Obama's First Coup D'etat

 

Written by Eva Golinger

President Zelaya of Honduras has just been kidnapped   [Note: As of 11:15am, Caracas time, President Zelaya is speaking live on Telesur from San Jose, Costa Rica. He has verified the soldiers entered his residence in the early morning hours, firing guns and threatening to kill him and his family if he resisted the coup. He was forced to go with the soldiers who took him to the air base and flew him to Costa Rica. He has requested the U.S. Government make a public statement condemning the coup, otherwise, it will indicate their compliance.]   Caracas, Venezuela -  The text message that beeped on my cell phone this morning read "Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d'etat underway in Honduras, spread the word." It's a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversary is today's scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.   Such an initiative has never taken place in the Central American nation, which has a very limited constitution that allows minimal participation by the people of Honduras in their political processes. The current constitution, written in 1982 during the height of the Reagan Administration's dirty war in Central America, was designed to ensure those in power, both economic and political, would retain it with little interference from the people. Zelaya, elected in November 2005 on the platform of Honduras' Liberal Party, had proposed the opinion poll be conducted to determine if a majority of citizens agreed that constitutional reform was necessary. He was backed by a majority of labor unions and social movements in the country. If the poll had occurred, depending on the results, a referendum would have been conducted during the upcoming elections in November to vote on convening a constitutional assembly. Nevertheless, today's scheduled poll was not binding by law.   In fact, several days before the poll was to occur, Honduras' Supreme Court ruled it illegal, upon request by the Congress, both of which are led by anti-Zelaya majorities and members of the ultra-conservative party, National Party of Honduras (PNH). This move led to massive protests in the streets in favor of President Zelaya. On June 24, the president fired the head of the high military command, General Romeo Vásquez, after he refused to allow the military to distribute the electoral material for Sunday's elections. General Romeo Vásquez held the material under tight military control, refusing to release it even to the president's followers, stating that the scheduled referendum had been determined illegal by the Supreme Court and therefore he could not comply with the president's order. As in the United States, the president of Honduras is Commander in Chief and has the final say on the military's actions, and so he ordered the General's removal. The Minister of Defense, Angel Edmundo Orellana, also resigned in response to this increasingly tense situation.

 

But the following day, Honduras Supreme Court reinstated General Romeo Vasquez to the high military command, ruling his firing as unconstitutional. Thousands poured into the streets of Honduras capital, Tegucigalpa, showing support for President Zelaya and evidencing their determination to ensure Sundays non-binding referendum would take place. On Friday, the president and a group of hundreds of supporters, marched to the nearby air base to collect the electoral material that had been previously held by the military. That evening, Zelaya gave a national press conference along with a group of politicians from different political parties and social movements, calling for unity and peace in the country.

 

As of Saturday, the situation in Honduras was reported as calm. But early Sunday morning, a group of approximately 60 armed soldiers entered the presidential residence and took Zelaya hostage. After several hours of confusion, reports surfaced claiming the president had been taken to a nearby air force base and flown to neighboring Costa Rica. No images have been seen of the president so far and it is unknown whether or not his life is still endangered.

 

http://www.soaw.org/presente/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=217

Michael Jackson set to be embalmed at the O2 Centre after missing the deadline for cryogenic freezing

By Daily Mail Reporter

Michael Jackson will live on as a 'plastinated' creature preserved by German doctor Gunther von Hagens.

Von Hagens has caused controversy with everyone from the Pope to the chief rabbi in Israel with his practice of embalming corpses with preserving polyurethane.

Yesterday, he declared: 'An agreement is in place to plastinate the King of Pop.'

'An agreement is in place': German doctor Gunther von Hagens says he is to preserve the King of Pop with polyurethane

Michael Jackson with his Chimpanzee Bubbles in 1991: Bubbles currently resides at the Body Worlds exhibit at the O2 Centre in London

Von Hagens said that he spoke with representatives of the Jackson family 'many months ago' and it was agreed that his body will be plastinated and placed next to Bubbles, his late pet monkey who was plastinated a number of years ago and is exhibited at The Body Worlds & Mirror Of Time exhibition at the O2 Centre in London. 

Von Hagens also confirmed it was one of Michael's final requests to be reunited with Bubbles.

'There is no better place than to do this at the venue where Jackson was due to perform his world record 50-date tour,' said a spokesman for Von Hagens.

He added: 'Von Hagens has hinted that a moonwalk pose would naturally be favoured. 'It is hoped the exhibit will be unveiled towards the end of July.'

It was widely believed that the singer, who died yesterday from a heart attack, was interested in having his body frozen in the hope he could later be brought back to life.

