We'll Do The Stealing, Thanks

By Chad Selweski

President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package remains in flux on Capitol Hill, but e-mail con artists are already seeking to prey on gullible taxpayers.

Taxpayers are warned to be on the lookout for an e-mail scam that claims the Internal Revenue Service has a stimulus payment to send. One e-mail that's making the rounds on the Internet carries a duplicate of the IRS logo, apparently lifted from the agency's Web site, and claims the recipient is eligible for a stimulus payment that awards a federal tax rebate check.

The e-mail, a retread of a scam launched last year, asks for the recipient's Social Security number and debit card information. The intent is simply identi

ty theft, said Luis Garcia, a Michigan spokesman for the IRS.

"It's a total scam. These guys are starting to get much more sophisticated," Garcia said. "Especially those who are new to e-mail, they can easily be taken by this."

Officials emphasize that the IRS never sends unsolicited e-mails to taxpayers.

Most disturbing is the fact that the fraudulent e-mails may contain a "worm" that can mine a recipient's computer hard-drive and extract personal information.

The IRS advises that computer-users refrain from opening an e-mail referring to stimulus payments. Instead, forward them to phishing@IRS.com. IRS officials say they can track down phony stimulus offers from across the globe.

Last year, the IRS warned of numerous Internet scams when the Bush administration distributed stimulus checks to taxpayers.

This year's stimulus plan is not expected to offer lump sum checks but rather a cut in income tax withholdings. So, there are no stimulus payments to be collected by the average taxpayer.

Ode To The Us Government

Pretty Boy Floyd

If you'll gather 'round me, children,
A story I will tell
'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw,
Oklahoma knew him well.

It was in the town of Shawnee,
A Saturday afternoon,
His wife beside him in his wagon
As into town they rode.

There a deputy sheriff approached him
In a manner rather rude,
Vulgar words of anger,
An' his wife she overheard.

Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain,
And the deputy grabbed his gun;
In the fight that followed
He laid that deputy down.

Then he took to the trees and timber
To live a life of shame;
Every crime in Oklahoma
Was added to his name.

But a many a starving farmer
The same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little homes.

Others tell you 'bout a stranger
That come to beg a meal,
Underneath his napkin
Left a thousand dollar bill.

It was in Oklahoma City,
It was on a Christmas Day,
There was a whole car load of groceries
Come with a note to say:

Well, you say that I'm an outlaw,
You say that I'm a thief.
Here's a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief.

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

Mister, it's a S.C.A. M

Piracry, No Sir, Victim

American Scofflaw
As we have reported many times before, gathering evidence against copyright infringers is not an exact science. Most recently, Comcast sent out an infringement notice to an innocent subscriber because their administration was not up-to-date

Dave Satz wrote in to inform us that one of his friends was served with a DMCA takedown notice a few weeks ago. His friend, John Aprigliano, had allegedly downloaded a CAM release of “Cadillac Records”, without ever having heard of the movie. Although these takedown notices are just a formality and intended to scare the recipient, John decided to contact his ISP and ask for clarification.

After four calls to Comcast support the truth came out. The infringement notice was forwarded to the wrong person because the MAC-address of John’s old modem was still linked to his account. The Comcast techs eventually corrected the mistake, but this case yet again shows how inaccurate takedown notices can be.

Of course, this is just an exception, without any serious consequences. But what if John had lived in Ireland or New Zealand? He could have lost his Internet connection because of a mistake like this. Not to mention that if Comcast doesn’t screw up, the companies that collect the so called evidence might - it wouldn’t be the first time.

The RIAA is currently trying to get ISPs all across the world, including Comcast, on board for their “three-strikes” or “graduated response” scheme. Earlier this week ZDNet reported that AT&T and Comcast are seriously considering teaming up with the RIAA later this year to hunt down illegal filesharers. Let’s hope Comcast has fixed its administration by then.

The Real Agenda

American Scofflaw

The real problem is that our educational system, besides being crippled by a union that turned the teaching profession into the teaching trade, has dropped education in favor of indoctrinatrion.

Whereas this nation was built on an educational system based on math and science, today's schools are filled with social engineering courses, mandatory holocaust awareness classes, gay sensitivity, women's studies, black studies, etc. etc. etc. all of which satisfy various political agendas but not the needs of modern American industry.

Government got us INTO this mess. More government will not get us out.

Where dat $$$

American Scofflaw

It never existed.

The problem with a debt-based economic system, found in the Federal Reserve and its cousins around the world, is that the moment it goes into creation, more money is owed than actually exists. The more money which is created (out of thin air) in response to loans, the more money which does not exist is owed.
Simply put, if there is 1,000,000 in circulation, then 1,050,000 is owed to the Federal Reserve. a recession is when nobody can come up with that extra $50,000, but then again, it never existed in the first place.

As long as an ever larger pool of borrowers can be found to create more new money to pay the interest on the older loans, the system will grow, but eventually you run out of new borrowers, which isd what has happened now. and, in their desperation to keep things going, the bankers encouraged everyone to do their finances on credit rather than on cash. Stores borrow the money to stock their shelves, shippers borrow the money to fuel their cargo ships, all of it running up the tally of money owed to the banks; money that does not and never did actually exist.

So, all a recession is is the banks demanding that interest money and nobody being able to find it... because it never existed.

Timothy, My Lad, What The Hell Are You Doing????

Watch CBS Videos Online

May or May Not Get It

American Scofflaw
In 2002, Gary McKinnon was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for hacking into a series of computers in the Pentagon, NASA, and other sensitive military locations. McKinnon claimed he was seeking information on UFOs and says he found files dealing with “non-terrestrial officers” and “fleet-to-fleet transfers” involving ships not on any U.S. Navy registry.

Not impressed by McKinnon's internet snooping for UFOs or alleged discoveries of classified information concerning non-terrestrial affairs, the U.S. Department of Justice began extradition proceedings.

