Steve Knight

And 2-3 decades later they were forced to admit they'd known about the dangers since the 1950s, and hid and ignored them, and the public's well-being, just to make LOTS of money :\

Truth, Justice and the American Way? Well, when the American Way is "Screw everyone you can, and charge them for it!" Truth and Justice aren't even considered >.<

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/05/08/cnn-plane-aliens/

I ... errr ... yeah.... what?

Wait for us Brits to analyse the first few crashes/disasters. We've a great track record in improving plane safety over the decades. Such that I can't remember the last time a British airliner went tits-up.

As opposed to the Frenchies, whose antics in that field cost them how many concordes, and ended up mothballing all of them...?

That's pretty good. At first I thought it was a basic fuel cell but the technology is different. I hope it all comes together as this could be something very big.

Yeah. I don't think it's going to scale down to automobiles (unless SUV or up ), as it takes 39,000 gallons of seawater to make 1 gallon of this jetfuel...but for the likes of CVNs or large warships, it's probably going to be a saver in the near future.

Might be interesting to see some figures on it's power potential compared to "ordinary" jetfuel, though. The model they used it on was only a 2-stroke engine, not a regular jet engine...

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/04/12/navy-ends-big-oil/

The U.S. Navy Just Announced The End Of Big Oil And No One Noticed

Author: Justin "Filthy Liberal Scum" Rosario April 12, 2014 10:59 am

This article was originally posted on proudtobeafilthyliberalscum.com

Surf’s up! The Navy appears to have achieved the Holy Grail of energy independence – turning seawater into fuel:

After decades of experiments, U.S. Navy scientists believe they may have solved one of the world’s great challenges: how to turn seawater into fuel.

…

The new fuel is initially expected to cost around $3 to $6 per gallon, according to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, which has already flown a model aircraft on it.

Curiously, this doesn’t seem to be making much of a splash (no pun intended) on the evening news. Let’s repeat this: The United States Navy has figured out how to turn seawater into fuel and it will cost about the same as gasoline.

This technology is in its infancy and it’s already this cheap? What happens when it’s refined and perfected? Oil is only getting more expensive as the easy-to-reach deposits are tapped so this truly is, as it’s being called, a “game changer.”

I expect the GOP to go ballistic over this and try to legislate it out of existence. It’s a threat to their fossil fuel masters because it will cost them trillions in profits. It’s also “green” technology and Republicans will despise it on those grounds alone. They already have a track record of trying to do this. Unfortunately, once this kind of genie is out of the bottle, it’s very hard to put back in.

There are two other aspects to this story that have not been brought up yet:

1. The process pulls carbon dioxide (the greenhouse gas driving Climate Change) out of the ocean. One of the less well-publicized aspects of Climate Change is that the ocean acts like a sponge for CO2 and it’s just about reached its safe limit. The ocean is steadily becoming more acidic from all of the increased carbon dioxide. This in turn poisons delicate ecosystems like coral reefs that keep the ocean healthy.

If we pull out massive amounts of CO2, even if we burn it again, not all of it will make it back into the water. Hell, we could even pull some of it and not use it in order to return the ocean to a sustainable level. That, in turn will help pull more of the excess CO2 out of the air even as we put it back. It would be the ultimate in recycling.

2. This will devastate oil rich countries but it will get us the hell out of the Middle East (another reason Republicans will oppose this). Let’s be honest, we’re not in the Middle East for humanitarian reasons. We’re there for oil. Period. We spend trillions to secure our access to it and fight a “war” on terrorism. Take away our need to be there and, suddenly, justifying our overseas adventures gets a lot harder to sell.

And if we “leak” the technology? Every dictator propped up by oil will tumble almost overnight. Yes, it will be a bloody mess but we won’t be pissing away the lives of our military to keep scumbags in power. Let those countries figure out who they want to be without billionaire thugs and their mercenary armies running the show.

Why this is not a huge major story mystifies me. I’m curious to see how it all plays out so stay tuned.

UPDATE:

People have been asking for more details about the process. This is from the Naval Research Laboratory’s official press release:

Using an innovative and proprietary NRL electrolytic cation exchange module (E-CEM), both dissolved and bound CO2 are removed from seawater at 92 percent efficiency by re-equilibrating carbonate and bicarbonate to CO2 and simultaneously producing H2. The gases are then converted to liquid hydrocarbons by a metal catalyst in a reactor system.