However, it is now too late for his wish to be granted as the freezing process - cryonics - must be initiated almost immediately after death but an autopsy on Jackson's body still needs to be carried out.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1195750/Michael-Jackson-set-plastinated-missing-deadline-cryogenic-freezing.html

Origins of the Moonwalk

Michael Jackson’s Death Causes Surge On BitTorrent

by Ernesto

The 'King of Pop' may have died but his music lives on, and on file-sharing networks, maybe stronger than ever. Less than 24 hours after Jackson passed away hundreds of thousands of file-sharers have downloaded one or more of his albums on BitTorrent.

Michael Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest on Thursday afternoon, which was likely caused by a Demerol overdose and ultimately led to his death.

There is no doubt that Jackson had a tremendous impact on several generations of musicians, and millions of people who grew up with his music. It is therefore no surprise to see that only hours after he was pronounced dead, his music is being sought by hundreds of thousands of people.

At the time of writing the three most active torrents in the music section on the largest torrent indexer, Mininova, are all compilations or discographies from the "King of Pop". On top is a torrent listing 30 Michael Jackson albums, The Jackson 5 and The Jacksons, totaling 1.94 GB of music.

In common with social media sites, 'Michael Jackson' is one of the most sought after phrases on torrent sites too. The search cloud on Mininova is filled with Jackson-related searches from fans who want to complete their collection.

Michael Jackson fills Mininova's search cloud

This renewed interest in Michael Jackson is not limited to just torrent sites though. On Amazon, Jackson's work takes up the top 14 spots on the bestselling albums list. Currently the top 10 albums chart on iTunes is dominated by 7 Jackson albums. On eBay there is a similar boom with memorabilia being traded for ten times the prices of just two days ago.

It had been rumored by Michael Jackson biographer Ian Halperin that the 'King of Pop' had recorded as many as 100 unreleased tracks but was keeping them locked away. He claimed that upon Jackson's death, the tracks would be made available to his three children as a personal legacy and to secure an inheritance.

http://torrentfreak.com/michael-jacksons-death-causes-surge-on-bittorrent-090626/

Michael Jackson + West Side Story

Strange Martial Law via Food Control: HR 2749

Not what the American people ordered – HR 2749, martial law and the enslavement of their farmers

By The Writers' Collective

Source: Food Freedom

HR 2749 is a strange bill in many ways.  While the other "food safety" bills have been around since winter, allowing for much public discussion on the internet, HR 2749 has only suddenly appeared.  It is a mutant conglomeration of the worst of the other bills, with the addition of one very original part – martial law.

When it was a draft, it was Waxman's bill.  But once given a number, it became Dingel's who already had a "food safety" bill, HR 759.  So Waxman got none and Dingel got two.  (Was this because Waxman, being Jewish, was a hideous choice to introduce a bill with Codex in it – designed by the Nazi pharmaceutical companies that funded Hitler, provided the gas for the gas chambers, experimented on prisoners with vaccines – and is expected to kill millions?) 

* HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including "prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area."  

[This - "that has been used to transport or hold such food" - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home or any pickup someone has eaten take-out in, so this means ALL TRANSPORTATION can be shut down under this.  This is using food as a cover for martial law.]  

Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination.  The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area.  

[This is also a means of total control over the population under the cover of food, and at any time.] See this DailyKos entry.

The bill is unusual, too, because slow as it was to appear. The little bugger of bill has made up for it since.  It got a number on June 10, went to committee on June 17, passed instantly, and is headed for a vote on the floor of the House.   

The first Patriot Act was passed using fear of terrorism. This Patriot Act is more coy, hiding under a cloak of "food safety" and but also using fear – fear of food contamination.  Evidently, Americans are supposed to be so frightened by the slightest possibility of a terrorist or of E-coli, they would trade away all their precious, hard fought freedoms for the promise of safety.  Or at least, that is what the trade-off has become.  "Terrorism" and "contamination" are great bugaboos used to open doors to an end to the US Constitution.  That is exactly what we are left with after those who wrote HR 2749 are done.  

Who did write these bills?  It seems Monsanto had not only a hand, but a "defining" influence. http://farmwars.info/?p=594

This redefining of reality is what seems to be underlying all the loss of freedom.  Normal and free are disappearing into the maw of corporate definitions of reality. See this Yup Farming piece. 

