Friday, October 31, 2014

War is A Lot Scarier Than Halloween



http://progressivepress.com/peaceweek.html

On a lighter note, here is a 9/11 was an inside job Monster Mash parody song produced for the "Stew's Conspiracy Funhouse" podcast, as well as an interactive zombie film, both made by blog contributor Stewart Bradley. The film features yours truly as one of the undead. I'm the one who smacks his head off a metal car wash dryer in the bloopers at the end.

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Latest News From SpookyWeather.BlogSpot.com

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We Are The Terrorists - U.S. Military Officers for 9/11 Truth

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Thursday, October 30, 2014

KBR Iraq Fraud Case Gets to Supreme Court

Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court

Our Tabke Box
Robert MacLean isn’t the only reason the Project On Government Oversight is closely watching the Supreme Court this term. (MacLean’s oral argument is on Tuesday, November 4.) Another case on the Court’s calendar has major implications for federal whistleblowers and the ability of the government to recover defrauded funds—a nearly nine-year-old False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit accusing Halliburton and KBR of defrauding the government and endangering the health of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Benjamin Carter, who worked for KBR (then a subsidiary of Halliburton) in Iraq in 2005, claims the company falsely billed the government by instructing employees to submit timesheets showing they worked 12-hour days on water testing and purification services when no such work had been done. As a result, he contends, troops and other personnel were exposed to contaminated potable and non-potable water.

Carter made news when he testified before Congress about his experiences in Iraq. “Our men and women overseas deserve the best our taxpayer dollars can buy, and it saddens me to report that we’re falling short on something as simple and essential as providing them with clean, safe water,” he told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee at a January 2006 hearing.

Carter’s lawsuit, originally filed in 2006, kept getting dismissed for procedural reasons. Finally, in March 2013, a federal appeals court ruled the case could go forward, setting up the Supreme Court showdown. The specific issues the Supreme Court will decide are: Whether Carter filed his lawsuit within the legally mandated time limit, and whether his lawsuit is barred because another lawsuit making similar allegations had been filed earlier.

The latter issue involves the FCA’s first-to-file rule, which bars lawsuits that raise the same facts as a previously filed lawsuit. The rule is intended to encourage whistleblowers to promptly alert the government of wrongdoing and to discourage the filing of meritless, copycat lawsuits. A few weeks before Carter filed his lawsuit, another former KBR employee who worked in Iraq, Todd Thorpe, filed a lawsuit alleging employees at other bases performing different services were similarly instructed to bill the government for 12-hour days regardless of the actual number of hours they worked. Thorpe’s lawsuit was dismissed in 2010 before the court could rule on the merits. Nonetheless, KBR and Halliburton would like the Court to broadly interpret the first-to-file rule so that Thorpe’s lawsuit bars later actions filed by Carter, Peter Duprey, and others alleging timecard fraud by KBR or Halliburton.

The Carter, Thorpe, and Duprey cases involve the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) III support services contract, about which POGO has written extensively over the years. The far-reaching LOGCAP III contract has been mired in controversy ever since it was awarded to KBR in December 2001. At the time, it was pointed out that KBR/Halliburton’s former chairman and CEO was Vice President Dick Cheney. Since then, there have been repeated allegations of fraud, waste, or abuse on the LOGCAP III, on which the government has spent $38 billion.

Not under consideration by the Supreme Court, but an issue worthy of discussion, is government intervention in FCA lawsuits. The government declined to intervene in the Carter, Thorpe, and Duprey lawsuits. Government intervention in FCA cases means a smaller monetary recovery for the plaintiff whistleblower, but it also greatly increases the government’s ability to hold contractors accountable.

Furthermore, the law states that lawsuits must remain under seal (not publicly disclosed) “for at least 60 days” while the government decides whether to intervene, but in practice it usually takes longer—much longer in some cases. For Thorpe and Duprey, it was more than four years after they filed their lawsuits when the government notified them it would not intervene. Incredibly, the government informed Duprey that, after all that time, it had not completed its investigation into his claims and thus was “not able to make a fully informed decision regarding intervention.”
While sealing and delays are often necessary, at a certain point these measures become an unnecessary restriction on the public’s right to know about potential health or safety threats—like the water contamination problem Carter alleges in his lawsuit. POGO also worries about the effect these measures have on the continued viability of the False Claims Act, which is already under unrelenting attack from the business community. As of January 2011, more than 1,300 False Claims Act lawsuits were stuck in legal limbo awaiting the government’s intervention decision. (The Justice Department has not yet responded to POGO’s request for more recent False Claims Act/qui tam lawsuit statistics.)

Even though it declined to intervene in his case, the government has assisted Carter in the form of two amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs submitted to the Supreme Court by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. Back in May, Verrilli urged the Court to reject KBR and Halliburton’s appeal. Last week, he petitioned the Court to uphold the appellate court’s ruling and allow Carter’s lawsuit to proceed. Verrilli also requested to take ten minutes of Carter’s time at oral argument, scheduled for January 2015.

For the better part of a decade, Ben Carter has been trying to get the merits of his case before a judge and jury. We hope the Supreme Court finally gives him that chance.

