment to warrant hearing evidence of exactly what happened.

Andersen said his decision "represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting."

Andersen did throw out two of the lawsuit's three counts but gave former contractors Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel the green light to go forward with a third count alleging they were unconstitutionally tortured under procedures personally approved by Rumsfeld.

Read all of it.

One in three killed by US drone strikes is a civilian

Raw Story -

The US military has used drones to attack suspected terrorists in Pakistan since at least 2004. Proponents of the small, unmanned planes say they are capable of "surgical strikes" that reduce civilian casualties and effectively combat terrorism.

Is that true? Well, not really, according to a new report from the New America Foundation, a non-profit research institute.

The percentage of civilians killed by drones in Pakistan is at about 32 percent, or one out of three, the report states, and the strikes themselves have little effect in deterring terrorist activities in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. Researchers do not believe any of the reported strikes targeted Osama bin Laden.

An excerpt:

Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 18 in 2010, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 834 and 1,216 individuals, of whom around 549 to 849 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent.

Read all of it.

The Federal Reserve Owns You. Literally

You are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

One of the quotes David Icke uses in his presentations is, If you're fighting the system, you're still trapped by it. Or something to that effect. And this is a fundamental, hidden truth. Do not blame Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, communists, fascists, the Illuminati, the CFR, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, Club of Rome, Algore, Bohemian Club, et al, for the problems of the world today. If you're fighting them, you're in their web. Their power is illusory; it is bestowed upon them by YOU. All we have to do is stand up and refuse to recognize their power, and it ends that very second. This article will help you understand this.

Gary Vey
Mondovista.com -

For a while I have been receiving e-mails from a good friend who has asked me to investigate something weird about the Birth Certificates. He wanted me to take a look at them because they have certain numbers and other things printed on them that need an explanation.

When I looked at my own Birth Certificate, I noticed it was a copy of the original. So I went through old boxes and baby books that my Mom had saved before she died and found what I was looking for -- my original Birth Certificate. It was brittle and yellowed with decades of age but -- wow -- it was NOT the original!

What I have learned since is kind of like discovering that you are part of the Matrix. It seems none of us have our original Birth Certificates -- they are all copies. And the copies have a serial number on them, issued on special Bank Bond paper and authorized by "The American Bank Note Company." Huh?

The truth is stranger than fiction. But here it is:

It seems that back in 1913 the United States was short of cash. World War I had depleted the treasury and there were several really bad financial panics -- in 1907 especially -- so the country needed to print more money than it had as equity to restore confidence in the money supply and get the economy back on its feet.

When you or I need more money, we use something as collateral and go to a bank for a loan. When a country needs more money it has to go somewhere also. But in 1913 there wasn't anywhere to go. So the US created the Federal Reserve Act. This established a private central bank (The Federal Reserve Bank) that would regulate the amount of money the US government was allowed to borrow and put in circulation. It also would expect to be repaid, like any bank, with interest.

After only 20 years things went from bad to worse. During Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency, in 1933, the US was unable to pay its debt. The county was bankrupt. The private banks that made up the Federal Reserve demanded their money and Roosevelt responded. He had to use the only thing left of any value to pay the banks and continue doing business with them -- the citizens of our country. Us!

Exactly how all this was orchestrated is too lengthy to be addressed here, but this much can be told. The original birth or naturalization record for every U.S. Citizen is on file in the official records in Washington, D.C. (you get to keep a copy!) and the property and assets of every living U.S. Citizen is pledged as collateral for the National Debt!

Within two weeks and three days each Certificate of Live Birth is to be filed in Washington D.C. Evidence reveals that there is even a Federal Children Department established by the Shepherd/Townsend Act of 1922 under the Department of Commerce that appears to be involved in this process in some way. Every citizen is given a number (the red number on the Birth Certificate) and each live birth is valued at from 650,000 to 750,000 Federal Reserve dollars in collateral from the Fed.

This kind of makes you feel a little different when you look at Federal Reserve Chairman, Bernanke, doesn't it?

OK. Let's take a pause to look at the Birth Certificates [below]. You will see the red numbers and you will see the fact that it is, in reality, a "Bank Note." Congratulations -- you and I are commodities!



Names in "ALL CAPS" on Birth Certificates

Since the early 1960s, State governments have issued Birth Certificates to "persons" with legal fictional names using "ALL CAPS" names. This is not a lawful record of your physical birth, but rather the acknowledgement of the "birth" of the juristic, all-caps name. It may appear to be your true name, but since no proper name is ever written in all caps (either lawfully or grammatically) it does not identify who you are. The Birth Certificate is the government's self-created document of title for its new property -- you and me! In a way, it makes us a kind of corporation whose company name is the same as our real name, but written in ALL CAPS. This "corporation" then generates taxes and wealth over its lifetime and in this way repays the collateral that Uncle Sam borrowed from the Federal Reserve.