So, we begin with contaminated food from filthy corporate processors and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).  And what do we end up with after that reality is ground up by corporate legal hands?  Changes in the definition of risk so that natural things are treated as dangerous and toxic things are untouched, such that: 

• Healthy, normal farms are taken over by government as though they were run by criminals and contaminated corporate slaughterhouses are untouched;
• The necessary freedom of individuals to live and grow food and be left alone are somehow suddenly destroyed, though they were never the source of any food contamination issue; and such that
• The profit and control and power of corporations which were absolutely the source of the increasingly terrible food, is somehow suddenly vastly increased.  

Thanks to corporate control over reality, our wanting to clean up corporate processors and feedlots and CAFOS and end up with farmers' markets and local farms and organic food has become the industrialization and potential destruction of every healthy part of the food system and the triumph of the most contaminated and toxic part.

http://farmwars.info/?p=1145

Ask Congress to Defeat HR 2749

 

111th U.S. Congress - House Bill HR 2749 [Click here for FAQs]

A new food safety bill is on the fast track in Congress--HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The bill needs to be stopped!

HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency. The bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse.

HR 2749 does not address underlying causes of food safety problems such as industrial agriculture practices and the consolidation of our food supply. The industrial food system and food imports are badly in need of effective regulation, but the HR 2749 does not specifically direct regulation or resources to these areas.

ALARMING PROVISIONS (see Talking Points):
* Power to Quarantine a Geographic Area; the FDA can also Halt All Movement of All Food in a geographic area.

* Random Warrantless Searches of Business Records.

* Establishing a Tracing System for Food.

* Severe Criminal and Civil Penalties.

* Annual Registration Fee of $500.

* Regulation of How Crops Are Raised and Harvested.

http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum993.php

On the Appalatian Trail

Rupert Murdoch's Propaganda World

Neo-Nazi Threatmaker Accused of Working for FBI

 

by Mark Potok

New Jersey radio host Hal Turner is well known as one of the most vicious neo-Nazis in America, a man who routinely suggests killing his enemies.

Railing against President Bush, he told his audience last June that "a well-placed bullet can solve a lot of problems." He has written that "we need to start SHOOTING AND KILLING Mexicans as they cross the border" and argued that killing certain federal judges "may be illegal, but it wouldn't be wrong." In 2006, after he published an attack on New Jersey Supreme Court justices that also included several of their home addresses, state police massively beefed up security for the members of the court, checking on one justice's house more than 200 times.

Hal Turner is one serious extremist. He may also be on the FBI payroll.

On Jan. 1, unidentified hackers electronically confronted Turner in the forum of his website for "The Hal Turner Show." After a heated exchange, they told Turner that they had successfully hacked into his E-mails and found correspondence with an FBI agent who is apparently Turner's handler. Then they posted an alleged July 7 E-mail to the agent in which Turner hands over a message from someone who sent in a death threat against Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.). "Once again," Turner writes to his handler, "my fierce rhetoric has served to flush out a possible crazy." In what is allegedly a portion of another E-mail, Turner discusses the money he is paid.

On Thursday, as the E-mail exchange was heatedly discussed on a major neo-Nazi website, Turner suddenly announced he was quitting political work. "I hereby separate from the 'pro-White' movement," he said, adding that he was ending his radio show immediately. "I will no longer involve myself in any aspect of it."

The FBI declined comment. "Longstanding FBI policy prohibits disclosing who may or may not provide information," Agent Richard Kolko of the agency's press unit said. Reached in New Jersey, Turner also declined all comment.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/01/11/neo-nazi-threatmaker-accused-of-working-for-fbi/

Then and now

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein bluffed about WMDs fearing Iranian arsenal, secret FBI files show

BY James Gordon Meek

WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein feared Iran's arsenal more than a U.S. attack, and even considered asking ex-President George W. Bush "to protect" Iraq from its neighbor, once secret FBI files show.

The FBI interrogations of the toppled tyrant - codename "Desert Spider" - were declassified after a Freedom of Information Act request.

The records show Saddam happily boasted of duping the world about stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. And he consistently denied cooperating with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.

Of all his enemies, Iraq's ex-president - who insisted he still held office during captivity - hated Iran most.

Asked how he would have faced "fanatic" Iranian ayatollahs if Iraq had been proven toothless by UN weapons inspectors in 2003, Saddam said he would have cut a deal with Bush.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/24/2009-06-24_former_iraqi_leader_saddam_hussein_feared_iran_more_than_us_secret_fbi_files_sho.html

Pentagon approves creation of cyber command

 

* Command to bring together Pentagon's cyber efforts

* HQ will not oversee other government, private networks

* Command chief would also run National Security Agency

By Andrew Gray

WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - The Pentagon will create a Cyber Command to oversee the U.S. military's efforts to protect its computer networks and operate in cyberspace, under an order signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday.