Image from Flickr user Pete Jordan.
By: Neil Gordon
Investigator, POGO
Neil Gordon, Investigator
 Neil Gordon is an investigator for the Project On Government Oversight. Neil investigates and maintains POGO's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database.

http://www.pogo.org/blog/2014/10/20141030-kbr-iraq-fraud-case-gets-to-supreme-court.html
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The WTC Dust Chain of Custody Issue is Nonissue - a Response to Questions About Mark Basile Dust Study



AUGUST 2014 UPDATE - MORE WTC DUST SAMPLES NEEDED: 

http://aneta.org/markbasile_org/study/mark_basile_project_status_august_2014.pdf

Dave Adam All collected samples will be thrown out because of Chain of custody protocol not being followed or verifiable. Anyone can make so-called WTC dust and put whatever iron spheres they want in it. That ship has sailed, no court in this country will simply take a person's word that samples are genuine and unaltered.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/IAmTheFaceofTruth.YourPosts/735022279912448/?notif_t=group_comment_reply

My Reply:

Excerpt from 911research.wtc7.net:

"Provenance of the Samples

The paper's findings are based primarily on the analysis of particles derived from four separate samples of dust generated by the destruction of the Twin Towers, samples whose provenance the paper describes in detail. Each of the samples was collected by a different individual who has described the time, place, and methods of collecting and storing their sample. Each individual collected dust that had settled directly after the fall of one of the Twin Towers, with the one exception, Janette MacKinlay, who collected dust when allowed to re-enter her apartment a week after it was carpeted with shovel-fulls of dust and debris from the South Tower.

http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/explosive_residues.html#provenance

Excerpt from TruthMove.com:

John, the chain of custody issue is cooked up by the debunkers. The handling of the samples was done no differently then typical scientific studies, and much research out there on the dust uses the same methods and no police were involved. The USGS did not have police escorts, the UC Davis researchers did not get dust from the police, etc. That is just not done in scientific studies, which is what this is. In fact, most studies never say anything about how the dust was obtained, only where it was found.

Here's the methods description by the USGS:

Ground sampling consisted of collecting debris from 35 locations in the WTC area, including 33 dust, 2 concrete, and 2 steel beam insulation samples. http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2001/ofr-01-0429/#Introduc...

No one who can replicate the tests has questioned the methodology. Debunkers have made all kinds of claims that are false.

I agree that there should be independent verification, and hopefully there will be. I encourage you to contact the authors and ask them about it, express your concerns so they can respond. I will send you their emails if you like.

http://www.truthmove.org/forum/topic/1757/page/2#post-9605

Quote from Mark Basile from a Video Posted at Debunking the Debunkers:

"I have independently seen thermitic activity within two independent samples of World Trade Center Dust. [...] I would really like to stress that we need a lot more people involved in this work than just the few of us that are doing it right now.

My work with this has brought me to feel that this material is too big of an unanswered question and it really brings us to demand a new investigation. This is hard evidence that can not be refuted.
Anyone can replicate the work that’s been done and confirm that this material is there.

— Mark Basile, chemical engineer"

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2011/05/truth-is-in-details-jon.html

Excerpt from 911research.wtc7.net:

"The three features of the red-gray chips highlighted here -- physical structure, chemical composition, and thermal behavior -- clearly establish that they are aluminothermic nano-composite pyrotechnics: advanced manufactured materials that may only have been invented as recently as the mid-1990s. Any one of these three features taken alone shows that the chips contain an energetic material of some sort having no legitimate place in an office building. Any two of these features establishes that the material is an advanced pyrotechnic. That, combined with the material's abundance -- constituting perhaps 0.05 percent of the mass of the dust and therefore likely tens of tons within the buildings -- is clearly incompatible with prosaic sources, and fully consistent with the observations that the Towers were subjected to controlled demolitions."

Again: "the material's abundance -- constituting perhaps 0.05 percent of the mass of the dust and therefore likely tens of tons within the buildings"...

http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/thermitics_made_simple.html

On top of everything else here and in the below video where Steven Jones discusses chain of custody, tons of material in the dust guarantees it wasn't seeded or from contamination. The only debate is what it is. Judging from the ignition tests that Millette won't run, it looks not to be paint. IMO a grand jury would get to see that type of evidence if we ever get to that point and that is why the Basile study is so important. Here is an action alert page I put together on trying to get a grand jury convened.

http://911truthactivism.blogspot.com/2014/07/informing-federal-or-state-prosecutors.html?q=jury

Excerpt from Debunking the Debunkers Blog Post:

The fact that skeptical scientists have attempted to independently replicate and rebut the findings of Harrit et al means the hypothesis has progressed to the next stage of the scientific process - meaning any criticisms of its initial peer-review are now null and void. For years, debunkers have basically said, "we're going to dismiss this paper because we don't believe it was properly peer-reviewed". But now, this position has been undermined. As I pointed out before, the JREFers' support of Dr Millette's study was an acknowledgement of the nanothermite hypothesis' scientific legitimacy. They can no longer argue on the basis of editorial controversy that the claims of Harrit et al should not be taken seriously, because they DID take them seriously!...

"Chain of Custody!"..

