U.S. brigade murdered and mutilated innocent Afghan civilians - and kept their body parts as trophies

By Daniel Bates and Mark Duell
Shocking new details emerged today of how American soldiers formed a 'death squad' to randomly murder Afghan civilians and mutilate their corpses.
An investigation by Rolling Stone magazine details how senior officers failed to stop troops killing Afghans and keeping their body parts as trophies.
In one horrific episode, the magazine claims troops chopped off a dead Afghan boy's finger and later used it as 'gambling chip' in a game of cards.
The disturbing detail included in the dossier accuses American troops of a new level of depravity and is likely to be a public relations disaster for the military.

Dead: Afghans are tied to a post in one of the many images published by Rolling Stone from the 'Kill Team'

Photo: Jeremy Morlock, right, poses with David Bram with weapons that they have taken from dead Afghans

The investigation by Rolling Stone also revealed how:

• Troops shot dead civilians and tried to cover their tracks;
• U.S. soldiers hacked off part of a dead man's skull;
• Soldiers cheered as they filmed a U.S. airstrike blowing up two Afghan civilians;
• A video showed two Afghans on a motorcycle being gunned down.

The magazine claims the men hacked off bits of skull from their victims and kept them as trophies of their kills.
The soldiers are also accused of opening fire on civilians for no reason and covering up their attacks by planting guns and magazine on their victims.

The magazine claims that amongst the accused 'killing innocent Afghan civilians became less a reason for concern than a cause for celebration’. 

Last week Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 23, admitted his part in the twisted scheme and was jailed for 24 years.
The remaining four soldiers who are due to be court-martialled are Sergeant Calvin Gibbs - who is accused of being the ringleader - Specialist Adam C. Winfield, Specialist Michael S. Wagnon II and Private first class Andrew H. Holmes.
They were all part of the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, of the 2nd Infantry Division, who carried out at least four executions in Kandahar province between January and May last year.

Horror: A released video shows an incident in which two Afghans on a motorcycle are gunned down

Heart of darkness: Video shows American troops seeking out Afghan civilians who were killed 'for sport'

 

The young farmer killed for fun before his finger was used in a card game

The Rolling Stone article describes in lurid detail how American troops allegedly killed an Afghan boy before mutilating his corpse.
Soldiers Jeremy Morlock and Andrew Holmes had spotted a young farmer working by himself on January 15 2010 in the Afghan village of La Mohammed Kalay.
Gul Mudin, 15 - only four years younger than Holmes - was the only Afghan in sight, had no weapons on him and had a ‘welcoming’ face. Nobody else was around.
Gul walked towards them when called and stopped when asked. Morlock tossed a grenade at him, using the wall as cover, then both soldiers opened fire.
Gul fell face down into the ground and there was soon a pool of blood coming out from his head.
Morlock screamed over the radio that he had come under attack, but Adam Winfield told his fellow soldier Ashton Moore that it was more likely a staged killing.
Morlock and Holmes told a sergeant that Gul had been about to attack them with a grenade and they therefore had to shoot him, reported the magazine.
The story of a lone Taliban fighter, with one grenade attempting to ambush a platoon in broad daylight, seemed unlikely to top officer Captain Patrick Mitchell.
But he told Staff Sergeant Kris Sprague to ‘make sure’ Gul was dead. Sprague fired his rifle twice at the boy.
A local elder working nearby in the poppy fields came over and accused Morlock and Holmes of murder, but he was ignored by the soldiers.
This elder was asked to identify the boy, but it tragically turned out that he was his dad. ‘The father was very upset,’ an official Army report noted.
The soldiers followed Army protocol of cutting off the dead boy’s clothes and stripping him naked to check for tattoos, before scanning his iris and fingerprints.
But then they began taking photographs of them celebrating the kill, with Holmes posing for the camera by grabbing Gul’s head by the hair as if he was a deer.
Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs then started ‘messing around with the kid’, moving his arms and mouth like a puppet, before slicing off the dead boy's finger and giving it to Holmes.
Holmes took the finger around with him in a zip-lock bag. 'He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out,' one of his friends said. 'He was proud of his finger.'
A few hours after the killing, Holmes and Morlock were playing cards and said they would bet a finger in a game of spades, before tossing Gul’s onto the pile.
Medic Alyssa Reilly told investigators: ‘It was gross’.