After a series of unsuccessful legal appeals McKinnon stands on the verge of being extradited to the U.S.

Hey, He's Painting

We're Starving, But There's New Little Green Men Info Available

American Scofflaw
UFO archives are now readily available to the public, detailing sightings from over the last 30 years. The Danish Air Force published the archive online yesterday because it felt that ‘there was nothing secret in the files’.

The Air Force said that most of the sightings remained ‘unidentified’ because the details were not precise enough. However, some of the reports contained enough description to rule out the UFOs as aircraft, weather phenomenon or paper lanterns.
Not all of the sightings were centred over Denmark and one event over Greenland is attracting attention.

On the 5 January, 1981 at 12:50 a flaming, square disc was seen approximately 45 degrees over the frozen land near Thule Air Base. It then vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

Coincidentally, radar stations at the American base recorded an unidentified flying object on its radar at 12:50.

Air Force Captain Thomas Petersen, who has an extensive knowledge of the files, commented that any unresolved sightings are handed over to the Scandinavian UFO Centre, if they request it.

He added that the Air Force's main mission was to defend Denmark against threat, 'and UFOs are not a known threat'.

Illegall Scofflaws

American Scofflaw
Illegal immigrants who lack Social Security numbers could not get tax credits under the $800 billion-plus economic stimulus package making its way through Congress.

Two senior GOP congressional officials expressed concern Thursday that the bill could steer government checks to undocumented workers, but in fact the measure indicates that Social Security numbers are needed to claim tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple. It also expressly disqualifies nonresident aliens.

The Republicans spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. But Democrats were quick to reject the notion.

"This legislation is directed toward people who are legal in our country. It is about time the Republicans got a different piece of reading material and get off this illegal immigrant stuff," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "This bill has nothing to do with anything illegal as far as immigration. It creates jobs for people who are lawfully in this country."

A revolt among GOP conservatives to provisions of last year's economic stimulus bill, which sent rebate checks to most wage earners, forced Democratic congressional leaders to add stricter eligibility requirements. That legislation, enacted in February 2008, required that people have valid Social Security numbers in order to get checks.

Don't Fire Me, Don't Fire Thee, Fire That Man Behind The Tree

American Scofflaw

Blagojevich correctly told the state Senate on Thursday that the mover behind the drug importation issue was then Rep. Rahm Emanuel, now President Obama's chief of staff. The FDA proved to be a toothless tiger in the drug importation movement and never seriously tried to either approve or block any importation plans put in place by a relatively small number of cities and states.

That's the context. Blagojevich said he the state senate fires him, than Emanuel should be tossed out too.

After listening to Rod Blagojevich speak outside his Chicago home this evening I am certain that IL's impeached Governor is going to start talking about alot of IL and Chicago Political doings. Rahm Emmanuel may be planning to have another Donald Young type execution take place only this one directed at Blagojevich.

Lets not forget that IL newly sworn Governor Quinn has some political ethics questions as well. Can't wait to see who hangs Obama's skinny ass out to dry first. You know Blago is not about to go down alone.

Power To The Sheepeople

Where Da Grass, Granny???

American Scofflaw
A Mansfield grandmother indicted for growing marijuana for medicinal purposes has gained support from two state organizations.

Susan L. Stevens, 62, was arraigned Tuesday in Richland County Common Pleas Court on charges of growing and possessing marijuana.

The organizations Ohio Patient Network and North Ohio Normal is supporting Stevens in her case.

Stevens was indicted by the Richland County Grand Jury this month after police officers raided her home and confiscated her plants.

Stevens entered a not guilty plea to the third degree felonies and posted a $5,000 bond.

Stevens says she uses the marijuana to help relieve pain and pressure behind her eyes caused by glaucoma.

Ohio Patient Network Advocate Cher Neufer says the organizations support the move now underway in Ohio to legalize marijuana for medical reasons.

If convicted of the charges, Stevens faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The Ohio Patient Network and North Ohio Normal is working with State Senator Tom Roberts of Dayton on the Ohio Medical Compassion Act which would create a regulated card-carrying system for medicinal use of marijuana.

The Greatest Depression in History

American Scofflaw
Now you understand the logic behind deploying the 3rd Brigade, Third US Army inside US borders

Pay You Damn, Fool, Pay!!!

American Scofflaw

Re: "Lines of credit become costlier; TD imposes inactivity fee besides rate hike," Jan. 29, 2009.

Just when you think you've heard it all, a Canadian bank has the audacity to introduce a $35 fee for not loaning you money. Since TD's interest rate for their line of credit is prime plus 4.4 per cent, or 7.4 per cent at the moment, it is cheaper for customers to borrow up to $470 than to not borrow at all.

The inactivity fee is justified by saying there is a cost to maintain the account. Ingenious. I'm thinking other merchants should follow suit. The weeks I happen to be out of town, and don't buy groceries, Safeway should invoice me for not buying anything, because there is certainly a cost to truck in the food and maintain the store.

If I go a couple extra weeks without a haircut, the barber could bill me $5. Just because his chair is empty doesn't mean there's no cost to maintain it. And never mind the city raising its parking rates. Why not send people who don't park a bill?

The longer you don't park, the more you'd have to pay--we all know infrastructure is expensive. Eventually, we can get to a point of forced consumerism. To save money, you will have to spend it. At this point, we may as well change the name of our beloved USA to Oxymoronia

Eco Wackos

Uncle Howie

In my previous domicile, we had those recycling bins for cans, glass, paper, glossy paper, plastic, and the bin for whatever did not go into the others.

Then one day I happened to see the trash removal service come by, and they simply dumped all the bin contents into the trash truck, mixing it all back up.