The new headquarters, likely to be based at Fort Meade, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C., will be responsible for defending U.S. military systems but not other U.S. government or private networks, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

Asked if the command would be capable of offensive operations as well as protecting the Department of Defense, Whitman declined to answer directly.

 

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N2388687.htm

'Synthetic tree' claims to catch carbon in the air

 

By Hilary Whiteman

Scientists in the United States are developing a "synthetic tree" capable of collecting carbon around 1,000 times faster than the real thing.

As the wind blows though plastic "leaves," the carbon is trapped in a chamber, compressed and stored as liquid carbon dioxide.

The technology is similar to that used to capture carbon from flue stacks at coal-fired power plants, but the difference is that the "synthetic tree" can catch carbon anytime, anywhere.

"Half of your emissions come from small, distributed sources where collection at the site is either impossible or impractical," said Professor Klaus Lackner, Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University.

"We aim for applications like gasoline in cars or jet fuel in airplanes. We are going after CO2 that otherwise is nearly impossible to collect," he told CNN.

While the idea of carbon-catchers may sound far-fetched, an early model has been built and Lackner is in the process of writing a proposal for consideration by the U.S. Department of Energy.

He personally explained the concept in a 45-minute meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu last month at a three-day symposium on climate change in London.

"He was there and I was there and he showed interest," Lackner told CNN. "That's exciting, but I don't particularly want to discuss this in a public forum because I think this gives me a little bit of an opportunity to tailor my proposals to the Department of Energy in a way that makes them more palatable."

Lackner started working on the concept of an ambient carbon catcher in 1998. "I argued back then and I still argue that the reason this can be done, from a theoretical point of view, is that the CO2 in the air is actually surprisingly concentrated, therefore the device you need to collect CO2 is quite small."

The "synthetic tree" looks more like a public convenience block than a hi-tech method of reducing carbon emissions, but Lackner told CNN it is highly efficient for its size when compared, for example, to a modern power-generating wind turbine.

"If you give me one of those big windmills which have those big areas through which the rotor moves -- how much CO2 can I avoid? And if I had an equally sized CO2 collector -- how much CO2 can I collect? It turns out the collector is several hundred times better than the windmill."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/06/22/synthetic.tree.climate.change.ccs/index.html

In defense of PETA's total stupidity

 Who, pray who, will save the houseflies? And our sanity?

By Mark Morford,

Oh, how easy it is to laugh and mock and sigh with savage delight.

How easy it is to point at extremist groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as they come out and admit, in public, to an actual reporter, that they wish President Obama had not killed that fly, that tiny little hunk of bacteria and regurgitated food bits and death, but had instead taken a moment to capture it gently between his loving presidential palms like it was universal health care reform and then set it free outside, so it could go spread germs and fecal matter and disease to various flowers and small children and Republicans.

How delightful it is to point out how this group is, once again, so laughably insane and out of touch, how they have jumped the shark once again, which they seem to do with delightful, if obnoxious, frequency.

But hang on a sec. Maybe there was something in that hilarious little story that gave you pause. Maybe you decided to drill down into the idea for just a moment, just to see, and then perhaps realized, well, yes, OK fine, there is an actual point to be made in there, somewhere, just behind the roaring ludicrousness of it all.

It goes something like this: If you're going to truly revere life, if you're going to come out and claim that there is sanctity and divinity to all God's creatures, be they gleaming sex-crazed dolphins and sweet slobbering puppies, on down to gnats and sea slugs and giant hairy bird-eating tarantulas, then yes, you're sort of forced to admit that even houseflies deserve a hint of respect, a touch of empathy, the reluctant admission that even they don't actually deserve to die, per se.

You also know this is a rather extreme and lopsided perspective, totally unfeasible in daily, circle-of-life reality. But then again, when you hold it up to the light and turn in around a few times and let the facts of human life refract through it, it's really not all that insane. It sure as hell reveals more than a few ugly truths.

You have but to ponder: How many millions of living creatures do we slaughter every day on this planet in service of our top-of-the-food-chain gluttonous desires, from cattle to ducks, chickens to horses, pigs and lambs and just about all the rest, and let's not forget raping and pillaging and sucking dry our glorious oceans? Really, is there a living creature we humans have yet to slaughter, skin, eviscerate, consume, commodify, exploit in some relatively obscene way? Nope.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/06/24/notes062409.DTL

Does Obama read Michael Dare on bartcop.com?