By questioning the chain of custody you are effectively accusing the scientists and the citizens of conspiring to fake evidence by manufacturing high-tech energetic nanocomposites that only a handful of labs in the world can even make and adding them to samples! That sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory to me! And yet you find the idea of the government tampering with evidence ridiculous! Someone get Pat a tin foil hat!

Now that red/gray chips, or at least particles purporting to be them, have been found in professionally collected samples independent of Steven Jones', debunkers can now be assured that these red/gray chips, whatever they are, did not enter Jones' samples via accidental contamination, and were not intentionally added by 9/11 truth activists. So criticisms regarding the collection and chain of custody of Jones' samples are now null and void.

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2012/03/two-criticisms-of-harrit-et-al-paper.html

Physicist Steven Jones - one of the scientists who found thermite
in the World Trade Center dust discusses in depth his process of discovery
using the scientific method. Chain of custody of the WTC dust and nanothermite are discussed in depth.

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Speaking Truth to Truthers




Originally Published Nov 11, 2008

As a wise person put it, the losses are permanent, the victories are only temporary. Each new shock comes before we have recovered from the last one. JFK was assassinated 45 years ago and there is still no closure.

The American people don't want to know the truth and they will not rise up. They are comfortable with genocide. Ask yourself how many dedicated peace activists you know personally who voted for continuing war crimes under the command of Barack Obama.

Many of the Democratic gatekeeper sites urged people to vote for Obama by saying that first we had to elect him and then we could hold his feet to the fire. But they already knew from his FISA vote, his vote to fund the wars, and his bailout vote, that he has asbestos shoes and doesn't care what people say or think. Now they are purging dissidents and saying that nobody should criticize Obama, that we have to accept the "centrism" of Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi, two Democrats who are far to the political right of Bush and Cheney. They never intended to press Obama for peace, they wanted more genocide.

COINTELPRO has had decades to eliminate potential leaders and replace them with government agents and operatives. I don't care how Libertarian, liberal, progressive, or leftist they claim to be, any website that costs more than a thousand dollars a month to run, is part of the government. Activists simply don't have that kind of money. They talk about revolution and withdrawing our consent, but when it comes to election time they all sing the same song--get out and vote and support the system. It doesn't matter who you vote for, as long as the major parties do the nominating and control the electoral system, the military-industrial complex always wins.

It doesn't matter if you voted for Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Barack Obama, or Mickey Mouse, or if you ignored the Presidential race and voted only for local offices and ballot propositions. If you voted, you delegated your power and granted your mandate to a government engaged in wars of aggression and crimes against humanity. You agreed to it. You accepted it. You showed your support for it. You stood up to be counted as another fascist. You may have salved your conscience by promising yourself that you'd go out in the streets and protest the government you'd just voted for, but that's a sure way to lose. Once you've legitimized a government, you've criminalized anyone who protests it, even yourself. Why would you do that? You voted to consent to allow the government to fund and pull off the next 9/11. Why would you do that? You voted against freedom and against truth -- how can you do that and still call yourself a truther?

Every election we're told that this is the most important election. Every election there are emotional issues on the ballot like guns, gays, God, and abortion, deliberately placed on the ballot to get emotional morons to vote for genocide, corporate bailouts, and the NAU. Because whoever or whatever you vote for or against, by voting you are legitimizing fascism and giving it your authority.

But you knew all that, right? You knew it and you voted anyway. Because you really don't care. You don't care about peace, about truth, about anything but yourself, your vote, and your self-righteous hypocrisy. So what if a few million more innocent people die. So what if the world economy is destroyed. So what if we all end up in concentration camps. YOU voted, and that's all that matters to you, right? The consequences aren't your problem because in voting, you delegated all responsibility to somebody else. Anybody else. Whoever the machines said won. That's fine with you and it isn't anybody else's business. How dare anybody try to tell you not to vote for war, not to vote for fascism, not to vote?

Well, I'm telling you. Again. I don't care if the coming economic collapse makes the Great Depression look like Disneyland. I don't care if the government nukes a few U.S. cities and blames it on Iran. I'm telling you to stop being complicit and to stop collaborating. There will be another election and another election. Even in Zimbabwe where conditions are indescribably brutal, there are elections. That's the only way that governments can demonstrate the consent of the governed, whether they get it legitimately or not.

The only proven successful way to delegitimize a government is to boycott its elections. It worked to discredit the Apartheid regime in South Africa. It worked to discredit the Batista regime in Cuba. If you don't vote, the government cannot demonstrate your consent. That's the only reason fascist dictatorships hold elections.

So I'm starting now for 2012. Don't vote. It doesn't matter who the candidates are or what they promise. They are candidates because they believe in the system. Do you believe in the system? Not if you're a truther. You know that the system was reponsible for both 9/11 and the cover-up.

Stop consenting. Stop collaborating. Stop voting.

Truth from Emma Goldman: If elections could change anything, they'd be illegal.

Truth from George Carlin: If you vote, you can't complain.

Truth from me, Mark Smith: If you voted, the blood is on your hands. The next 9/11 is on your hands. I didn't vote for it. You did.