I stopped the truck driver and inquired what was going on, and he reported that the recycling center set up (at public expense) to handle all this sorted detritus had gone bust, because it costs more to recycle some materials than to manufacture from scratch. But the law requiring trash to be separated had never been repealed, so we mere taxpayers wasted hours of time putting cans and bottles into the correct slots, only to have the trash company mix it all back together and dump it in a landfill.

Folks, I keep telling you, this global warming scam is all about sticking the people with more taxes and creating a new "product" out of thin air than can be bought and sold and "enronized" to make the insiders very rich at your expense.

European observers have already pointed out that their cap and credit system has made certain individuals very rich, but has not demonstrably improved the environment. Polluters are still polluting; they just have a license (which consumers ultimately pay for) to do so.

Government Gone Wild

The Gay Secretary

The mother of two children who are being adopted by gay men even though their grandparents want to care for them wept yesterday as she told of her final meeting with her son and daughter.

‘I told them, “Listen, Mummy is not going to see you for a while”,’ she said. Her son replied: ‘But Mummy, I want to come and stay with you and Granny and Grandad.’

The row over the future of the five-year-old boy and four-year-old girl intensified yesterday after the Boston Globe revealed details of the heartbreaking case. Their grandparents spent two years fighting for the right to care for the children, whose 26-year-old mother is a recovering heroin addict. She desperately wanted her parents to look after them.

But social workers said their ages – he is 59 and she is 46 – and their health – he has angina and she is diabetic – ruled them out.

The mother told the Globe that she had been ordered to say her goodbyes to the children last August during a trip to Franklin Park Zoo. ‘They told me not to cry and be strong so as not to upset the children,’ she said. ‘How can you tell a mother that when she’s never going to see her children again?’

What's That Body Doing Here?

by Charlie LeDuff

This city has not always been a gentle place, but a series of events over the past few, frigid days causes one to wonder how cold the collective heart has grown.

It starts with a phone call made by a man who said his friend found a dead body in the elevator shaft of an abandoned building on the city's west side.

"He's encased in ice, except his legs, which are sticking out like Popsicle sticks," the caller phoned to tell this reporter.

"Why didn't your friend call the police?"

"He was trespassing and didn't want to get in trouble," the caller replied. As it happens, the caller's friend is an urban explorer who gets thrills rummaging through and photographing the ruins of Detroit. It turns out that this explorer last week was playing hockey with a group of other explorers on the frozen waters that had collected in the basement of the building. None of the men called the police, the explorer said. They, in fact, continued their hockey game.

Before calling the police, this reporter went to check on the tip, skeptical of a hoax. Sure enough, in the well of the cargo elevator, two feet jutted out above the ice. Closer inspection revealed that the rest of the body was encased in 2-3 feet of ice, the body prostrate, suspended into the ice like a porpoising walrus.

The hem of a beige jacket could be made out, as could the cuffs of blue jeans. The socks were relatively clean and white. The left shoe was worn at the heel but carried fresh laces. Adding to the macabre and incongruous scene was a pillow that gently propped up the left foot of the corpse. It looked almost peaceful.

What happened to this person, one wonders? Murder in Motown is a definite possibility. Perhaps it was death by alcoholic stupor. Perhaps the person was crawling around in the elevator shaft trying to retrieve some metal that he could sell at a scrap yard. In any event, there the person was. Stone-cold dead.

Child's Play

American Scofflaw

A Princeton University professor demonstrated in court today how New Jersey’s most widely used voting machines can be opened with a screwdriver and their computer chips swapped by hand.

“The machines are large and heavy. They’re left in the polling places for a few days until a trucking company can pick them up,” Andrew W. Appel, a computer-science professor, testified. “Many of the polling sites are unlocked. Anyone … can open it up and replace the software inside with fraudulent software.”

The trial, in Superior Court in Mercer County, pits voting-rights activists against state election officials. Judge Linda R. Feinberg will decide whether the machines, the Sequoia Advantage, are unreliable and, therefore, unconstitutional, as the activists claimed in a lawsuit.

About 10,000 Sequoia Advantage models are used in 18 of 21 counties. Election officials and the manufacturer, Sequoia Voting Systems of California, say the equipment does its job consistently and accurately. They say New Jerseyans’ votes are recorded correctly.

In court, Appel demonstrated on one of two machines parked before Feinberg’s bench. He looked something like an auto mechanic peering beneath a hood, albeit one dressed in a suit and minus the grease stains.

He picked apart the equipment, patiently answering questions from lawyers and Feinberg. Out came the motherboard and audio kit, and various read-only memory, or ROM, chips. He spoke about firmware, or chips containing data or programs.

A tamperer, he said, has many options.

“The most significant vulnerability is the ability of an attacker to install fraudulent firmware in order to manipulate an election,” Appel said.

The case began nearly five years ago, when Mercer County resident Stephanie Harris voted in a presidential primary. Her machine appeared to malfunction, and she was not certain whether her ballot was correctly counted. Harris and fellow activists sued, asking that the machines be banned.

The activists want the electronic equipment replaced with optical scanners. That technology relies on paper ballots, which voters fill in with pencil and feed into scanning devices.

They Were Too Busy Reading Our Emails And Harassing People to do anything

I Luv This Girl

Presenting: Mr. Smooth

Good Intentions, My Ass

American Scofflaw
The Supreme Court says a man who was wrongly convicted and spent 24 years in prison may not sue the former Los Angeles district attorney and his chief deputy for violating his civil rights.

The justices, ruling unanimously Monday, say decisions of supervising prosecutors, like the actions of prosecutors at trial, are shielded from civil lawsuits.

In this case, Thomas Goldstein was convicted of a 1979 murder on the strength of a jailhouse informant’s testimony that Goldstein had confessed to the crime. The informant testified he received no benefit in return, but evidence that came to light later suggested he had struck a deal to get a lighter sentence.

Goldstein sued former District Attorney John K. Van de Kamp and his former chief deputy, Curt Livesay, claiming that as managers they had a policy of relying on jailhouse informants even though it sometimes led to false evidence.