In plain English, fuel is made from hydrocarbons (hydrogen and carbon). This process pulls both hydrogen and carbon from seawater and recombines them to make fuel. The process can be used on air as well but seawater holds about 140 times more carbon dioxide in it so it’s better suited for carbon collection.

Another detail people seem to be confused about: This is essentially a carbon neutral process. The ocean is like a sponge for carbon dioxide in the air and currently has an excess amount dissolved in it. The process pulls carbon dioxide out of the ocean. It’s converted and burned as fuel. This releases the carbon dioxide back into the air which is then reabsorbed by the ocean. Rinse. Repeat.

As a note of interest, there was another similar ship disaster from this general time period ( http://sdsd.essortment.com/texascityexplo_rkvi.htm ).
In 1947, a French ship carrying 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded in Texas City harbour, killing some 600 people and "virtually annihilating" the city. The explosion was heard 150 miles away, while in Houston "a rumbling reminiscent of a small earthquake was felt." The shock-wave also created a small tidal wave that washed inland. In spite of the massive damage, no one has come forward to claim it was the result of a nuclear bomb.

Yet.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq80-3a.htm

"Port Chicago devastation nowhere near the scale of Hiroshima."

The atom bomb theorists try to excuse this by postulating that the device which detonated was an early prototype which lacked the destructiveness of its later siblings. So on the one hand, they're claiming the size of the explosion indicates it was nuclear, while on the other they're forced to make excuses why it wasn't as big as a nuclear bomb should have been.
lol.

The explosion resulted in a crater 66 feet deep, 300 feet wide and 700 feet long in the river bottom. A five-kiloton nuclear bomb on the surface of wet soil creates a crater 53 feet deep and 132 feet in diameter.

Q: What yield were the Trinity Project, Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosions?

Note:
The National Parks Services does not believe the accident at Port Chicago to be nuclear and the U.S. Navy has denied it. The site today does not show signs of radiation and survivors had normal post health.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/10669294/How-my-old-friend-Kim-Philby-the-master-spy-betrayed-us-all.html

Maybe this memoir could provide some more insight... ?

Edit : for copy-pasta of article for those of a lazy bent

Harold Adrian Russell ''Kim’’ Philby was an adequate rather than spectacular cricketer as a pupil at Westminster School. When fielding, he was content to stand apart from the rest, observing events at a distance. His preferred position? Deep cover. So it would be for much of his adult life.

The label often attaching to Philby, the most prominent member of the Cambridge Ring, is that of “master spy”, a description conveying ruthlessness, guile and charm. Britain’s most infamous Cold War traitor, whose betrayal resulted in the deaths of untold numbers of agents operating on the dark side of the Iron Curtain, possessed those qualities, certainly. But his charm was not simply of the synthetic kind and he commanded the affection and loyalty of friends, even as the awful truth of his clandestine career – a Soviet asset operating at the heart of British intelligence – became clear.

Tim Milne was Philby’s closest associate in the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. A fellow pupil at Westminster, he was recruited into the secret world during the Second World War on the recommendation of his friend. In retirement, he wrote a memoir of his friendship with Philby, which was promptly banned from publication by MI6. Now, four years after Milne’s death at the age of 97, his story can be told.

Kim Philby: The Unknown Story of the KGB’s Master Spy is an often-intimate portrait of the Third Man, candid in its assessments. Written without rancour – despite Philby’s attempt to blacken Milne’s name during interrogation – it charts the 37 years from first meeting at Westminster in 1925 to Philby’s escape from Lebanon to Russia.

The book has been updated with extracts from freshly released official files showing how Philby continued to deceive even after confessing his treachery. From 1951, when the defection of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean led to Philby’s enforced resignation from the service he was one day expected to lead, until 1963, when he climbed aboard a Soviet freighter in Beirut, the former golden boy of MI6 was protected by his former employers, seemingly in denial about the titanic scale of his deceit.

“Sitting opposite me in the office, puffing at his pipe, with a faraway look in his eyes, he seemed to be planning some new initiative with the Foreign Office,” remembers Milne. “More probably he was putting together in his mind a report to the Russians, or wondering what, in furtherance of their interests, his next move should be.”

Philby was the son of St John Philby, the noted Arabist and explorer of the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula. Like his father, he displayed an independent streak.