According to Rolling Stone the men joked for weeks about killing ‘savages’ before finally murdering a boy of around 15 in a farming village, their first kill.
To cover their tracks they threw a grenade in his direction to make it look like they had come under attack.
But with his body on the floor events took an even more sinister turn as Gibbs allegedly started ‘messing around with the kid', moving his arms and mouth and ‘acting like the kid was talking'.
He then supposedly took a pair of medic’s scissors and snipped off the boy’s pinky finger and handed it to Holmes as a trophy for his first kill in Afghanistan.
Rolling Stone claims Holmes carried it around in a zip-lock bag.
‘He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out,’ a friend said later. ‘He was proud of his finger.’
Later that night Morlock and Holmes were playing a game of cards and, when it came time for their wager, they supposedly said they would bet the finger.
A female medic who was watching walked away in disgust.
In a separate incident in November 2009, Gibbs began playing with a pair of scissors near the hands of a dead insurgent killed by a helicopter, after the body was stabbed with a knife by another solider.
'I wonder if these (scissors) can cut off a finger?' Gibbs asked.
In another incident on a night in January 2010 the platoon was driving near their forward operating base and spotted a human heat signature on the roadside through their thermal imaging equipment.
Soldiers stopped nearby and went up to the man, who held his arms in front of his chest – which meant to them that he was either cold or hiding a suicide bomb vest.
He paced back and forth, ignoring their calls, and was ‘acting strange’ as the soliders fired warning shots around him. He then started walking towards them.
Someone yelled ‘fire’ and the soldiers shot around 40 rounds in a few seconds. The man turned out to be unarmed and either deaf or mentally disabled, according to official statements.
Soldier Michael Wagnon collected a piece of the skull and kept it as a trophy, but commanding officer Captain Matthew Quiggle ‘strongly believed’ they had illegitimately killed a local national.
The platoon then tried to cover up the shooting by pretending to find a weapon – which was actually a black AK-47 magazine that had been stowed in a metal box by Sergeant Calvin Gibbs.
‘Basically, what we did was a desperate search to justify killing this guy,’ a private named Justin Stoner Stoner told investigators. ‘But in reality he was just some old, deaf, retarded guy. We basically executed this man.’
However the U.S. military still considers the man responsible for his own death because he ignored the platoon’s warnings and moved in their direction.

Gun: Corporal Jeremy Morlock with the pistol found at the scene of a helicopter strike

Gruesome: The photos which sparked the trial were published in Der Spiegel magazine's March 21 issue

The Rolling Stone article talks in detail about how the soldiers felt invincible and emboldened by the lack of policing by their superiors.

Rolling Stone continues Army exposés

The article by Rolling Stone is the latest in a series of damaging exposés by the magazine of the conduct of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama fired his top Afghanistan war commander Stanley McChrystal and replaced him with his boss and mentor, David Petraeus, in June 2010, following a Rolling Stone interview.
General McChrystal criticised administration officials, the U.S. President and his advisers in the article.
President Obama claimed General McChrystal's comments were not the reason for his firing - but said his team needed to unite in pressing the war effort.
Mark Boal, the author of the latest Rolling Stone piece, is a well-known journalist, screenwriter and producer.
He won Oscars for his work on The Hurt Locker in 2008, labelled as the 'most insightful Iraq film yet'.

It also details a serious of disturbing videos and pictures of the victims taken by the men - one shows a hand with a missing finger, another depicts a severed head on a stick and others show blown up legs.
In two cases soldiers pose over the bodies of their victims as if they are hunting trophies.
The men also made videos including one which was filmed on Sept 12, 2009.
It shows infra-red camera footage of two Afghans putting what could have been an improvised explosive device in the ground ahead of the soldiers.
Regardless of whether or not it is an IED, filming at such a time is a clear breach of Army rules.
They also edited it down, added a soundtrack and gave it a chilling name - ‘Death Zone’.
In a further breach of regulations the soldiers videoed themselves in combat in Afghanistan and passed around the footage to each other on USB sticks.