In this case, the federal appeals court in San Francisco said Van de Kamp and Livesay did not enjoy the absolute immunity from lawsuits that is given to prosecutors because they were acting as administrators, not prosecutors, in failing to put in place a system that would allow information about informants to be shared in their office.

The case is Van de Kamp v. Goldstein, 07-854.

You want to boost the economy, Scofflaw? Read On, My Brother

American Scofflaw

With all due respect, this is shoveling borrowed money into a hole in the road! And while I will be the first to admit that our infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate, focus on a public works program is a temporary jobs program that does not address the long term problem.

You want to boost the economy?

Okay, here ya go!

Short term: Cut taxes by 50%. That will light up the economy for the short term. Yes, we will have to make sacrifices like not running around the world killing brown people, or giving very expensive (and illegal) weapons to other nations so that they can kill brown people, but I for one an willing to make that sacrifice.

Long term: We have given away our manufacturing to other countries for the last 30 years. Our government actually gave tax breaks to corporations to make it easier to send high paying American jobs to other countries, then scratched their heads trying to figure out why Americans stopped buying things and worse, were suddenly unable to make the payments on their mortgages and credit cards!

Rather than deal with the loss of manufacturing back when it was still a small issue, the government covered up the loss of manufacturing jobs with the so-called "service economy"; the theory that you can prosper a nation by doing each others' laundry for a fee. From the point of view of the government (composed of politicians only thinking in terms of the next election) this was a great plan because tax revenues still poured into government coffers from all the services. Problem was that while money transferred from the private sector to the government, no new money was coming into the system. Inevitably that leads to a point in time where people start doing their own laundry again and tax revenues dry up.

So, here we are, dirty clothes piling up. unable to find work, unable to pay the bills, unable to buy new products, and unable to manufacture.

We cannot simply re-open the old factories. We could spend 100 years playing catch up to the nations who now lead the US in manufacturing, if we manufacture what they manufacture, and those foreign governments, much wiser than our own, will not allow their leads to evaporate. Look how Japan has committed to better computers and robots (while the US commits to making better bombs).

So, if we are to save our nation, we need a national commitment to new technology development. Not just refinement of what already exists but a leap way beyond, into totally new and portable energy sources (not just storage), photonics, large scale ultra-cheap desalinization, and of course ideas not yet thought of.

We need a revived CIVILIAN space program to jump start our technology the way the Apollo missions jump started our technology in the 1960s. Or we need a new Manhattan project devoted to the development of commercial technologies. We need to create something that ONLY the United States knows how to make, and that the rest of the world will want to buy.

Above all we need to recreate our national culture so that the products are the focus and value of a company, not the stock options. We need to remember that it is the beans and not the counting of the beans that makes real wealth. Above all, we need to reverse the trend that abandoned products as a way to make money and made money itself the product.

These are the ONLY things which can save our economy and our nation from economic collapse.

They are Coming For Your Children

American Scofflaw
I don't expect much to happen before the end of the year. However, if the same pattern is used that has often been followed in years past, this legislation quietly originated during the past Republican administration (already done), the next election will attempt to put a Republican Congress back in control, and then certain Democrats, at the urging of their Republican masters, will activate and pass what appears to the uninformed public as a mandatory civilian service legislation. It will in fact be military conscription disguised as public service.

The Democrats get blamed for the new law by an angry public who can think no deeper than what they are told is "partisan politics," so the following election they vote the Republicans back in ("because they are conservative"), and then the GOP will quietly implement the next round of government expansion! And the "puppeteers," who control both parties, further their agenda, one step at a time. It's all about to happen, you watch!!

Don't believe me? Here's the link.

Subscribe, Scoffflaw, Or Else

American Scofflaw

People who have not gotten their TV sets ready for the changeover to digital signals could earn a four-month reprieve under a bill making its way through Congress.

The Senate voted Monday to delay until June 12 the deadline for the changeover from analog to digital television broadcasting. People still getting their pictures through old-fashioned antennas otherwise would face a Feb. 17 cutoff.

It's estimated that more than 6.5 million U.S. households are still not prepared for the upcoming transition.

This Sex Kitten is Drunk

Waco Revisited

American Scofflaw

Remember folks, this was done by the US Government to its own citizens and NOBODY in the US Government was punished, and, when it's done again by the US Government, and it will be, watcha goin do people??Hmmmm?

WACO - Who Shot First?

Take a look at the following two photos.

Click for full size image

Click for full size image

These two photos, one from a video tape, the other from a film camera, show the first moments of the BATF raid at the Mt. Carmel church. Note the bullet holes in the walls of the church.

None of the glass in any of the vehicles the BATF are hiding behind show any signs of being cracked or broken.

Now, examine this photo.

Click for full size image

The wounded BATF man has been tentatively identified as BATF gent who shot himself in the leg while climbing a ladder. Note that he is being assisted from the area in full view of the upper floor windows of the church, apparently unconcerned with the possibility of gunfire from the occupants of the church.

The vehicle at the right is the horse trailer in which the BATF agents arrived for the raid. The top of it is canvas. It also shows no signs of any bullet holes, even though the Branch Davidians, had the been so inclined, would have been well advised to shoot through it to the BATF agents inside, and later, hiding behind.

The public has been told that the members of the church had .50 caliber rifles. Had they used them, the cars and trucks would have not stopped the bullets and there would be bullet holes on the sides of the vehicles facing the cameras where the rounds exited.

In short, there is nothing in these photos to support the suggestion that the members of the church were actually firing on the BATF at this point in the raid, let alone that the members of the church fired first.

NEW! The following two photos are closeups of the bullet holes in the front door of the church. Note the snoothness of the edges, indicating that the bullets that made all these holes were traveling from the outside in, i.e. the BATF was shooting into the church but nobody was shooting out.