Remember that "Bond" thing printed on the bottom of the certificate?

Bond. I a: A usually formal written agreement by which a person undertakes to perform a certain act (as fulfill the obligations of a contract) . . with the condition that failure to perform or abstain will obligate the person . . to pay a sum of money or will result in the forfeiture of money put up by the person or surety. lb: One who acts as a surety. 2: An interest-bearing document giving evidence of a debt issued by a government body or corporation that is sometimes secured by a lien on property and is often designed to take care of a particular financial need. -- Ibid. -- Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law (1996).

Banknote. A kind of negotiable instrument, a promissory note made by a bank payable to the bearer on demand, used as money, and in many jurisdictions is legal tender. Along with coins, banknotes make up the cash or bearer forms of all modern money.

Birth certificates are a form of securities called "warehouse receipts." The items included on a warehouse receipt, as descried at §7-202 of the Uniform Commercial Code, the law which governs commercial paper and transactions, which parallel a birth certificate are:

• the location of the warehouse where the goods are stored...(residence)
• the date of issue of the receipt.....("Date issued")
• the consecutive number of the receipt...(found on back or front of the certificate, usually in red numbers)
• a description of the goods or of the packages containing them...(name, sex, date of birth, etc.)
• the signature of the warehouseman, which may be made by his authorized agent...(municipal clerk or state registrar's signature)
Birth certificates now appear to at least qualify as "warehouse receipts" under the Uniform Commercial Code. Black's Law Dictionary, 7th ed. defines:

Warehouse Receipt. "...A warehouse receipt, which is considered a document of title, may be a negotiable instrument and is often used for financing with inventory as security."

It is not difficult to see that a state-created Birth Certificate, with an ALL CAPS name is a document evidencing debt the moment it is issued.

Once a state has registered a birth document with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Department notifies the Treasury Department, which takes out a loan from the Federal Reserve. The Treasury uses the loan to purchase a bond (the Fed holds a purchase money security interest in the bond) from the Department of Commerce, which invests the sale proceeds in the stock or bond market. The Treasury Department then issues Treasury securities in the form of Treasury Bonds, Notes, and Bills using the bonds as surety for the new securities.

This cycle is based on the future tax revenues of the legal person whose name appears on the Birth Certificate. This also means that the bankrupt, corporate U.S. can guarantee to the purchasers of their securities the lifetime labor and tax revenues of every citizen of the United States/American with a Birth Certificate as collateral for payment. This device is initiated simply by converting the lawful, true name of the child into a legal, juristic name of a person.

Legally, you are considered to be a slave or indentured servant to the various Federal, State and local governments via your STATE-issued and STATE-created Birth Certificate in the name of your all-caps person. Birth Certificates are issued so that the issuer can claim exclusive title to the legal person created thereby.

Sleep well, fellow slaves.

Banned in 160 Nations, Yet U.S. FDA Regards it as Safe

That the FDA is a front for chemical and pharmaceutical mega-corporations is now well-established. I'm simply trying to push home the point that almost anything non-organic is going to be toxic. In fact, given the influence of Monsanto and Dow, et al, over our health regulatory institutions, including those that set the standards for what is considered "organic", it is becoming increasingly clear that the only way to ensure your food is healthy and non-toxic is to produce your own.

Which is of course why they're attempting to make it illegal to produce your own food.

Mercola.com -

A livestock drug banned in 160 nations and responsible for hyperactivity, muscle breakdown and 10 percent mortality in pigs has been approved by the FDA.

The beta agonist ractopamine, a repartitioning agent that increases protein synthesis, was recruited for livestock use when researchers found the drug, used in asthma, made mice more muscular.

Ractopamine is started as the animal nears slaughter.

How does a drug marked, "Not for use in humans. Individuals with cardiovascular disease should exercise special caution to avoid exposure. Use protective clothing, impervious gloves, protective eye wear, and a NIOSH-approved dust mask" become "safe" in human food? With no washout period?

The drug is banned in Europe, Taiwan and China, and more than 1,700 people have been "poisoned" from eating pigs fed the drug since 1998, but ractopamine is used in 45 percent of U.S. pigs and 30 percent of ration-fed cattle.

Sources:

AlterNet February 2, 2010

Read all of it.

Christmas Day terror plot plane would have landed safely even if 'underpants' bomb had blown up

This is obvious, since we know government agents were on board the plane - one of them was videotaping Abdulmutallab the entire flight. But this won't stop the government and its controlled media from using this obvious false flag to frighten us into added intrusive "security" measures that only serve to debase and humiliate us and remind us of our servitude.