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This blog entry is also posted at GlobalPundit.org.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Less than 1% of Patriot Act’s “Sneak and Peek” Delayed Notice Warrants are Used against Terrorism

 
(photo: Getty Images)

Federal law enforcement has increasingly used a key provision of the Patriot Act (pdf) to pry into people’s lives without having to tell them. This practice has been justified under the guise of counterterrorism, but government statistics show that less than 1% of all “sneak and peek” actions involve suspected terrorists.

Under section 213 of the Patriot Act, law enforcement agencies can carry out sneak-and-peek warrants, which allow agents to “secretly enter, either physically or virtually; conduct a search, observe, take measurements, conduct examinations, smell, take pictures, copy documents, download or transmit computer files, and the like; and depart without taking any tangible evidence or leaving notice of their presence.” Suspects can be informed of the search later.

The provision was added to the Patriot Act because, the FBI claimed, it was important not to tip off terrorism suspects during cases.

But the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) found after reviewing reports released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts that only 51 sneak-and-peek requests during 2013 were for terrorism out of 11,129 total requests that year. The biggest reason for the warrants was to investigate drug crimes (9,401 requests), EFF reported.

 “The numbers vindicate privacy advocates who urged Congress to shelve Section 213 during the Patriot Act debates,” Mark Jaycox at EFF wrote. “Proponents of Section 213 claimed sneak and peek warrants were needed to protect against terrorism. But just like we’ve seen elsewhere, these claims are false.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff

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Petition: U.S. Sends Planes Armed with Depleted Uranium to Middle East

Sign the petition this week before it's delivered!

By David Swanson

http://warisacrime.org/content/us-sends-planes-armed-depleted-uranium-middle-east


The U.S. Air Force says it is not halting its use of Depleted Uranium weapons, has recently sent them to the Middle East, and is prepared to use them.

A type of airplane, the A-10, deployed this month to the Middle East by the U.S. Air National Guard's 122nd Fighter Wing, is responsible for more Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination than any other platform, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). "Weight for weight and by number of rounds more 30mm PGU-14B ammo has been used than any other round," said ICBUW coordinator Doug Weir, referring to ammunition used by A-10s, as compared to DU ammunition used by tanks.

Public affairs superintendent Master Sgt. Darin L. Hubble of the 122nd Fighter Wing told me that the A-10s now in the Middle East along with "300 of our finest airmen" have been sent there on a deployment planned for the past two years and have not been assigned to take part in the current fighting in Iraq or Syria, but "that could change at any moment."

The crews will load PGU-14 depleted uranium rounds into their 30mm Gatling cannons and use them as needed, said Hubble. "If the need is to explode something -- for example a tank -- they will be used."

Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright told me, "There is no prohibition against the use of Depleted Uranium rounds, and the [U.S. military] does make use of them. The use of DU in armor-piercing munitions allows enemy tanks to be more easily destroyed."

On Thursday, several nations, including Iraq, spoke to the United Nations First Committee, against the use of Depleted Uranium and in support of studying and mitigating the damage in already contaminated areas. A non-binding resolution is expected to be voted on by the Committee this week, urging nations that have used DU to provide information on locations targeted. A number of organizations are delivering a petition to U.S. officials this week urging them not to oppose the resolution.

Sign the petition this week before it's delivered!

In 2012 a resolution on DU was supported by 155 nations and opposed by just the UK, U.S., France, and Israel. Several nations have banned DU, and in June Iraq proposed a global treaty banning it -- a step also supported by the European and Latin American Parliaments.

Wright said that the U.S. military is "addressing concerns on the use of DU by investigating other types of materials for possible use in munitions, but with some mixed results. Tungsten has some limitations in its functionality in armor-piercing munitions, as well as some health concerns based on the results of animal research on some tungsten-containing alloys. Research is continuing in this area to find an alternative to DU that is more readily accepted by the public, and also performs satisfactorily in munitions."

"I fear DU is this generation's Agent Orange," U.S. Congressman Jim McDermott told me. "There has been a sizable increase in childhood leukemia and birth defects in Iraq since the Gulf War and our subsequent invasion in 2003. DU munitions were used in both those conflicts. There are also grave suggestions that DU weapons have caused serious health issues for our Iraq War veterans. I seriously question the use of these weapons until the U.S. military conducts a full investigation into the effect of DU weapon residue on human beings."

Doug Weir of ICBUW said renewed use of DU in Iraq would be "a propaganda coup for ISIS." His and other organizations opposed to DU are guardedly watching a possible U.S. shift away from DU, which the U.S. military said it did not use in Libya in 2011. Master Sgt. Hubble of the 122nd Fighter Wing believes that was simply a tactical decision. But public pressure had been brought to bear by activists and allied nations' parliaments, and by a UK commitment not to use DU.

DU is classed as a Group 1 Carcinogen by the World Health Organization, and evidence of health damage produced by its use is extensive. The damage is compounded, Jeena Shah at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) told me, when the nation that uses DU refuses to identify locations targeted. Contamination enters soil and water. Contaminated scrap metal is used in factories or made into cooking pots or played with by children.

CCR and Iraq Veterans Against the War have filed a Freedom of Information Act Request in an attempt to learn the locations targeted in Iraq during and after the 1991 and 2003 assaults. The UK and the Netherlands have revealed targeted locations, Shah pointed out, as did NATO following DU use in the Balkans. And the United States has revealed locations it targeted with cluster munitions. So why not now?