Click for full size image

Click for full size image

One more photo.

Click for full size image

This is the remains of the inventory of guns kept at the church after the fatal fire. Note that the guns are stacked neatly against the wall, which means they were not being used to shoot at the FBI and BATF.

---

Contrary to the image of a dangerous gun nut put out in the media in an effort to justify the burning of the church, official BATF records prove that David Koresch was rather harmless, so much so that the BATF agents invited him to go shooting with them just 9 days before they raided the church. Koresch supplied the ammunition. The BATF agents allowed Koresch to try out their weapons.

Here is the official BATF report.

Click for full size image

It turns out that Koresch was not fooled by ther undercover BATF. During his 911 phone call as the BATF pumped lead into the church, Koresch referred to one of the men as an agent.

Click for wave file of the 911 call> /movie/users/rivero/home/dkshtng.jpg

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Click for full size image

One of those "dangerous crazed gun weilding Christians" who so abused the BATF.

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TWO OF THE CHILDREN JANET RENO SAVED.

Kathrine Andrade before the government's Mt. Carmel Raid

Kathrine Andrade after the government's Mt. Carmel Raid

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Shari Doyle before the goverment's Mt. Carmel Raid

Shari Doyle after the goverment's Mt. Carmel Raid

Hear My Story, Before It's Too Late

By Jeremy Baker

Within three hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Robin Hordon knew it was an inside job. He had been an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) for eleven years before Reagan fired him and hundreds of his colleagues after they went on strike in the eighties. Having handled in-flight emergencies and two actual hijackings in his career, he is well qualified to comment on what NORAD should have been able to achieve in its response to the near simultaneous hijacking of four domestic passenger carriers on the morning of September 11th, 2001.

“There had to be something huge to explain why those aircraft weren’t shot down out of the sky. We have fighters on the ready to handle these situations twenty-four-seven. We have NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) monitors monitoring our skies twenty-four-seven. We have a lot of human beings, civilian and military, who care about doing their jobs.”

I spoke to Mr. Hordon one afternoon at a coffee shop in Bremerton, Washington.

“You have to understand the emotions, the duty, the job of an ATC. We are paid to watch aircraft go across the country.”

It’s clear that Hordon is passionate about the subject. A lot of people are. The dark questions that the attacks have left lingering in the national psyche have been recorded. 49% of New Yorkers believe that the government had something to do with 9/11. Following an interview with Charlie Sheen, a CNN poll revealed that 82% of respondents believed that there was “a government cover-up of 9/11.” Jay Leno asked Bill Maher on The Tonight Show about the fact that 37% of Americans (according to Scribbs-Howard) believe that the government was involved in some way with the attacks (Maher was definitely not one of them).

As far as the “emotions, the duty, the job” of an ATC is concerned, Hordon puts it this way:

“Imagine yourself at a circus, a fair, a crowded sports event. You have in your hand your little child of five or six, you’re amongst hundreds of people and you turn around and see that your child is gone. How do you feel at that moment? You feel panicked. You feel that this is the worst thing possible, so what you do is you engage. When ATCs lose an aircraft, all hell breaks loose. They flip right into motion. We take action and do not wait for other things to happen.”

As a former member of the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization), Hordon’s years as an ATC are particularly relevent to 9/11 researchers.

“I was a certified ATC in Boston west-bound departures, the routing that AA11 and UA175 followed on 9/11. I know it like the back of my hand.”

He even received a letter of commendation for his role in dealing with an actual hijacking. When it became clear that there hadn’t been a systems failure of any kind on the morning of September 11th, Hordon was certain that something had gone terribly wrong within the upper echelons of authority. A pilot (third level air carrier) as well as an ATC, he is well versed on in-flight emergency protocol. He is also adamant that if these procedures had been followed on 9/11 not one of the hijacked planes would have reached their targets.

“I’m sorry but American 11 should have been intercepted over southwest Connecticut—bang, done deal.”

According to Hordon, air emergencies requiring scrambles, or “flushes,” from fighter jets occur 50 to 150 times a year.

“It’s routine. At Otis AFB we would have practice exercises two or three times a year. We’d flush aircraft, get the B-52’s up, get the tankers up, get the fighters up. Just out of Otis there’d be twenty, thirty fighter jets. And on 9/11 there were plenty of fighters as well. They were just diverted over the ocean, tied up in drills, etc.”

The vast majority of air incidents are simple communications or routing failures, common mishaps that are easily remedied. Nonetheless, when a problem does arise, it is treated as an emergency and interceptors are scrambled.

“This is exactly what’s written in our manuals. We alert our immediate supervisors, we get another set of eyes on the scope. We have, two feet away from us, a little button that says ADC, Air Defense Command [nowadays NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector)]. Bing, hit the button. ‘Hey, this is me at the Boston Center air space. I just lost a target or I have an erratic target. He is twenty-five miles west of Keene, last reported at such-and-such location.’”

Pilots use similar checklists when responding to problems with their airplanes:

“If I lose an engine in a multi-engine aircraft I know exactly what to do. I start to control the aircraft to fly with one engine, I’ll shut the ailing engine down, I’ll get the aircraft trimmed up. It’s check, check, check.”

Hordon is not persuaded by those who make excuses for the lack of military response on 9/11. U.S. air defenses have been on hair-trigger alert to defend the nation from attack since the early sixties. The idea that, on the morning of 9/11, there was an inexplicable wave of incompetence on the part of his former FAA “brothers in arms” offends him deeply.

“The pilots are in their ready rooms, the planes are in open-ended hangars. You have frontline players, pilots and controllers. I’m there, I’m watching. The pilot is there, he’s flying. We have direct air defense command communications. That’s the way it’s been for fifty years.”

The unfathomable delays seen in military action on 9/11 are inconceivable to those who have painstakingly investigated the matter—and for a man who worked for years keeping air travel over the U.S. safe.