Daily Mail -

A bomb on board a U.S. Christmas Day flight would have failed to bring the plane down even if it had been detonated successfully, a new test explosion suggests.

A controlled blast on a Boeing 747, using the same explosives that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of smuggling on board, failed to burst the fuselage.

It means, had the bomb exploded on December 25, Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit would have successfully landed.

Read all of it.

Food Security Threat: Goverment Set to Ban Public Fishing, Individual Food Production

Get your heirloom seeds now, and, from the look of it, stock up on fishing supplies and, most importantly, guns and ammo. No government worth its salt can allow people to figure out that they can sustain themselves without the State. You must be helpless, you must be dependent, so that you will not bite the hand that feeds you, or if you do, they can simply cut you off.

You would think that, with exploding, out of control deficits, runaway spending and impending inflation, government would encourage its citizens to ween themselves off the teat. But, again, if you figured that out, what use is there for government? Why pay taxes so the government can (theoretically) do for you what you're perfectly capable of doing for yourself? In reality, you must be made to fear what life would be like without government, so you can continue to willingly be robbed; so you'll demand promises of your government they have no intention of keeping. The more dependent you are, the more they control you. It's as simple as that. And this, in a nutshell, is Agenda 21.

Mac Slavo
Infowars -

In yet another example of government overstepping its bounds, the Obama administration is preparing to ban fishing in coastal areas around the country, as well as the Great Lakes and other inland water resources:

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is “fluid” and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

That’s a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.

“When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario,” said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.

“Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard working American families and small businesses are being ignored.

“In spite of what we hear daily in the press about the President’s concern for jobs and the economy and contrary to what he stated in the June order creating this process, we have seen no evidence from NOAA or the task force that recreational fishing and related jobs are receiving any priority.”

Banning “recreational” fishing isn’t just an issue of economics, but is a threat to the personal liberty of each individual’s right to produce their own food. And banning fishing is just one of several policy changes the government is looking at.

Read all of it.

Dissenters To Be Detained As “Enemy Belligerents”?

Anyone paying attention knew this type of legislation was coming. The Patriot Act, the MIAC Report, various leaked DHS documents, and the de facto authority on domestic extremism, the Southern Poverty Law Center, have all turned your First Amendment rights into terrorism. Don't be afraid to see what you see. This is not America anymore. And all you tea party idiots who think you're for liberty and freedom and yet support the Patriot Act and the DHS, NSA, CIA, and all the intrusive violations of the Constitution these entail, be careful what you wish for. Never bestow to your friends power your enemies will one day inherit. You're all terrorists now too.

New bill allows U.S. citizens to be kidnapped and detained without trial indefinitely based on “suspected activity”



Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, March 8, 2010

Since the establishment media is convinced that tea party members, 9/11 truthers, libertarians, Ron Paul supporters, and basically anyone with a dissenting political opinion is a likely domestic terrorist, they should be celebrating the fact that a new bill would allow the government to detain such people as “enemy belligerents” indefinitely and without trial based on their “suspected activity”.

The “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday with little fanfare, “sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning,” writes the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder.

The full bill can be read here (PDF).

Read all of it.

CBO: Huge deficits to average $1 trillion per year over the next decade

So we're talking about at least a $10T addition to the overall deficit, upwards of $24T by 2020. And that's by the government's own numbers, which are always grossly underestimated. Already the real debt load is at least $78T, and likely far higher.

Let's get real here, guys. A big reason why I don't write much anymore is because all of this is a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I don't believe there is enough time left to awaken people to the coming catastrophe, and there's simply nothing anyone can do to stop it, even if every one of us knew about it and got pissed off as we should be. It's over. They have stabbed us through the heart, and we are bleeding out. If you're reading this, it's unlikely you're reading anything you didn't already know. It is clear from this CBO report that there is no interest in saving this nation from economic collapse; in fact they actually plan on facilitating this collapse. What other conclusion can be drawn from the plainly obvious: that they plan on dumping at least $1T per year onto an already unsustainable debt load?

I guess part of me wants to believe that somehow things will magically return to "normal" - as if things have ever been "normal" in any of our lifetimes: we've just been conditioned to think that hell is paradise, as Hitler once bragged could be done. Or perhaps I'm just dead-wrong about all of this; perhaps America somehow is immune to the laws of economics, and she can print money and spend beyond her means ad-infinitum. So I'll continue to spread what I feel are relevant stories and issues. But don't wait around for the world to correct itself. Get off your computer and prepare yourself and your family to thrive while others suffer.

The Hill -

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said President Barack Obama's budget would lead to annual deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion for the next decade.

The estimates are for larger deficits than the budget shortfalls expected by the White House.

Read all of it.