Footage to loud rock music shows the moment two Afghans were blown up by an air strike

The videos were filmed by by U.S. soldiers, who videoed themselves in combat in Afghanistan and passed around the footage to each other

The footage was published by Rolling Stone magazine in its coverage of the five American soldiers accused of being part of a 'Kill Squad' which murdered innocent Afghan civilians for sport

Special report: The article on the 'Kill Team' appears in this issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, with Rihanna on the front cover

Rolling Stone has for the first time published the videos which were supposedly passed around by the men of 5th Stryker Combat Brigade as they carried out their executions in Kandahar province.
In the first clip the men can clearly be heard joking: ‘They’re going to f****** die’ and ‘You don’t f*** with us’. As the airstrike starts so does the song ‘En Vie’ by Apocalyptica, a cello rock band from Helsinki.

One of the men is killed instantly but the second runs off and is caught by another volley of explosions - as the men whoop and cheer ‘F*** yeah!’

A title card called ‘Aftermath’ comes on screen followed by close-up colour images of the men’s bloodied bodies with horrific close-ups on their injuries.

The credits then roll explaining how ‘Shadow PLT’ was behind the picture and that a Sergeant Michael Schweitzer did the editing.
According to Rolling Stone the men would pass the gruesome videos around on USB sticks and hard drives.
They would file them on their personal computers alongside clips of TV shows, Ultimate Fighting fights and films such as Iron Man 2.

Second clip: The video is less disturbing than the first but it still shows a total disregard for combat rules

A second video released by the magazine shows a separate incident in which two Afghans on a motorcycle are gunned down.
Although not apparently as disturbing as the first, it nonetheless shows a total disregard for combat rules.
‘Even if the killings were part of a legitimate combat engagement it is a clear violation of Army standards to share such footage,’ Rolling Stone says.
‘The video was taken on patrol with a helmet-mounted camera; at one point, the soldier shooting the images can be heard boasting: "I got it all on camera".'
The U.S. Army has been keen to paint the men involved as if they were working alone but the article claims that internal records show the ‘Kill team’ was ‘operating out in the open, in ‘plain view of the rest of the company’.
‘Far from being clandestine, as the Pentagon has implied, the murders of civilians were common knowledge among the unit and understood to be illegal by "pretty much the whole platoon",' it says.

Specialist Jeremy Morlock, left, has already admitted his part in the scheme and was jailed for 24 years - with Andrew Holmes, centre, and Adam Winfield, right, among four others to be court-martialed at a later date

The revelations have been a PR disaster for the U.S. Army and is the most serious prosecution of alleged U.S. military atrocities during 10 years of war in Afghanistan. The existence of the photos and videos, among dozens seized as evidence by investigators and ordered sealed from public view by the Army, has drawn comparisons with pictures of Iraqi prisoners taken by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004. The Pentagon desperately tried to suppress the photos, with General Stanley McChrystal and President Hamid Karzai briefed on the photos as early as last May. The military attempted to pull the pictures out of circulation to avoid a scandal similar to Abu Ghraib, so investigators in Afghanistan confiscated computers and told soldiers to delete provocative images. The Army Criminal Investigation Command meanwhile toured the U.S. to the homes of soldiers and their relatives to gather as many copies of the files as possible. The remaining four soldiers who are due to be court-martialed are Sergeant Calvin Gibbs - who is accused of being the ringleader - Specialist Adam C. Winfield, Specialist Michael S. Wagnon II and Private first class Andrew H. Holmes.
Seven other members of the combat unit were charged with lesser crimes during the investigation, which grew out of a probe into hashish abuse by American GIs. Four of those men already have pleaded guilty and been sentenced.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370758/Shocking-video-shows-U-S-troops-cheering-airstrike-blows-Afghan-civilians.html#ixzz1Hvk473md

Radiation Levels at Fukushima Nuclear Plant 100,000 Times Normal

A partial evacuation at the earthquake damaged Fukushima Nuclear Plant was ordered after radiation readings revealed levels at 100,000 times what is considered normal.