"For years," Shah said, "the U.S. has denied a relationship between DU and health problems in civilians and veterans. Studies of UK veterans are highly suggestive of a connection. The U.S. doesn't want studies done." In addition, the United States has used DU in civilian areas and identifying those locations could suggest violations of Geneva Conventions.

Iraqi doctors will be testifying on the damage done by DU before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commissionin Washington, D.C., in December.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration said on Thursday that it will be spending $1.6 million to try to identify atrocities committed in Iraq . . . by ISIS.

Sign the petition this week before it's delivered!

Sign up for articles or press releases here http://davidswanson.org/lists

This email may be unlawfully collected, held, and read by the NSA which violates our freedoms using the justification of immoral, illegal wars absurdly described as being somehow for freedom.
Sign up for these emails at http://davidswanson.org/signup.

Related:
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Anti-war remembrance

 

If you want a 9/11 truth photo of yourself like this submit your photo here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/911AwarenessProfilePics/

If you want a white peace poppy flower added to your picture like I did just ask Claudio Marty to doctor you one up and submit the finished product to these organizations:

http://stopwar.org.uk/resources/white-poppy
https://www.facebook.com/nogloryinwar

9-11 Truth for Peace

http://911truthactivism.blogspot.com/2014/06/9-11-truth-for-peace.html


Stop the War Coalition

Anti-war remembrance

This year it looks as if remembrance day on November 9 will be more of a gala to celebrate militarism than a serious attempt to honour the dead and take stock of the damage done by WW1. As Lindsey German outlines, the red poppy has become appropriated by an establishment keen to create the atmosphere in which it can pursue current wars more freely.

On Saturday Stop the War co-hosted with No Glory an excellent One Hundred Years of War conference which aimed to be a counterblast to attempts to rehabilitate WW1 as a necessary war. Videos of key sessions will be on the website soon.

In the meantime we are asking all our supporters to do everything possible to promote the anti-war message in the run up to Remembrance Day.
Please send reports of all activity and event listings to the website.

Coming up:
Gentle Men - For No Glory
Thursday 27 November 7.30pm
St Giles-in-the-Fields • London WC2H 8LG

Songwriter Robb Johnson performs his acclaimed song cycle Gentle Men, telling the stories of Robb's grandfathers Ernest Johnson and Harry Jenner - who survived the First World War but were forever in its shadow.

Book online
Stop the War Coalition | office@stopwar.org.uk | 020 7561 4830
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Monday, October 27, 2014

Russell Brand is a 9/11 Truther

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Sunday, October 26, 2014

ReThink911 International Petition - Care2 News Network

http://www.care2.com/news/member/190515474/3816690


ReThink911 International Petition - Care2 News Network
The ReThink911 International Petition is open to all citizens worldwide. When this petition reaches one million signatories, it will be delivered to the Head of State of every nation that had citizens who died in the attacks on September 11, 2001.
care2.com
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Wake Up To The Truth Radio



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Lars Schall and Paul Zarembka Dissect the 9/11 Insider Trading - Debunking 911myths.com on Insider Trading



Economics Professor Paul Zarembka, has written in the past that the work of Mike Williams at the debunking site 911myths.com had caused him "to reconsider [his] prior conclusion of high probability of insider trading in put options" for American and United airlines stocks. I have previously stated that I believe the insider trading issue had been effectively debunked.

In this recent interview Zarembka cites new evidence that brings him and myself back to his original conclusion.

Evidence of Insider Trading before September 11th Re-examined

by Paul Zarembka Department of Economics State University of New York at Buffalo September 9, 2011

Excerpts:
Evidence of Insider Trading before September 11th Re-examined - See more at: http://ithp.org/articles/septemberinsidertrading.html#sthash.pnCc5e74.dpuf
Two Caveats

Let me put one consideration to rest. Some critics of the 9/11 truth movement, such as Kay (2011), claim that the entire movement is filled with people who go down a rabbit hole, never willing to leave it. In this case, the suggested claim could be that Sarnoff himself should be added to a conspiracy about 9/11, added as soon as the government released in January 2009 its evidence as to who made what recommendation and with what effect regarding American on September 10. Such an approach would address the contradiction we have identified. But it would be at the expense of having no evidence for such an assertion.

We wish to stay with evidence, evidence from the econometricians, the government, and anywhere else obtainable. In other words, we wish to push into the contradiction. ''' Regarding evidence we have to be careful. For Boeing, Mike Williams, seeking to expose myths among skeptics of the official story of September 11th,, cites a Dutch article of September 11, 2006 placed on the site physics911.net (www.911myths.com/index.php/Put_Options#Boeing, accessed August 4, 2011). This article had made only a tangential mention to this airline manufacturer, thus representing no more the proverbial “straw man” – a data source is not even provided. Williams then provides a news report referring to one analyst’s public downgrading of Boeing on September 7th, apparently being unaware that put-options purchases cited by Poteshman were on United occurred on September 6th (as well as in Chesney as we shall see below).4 

Among known skeptics of the official 9/11 story, discussion of option transactions at a site hosted by Jim Hoffman (http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/stockputs.html, accessed August 4, 2011) is embarrassingly out of date, mostly refers to 2001 stories, even though claiming an August 2007 update. Kevin Ryan (2010), followed by Mark Gaffney (2011) whose book Black 9/11 is due for release shortly, each attempt a recent survey, but seem unaware of the Commission documentation on insider trading released in January 2009...