“Military pilots would have their asses off the ground faster than you could imagine. I know how quickly our systems can respond. Why would you design a system that responds slowly to an emergency?”

Claims by authorities that, once a hijacked aircraft’s transponders have been turned off, the plane becomes virtually invisible to radar, is another sore point for Hordon.

“Bottom line, these aircraft were always radar monitored, we were always in communication with them, even if they were hijacked. The only way you can lose an aircraft these days is for the plane to flat out blow up.”

Since any genuine air attack would not likely announce itself as such, NORAD radar has to be able to detect anything. But there’s nothing stealthy about an enormous Boeing passenger liner, whether its transponder is operating properly or not.

“That aircraft is represented on their radar scope from the time it takes off to the time it lands. Even little puddle-jumpers out of our local airports. NORAD tracks all these aircraft. They have the world’s most sophisticated radar.”

After eleven eventful years as an ATC, Hordon naturally reacted with shock when he first heard that fifty years of tried and true in-flight emergency protocol was abruptly altered in June of 2001, just two months before the attacks.

“Rumsfeld put a third party in between the ATC and the Air Defense Controller responsible for scrambling interceptors —the Pentagon.”

He speculates that

“the phone calls went from the FAA to the Pentagon and were not answered. Therefore the Pentagon never reached down to the ADC base to release the aircraft. The Boston Center’s ATCs got so frustrated with the non-answer from the military that they finally said, ‘get these guys going anyways.’ That’s the way it’s been for fifty years. We scramble aircraft. We don’t wait for OK’s from third or fourth parties.”

The no-show status of the U.S. military on the morning of September 11th, 2001, has understandably become the single most compelling point that 9/11 researchers, writers and activists use to support their claims of complicity on the part of the U.S government (and its military and intelligence apparatus) in the attacks. When even those who condemn “conspiracy theory” in regard to 9/11 have questioned the military’s conduct that morning, it’s clear that this anomaly is worthy of intense concern and diligent investigation. Whatever the case may be, there are no doubts that history’s largest and most technologically advanced military was apparently caught completely off guard by four huge hijacked passenger jets that were in the air for almost two hours on the crystal clear morning of 9/11.

9/11 researchers have spent years speculating about what exactly did happen in the cockpits of the hijacked jets on 9/11. Theories run the gamut, from duplicate aircraft taking over the flight plans of the hijacked planes to passenger jets being remotely commandeered in mid-air. Naturally, the technical complexities involved in operating a huge commercial passenger jet can only be fully conveyed by someone with extensive aviation training and experience.

“For years, they have been improving what the common person will call an autopilot. The modern term is a flight director. You can program a flight director basically for your entire flight, before and after you take off.”

Flight directors—high-tech navigational computers—are used in commercial aircraft because they are always sensing every factor that affects an aircraft’s flight (wind speed and direction, fuel weight, atmospheric conditions, etc.) and instantly make the adjustments necessary to sustain the most efficient and economic operation of the plane.

“The Boeing 707 Series, I believe, were the last series of aircraft built where you actually controlled the plane using wires or cables. There are no cables anymore. What we have now are electronic or hydraulic sensors that transmit information to servos and other control devices that apply pressure to the control surfaces.”

The fact that the operation of modern aircraft is primarily computerized essentially makes the controls hackable, either from onboard or, if the proper receivers are installed in the plane, from a remote location.

“Internally the aircraft had to have a separate receiver unit built into it; separate windows of access into the flight director and an ability to disengage the manual controls in the aircraft and take it over with all of the pre-determined information.”

Hordon adds an important caveat:

if a flight director was redirected during a flight, the new flight-plan would not necessarily be communicated to those on the ground.

Losing The Epic Battle

American Scofflaw

No matter what the government does, it cannot patch back together the busted market for mortgages, derivatives and especially credit default swaps.

It cannot stop a pandemic of loan losses among large AND small banks as the economy sinks and traditional bank lending goes bad.

It cannot stop the contagion of falling confidence, fear and panic. It cannot outlaw gravity or stop investors from selling. Nor can it turn back the clock and reverse years of financial sins.

So don’t count on Uncle Sam to save your bank, your business, or the economy.

Keep up to 90% of your money in cash.

This list includes banks which have failed since October 1, 2000.