The radiation readings came from water puddles at the plant and are attributed to partially melted fuel rods that came in contact with the water being used to cool the fuel rod assembly within the reactor containment structure at the plant.
Initially, workers reported the readings to be 10 million times normal, however, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) officials quickly issued a revised statement, correcting the amount to 100,000 times normal. Although the revised readings represent a factor of 100 times less than the originally reported radiation levels, the current readings remain dangerous.
The worker measuring the radiation levels became alarmed when the instrument he was using to record the radiation measurements tripped the scale at the maximum reading of 1 sievert per hour. He immediately left the scene and reported.
According to nuclear chemist Michiaki Furukawa, who is a board member of Tokyo’s watchdog group called the Citizen’s Nuclear Information Center, exposure to 1 sievert of radiation would result in nausea and vomiting. Elevated radiation levels of 3 to 5 sieverts could be fatal.
A radiation exposure rate of 1,000 millisieverts per hour would result in a worker receiving his annual occupational limit in a matter of 15 minutes.
The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) reported that radiation exposure experienced by two workers at the plant last Thursday has resulted in “significant skin contamination over their legs.”
On its web site, the IAEA reported that “The Japanese authorities have stated that during medical examinations carried out at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in the Chiba Prefecture, the level of local exposure to the workers’ legs was estimated to be between 2 and 6 sieverts.”
In response to the erroneous radiation readings initially reported by TEPCO officials, Japan’s top government spokesman Yukio Edano chided the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, stating, “Considering the fact that the monitoring of radioactivity is a major concern to ensure safety, this kind of mistake is absolutely unacceptable.”
Authorities in Japan have concluded that work to address and resolve the Fukushima plants damaged and overheated reactors will likely take months and that over that time duration radiation will assuredly continue to leak into the environment.

Fukishima: Neutron beam observed 13 times

TOKYO, March 23, Kyodo

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has observed a neutron beam, a kind of radioactive ray, 13 times on the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after it was crippled by the massive March 11 quake-tsunami disaster.
TEPCO, the operator of the nuclear plant, said the neutron beam measured about 1.5 kilometers southwest of the plant's No. 1 and 2 reactors over three days from March 13 and is equivalent to 0.01 to 0.02 microsieverts per hour and that this is not a dangerous level.
The utility firm said it will measure uranium and plutonium, which could emit a neutron beam, as well.
In the 1999 criticality accident at a nuclear fuel processing plant run by JCO Co. in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, uranium broke apart continually in nuclear fission, causing a massive amount of neutron beams.
In the latest case at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, such a criticality accident has yet to happen.
But the measured neutron beam may be evidence that uranium and plutonium leaked from the plant's nuclear reactors and spent nuclear fuels have discharged a small amount of neutron beams through nuclear fission.

Leftist “Economic Terrorists” Are Patsies For The Real Economic Terrorists

Union plan to crash Wall Street and “redistribute wealth” will be used as a scapegoat for when insiders decide to launch the next financial false flag
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The controversy generated around the remarks of former SEIU official Stephen Lerner and his plan to rally unions, lawmakers, student groups and community organizers around a plan to crash the stock market, destroy big banks and redistribute wealth in America by destabilizing the country will be exploited by the real financial terrorists when they decide to launch the next false flag attack on the U.S. economy.

During a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend, Lerner divulged his plan to seize back the trillions stolen by big banks through a series of actions designed to “destabilize” financial markets.
“Lerner’s plan is to organize a mass, coordinated “strike” on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments–thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans. This destabilization and turmoil, Lerner hopes, will also crash the stock market, isolating the banking class and allowing for a transfer of power,” reports Business Insider.
“Lerner’s plan starts by attacking JP Morgan Chase in early May, with demonstrations on Wall Street, protests at the annual shareholder meeting, and then calls for a coordinated mortgage strike.”
Despite ominous warnings from the likes of Glenn Beck, that Lerner’s comments represent the left’s “economic terrorism playbook” in their bid to “take down capitalism” in the United States, in reality it wasn’t leftist activists or unions that used economic terrorism to oversee the 2008 financial collapse and the subsequent heist in the form of the bailout, it was powerhouse financial firms like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and their allies inside the Bush and Obama administrations.
If we’re talking about “economic terrorists” then look no further than former Goldman Sachs CEO and Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. The initial $700 billion dollar TARP bailout that was passed in October 2008, which laid the foundation for subsequent unchecked bailouts that eventually soared past the $20 trillion mark, was rammed through on the back of threats of martial law, stock market collapses, and food riots by none other than Paulson himself. This is real economic terrorism, and not just a bunch of SEIU leftists blowing hot air, but Glenn Beck didn’t seem very interested in reporting on it at the time, having been a staunch advocate of the TARP bailout from the very start.
During a conference call on September 19th 2008, around two weeks before the TARP legislation was eventually approved by both the Senate and Congress, Paulson threatened lawmakers with dire consequences if they didn’t pass the bailout.
As we reported at the time, on October 2, Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman gave a stunning speech on the House floor during which he decried the fact that, “Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day, another couple of thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.”