“Kim at school was tough, self-reliant and self-confident,” writes Milne of the boy with the stammer. “He was never a popular figure, but neither was he unpopular. People accepted he was something of a loner. He had something untouchable about him, a kind of inner strength and self-reliance that made others respect him.”

Following the death of his father, Milne was taken under the wing of his uncle, AA Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh. The author insisted on ''vetting’’ his nephew’s friend before the two young men set off on the first of three touring holidays in Europe. Kim passed the test.

Milne recalls the first trip as “a light-hearted juvenile affair” during which he and Kim travelled through Germany, Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia on a motor bike and sidecar. “Kim’s politics at this time, September 1930, were still somewhat vague – certainly Left-wing but he had not yet acquired the knowledge of, or interest in, Marxism that marked his third and fourth year at Cambridge. He was a marvellous companion, intensely interested in everything and impervious to discomforts and setbacks.”

Their second journey took place in the summer of 1932, when Hitler was making his bid for power. “We attended a vast Nazi torchlight rally at which Hitler spoke,” records Milne. “What impressed and alarmed us was the totally uncritical attitude of so many ordinary German men and women.”

The pair’s final trip was to Berlin in the Easter of 1933, by which time Hitler was Chancellor. The students argued politics with a Stormtrooper – a reasonably benign one, fortunately. The KGB’s recruitment of Kim Philby was less than a year away.

Philby’s chance to serve his new masters came with the outbreak of the Second World War and the vast expansion of Britain’s intelligence machine. His ascent through it was rapid and by late 1944 he was head of Section V, the counter-intelligence arm of MI6, based in St Albans. “The job was so absorbing and completely time-consuming that I would have found it almost impossible to imagine it could take second place to even more important work,” says Milne. “Yet, one supposes, that is how it was with Kim.

“I assume that his contacts took place during his regular visits to London. They must have been quickly and efficiently managed, for his visits to London seldom lasted more than a day, travel included, and he always had a number of people to see and meetings to attend (at MI6 headquarters) in Broadway, MI5 and elsewhere. If one tried to get a message to him on the telephone there were no unexplained gaps in his timetable.”

Philby’s next appointment, just before the war’s end, was a spectacular success for the KGB: director of the anti-Soviet section. Head of station in Turkey followed and then Washington, where Philby was in charge of liaison between MI6 and the CIA, another crown jewel of a post. His appointment as ''C’’, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, beckoned. But then it fell apart. US code-breakers had found proof that Maclean, a diplomat, was working for the Russians. Philby sent Guy Burgess, his friend and fellow KGB agent, to warn Maclean. Maclean and Burgess fled to Moscow in May 1951 and Philby found himself the centre of suspicion, the so-called Third Man. Recalled to London, he was subjected to hostile interrogation.

“Kim was in a state almost of shock,” says Milne. “The brilliant career, the high hopes had vanished and he was now an outcast.” MI6 was in shock. Sir Stewart Menzies, chief of the service, had no choice but to ask Philby to resign. “Many people in SIS who, like myself knew very little of the case against Kim, clung to the belief that he was innocent of any serious offence,” Milne recalls.

“The general office belief was that he’d had to go simply to preserve good relations with the Americans. There were very few people in the service who had inspired so much trust and respect as Kim. It seemed impossible that he had done anything worse than act a little unwisely.”

Philby, says Milne, was distressed at having to face interrogation by counterparts in MI5, like Dick White, with whom he had worked.

“It may seem strange that the attitude of SIS and MI5 friends should have mattered so much to him, but I am sure that one part of Kim was fully and genuinely involved in his SIS life,” reflects Milne.

Over the next decade, MI6 continued to argue that there was no evidence against Philby, persuading White, when he became head of MI5 in 1953, to drop the investigation. When in 1955 Harold Macmillan, then foreign secretary, cleared Philby in Parliament, MI6 sent him back into the field, operating in the Middle East as an agent under journalistic cover. “Before long it appeared that the atmosphere had changed,” Milne writes. “Kim was no longer considered a total outcast. I received an elated postcard from him.”