– www.911myths.com/index.php/Put_Options#Options_Hotline , accessed 719/2011

4 Within the same discussion, Williams cites many reports of put-option volumes without those using accurate data. Some reported data are about double the actual levels, presumably due to author errors in understanding Optionmetric data which considers the buy and sell sides of one transaction to be distinct. If one is going to criticize, focusing upon those arguing for insider trading using correct data to make their cases seems preferable.

“The main motivation for considering increments in open interests is the following. Large volumes do not necessarily imply that large buy orders are executed because the same put option could be traded several times during the day. In contrast large increments in open interest are originated by large buy orders. These increments also imply that other long investors are unwilling to close their positions forcing the market maker to issue new put options.” (Chesney, et al., pp. 8-9)

In order to abstract from intraday speculation, they compare daily changes in open interest to the reported volumes of transactions (the difference between the two should be small). In other words, purchases are to dominant, with sales or exercises of options small.

This calculation could seem to suggest 103 times in eight and one-quarter years beginning in January 1998. But a stock like AMR stock price fell considerably from April 2002 to a low of $1.25 within one year thereafter implying much higher volumes then required for similar dollar option positions.

Actually, AMR closed at $17.90 on both September 21 and 27 before the October 20 option expiration; the $18.00 on September 17 was not quite the lowest. However, presumably the option price was the highest on September 17.

Let Gt be the cumulative gains achieved through the exercises of the selected option in the shortest time available from the day of the calculated maximum up to ten trading days thereafter. Chesney’s third criterion is then offered as a pair of conditions for the option trade in question, that is,

rtmax ≥ q0.90(rtmax)

and

Gt ≥ q0.98(Gt).

The quantiles at day t for the rtmax and Gt distributions – q0.90(rtmax ) and q0.98(Gt) – are computed using the preceding two years of data. These criteria are the quantiles for the top 10% of initial profiting and top 2% of total gains. - See more at: http://ithp.org/articles/septemberinsidertrading.html#sthash.pnCc5e74.dpuf
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Airport security ignored pre-9/11 warnings on hijackers: secret docs



At least three eyewitnesses spotted al Qaeda hijackers casing the security checkpoints at Boston’s Logan Airport months before the 9/11 attacks. They saw something and said something — but were ignored, newly unveiled court papers reveal.

One of the witnesses, an American Airlines official, actually confronted hijacking ringleader Mohamed Atta after watching him videotape and test a security checkpoint in May 2001 — four months before he boarded the American Airlines flight that crashed into the World Trade Center.

The witness alerted security, but authorities never questioned the belligerent Egyptian national or flagged him as a threat.

“I’m convinced that had action been taken after the sighting of Atta, the 9/11 attacks, at least at Logan, could have been deterred,” said Brian Sullivan, a former FAA special agent who at the time warned of holes in security at the airport.

The three Boston witnesses were never publicly revealed, even though they were interviewed by the FBI and found to be credible. Their names didn’t even appear as footnotes in the 9/11 Commission Report.

But what they testified to seeing — only revealed now as part of the discovery in a settled 9/11 wrongful-death suit against the airlines and the government — can only be described as chilling.

Related:

911truth.org: Airport Security Ignored pre-911 Warnings on Hijackers
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Saturday, October 25, 2014

Misleading Material in "What Makes the Middle East a Witch's Brew" - A letter to ABC Online News

Readers of Debunking the Debunkers should consider sending the occassional letter to their public broadcasters, in this case ABC News (Australia) online, in order to provide pressure to get them to 'tell the truth'. Public pressure forced CSPAN to interview Richard Gage from Architechs and Engineers for 911 Truth. The following letter attempts to undermine a war facilitating webpage. Even if your letter is short, it will help. Someone will read the content, and perhaps change their mind.


LETTER:

Hello [XXXXXXX],

I just went through your article titled "Explained: What Makes the Middle East a Witch's Brew" and noted a number of very significant omissions to the narrative such that it effectively misleads your audience when it comes to helping them "understand what is happening in Iraq and Syria."

The biggest overarching omission is that you neglected to explain that the conflict in Syria, that has helped fuel the fighting in Iraq, is essentially a PROXY WAR that was instigated by the US, UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other allies, where planning was conducted a number of years before hostilities erupted.

The problem is not ISIS. The problem is the proxy war in Syria and the geopolitical desire by the west to remove Iranian-Shia influence in Iraq. This is not to say that your analysis of the Maliki Government's pro-Shiite bias is incorrect, only that the opposition movements benefited immensely from this US-Saudi policy to the point where these countries backed extremists and escalated the fighting to serve their own agendas. The focus on fighting Assad in Syria over the last 3 years is the root cause of the ISIS ascension.