Speaking on Tulsa Oklahoma’s 1170 KFAQ, when asked who was behind threats of martial law and civil unrest if the bailout bill failed, Senator James Inhofe named Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as the source.
“Somebody in D.C. was feeding you guys quite a story prior to the bailout, a story that if we didn’t do this we were going to see something on the scale of the depression, there were people talking about martial law being instituted, civil unrest….who was feeding you guys this stuff?,” asked host Pat Campbell.
“That’s Henry Paulson,” responded Inhofe, “We had a conference call early on, it was on a Friday I think – a week and half before the vote on Oct. 1. So it would have been the middle … what was it – the 19th of September, we had a conference call. In this conference call – and I guess there’s no reason for me not to repeat what he said, but he said – he painted this picture you just described. He said, ‘This is serious. This is the most serious thing that we faced.’”
Inhofe said that Paulson told members of Congress the crisis would be “far worse than the great depression” if Congress didn’t authorize the bill to buy out toxic debt, a proposal “which he abandoned the day after he got the money,” added Inhofe.
Inhofe was referring to the fact that after promising the money would be used to buy up toxic debt, Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, pulled a bait and switch and ordered the money be injected directly into banks.
This is genuine economic terrorism – using your position as Treasury Secretary to threaten martial law and a collapse in society to get a bill passed that hands your bankster buddies billions, and eventually trillions, in stolen bailout funds.
In comparison to the brazen financial terrorism that was exercised to get the bailout passed, Paulson makes Stephen Lerner look like a pussycat.
Although Lerner’s rhetoric is bold and aggressive, the idea that a gaggle of leftists can get together and crash Wall Street, bring down major banking institutions, and launch a successful revolution against mortgage companies, is ambitious to say the least.
What’s more likely to happen is that the financial terrorists who caused the crash in the first place, the offshore banks and Wall Street itself, will use Lerner and his ilk as patsies on which to blame the next big engineered collapse of financial markets.
When the next phase of the economic false flag is set in motion, leftists and Democrats will be blamed for the turmoil, while the real culprits, the financial power structure itself, will once again evade scrutiny.
Remember, the insiders make money whether markets are on the up or in a state of collapse. The insiders are the only ones to benefit from dramatic movements in financial markets.
With the U.S. approaching insolvency we are just around the corner from the next big leg down of the financial collapse. When it happens, the government and the establishment media will use Lerner and his ilk as scapegoats, despite the fact that the staged collapse will have been triggered by the same financial institutions and offshore banks that set in motion the 2008 collapse to enrich their own coffers and re-structure the global financial system in their image.
The Pentagon’s attempt to blame the 2008 meltdown on “foreign financial terrorists” gives us a clear indication that the establishment is on the lookout for patsies on which to pin the blame for the next act of financial terrorism.
While Glenn Beck worries about Lerner’s fanciful dreams of a mass redistribution of wealth, the real agenda that the genuine financial terrorists seek to achieve only accelerates, namely a global currency controlled by a global central bank as part of the imposition of a global government.

Joe Biden: War Without Congressional Approval Warrants Impeachment

Joe Biden says war without congressional approval warrants impeachment.
Wolf Files dug up this Biden speech from 2007, via Instapundit.

“I want to make it clear. And I made it clear to the President that if he takes this nation to war with Iran without Congressional approval. I will make it my business to impeach him. That’s a fact. That is a fact.”

ANTI-GUN SENATOR SHOOTS INTRUDER

State Senator R.C. Soles (D - NC) Long time Anti-Gun Advocate State Senator R.C. Soles, 74, shot one of two intruders at his home just outside Tabor City ,N.C. about 5 p.m. Sunday, the prosecutor for the politician's home county said..