Then, in late 1962, Flora Solomon, a long-time friend of Philby, tipped off MI5 that he had tried to recruit her to the communist cause in 1937. Dick White, now head of MI6, decided to offer Philby immunity in return for the truth. Nicholas Elliott, one of Philby’s supporters in MI6 and a former head of station in Lebanon, went to Beirut to interview him. Elliot botched the interview, allowing Philby to write his own confession and failing to get him to sign it. Elliott believed Philby when he claimed that he had only been a spy up until 1946, which is when arguably his most productive period for the Russians began. The MI6 officer even sought Philby’s advice on seven suspected cases of Soviet penetration. Philby mentioned Milne.

“Kim apparently said that he had mentioned me (among others) to the Russians as someone they might find it worth approaching,” recalls Milne. “However, he went on to say that they had turned the idea down. I was horrified. I think my immediate reaction was to say something like, 'How dare he?’”

Shortly after the interrogation Philby seized his chance to defect, slipping out of a drinks party at the British embassy in Beirut. But why had he not sought to escape earlier?

Philby married four times. Litzi Friedmann, his first wife, a Hungarian Jew, was almost certainly the person who recruited him to the Soviet cause. His second wife, Aileen, mother of his five children, suffered from depression and died in 1957.

“The dominant memory I retain of visits to the Philby family is that of young children,” remembers Milne. “There was a permanent fairly well-behaved hullabaloo. With all their troubles, Kim and Aileen were good parents. Kim’s children meant an enormous amount to him. I have a strong feeling that, if it had not been for them, he might have been tempted to defect during this period.”

Milne’s last meeting with Philby was at a pub on the Thames. He and his wife were late for lunch with the Philbys. “Kim was a little annoyed. 'We’d given you up and written you a note,’ he said, and handed me one of his visiting cards, on the back of which he had inscribed in his unforgettable handwriting a message which ran like this: 'Nothing can excuse defection’.”

Looking back on Philby’s double life, Milne cannot fully explain his motivations. “He never seemed to identify himself with his country, even over sport. Although Kim was a very English person, and much more at home in congenial English company than any other, he showed little affection for England or its countryside, cities, institutions and traditions. Though he never lacked physical or moral courage, one could not imagine him making patriotic gestures. Perhaps this should have been a clue to his real feelings.”

And Philby the man? “It is interesting that whereas the character sketches we have of Burgess and Maclean are detailed, convincing and reasonably consistent, nobody seems able to pin down Kim himself. Even those who knew him best probably all have different pictures. “Kim said in an interview that if he had his time over again he would do the same thing. I wish that were not true. But I do not regret knowing him. He enriched my world for many years and I owed a lot to him. Certainly my association with him caused many difficulties for me but I do not feel bitterness towards him, only sadness.”

'Kim Philby: The Unknown Story of the KGB’s Master-Spy’ by Tim Milne (Biteback Publishing, £20) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £18 + £1.35 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk

So, other than conjecture, and wishful-thinking, what are the actual FACTS here?

So, other than conjecture, and wishful-thinking, what are the actual FACTS here?

A....friend... on FB posts a lot of this crap, and I saw that "deleted" FB thread. It wasn't good. Not even close to being believable.

Shocking evidence Hitler escaped Germany

World Net Daily

January 5, 2013

http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/shocking-evidence-hitler-escaped-germany/

I'm really, really sorry, but I have to ask...

Do you have *ANY* source for this other than WingNutsDaily? Please.

I absolutely refuse to give those retards ANY pageviews.

See: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/WND : for a far cleaner and politer description than I could ever give about them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-us-blocks-publication-of-chilcots-report-on-how-britain-went-to-war-with-iraq-8937772.html

Exclusive: US blocks publication of Chilcot’s report on how Britain went to war with Iraq

Washington is playing the lead role in delaying the publication of the long-awaited report into how Britain went to war with Iraq, The Independent has learnt.

Although the Cabinet Office has been under fire for stalling the progress of the four-year Iraq Inquiry by Sir John Chilcot, senior diplomatic sources in the US and Whitehall indicated that it is officials in the White House and the US Department of State who have refused to sanction any declassification of critical pre- and post-war communications between George W Bush and Tony Blair.

Without permission from the US government, David Cameron faces the politically embarrassing situation of having to block evidence, on Washington’s orders, from being included in the report of an expensive and lengthy British inquiry.

Earlier this year, The Independent revealed that early drafts of the report challenged the official version of events leading up to the Iraq war, which saw Mr Blair send in 45,000 troops to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The protected documents relating to the Bush-Blair exchanges are said to provide crucial evidence for already-written passages that are highly critical of the covert way in which Mr Blair committed British troops to the US-led invasion.