What Michael Dare said yesterday:

The military budget doesn't need to be cut, it just needs to be spend differently.  For the cost of let's say one aircraft carrier, we could have a massive airdrop, not of bombs,  but of free iPhones and mini laptops and wifi for every citizen of Iran, and what the hell, North Korea.  

Invite them to experience the freedom of the internet. Win their souls and minds.  
Make the foreign governments look pretty bad when they complain about a 
massive giveaway that every citizen will applaud. 
 Michael Dare 
 

 motherjones.com

 Excerpt:
One reporter asked if the White House was considering beaming broadband capability into Iran via satellite so the  opposition forces would be able to communicate with themselves and the outside world. Gibbs said he didn't know such a thing was possible. (Is it?) But he said he would check on the technological feasibility and get back with an answer.

That caused some head-scratching in the press room. If the United States could do that and was planning on doing so,  wouldn't this be one of those intelligence matters that Gibbs won't discuss? But maybe some telecom entrepreneur or  Silicon Valley whiz-kids can make this happen. The Google guys? The Twitter people? XM Radio?  This is the sort of covert action that could be worth outsourcing—with the project manager taking full credit.  Think of the endorsement possibilities: the Iranian Revolution...Brought to You by DIRECTV.

http://www.bartcop.com/

America winds down poppy eradication program

by Shaun Tandon in Washington

THE United States is winding down efforts to destroy poppies in Afghanistan, blaming its zealous approach for pushing peasants towards the Taliban.

Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said on Wednesday that President Barack Obama's Administration was making "significant adjustments" from the previous administration to try to root out Islamist extremism.

"We are downgrading our efforts to eradicate crops … a policy we think is totally ineffectual," Mr Holbrooke testified before Congress.

"Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars we've spent on crop eradication has not done any damage to the Taliban. On the contrary, it's helped them recruit," Mr Holbrooke said.

"In my experience," the US diplomat and negotiator said, "this is the least effective program ever."

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/america-winds-down-poppy-eradication-program-20090625-cy84.html

US reneges on Iraq withdrawal promises

 

The United States retracts its initial promise of commitment to withdrawing its troops from Iraqi cities by the end of the month of June.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the US military in Iraq, Brigadier General Steve Lanza, said a number of the country's troops are to remain in the urban areas after the June 30 deadline, Reuters reported.

Earlier, the US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, had claimed that the military was 'absolutely committed' and had largely honored the US security agreement signed with Baghdad.

The security agreement envisages a withdrawal from the war-torn country.

Lanza cited "stability" concerns for maintaining some troop level in "Joint Security Stations" to train and advise Iraqi security forces.

The remaining contingents are to be 'extremely small", he claimed.

The US official added that "on 1 July we're not going to see this big black puff of smoke as everybody leaves the cities" based on the military's claim that it had managed to bring about a respite in al-Qaeda-linked attacks.

This is while Pentagon officials have been using "rises in violence" to prolong the US military presence in the oil-rich country.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=99036&sectionid=3510203

Iraq opens fields; Exxon, Shell seek foothold

 

IRAQ is set to welcome back foreign oil companies into the war-torn nation to develop the world's third-largest crude reserves three decades after expelling them.

Eight of the world's top 10 nonstate oil producers, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, are vying for the right to help Iraq develop six oilfields and two natural-gas deposits. More than 30 companies in total are bidding for $16 billion worth of technical service contracts for producing fields that will be awarded in Baghdad on June 29 and 30.

"Iraq is the big prize in the region," said Raja Kiwan, a Dubai-based analyst at consultants PFC Energy. "It is one of the only remaining areas that provide the level of upside for companies who want to access reserves."

The Opec producer is struggling to increase output and revenue from crude sales after six years of conflict and prior sanctions destroyed the country's economy and infrastructure.

The government, also running a second bidding round for 11 oil and gas fields, aims to boost production to about 6 million barrels a day by 2015, from 2.4 million barrels in May. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, produces 8 million barrels a day.

Companies investing in Iraq are looking to take a stake in the long-term potential that the country's 115 billion barrels of reserves hold after gaining a foothold through the service contracts for operational fields. Iraq may offer foreign companies direct stakes in deposits and allow them to sign production-sharing agreements for future fields, according to Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.

Iraq will earn 100 times more than the foreign companies it hires to develop the deposits, the minister told parliament in Baghdad on June 23. The deposits being offered in the first licensing round may yield $1.7 trillion in profit for the country, based on an oil price of $50 a barrel, while oil companies seeking service contracts will gain $16 billion over the 20-year life of the contracts, he said.

http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/world/12333-iraq-opens-fields-exxon-shell-seek-foothold.html

Iran wants to put genie back in bottle