The intruder, Kyle Blackburn, was taken to a South Carolina hospital, but the injuries were not reported to be life-threatening, according to Rex Gore, district attorney for Columbus, Bladen and Brunswick counties..
The State Bureau of Investigation and Columbus County Sheriff's Department are investigating the shooting, Gore said. Soles, who was not arrested,declined to discuss the incident Sunday evening.
"I am not in a position to talk to you," Soles said by telephone. "I'm right in the middle of an investigation."
The Senator, who has made a career of being against gun ownership for the general public, didn't hesitate to defend himself with his own gun when he believed he was in immediate danger and he was the victim.
In typical hypocritical liberal fashion, the "Do as i say and not as i do" Anti-Gun Activist Lawmaker picked up his gun and took action in what apparently was a self-defense shooting. Why hypocritical you may ask? It is because his long legislative record shows that the actions that he took to protect his family, his own response to a dangerous life threatening situation, are actions that he feels ordinary citizens should not have if they were faced with an identical situation.
It has prompted some to ask if the Senator believes his life and personal safety is more valuable than yours or mine.
But, this is to be expected from those who believe they can run our lives, raise our kids, and protect our families better than we can.

Did Bernard von NotHaus Counterfeit Coins?

Posted by Michael S. Rozeff on March 20, 2011 08:04 AM

A jury just found NotHaus guilty of counterfeiting U.S. coins. The coins or medallions that he had produced by a mint were pure silver, worth many times the value of any U.S. coin asserted to be that which was counterfeited. That fact alone tells me that the prosecution had NO case on the counterfeiting charge. (My comment is restricted to that feature alone, as I have not heard about or read about this case until today and it has other aspects and charges.) He should not have been found guilty of counterfeiting.
The language used by the U.S. prosecution is very, very bad too. It shows the dire condition of freedom in the U.S. I quote from a news article:

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins said. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.”
The case was investigated by the FBI, Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Secret Service with help from the U.S. Mint.
“We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government,” Tompkins said.

What is so bad about these remarks? (1) NotHaus didn’t try to undermine the U.S. currency in any direct way or by use of counterfeiting. He  developed a competing currency within the law. Where is it written in the Constitution that private citizens may not use whatever they please among themselves as a medium of exchange? There is no such provision. The government, not we private citizens, is restricted to gold and silver by the U.S. Constitution. Tompkins is way off base. (2) Undermining the use of U.S. coins and Federal Reserve Notes through open competition with the coins and notes of foreign lands is legitimate. We could agree to trade in Marks or Yens or Loonies and we would face no trials. Why can’t private citizens of the U.S. issue their own means of payment and use them? Competition is competition. (3) There is no threat of economic instability when private citizens agree on a non-governmental means of payment. It’s just the opposite! Such an activity adds value for the users and, by moving away from U.S. currency, increases stability, if anything. (4) Tagging this or similar activities as “domestic terrorism” is hyperbole. Terrorism is almost by definition something that involves violence of particular sorts. Issuing silver rounds that have many times the value of U.S. coins is hardly terror. Anyone who accidentally came into possession of such a round, thinking it was a U.S. coin, would have a windfall gain, since the silver in it is worth many times the clad metal in a U.S. slug coin. (5) Does the legitimacy of democratic government preclude the power of private citizens to use any means of payment they decide to use? That is what Tompkins asserts. How can that be so? Since when does democracy mean restrictions on monetary freedom? This is doubletalk by Tompkins and very misleading. It says that slavery (restriction on monetary freedom) = freedom. It’s utter tripe.
Overall, the remarks of Tompkins show me someone saying things that are fantastical. She is living in a fantasy, and I think that she is far from being alone. These delusions and fantasies inhabit the minds of government officials everywhere, and they are readily sopped up by commentators and the public. That is probably one reason why the jury took just 90 minutes to find NotHaus guilty. They believe in these fantasies too.
The trial outcome as to counterfeiting looks to me like an utter travesty.

Absurdity defined: Liberty Dollar creator convicted in federal court

The leader of a group that marketed a fake currency called Liberty Dollars in the Asheville area and elsewhere has been found guilty by a federal jury of conspiracy against the government in a case of “domestic terrorism.”

Bernard von NotHaus was convicted Friday at the conclusion of an eight-day trial in U.S. District Court in Statesville. The jury deliberated less than two hours, according to the Department of Justice.
Charges remain pending against William Kevin Innes, an Asheville man who authorities said recruited merchants in Western North Carolina willing to accept the “barter” currency, according to court records. Innes was indicted along with von NotHaus in 2009.

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins said. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.”

The case was investigated by the FBI, Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Secret Service with help from the U.S. Mint.

“We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government,” Tompkins said.

Von NotHaus, 67, faces up to 25 years in prison during sentencing, which hasn’t been scheduled. The government also is seeking the forfeiture of about 16,000 pounds of Liberty Dollar coins and precious metals valued at nearly $7 million.