One high-placed diplomatic source said: “The US are highly possessive when documents relate to the presence of the President or anyone close to him. Tony Blair is involved in a dialogue in many of these documents, and naturally someone else is at the other end – the President. Therefore this is not Tony Blair’s or the UK Government’s property to disclose.”

The source was adamant that “Chilcot, or anyone in London, does not decide what documents relating to a US President are published”.

Last week, Chilcot sent Downing Street an update on his inquiry’s progress which explained his continuing inability to set a publication date. He described difficult discussions with the Government on the disclosure of material he wanted to include in his report, or publish alongside it.

He said that over the past six months, he had submitted requests that covered 200 cabinet-level discussions, a cache of notes from Mr Blair to Mr Bush, and more than 130 records of conversations between any two of Mr Blair, Gordon Brown and the White House. Mr Cameron was informed that the inquiry and the Cabinet Office had “not yet reached a final position” on the documents.

Although the Prime Minister told Chilcot in a letter last week that some documents needed to be “handled sensitively”, the Cabinet Office decoded the Prime Minister’s phrases yesterday, telling The Independent: “It is in the public’s interests that exchanges between the UK Prime Minister and the US President are privileged. The whole premise about withholding them [from publication] is to ensure that we do not prejudice our relations with the United States.”

The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, has been widely criticised as the senior civil servant responsible for blocking the delivery of material to the inquiry. Sir Menzies Campbell, who as the Liberal Democrats’ foreign-affairs spokesman was a high-profile opponent of the war, has described the delays as “intolerable”, adding: “The full story need to be told.”

The former Foreign Secretary Lord Owen has called for Sir Jeremy to be stripped of his role in deciding which documents are released to the inquiry. However, the Cabinet Office said yesterday that Sir Jeremy was merely upholding a previous decision taken by his predecessor, Lord O’Donnell, which emphasised the importance of privacy in communications between Downing Street and the White House.

Chilcot, a former diplomat who previously investigated intelligence on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction as part of the Butler Review, heads an inquiry team that comprises Sir Roderic Lyne, the former UK ambassador to Russia; Sir Lawrence Freedman, the professor of war studies at King’s College London; and Baroness Prashar, a former member of Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.

Another member of the inquiry team, the historian Sir Martin Gilbert, has been ill and has had limited input into its recent deliberations.

The authors are facing difficult choices forced on them by Washington and the Cabinet Office’s desire not to upset the so-called “special relationship” between Britain and the US. They may deliver a neutered report in spring next year which would effectively absolve Mr Blair of any serious policy failures – because there would be no clear evidence contained in the report to back up such direct criticism. Another possibility is that the report will be so heavily redacted as to be rendered meaningless and hence a waste of almost £8m of British taxpayers’ money.

Since the Iraq Inquiry was launched in 2009 by the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, covert back-channel communications between the Cabinet Office and its counterparts in Washington have focused on the diplomatic convention that the disclosure of “privileged channels of communication” should remain at all times protected.

The final report is supposed to examine how the Blair government took decisions and what lessons can be learnt to “help ensure that if we face similar situations in future, the government of the day is best equipped to respond”.

Dr James Strong, a foreign-policy analyst at the London School of Economics, said: “All governments like to keep their secrets secret. The US is no exception. As its response to WikiLeaks suggested, the US defines a secret in terms of the type of document rather than the contents. So regardless of what these particular documents say, the US probably wouldn’t want them published, because governments normally keep private exchanges between leaders private.”

The US State Department declined to comment. Tonight, the Cabinet Office denied that the US had a veto on the issue, adding: “These issues are being worked through in good faith and with a view to reaching a position as rapidly as possible.”

In numbers: The iraq war

179 British service personnel killed in Iraq

112,000 Violent civilian deaths caused by the war, estimated by Iraq Body Count

1,569 Days since the Iraq Inquiry opened on 29 July 2009

35 Witnesses heard in private by Sir John Chilcot’s team

1,000,000+ Total length in words of the Iraq Inquiry report

The NSA Spying and Lying Does Relate to 9/11

Posted on October 18, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog

Guest post by Kevin Ryan.