You needed to inform your audience that the initial pro-democracy protests in Syria were hijacked by armed gangs/defectors that we know were operating out of the Incirlik NATO base in southern Turkey:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/11/21/bfp-exclusive-syria-secret-us-nato-training-support-camp-to-oust-current-syrian-president/

Interviews with people, such as refugees including nuns, indicated that the protests were indeed hijacked and that people fled the country because of the 'rebels', who acted barbarically from the beginning:

See this SBS interview with mother Agnes-Mariam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyL3M5hstiM
+ Nobel peace prize Laureate fact finding tour interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msA35ATXol8

Furthermore, the precursor to ISIS, as reported by The Guardian and Der Spiegel newspapers, actually received anti-tank weapons training from US, UK and French personnel in Jordan in 2012:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/10/us-syria-crisis-rebels-usa-idUSBRE9290FI20130310

Other reports of arms flowing across the Turkish border in trucks and weapons coming in from Qatar and Saudi Arabia can be found by those that look.

In your section "The Assad Problem" you mentioned sniper attacks on children without presenting any evidence of this claim. The reason evidence is important here is because we have had claims of chemical weapons use by the Syrian Government where the evidence (Carla Del Ponte's UN team, MIT scientists) indicated that the rebels were responsible for its use - the opposite of the claims made by western countries (USA, UK) involved in the proxy attack on Syria.

We do have footage of snipers shooting on civilians in Syria but they are unidentified individuals and are likely provocateurs. We cannot tell for sure. In an interview with former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, we find that he was approached by British officials in 2009, two years before violence broke out in Syria, to assist in efforts to oust/destabilise Assad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz-s2AAh06I

This is not to say that the forces of the Assad Government have acted by the conventions of a legally conducted war - obviously they have not, if we are to go by Robert Fisk's reports of the Syrian Army not taking prisoners at various stages of the conflict. However, the Assad Government is reacting to an armed uprising fully supported by a western military alliance. Herein lies the great crime, and the issue that you have neglected to cover.

I highly recommend watching the following videos that contain strong first hand evidence of foreign intervention in the conflict including the staging of the chemical weapons attacks that were wrongly (deliberately) blamed on the Syrian Government.

Corbett Report on Who is Really Behind the Syrian War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCdaExnIpGs

Corbett Report on ISIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LSIwvE0Nvo

Video Compilation on ISIS origins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMjXbuj7BPI&list=UUEHsSWvrGVSIA63OV3J6vhA

FBI whisleblower interview on direct US support for terrorist groups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz677koGfPU

Syrian chemical weapons lies exposed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KFpaU9PC8o

Professor Michel Chossudovsky's very reasonable geopolitical assessment of the wars in the Middle East: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34j2Rf-IvJQ

At present your article is misleading your audience through the omission of vitally important evidence. In the interests of balance you need to make corrections (under the ABC Code of Practise guidelines).

This is the problem with the mainstream media at present - it is facilitating murder by uncritically reporting on these events and neglecting to remind viewers of deliberate western involvement in these types of wars - where they initiate the fighting and then escalate the situation.

Please make the necessary corrections.
_______________________________

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Friday, October 24, 2014

Turn the water on for the people of Gaza


The water situation for the 1.7 million Palestinian residents of Gaza was dire before this summer's war. Today, it's catastrophic.

Due to electricity shortages and damage to Gaza infrastructure, untreated sewage is flooding Gaza streets and running into the sea, creating public health risk for Gazans and Israelis alike.

Gazans desperately need access to clean water, and there is an easy solution. One of three water pipelines that run from Israel into Gaza has never been turned on. Israel could literally double the flow of potable water to Gaza today--it's as easy as turning on the faucet.

Click HERE to sign the petition. 
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Thursday, October 23, 2014

Phoenix Rising


"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?" Gandhi

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Congress, Get Back and End War!

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Amazon is spooking us. Let's fight back -- now.


Amazon is now implementing a $600 million contract with its new business partner -- the CIA.

Please click here to support our campaign with this huge billboard next to Amazon headquarters.
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Anti-War Updates


22 October 2014

No Glory this autumn – white poppies | conference | concert | debate

No Glory has a busy Autumn ahead, with a wide range of events, including an important conference this Saturday, an acclaimed concert and a mouth-watering debate. The highlights are:


1) Conference:  1914-2014 - One Hundred Years of War
This Saturday 25 October, No Glory in conjuction with Stop the War Coalition, is organising an important conference in London, titled 1914-2014: One Hundred Years of War.

The conference brings together an impressive lineup of speakers, including Adam Hochschild from the USA, author of the classic book on the First World War, To End All Wars; Boris Kagarlitsky Russian writer and campaigner; Guardian journalist Seumas Milne; renowned playwright David Edgar, cultural historian Priyamvada Gopal; Lindsey German from Stop the War Coalition; historian Neil Faulkner, author of the best-selling pamphlet, The Real History of World War One; and Explo Nani Kofi from Ghana.

1914-2014: One Hundred Years of War
London Conference • Bishopsgate Institute
Saturday 25 October • 12 Noon - 5pm

Organised by No Glory and Stop the War Coalition

Full details and list of speakers here...