According to court documents, von NotHaus founded the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code in Evansville, Ind., in 1998, and developed the Liberty Dollar. He touted the silver medallions as an inflation-proof alternative to official currency.

The coins were marked with the dollar sign, the words “dollar,” “USA,” “Liberty,” “Trust in God” (instead of “In God We Trust”) and other features associated with legitimate U.S. coins.
A 2007 affidavit said more than 70 businesses in the Asheville area agreed to accept the Liberty Dollar. Innes held the title of North Carolina regional currency officer and was one of three members of the group’s executive committee, an indictment states.

The charges against Innes include passing coins resembling genuine U.S. coins and intended for use as money, mail fraud and possession Liberty Dollar coins with intent to defraud. Authorities said when he was arrested that he faces up to 45 years in prison.

Despite warnings from the federal government, Innes told the Citizen-Times in 2006 that Liberty Dollars were legal.

“One of the first things I did when I started this in Asheville was to go to the police and tell them what I was doing,” he said.

Federal agents raided von NotHaus’ company headquarters in 2007 and seized documents and precious metals. A private mint in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, that produced the coins was raided the same day.

Congress has exclusive power to coin money in the U.S. and to regulate its value, according to the Treasury Department.

UH....If that's true, then why in the hell are they not raiding and arresting eveyone at the numerous Federal Reserve banks who are printing all our money in direct violation of Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution. The last time I checked, the Federal Reserve was not Congress. At least those Liberty dollars have some intinsic value unlike the worthless paper being forced on us now.

US Army 'kill team' in Afghanistan posed for photos of murdered civilians

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.

They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.
Some of the activities of the self-styled "kill team" are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.
Five of the soldiers are on trial for pre-meditated murder, after they staged killings to make it look like they were defending themselves from Taliban attacks.
Other charges include the mutilation of corpses, the possession of images of human casualties and drug abuse.

All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.
The case has already created shock around the world, particularly with the revelations that the men cut "trophies" from the bodies of the people they killed.
An investigation by Der Spiegel has unearthed approximately 4,000 photos and videos taken by the men.
The magazine, which is planning to publish only three images, said that in addition to the crimes the men were on trial for there are "also entire collections of pictures of other victims that some of the defendants were keeping".

The US military has strived to keep the pictures out of the public domain fearing it could inflame feelings at a time when anti-Americanism in Afghanistan is already running high.

In a statement, the army said it apologised for the distress caused by photographs "depicting actions repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States".

The lengthy Spiegel article that accompanies the photographs contains new details about the sadistic behaviour of the men.
In one incident in May last year, the article says, during a patrol, the team apprehended a mullah who was standing by the road and took him into a ditch where they made him kneel down.
The group's leader, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, then allegedly threw a grenade at the man while an order was given for him to be shot.
Afterwards, Gibbs is described cutting off one of the man's little fingers and removing a tooth.
The patrol team later claimed to their superiors that the mullah had tried to threaten them with a grenade and that they had no choice but to shoot.
On Sunday night many organisations employing foreign staff, including the United Nations, ordered their staff into a "lockdown", banning all movements around Kabul and requiring people to remain in their compounds.
In addition to the threat from the publication of the photographs, security has been heightened amid fears the Taliban may try to attack Persian new year celebrations.
There could also be attacks because Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is due to make a speech declaring which areas of the country should be transferred from international to Afghan control in the coming months.
One security manager for the US company DynCorp sent an email to clients warning that publication of the photos was likely "to incite the local population" as the "severity of the incidents to be revealed are graphic and extreme".

US Army 'kill team' in Afghanistan posed for photos of murdered civilians

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.

They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.

Some of the activities of the self-styled "kill team" are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.
Five of the soldiers are on trial for pre-meditated murder, after they staged killings to make it look like they were defending themselves from Taliban attacks.
Other charges include the mutilation of corpses, the possession of images of human casualties and drug abuse.
All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.
The case has already created shock around the world, particularly with the revelations that the men cut "trophies" from the bodies of the people they killed.
An investigation by Der Spiegel has unearthed approximately 4,000 photos and videos taken by the men.
The magazine, which is planning to publish only three images, said that in addition to the crimes the men were on trial for there are "also entire collections of pictures of other victims that some of the defendants were keeping".