Earlier this month, National Security Agency (NSA) head Keith Alexander admitted that he had lied to the U.S. Congress and the American people in an attempt to justify the NSA’s growing surveillance of U.S. citizens.[1] In June, while attempting to defend the secret NSA programs revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, Alexander claimed that over 50 terrorist plots had been thwarted though collection of the phone and internet records of American citizens. Alexander said that his agency had provided Congress with 54 specific cases in which the programs helped disrupt terror plots in the U.S. and around the world.[2]

Just a few weeks before the “54 plots” claim, Alexander had testified to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee that NSA spying on American citizens had played a critical role in thwarting “dozens” of terrorist attacks.[3] Alexander spent the next three months declaring that the NSA’s spying on Americans was preventing terrorism and another 9/11.

None of that was true as we found out a few weeks ago. Of the 54 alleged plots, only one or two were identified as a result of bulk phone record collection, according to Alexander’s most recent comments. That number has since been whittled down to just one incident that wasn’t a terrorist plot at all but was a case of a cab driver sending cash to an alleged terrorist organization.[4] Bottom line ― the NSA spying on Americans has not stopped any terrorist plots, let alone dozens or 54.

Alexander’s lies followed closely after National Intelligence Director James Clapper’s lie, or as he called it ― his “least most untruthful statement” ― that the NSA was not even collecting information on large number of Americans citizens. In March, Clapper appeared before Congress and was asked “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper replied, “No, sir.” Clapper’s blatant lie was premeditated. Senator Ron Wyden’s office had sent him the question the day before the hearing.[5]

Overlooking these unprosecuted felonies, the idea that the NSA programs prevent terrorism is absurd given NSA’s knowledge about previous terrorist suspects. Although the Bush and Obama administrations have claimed for more than a decade that spying on Americans was justified by 9/11, the intelligence the NSA had prior to 9/11 was enough to stop the attacks. Three examples help to demonstrate this fact.

On March 7, 2001, during trial proceedings for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, an FBI agent read aloud in court a phone number that had been used by alleged al Qaeda plotters to plan and execute the embassy attacks.[6] This was the phone number of the “Yemen Hub,” which doubled as the home phone of Ahmed Al-Hada, the father-in-law of alleged 9/11 hijacker Khalid Al-Mihdhar. According to U.S. officials, the same phone was used for planning the USS Cole bombing and, later, the 9/11 attacks. The phone number was also published in the British weekly the Observer, just five weeks before 9/11. As author Kevin Fenton wrote: “Any of the Observer’s readers could have called the number and asked for a message to be forwarded to Osama bin Laden.”[7] This widely reported FBI gaffe should have alerted al Qaeda to U.S. knowledge of its secret Yemen operations center while also ensuring that anyone listening would know the exact al Qaeda phone number being monitored by the NSA. Despite this major tip-off, al Qaeda continued to use the phone to contact the alleged 9/11 hijackers until “only weeks before 9/11.”[8]

The NSA later claimed that, although it was listening in on the calls it didn’t want to dig into who the calls were going to in the U.S. because it did not want to be accused of spying on Americans. However, the NSA was already well aware of who was receiving the calls ― two of the alleged 9/11 hijackers. This is clarified by the second example.

According to former NSA director Michael Hayden, “In early 2000, we had the Al-Hazmi brothers, Nawaf and Salem, as well as Khalid Al-Mihdhar, in our sights. We knew of their association with al-Qaeda, and we shared this information with the [intelligence] community.”[9] The NSA knew about these suspects well before that, however, because an early 1999 NSA communications intercept referenced Nawaf Al-Hazmi, so it was clear that the NSA knew about him for more than two years before 9/11.

The third example has to do with the U.S. Army program called Able Danger that had identified and was tracking Mohamed Atta and several other of the alleged 9/11 hijackers. Alexander was running the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command at the time, and was therefore in charge of Army counterterrorism programs. Apparently, Alexander “covered up and destroyed the Able Danger discovery of two of the 9-11 terrorists prior to 9-11.”[10] The program was shutdown and its records were destroyed in the year before 9/11. Erik Kleinsmith, an Army major who testified to this destruction of evidence, said that Able Danger had shown that the al Qaeda network, prior to 9/11, had “a surprisingly significant presence within the United States.”[11]

These examples indicate that the NSA knew about the alleged hijackers before 9/11 and did little or nothing to stop the attacks. Apparently the NSA is not really in the business of preventing terrorist attacks, no matter what information it obtains. What the NSA’s actual purpose is behind the mass surveillance of American citizens is not yet clear.