Tickets £20 / £15 concessions / £8 students
Buy online...
Or call 020 7561 4830

2) Putting white poppies at the centre of Remembrance Day

Each year more and more people choose to wear the white poppy - as a respectful way to put peace at the heart of remembering those who died in war. This year, 100 years on from 1914, is a fitting time to spread the white poppy as widely as possible. Here’s what you can do:

  • Wear a white poppy yourself. It will probably trigger conversations with colleagues and strangers - a powerful way to get the message out there. Some may choose to wear both red and white poppies.
  • Buy white poppies to share with others.
  • Spread the word. Tell others how to find out more and buy white poppies for themselves.
  • Send us a Selfie of yourself with your white poppy for a gallery on the No Glory website. Send to info@noglory.org.
You can buy white poppies here...

3) Performance of Robb Johnson's acclaimed Gentle Men

If you’ve ever seen Robb Johnson in concert, you’ll know what a great performer he is. Politics with passion and fun – and fabulous music. Robb has kindly agreed to perform his acclaimed WW1 song cycle Gentle Men as a fund raiser for No Glory.

A wonderful mixture of the political and personal - Billy Bragg
A folk classic - The Guardian
In all the artistic commemoration of the First World War, I wager nothing will show more humanity or understanding than Gentle Men - BBC

Come and support No Glory, while enjoying some fine entertainment.

Gentle Men - For No Glory
Thursday 27 November 7.30pm
St Giles-in-the-Fields • London WC2H 8LG
Inroduced by author AL Kennedy

Tickets: £10 /£8 (including a glass of wine in the interval, supported by Barefoot Wine)

More details and to book...

4) Debate: Should Britain have joined the First World War?

On the afternoon of Saturday 6th December No Glory in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum is organising a debate between historians Hew Strachan and Neil Faulkner. They will debate Should Britain have joined the First World War? It will be a fascinating clash. Tickets and more details will be available soon - but do put the date in your diary now.

5) Events Calendar

We are continually updating our calendar for World War One events of all descriptions, whether organised by No Glory and by many other organisations around the country. Please send us information about any WW1 events you are planning.
See the calendar for details of events in your area...

6) Keeping informed on the issues around the WW1 centenary

The No Glory website is widely recognised for its range of articles and resources that take a view opposing the glorification of World War One. We update the website regularly. Recent additions include:

You can also keep up-to-date with No Glory by following us on Twitter or Facebook.

7) Donate

No Glory depends entirely on donations to fund all of its activities, events and on-line resources. Do consider supporting us. You can make a donation here...

 Stop the War Coalition

Adam Hochschild and the truth about World War One

Adam HochschildAs we approach Remembrance Day Stop the War is co-hosting along with the No Glory in War campaign a day conference on World War One and the hundred years of war that has followed.

Acclaimed US based author Adam Hochschild will be presenting his audiovisual account of World War One, based on his best selling book 'To End All Wars'. Adam is an award winning author of a string of books including 'King Leopold's Ghost and' 'Bury the Chains'.
One Hundred Years of War
25 October 12pm - 5pm
Bishopsgate Institute, London


Agenda:
11am - registration opens

12- 1pm :
Opening plenary: 1914 -1918, the winter of the world. Horror and resistance
David Edgar, Priyamvada Gopal, Neil Faulkner, Adam Hochschild

1 - 2.15pm:
A brief history of World War One
Adam Hochschild

War and disability
Richard Reiser

2.45 - 3.45pm:
World War One, imperialism and the colonial world
Priya Gopal, Boris Kagalritsky and Explo Nani-Kofi

Selling to both sides, the arms trade and WW1
Matthew Burnett-Stuart

3.45pm - 5pm:
Closing: opposing war one hundred years on
Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Kagarlitsky, Lindsey German

Our speakers: Adam Hochschild author and historian, Cultural historian Priyamvada Gopal, writer and journalist Seumas Milne, historian Neil Faulkner author of The real history of World War One, Lindsey German author of Women and War and convenor of Stop the War Coalition, Matthew Burnett-Stuart Campaign Against Arms Trade Jeremy Corbyn MP, playwright David Edgar, disability history month organiser Richard Rieser.

The conference will take place at the Bishopsgate Institute on Bisghopsgate near Liverpool Street Station, London.

You can book your ticket online with Eventbrite or by calling the box office on 020 7561 4830.
Friends of Stop the War are entitled to one free ticket and Student can get in for £8.

Full details of the conference can be found on the Stop the War web site and you can also share the event with your Facebook contacts.

Wear a white poppy on Remembrance Day

White PoppyEach year more and more people choose to wear the white poppy - as a respectful way to put peace at the heart of remembering those who died in war. This year, 100 years on from 1914, is a fitting time to spread the white poppy as widely as possible. Here’s what you can do:
  • Wear a white poppy yourself. It will probably trigger conversations with colleagues and strangers - a powerful way to get the message out there. Some may choose to wear both red and white poppies
  • Buy white poppies to share with others
  • Spread the word. Tell others how to find out more and buy white poppies for themselves.
  • Send us a Selfie of you with your white poppy for a gallery on the No Glory in War website
  • Buy your White Poppy at the One Hundred Years of War conference this Saturday or buy online on the Stop the War web site.
Stop the War Coalition | office@stopwar.org.uk | 020 7561 4830
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