Bush: 'Iraq withdrawal may spark 9/11 repeat'President George W Bush used the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war yesterday to warn that US withdrawal would unleash a "contagion of violence" that could spark a repeat of the September 11 attacks.
Although he conceded that there would be "bad days ahead", he insisted that there had been "good progress" in Iraq and there were "hopeful signs" that the influx of 30,000 additional troops would stabilise Baghdad.
The bullish self-confidence of 2003 was ab... (more) 
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"300 is the most blatant brainwashing pro-war propaganda I have seen in many years."Tonight I saw the movie 300. The Internet is abuzz with the suggestion that 300 may be veiled war propaganda. Veiled? Hardly. 300 is the most blatant brainwashing pro-war propaganda I have seen in many years. It's the kind of film Leni Riefenstahl would be proud of.
Leni Riefenstahl produced propaganda films for the Nazis. Like 300, Riefenstahl's movies dazzled with their visual finesse ... (more) Related: Operation Hollywood: "You must glorify war in order to get the public to accept the fact that your going to send their sons and daughters to die." |
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Full-Mental Nudity: The Arrival Of Mind-Reading MachinesYears ago, Woody Allen used to joke that he'd been thrown out of college as a freshman for cheating on his metaphysics final. "I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me," he confessed.
Today, the joke is on us. Cameras follow your car, GPS tracks your cell phone, software monitors your Web surfing, X-rays explore your purse, and airport scanners see through your clothes. Now comes the final indignity: machines that look into your soul.
With the aid of f... (more)
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Duke Patents Mind-Controlled WeaponsWork on Brain-Machine Interface (think monkey controlling a joystick with its thoughts) is old news, but a patent granted earlier this month underscores research... (more)
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Blair is on a mission from God, says diplomat's wife When Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, published his memoirs DC Confidential 18 months ago, Tony Blair reportedly called him "a complete prick".
A turnaround: in 1997, No 10 sent Meyer to the US with instructions to "get up the arse of the White House and stay there". And for the most part, the ex-diplomat's book protected Blair's reputation: although the PM had little appetite for detail, he said, and a penchant for "ball-crushingly ti... (more) "Blair started talking about getting rid of Saddam Hussein way before September 11 ... in 1998." |
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Blair did secret deal with SaudisBRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair struck a secret deal with the king of Saudi Arabia, assuring him there would be no criminal charges against anyone implicated in bribery in Britain's biggest arms deal.
In July 2005, Mr Blair assured the then crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, who is now the Saudi King, that Britain would abandon an inquiry by the Serious Fraud Office into alleged massive corruption.
It concerned a £60 million ($146 million) "slush fund" a... (more)
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'I've Got Nothing to Lose'Robert Lady, the former CIA chief in Milan, has gone into hiding. He is the subject of an extradition order from Italian authorities for the role he played in the kidnapping of radical Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan. Washington is seeking to derail the trial -- perhaps because Condoleezza Rice may have given the operation the green light.
Robert Seldon Lady has reason for hope again. Maybe he will see farm again -- nestled as it is in the soft hills of Penango, a small town in no... (more)
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Now a council uses cameras in bean tins to catch bin 'criminals' A local council is to use hidden cameras to catch residents who leave rubbish out on the wrong day.
CCTV devices will be disguised inside objects such as baked bean cans and house bricks to film offenders.
The covert surveillance has been ordered by Ealing council to target "enviro-criminals" - those who leave out black bags when they should not or let the contents spill on to the pavement. Offenders can be issued with on... (more)
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Australian detainee writes of beatings at Guantanamo LONDON: The first Guantánamo detainee to be formally charged under the new military commission rules, David Hicks, has alleged in a court document filed here that during nearly five years in American custody he has been frequently beaten during interrogations, and that as a result he "cooperated" with his interrogators.
The document said that beatings and other abuse included being thrown on the ground along with other detainees and w... (more)
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The Torture in Egypt: "In the End I Would Have Confessed to Anything"Abu Omar was tortured in Egypt for months. He has finally been released after four years, a broken man.
"After I rejected their offer to work as an informer for them, I was treated like dirt in the prison in Egypt. In the first few months I was locked in a solitary cell and had no contact with lawyers or my family. I was totally shut off from the outside world. Every couple of days I got taken to be interrogated. Egypt's government did what it always does: carry out Washington's o... (more)
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British Lords applaud Chinese on civil liberties The UK government faced questions on school fingerprinting in the House of Lords yesterday, led by the accusation that they had a worse track record on civil liberties in this regard than the Chinese.