What is clear is that high-level U.S. leaders are becoming comfortable lying to Congress and the American people. It’s also clear that the September 11 crimes share similarities with the crimes the NSA is committing today in some interesting ways. Sure, Dick Cheney and others have been bellowing that the 9/11 attacks would have been prevented if the NSA had been able to spy on Americans. And although the examples above make it clear that those claims are false, there are important similarities between how 9/11 and the NSA spying has been handled by military and intelligence community leaders.

One way is that the recent lies told by NSA leaders are reminiscent of the lies told to Congress and the 9/11 Commission by CIA Director George Tenet and NORAD Commander Ralph Eberhart during the investigations into 9/11.[12] That’s not surprising given that Alexander got the NSA job because of his connection to Donald Rumsfeld, who had worked closely with Tenet on the deceptions behind the Iraq War and who supervised Eberhart.[13]

As described in Another Nineteen, Eberhart testified to the U.S. Senate in October 2001 that NORAD had received notification about three of the four hijacked planes with plenty of time to ensure interception and had scrambled jets from multiple bases as the attacks proceeded. Eberhart presented a timeline giving the exact times that the military was notified about the hijackings. He repeatedly told Senators that this was “documented notification.”[14]

However, the 9/11 Commission later told us that all of Eberhart’s statements were untrue. According to the Commission’s account, which exonerated the military, NORAD was not given notification about any of the hijacked flights. And although the Commission claimed that U.S. Air Force officers had knowingly provided false information on these questions, Eberhart was never held accountable.

George Tenet lied extensively about the events surrounding 9/11. He lied to the 9/11 Commission about having met with Bush in the month before the attacks, he lied under oath about CIA foreknowledge of the alleged hijackers, and he lied to the 9/11 Commission by failing to tell them about torture videos that his agency later destroyed. And although Tenet retired in 2004, his protégé John Brennan runs the CIA today and is known for lying to the public about torture and the killing of innocent civilians using drones.

The behavior exhibited by Alexander and Clapper appears to be similar to that of Eberhart and Tenet during the 9/11 investigations. Coupled with Alexander’s role in the Able Danger cover-up, people should wonder if the crimes that the NSA is committing against American citizens today are, in fact, somehow connected to the crimes of 9/11. Not in the sense of preventing terrorism, but in a way that suggests the ongoing implementation of a long-term plan to control the world’s most strategic resources and also the American people.

[1] NSA Director Alexander Admits He Lied about Phone Surveillance Stopping 54 Terror Plots, AllGov.com, Monday, October 07, 2013

[2] Gopal Ratnam, NSA’s Alexander Says Secret Programs Stopped Terror Plots, Bloomberg, June 27, 2013

[3] Jerry Markon and Ellen Nakashima, NSA director says surveillance programs thwarted ‘dozens’ of attacks, The Washington Post, June 12, 2013

[4] NSA Spying Did Not Result In a SINGLE Foiled Terrorist Plot, Washington’s Blog, October 15, 2013

[5] David Sirota, James Clapper is still lying to America, Salon, July 1, 2013

[6] United States v. Usama bin Laden et al., transcript of day 14, March 7, 2001, accessed at Cryptome, http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-14.htm

[7] Kevin Fenton, Disconnecting the Dots: How CIA and FBI officials helped enable 9/11 and evaded government investigations, Trine Day, 2011, p 220

[8] Transcript of Hardball Special Edition, MSNBC, July 24, 2004

[9] Steven Strasser and Craig R. Whitney, ed.s, The 9/11 Investigations: Staff Reports of the 9/11 Commission, PublicAffairs, 2004, p 396

[10] Robert David Steele VIivas, Intelligence for the President–and Everyone Else, Counter Punch, March 1, 2009

[11] Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate One Hundred Ninth Congress, Able Danger and Intelligence Information Sharing, September 21, 2005, U.S. Government Printing Office

[12] Because providing false testimony to Congress is a crime, these men would be in prison today if the U.S. justice system was still functioning.

[13] Shane Harris reported that Alexander got the NSA job due to Rumsfeld, see his article in Foreign Policy called Profile of NSA Director General Keith Alexander, September 9, 2013

[14] Transcript of Hearing Before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, October 25, 2001, U.S. Government Printing Office

Anyone want to do the honours? >.<

So, on 30th September, the day before the deadline, the Republican House had a (secret?) vote to change the Clause 4 of Rule XXII House rules, that any elected member in the chamber can call for any proposed bill to be voted upon by the chamber.