Birth defects rise reported by Fallujah doctors

Unfortunately you will rarely/never see this story reported in American media, because they're either cowards or they're warmongers - but I repeat myself. Take this story and show it to anyone who will watch it. Make them see the horror inflicted by the wars they blinded support and fund with their tax dollars. The establishment doesn't want you to see this, because if you witnessed the human toll of war you might just be shaken morally by it. If you have any humanity in you at all it's impossible not to be.

BBC -

Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.

The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents.

Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe.

BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson visited a new, US-funded hospital in Fallujah where paediatrician Samira al-Ani told him that she was seeing as many as two or three cases a day, mainly cardiac defects.

Ron Paul: Another Crisis is Coming

It's amazing to me that just two years ago this type of talk of catastrophe by Ron Paul and people like Peter Schiff were, literally, laughed at by these same people. Now watch these two prostrate themselves before Ron Paul's economic predictions. They've been true, they'll still be true, because it doesn't take a doctorate in economics to understand economics. Listen to what he says here, and take it seriously.

MSNBC shills for Southern Poverty Law Center: Patriotism = hate

Who are these quacks, and why do people care what they have to say? Regardless, when they say you're a hate group, the media will parrot it, and suddenly, even if you're totally peaceful, like the John Birch Society, or Oathkeepers, or WeAreChange, you're a hate group. Of course, King George III said the same thing about Jefferson and Madison, but lest you forget, this isn't America anymore.

House Panel Says Armenian Deaths Were Genocide

This isn't really of any importance in the grand scheme of things, but it is a subject I've studied a great deal. It was in fact a genocide, but it's far worse than even the House resolution would admit, as it started many decades before and did not end in 1915. Turkey is not happy about it, but that is because they are guilty. Rather than admit their crimes and atone for them, the continue their denials. What's worse is, we continue to call them our "ally", and we were quite complicit in much of the slaughter they engaged in, which I document in lengthy yet inadequate detail.

New York Times -

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted narrowly on Thursday to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians early in the last century, defying a last-minute plea from the Obama administration to forgo a vote that seemed sure to offend Turkey and jeopardize delicate efforts at Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.

The vote on the nonbinding resolution, a perennial point of friction addressing a dark, century-old chapter of Turkish history, was 23 to 22. A similar resolution passed by a slightly wider margin in 2007, but the Bush administration, fearful of losing Turkish cooperation over Iraq, lobbied forcefully to keep it from reaching the House floor. Whether this resolution will reach a floor vote remains unclear.

Afghan survivors: Women waved scarves to try to stop NATO air attack

Winning hearts and minds, the hard way. I probably say this once a month at least but whatever: when the family members and friends of the victims, if they weren't already fighting this vicious occupation, take up arms against us, well they'll just be terrorists too. They were terrorists before their families and friends were slaughtered, they were terrorists after. In fact, all terrorists are born terrorists, so if we end up making terrorists out of the whole Muslim world, by our acts of barbarism, by our eternally polluting their lands with radioactive waste that deforms their children, then that must mean that all Muslims really are terrorists.

Miami Herald -

The military helicopters swooped in from behind the three-vehicle convoy as it wound through a remote road in southern Afghanistan, and survivors of last week's deadly attack said they had no idea they were in danger until the lead four-wheel drive vehicle exploded.

After seeing the gruesome aftermath of that rocket strike, survivors of the NATO attack told McClatchy Newspapers, women jumped from the second car and frantically waved their head scarves to try to stop the attack.

A two-star American general is in southern Afghanistan investigating the Feb. 21 strike, which killed 21 Afghans in Daykundi province and quickly prompted U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal to deliver a videotaped apology.

Survivors said they want more than that, however.

"What do we do with his apology?" said Hussain Dilbarian, a 20-year-old survivor of the strike. "It doesn't make any difference. The killers should be handed over to us. We don't want anything else."

Read all of it.

Louisiana sheriff trains volunteers for 'Project Exodus' to combat terrorism

I don't know about you, but back when I was a plugged-in, frothing at the mouth neocon, I often thought that, if I were a deranged Muslim jihadist, the first place I would target would be...northwest Louisiana.

USA Today -

A Louisiana sheriff has begun training 200 local volunteers in basic hand-to-hand combat techniques as part of Project Exodus aimed at protecting the northwestern corner of the state from the danger of terrorists, the Shreveport Times reports.
[...]
Doyle Dempsey, chief deputy for support services, says in the training video that if the project is successful "we will be ahead of the curve when it comes to fighting Islamic extremists."

The volunteers will be equipped with shotguns, riot shields and batons, the newspaper says. A .50-caliber machine gun will be mounted on what the sheriff's office calls "the war wagon."

Five of the 200 volunteers are black, the Times says. Women will be used only in a "support role," Deen says, indicating non-combat activity.

Read all of it.