Bank Name	Closing Date	Updated Date
1st Centennial Bank, Redlands, CA	January 23, 2009	January 23, 2009
Bank of Clark County, Vancouver, WA	January 16, 2009	January 16, 2009
National Bank of Commerce, Berkeley, IL	January 16, 2009	January 16, 2009
Sanderson State Bank, Sanderson, TX En Español	December 12, 2008	December 12, 2008
Haven Trust Bank, Duluth, GA	December 12, 2008	December 12, 2008
First Georgia Community Bank, Jackson, GA	December 5, 2008	December 5, 2008
PFF Bank and Trust, Pomona, CA	November 21, 2008	November 21, 2008
Downey Savings and Loan, Newport Beach, CA	November 21, 2008	January 13, 2009
The Community Bank, Loganville, GA	November 21, 2008	November 21, 2008
Security Pacific Bank, Los Angeles, CA	November 7, 2008	November 7, 2008
Franklin Bank, SSB, Houston, TX	November 7, 2008	November 7, 2008
Freedom Bank, Bradenton, FL	October 31, 2008	October 31, 2008
Alpha Bank & Trust, Alpharetta, GA	October 24, 2008	October 24, 2008
Meridian Bank, Eldred, IL	October 10, 2008	October 10, 2008
Main Street Bank, Northville, MI	October 10, 2008	October 10, 2008
Washington Mutual Bank, Henderson, NV and Washington Mutual Bank FSB, Park City, UT	September 25, 2008	January 13, 2009
Ameribank, Northfork, WV	September 19, 2008	October 20, 2008
Silver State Bank, Henderson, NV En Español	September 5, 2008	October 20, 2008
Integrity Bank, Alpharetta, GA	August 29, 2008	December 23, 2008
The Columbian Bank and Trust, Topeka, KS	August 22, 2008	October 20, 2008
First Priority Bank, Bradenton, FL	August 1, 2008	October 27, 2008
First Heritage Bank, NA, Newport Beach, CA	July 25, 2008	October 20, 2008
First National Bank of Nevada, Reno, NV	July 25, 2008	December 9, 2008
IndyMac Bank, Pasadena, CA	July 11, 2008	January 16, 2009
First Integrity Bank, NA, Staples, MN	May 30, 2008	October 20, 2008
ANB Financial, NA, Bentonville, AR	May 9, 2008	October 27, 2008
Hume Bank, Hume, MO	March 7, 2008	October 27, 2008
Douglass National Bank, Kansas City, MO	January 25, 2008	October 20, 2008
Miami Valley Bank, Lakeview, OH	October 4, 2007	October 20, 2008
NetBank, Alpharetta, GA	September 28, 2007	December 23, 2008
Metropolitan Savings Bank, Pittsburgh, PA	February 2, 2007	October 20, 2008
Bank of Ephraim, Ephraim, UT	June 25, 2004	April 9, 2008
Reliance Bank, White Plains, NY	March 19, 2004	April 9, 2008
Guaranty National Bank of Tallahassee, Tallahassee, FL	March 12, 2004	October 20, 2008
Dollar Savings Bank, Newark, NJ	February 14, 2004	April 9, 2008
Pulaski Savings Bank, Philadelphia, PA	November 14, 2003	July 22, 2005
The First National Bank of Blanchardville, Blanchardville, WI	May 9, 2003	October 20, 2008
Southern Pacific Bank, Torrance, CA	February 7, 2003	October 20, 2008
The Farmers Bank of Cheneyville, Cheneyville, LA	December 17, 2002	October 20, 2004
The Bank of Alamo, Alamo, TN	November 8, 2002	March 18, 2005
AmTrade International Bank of Georgia, Atlanta, GA En Español	September 30, 2002	September 11, 2006
Universal Federal Savings Bank, Chicago, IL	June 27, 2002	April 9, 2008
Connecticut Bank of Commerce, Stamford, CT	June 26, 2002	October 20, 2008
New Century Bank, Shelby Township, MI	March 28, 2002	March 18, 2005
Net 1st National Bank, Boca Raton, FL	March 1, 2002	April 9, 2008
NextBank, N.A., Phoenix, AZ	February 7, 2002	October 20, 2008
Oakwood Deposit Bank Company, Oakwood, OH	February 1, 2002	October 20, 2008
Bank of Sierra Blanca, Sierra Blanca, TX	January 18, 2002	November 6, 2003
Hamilton Bank, N.A., Miami, FL En Español	January 11, 2002	October 20, 2008
Sinclair National Bank, Gravette, AR	September 7, 2001	February 10, 2004
Superior Bank, FSB, Hinsdale, IL	July 27, 2001	October 20, 2008
The Malta National Bank, Malta, OH	May 3, 2001	November 18, 2002
First Alliance Bank & Trust Company, Manchester, NH	February 2, 2001	February 18, 2003
National State Bank of Metropolis, Metropolis, IL	December 14, 2000	March 17, 2005
Bank of Honolulu, Honolulu, HI	October 13, 2000	March 17, 2005

Scofflaw Economy

American Scofflaw
Bordellos next? No, wait, they tried that. The US Government took over the Bunny Ranch for unpaid taxes and wound up having to close the place. Who else but the Us Government could go broke running a whorehouse?!?

A tell-tale sign America's chips are down: States are increasingly turning to gambling to plug budget holes.

Proposals to allow or expand slots or casinos are percolating in at least 14 states, tempting legislators and governors at a time when many must decide between cutting services and raising taxes.

Gambling has hard-core detractors in every state, but when the budget-balancing alternatives lawmakers must consider include reducing education funding or lifting sales taxes, resistance is easier to overcome, political analysts said.

"Who wouldn't be interested if you're a politician who needs to fund programs?" said Bo Bernhard, director of research at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas — a government-funded program.

While gambling has not been immune from the recession, it has held up relatively well compared with states' other revenue streams, such as income and sales taxes. This helps explain why past industry growth spurts have been preceded by economic downturns, experts said.

Americans Learning From Chinese Friends

U.S. Army troops stand guard over Sally Port One at Camp Delta where detainees are held at the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Spitzer Was Later Removed From Office With A Sex Scandal

American Scofflaw
An odd series of money transfers ordered by the leader of the World Jewish Congress, the tiny nonprofit that has wrested billions in Holocaust restitution from banks, companies and governments in Europe, has provoked an informal inquiry by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of New York, people contacted by Mr. Spitzer's office said.

Officials from Mr. Spitzer's office have been contacting organization insiders and others in the United States and abroad, and the organization appears to be working to head off a full-blown investigation.

Toward that end, Stephen E. Herbits, who has been hired by Edgar Bronfman Sr., the organization's chief patron, to overhaul governance and financial management, has traveled to Israel and Europe courting support for plans for better internal oversight of the organization.

The congress has formidable legal representation in the form of Robert Abrams, a former New York attorney general, and the Jewish Week reported yesterday that Mr. Herbits had been negotiating with Isi Leibler, the organization's senior vice president and most vigorous internal critic.

Mr. Leibler, who declined to comment, has demanded an independent audit of the organization and extensive reforms in governance and financial management.

Nobody Here But Us Victims

American Scofflaw
Nobody is allowed to be a victim but us, do you hear me? Nobody! NOBODY! NOBODY!!!!!!!