The seven back-stabbing, turncoat, worthless Democrats who voted to remove the right of any Congressmen to use the discharge petition to get a vote on the clean CR are:

Ron Barber AZ-2
John Barrow GA-12
Dan Maffei NY-24
Sean Patrick Maloney NY-18
Jim Matheson UT-4
Mike McIntyre NC-7
Collin Peterson MN-7

Apparently, 9 Republicans voted against it, but I've not had the leisure to look for their names yet.

Now, it emerges that Cantor is heavily shorting the Dollar, in a gamble that it will take a hit in a default, and thus he will make a LOT of money on it.

So, you got the power to call an end to this farce limited to one man.....who stands to make a LOT of money off the farce continuing, or if he allows it to go to a vote, and 18 of his party "defect" and vote to end it, he loses money.

UK "lost" 2 in the North Sea somewhere, IIRC. Or was it the Med? Both? O_o!

The cavalier attitude that these things were handled with is simply....jaw-droppingly shocking.

I tried following the sources in that Infowars link, above, some days ago, and all it led to was a mutual-masturbation circle-jerk of other tinfoil blogs. Nothing of substance. I'll not hold my breath it's changed in the meantime.

Just after this all hit the fan, and The Reich-Whingers, along with their propaganda machine - FauxNoise - started clamouring that Obama consult congress before any action in Syria is taken.

So he acquiesced.
As should be the case under the constitution, anyway. Subverted by decades of (mostly) Republican presidents unilateral decisions.

And given that most of them are bought by the arms manufacturers, and WANT to invade another sovereign, foreign nation, it's REALLY going to be fun watching themselves tie themselves in knots because Obama ("appears" * ) to also want to take action, but they can't be seen to be doing ANYTHING that Obama wants....even if they want it, too. A la their one submitted jobs creation bill that as soon as Obama agreed he could get it passed through Congress, and enacted, they almost to a man voted against it!

And then cue last week, and suddenly they're spitting tar and feathers that he didn't just make a unilateral decision to invade anyway. Hypocrisy, much? >.<
It must be hard being a Conservative. The flip-flops would give you whip lash.

They much prefer grandstanding to actually doing something.

So, as I see it, and I may be wrong, but :
I think *Obama is giving Republicans what they want, and knows they will vote against it, because he has asked for it.
What's more he is destroying the free pass for a military strike by Presidents for all presidents to come, by seeking Congressional approval for a military strike now. It will be much more difficult for Presidents to do anything militarily now without seeking Congressional Approval in the future.
By asking for Congressional Approval he is making fools out of Congressional Republicans who have demanded this strike ability forever, and now find themselves voting against it because of their hatred for Obama.

He's playing Grandmaster-level Chess, while they, and FauxNoise, are playing schoolyard tiddlywinks.
they don't even see it coming.

But will it shut them up? Given their level of hypocrisy over the last 12 years, I really doubt it, but time will tell, I suppose.

This is gonna degenerate rather quickly :\

Did you see that woman on FauxNoise "interviewing" the religious expert who wrote a book on Jesus?

Q:Why would a Muslim write a book about Christianity???
A: Well, I am a religious scholar.

Q:But you’re a Muslim!
A: Yes, but I am an expert on religion.

Q:But you’re a Muslim!
A: I have 4 degrees in religion.

Q:But you’re a Muslim!
A: Yes, but I have a PhD and I am a professor of religion.

Q:BUT YOU’RE A MUSLIM! And you didn't tell anybody.
A: Actually, I did. And if you had read anything other than the cover of my book, you'd have found such a declaration. On page 2.

LCP to be axed after independent panel reviews it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23283820

I was watching that as it aired.

Andrew Neil is one of the most polite, quiet, calm interviewers/hosts I've ever seen. And he's been doing that politics show for as long as I can remember - with all the scum and villainy of Westminster thrown at him.

That he lost it with Jones is totally gobsmacking.

Hat Tip is a colloquialism - means to give acknowledgement to.

DUDE! James Bond is NOT real! He doesn't work for ANYONE!
Stop drinking the frikking Kool Aid!

Well, it doesn't appear to be the Fatter, which uses an AIM9L body....this is much smaller.

Marina? LHO?