Baroness Joan Walmsley, Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, said the government should look at the Chinese example
"The practice of fingerprinting in schools has been banned in China as being too intrusive and an infringemen... (more)
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'Yahoo Betrayed My Husband'FAIRFAX, Virginia -- Early one Sunday morning in 2002, a phone rings in Yu Ling's Beijing duplex. She's cleaning upstairs; her son is asleep, while downstairs, her husband, Wang Xiaoning, is on the computer. Wang writes about politics, anonymously e-mailing his online e-journals to a group of Yahoo users. He's been having problems with his Yahoo service recently. He thinks it's a technical issue. This is the day he learns he's wrong.
Wang picks up the phone: "Yes?"
... (more)
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China jails writer for six years A Chinese writer who published essays questioning the Beijing regime online has been sentenced to six years imprisonment.
Zhang Jianhong, who wrote under the pen name Li Hong, was arrested and charged with "incitement to subvert state power" last September in a crackdown on cyber-dissidents. The punishment was handed down on Monday by a court in Ningbo, in the eastern province of Zhejiang.
Zhang, 48, was founder and editor-in-chief of Chinese la... (more)
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Pet food recall: What’s your cat eating? Detecting corporate media bias often requires us to discern omissions. For example, consider how the recent pet food recall was reported. Los Angeles Times staff writer Kimi Yoshino penned an article (“Recall of pet food alarms owners”) on March 19 that was widely syndicated.
In the piece (which was consistent with almost all corporate media accounts), readers learned what brands were in question, how many animals had been affected, and (of course) that the compan... (more)
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Community Suggests Gun Possession Is Illegal For ResidentsANTIOCH, Tenn.- Some people in a Nashville neighborhood are furious over a new rule that makes it illegal to own a gun.
Residents in Nashboro Village said it's unconstitutional and leaves them defenseless.
Two weeks ago, residents received a letter from their homeowners' association indicating that guns are not allowed on the property.
"It thought it was ironic that they say you can't have something when the United States government says you can," sa... (more)
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Iran says to sell oil in 'every currency' Iran's Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh has said that the Islamic Republic will sell its oil in all currencies.
"Our oil sales will be in every currency," Dow Jones reported Hamaneh as saying on the sidelines of an OPEC meeting in Vienna on Thursday.
Iran has already said it will carry out all its oil-industry related equipment purchases in euros instead of dollars and previously said it has informed its oil buyers that they should pay Iran in euros for the crude o... (more)
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Erasing the Pain of the Past March 20, 2007 - "I'd take it in a second," said Sgt. Michael Walcott, an Iraq War veteran, referring to an experimental drug with the potential to target and erase traumatic memories.
Walcott, who served in a Balad-based transportation unit that regularly took mortar fire, now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Since returning to the United States two years ago, he has been on antidepressants and in group therapy as he tries to put his life back together and heal from t... (more)
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No HPD officer ever disciplined for Taser useMore than two dozen Houston police officers have shocked five or more people with Tasers — including two officers who have used the weapon at least 10 times — though none of those officers has faced disciplinary action for using the stun gun unjustifiably, according to a Houston Chronicle review.
In fact, no officer has ever been reprimanded for discharging the 50,000-volt Taser at a suspect, even though many of the suspects were never charged with a crime, according t... (more)
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It’s STILL The Oil: Secret Condi Meeting on Oil Before InvasionFour years ago this week, the tanks rolled for what President Bush originally called, “Operation Iraqi Liberation” — O.I.L.
I kid you not.
And it was four years ago that, from the White House, George Bush, declaring war, said, “I ... (more)
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KSM "Confessed" To Targeting Bank Founded After His ArrestKhalid Shaikh Mohammed's alleged confession testimony has been thoroughly discredited after it emerged that one of the targets he identified, the Plaza Bank, was not founded until 2006, four years after the alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind's arrest.
In his confession, KSM claims, "I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing for the New (or Second) Wave of attacks against the following skyscrapers after 9/11: ...Plaza ... (more)
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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Confesses: “I Killed Jesus!”Faux Fair-and-Balanced News Flash:
The confessed “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks—“from A to Zed”—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) has now confessed to scores of other crimes committed over the past two millennia.
Appearing distraught, head bloody and bowed, wearing the same t-shirt he has worn since his capture in Pakistan four years ago, with disgusting back and body hair even more unkempt than before, KSM’s new confessions ha... (more)
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Killing two birds with one Mohammed Alas, Khalid Sheik Mohammed has confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks at a Guantanamo Bay military hearing. He also took the rap for masterminding more than two dozen other terrorist acts around the world and the murder of reporter Daniel Pearl. As the Pentagon release reported, he said “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z.” So there you have it. It’s a wrap. And who needs to catch Osama Been Forgotten? Rip up the wanted posters... (more)
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