By Michael Baggot

A Jewish intellectual and holocaust survivor in a Wednesday interview deemed a new Berlin monument to homosexual Nazi victims scandalous for equating the Nazi's persecution of homosexuals with its persecution of Jews, reported Canwest News Service.

"For many years after the war, I had the impression that the Germans understood the immense scope of the crime of the Holocaust which they had committed ... But this time, they made an error," Israel Gutman of Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Institute told Poland's Rzeczpospolita daily.

"The location was particularly poorly chosen for this monument. If visitors have the impression that there was not a great difference between the suffering of Jews and those of homosexuals, it's a scandal. A sense of proportion must be maintained."

The new Berlin monument to homosexual victims features video footage of two men kissing and sits across the street from Germany's national memorial to Jewish Holocaust victims.

The gray concrete of the new monument also imitates the makeup of the Jewish Holocaust monument opened three years earlier.

"This memorial is important from two points of view - to commemorate the victims, but also to make clear that even today, after we have achieved so much in terms of equal treatment, discrimination still exists daily," announced Berlin's actively homosexual mayor Klaus Wowereit at last Tuesday's inauguration.

The latest push to portray active homosexuals as victims of systematic Nazi attack contrasted with a recently growing body of evidence indicating a wide-scale Nazi embrace of homosexuality.

In a 2006 study, renowned expert on sexuality Judith A. Reisman revealed that while Hitler's "Mein Kampf" degraded Jews, Marxists, Negroes, Chinese, Arabs, women, and Eastern Europeans, the Fuhrer had no negative remarks for homosexuality. Instead, Hitler chose actively homosexual men as influential youth leaders.

According to Reisman, "The Pink Swastika" refuted the comparison between Nazi persecution of homosexuals and of Jews.

On Wednesday, Gutman noted that homosexual victims were "exclusively German." The Jewish intellectual added that many persecuted homosexuals were themselves Nazis and were "victims of internal political battles within the NSDAP [Hitler's Nazi Party]."

Wild World of Scofflaw

Ever fantasised about having X-ray vision, wearing an invisibility cloak or climbing walls like Spider-Man?

Then daydream no longer. Scientists predict that all three could be possible within 30 years.

So too, they say, could be James Bond-style jet packs that lift the wearer into the sky, and hand-held medical devices that heal wounds, just like the ones used by Dr McCoy in Star Trek.

It's entirely possible that 30 years from now we could utilise some of our favourite superheroes' powers

While the gadgets still sound outlandish, scientists point out that iPods, mobile phones and the internet would have seemed just as unlikely 30 years ago.

It was in 1979 that a Japanese firm launched the first cellular phone network, in Tokyo. Few believed then that one day mobile phones would be as common as they are now.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the first mobile network, New Scientist magazine compiled a list of the top ten gadgets which could become reality by 2039.


It includes X-ray vision, where objects can be detected through barriers, which could be a development of current British research on ultrasound or radio waves.

Invisibility cloaks such as that worn by Harry Potter may also become fact through science rather than magic, the experts suggest.

There is already research being developed in both the U.S. and China to find materials which deceive the human eye by distorting light and visible frequencies.

Other ideas are being researched now but could take up to three decades to become reality, said New Scientist.

While the communicators used in 1960s Star Trek have been superseded by mobile phones, U.S. researchers are working on ultrasound technology which could lead to the sort of 'hand-held healer' used by Dr McCoy - a device which can spot internal injuries and heal them.

Sean Connery in Thunderball, using a jet pack - and so might we, sooner than we think

Climbing walls may be restricted to animals and Spider-Man but in the future materials based on the design of gecko feet could be used for gloves and boots to allow humans to not only stick to walls but also to climb them.

New Scientist also predicts jet packs for all, like 007's in Thunderball, and harnessing human energy to charge up gadgets such as iPods instead of using batteries.

Other ideas include personal spacecraft, TVs that can produce the smell of what's on as well as the sound, and a device to create oxygen out of water so divers can breathe limitlessly.

Finally there may be a gadget like the Babel Fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy which could translate any language into another.

The real version is a gadget based on a computer programme used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq which recognises speech patterns to translate Arabic into English.

New Scientist said: 'Crystal-ball gazing is a fraught endeavour... but in 30 years' time these gadgets may change our lives as much, or maybe more, than cellphones, iPods and the internet.'

A Scofflaw Till The End

American Scofflaw
Okay, this tells us that Fuld knows he is going to be sued and probably lose, which means Fuld knows that Lehman Brothers did something criminal, which will strip him of the protections of his personal assets normally accorded by a corporation. So he is moving to protect his assets.

Housing prices are falling around the country, but this one sounds hard to believe: A seaside mansion on Jupiter Island in Florida, bought for more than $13 million five years ago, was just sold for $10.

That’s right, 10 bucks. But in this case, the transaction is likely to raise eyebrows for reasons other than the price.

The seller, according to county records, was Richard S. Fuld Jr., the former chairman and chief executive of Lehman Brothers. The buyer was his wife, Kathleen.

The motivation is unclear, but Mr. Fuld has been under intense scrutiny since Lehman declared bankruptcy in September.

The longtime leader of the brokerage firm is at the center of a federal investigation into whether Lehman executives misled investors about the state of the company. And he was grilled by lawmakers at a Congressional hearing in October.

Mr. Fuld said in sworn testimony before a Congressional panel last year that while he took full responsibility for the debacle, he believed that all his decisions “were both prudent and appropriate” given the information he had at the time.

The couple jointly bought the home in Hobe Sound, Fla., for $13.75 million in March 2004, and the sale to Mrs. Fuld on Nov. 10 was first reported by Cityfile.com.

It is possible that he is now transferring properties because of his fears of investor lawsuits or a possible bankruptcy, lawyers in Florida said.

“This is the oldest trick in the books” said Eric S. Ruff, a lawyer with Ruff & Cohen in Gainesville, Fla. “It’s common when you hear the feet of your creditors approaching to divest yourself.”