The US military has strived to keep the pictures out of the public domain fearing it could inflame feelings at a time when anti-Americanism in Afghanistan is already running high.

In a statement, the army said it apologised for the distress caused by photographs "depicting actions repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States".

The lengthy Spiegel article that accompanies the photographs contains new details about the sadistic behaviour of the men.
In one incident in May last year, the article says, during a patrol, the team apprehended a mullah who was standing by the road and took him into a ditch where they made him kneel down.
The group's leader, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, then allegedly threw a grenade at the man while an order was given for him to be shot.
Afterwards, Gibbs is described cutting off one of the man's little fingers and removing a tooth.
The patrol team later claimed to their superiors that the mullah had tried to threaten them with a grenade and that they had no choice but to shoot.
On Sunday night many organisations employing foreign staff, including the United Nations, ordered their staff into a "lockdown", banning all movements around Kabul and requiring people to remain in their compounds.
In addition to the threat from the publication of the photographs, security has been heightened amid fears the Taliban may try to attack Persian new year celebrations.
There could also be attacks because Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is due to make a speech declaring which areas of the country should be transferred from international to Afghan control in the coming months.
One security manager for the US company DynCorp sent an email to clients warning that publication of the photos was likely "to incite the local population" as the "severity of the incidents to be revealed are graphic and extreme".

Federal Reserve Manipulating Stock Market??

by David DeGerolamo

I wrote an article last November concerning the manipulation of the stock market by the Federal Reserve (see complete article below). This policy is clearly shown today in a snapshot from CNNMoney.com. The bars represent the volume of shares sold. As noted in my first article, the large spike in sales at the opening bell represents people selling off their stocks. The chart below clearly shows the market collapsing over 120 points in a few minutes later in the morning. The selloff is reversed by the Federal Reserve artificially propping up the market.

Remember the bank commercial asking ”What’s in Your Wallet”? Ask yourself “Who’s in My Portfolio and Retirement Account? We know who is in the union worker’s pensions.
David DeGerolamo

Original Article from November 30th, 2010

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – POMO

The New York branch of the federal reserve bank is manipulating our stock market on a daily basis with a system named Permanent Open Market Operations (POMO). US stocks are sold around the clock in markets across the world. In the past month, our stocks have had down turns before trading starts in New York at 9:30 AM. In order to avoid a stock market run or crash, the Fed has been buying stock in order to shore up the market. Today (November 30th, 2010), the Fed put in $6.8 billion in monetized capital which devalues our dollar. The graph from money.cnn.com below shows today’s market history.

The plunge at the open represents the sell off of US stocks in Asia and Europe prior to the opening bell. You can easily see when the Fed steps into the market to buy stock with dollars created out of the ether. The goal is only to maintain the market’s value. Whenever the index starts to decline, POMO steps in to maintain everyone’s portfolio. That is assuming that you have a portfolio. The problem is that your IRAs and 401Ks are being kept at an artificial level using money that does not exist. Not only will the market crash when this policy is stopped or when it is exposed in the official media, the American public will lose twice. The first loss is the loss of the actual value of the stocks and the second is the loss of the dollar’s value because of POMO.
The month of November saw just under $50 billion printed to maintain the market. This is in addition to the $600 – 850 billion for Quantitative Easing II. Our saving grace is that the rest of the world is supporting the US dollar as they run from the Euro and the possibility of a war in Korea. As written in another article, this is another incorrect strategy as the IMF bailout of Ireland will have the United States contributing more than any other country further devaluating our dollar.
The New York Federal Reserve Bank prints a detailed account of POMO activity. The following is their explanation of POMO:
The purchase or sale of Treasury securities on an outright basis adds or drains reserves available in the banking system. Such transactions are arranged on a routine basis to offset other changes in the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet in conjunction with efforts to maintain conditions in the market for reserves consistent with the federal funds target rate set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
This would be an excellent topic for the new Congress to address in January.
David DeGerolamo

Breaking news -- radiation is good for you!!!! Or...maybe not.

By Jonathan Parkinson | March 20th 2011 01:50 AM

...

Yes, that's right! Despite everything you've heard and believed until now, high doses of ionizing radiation can actually make you healthy!!! We know it must be true, because noted public intellectual Catherine Ann Coulter says so.

Oh...wait.

Earlier this week, Ann Coulter wrote a remarkable column for Fox News, in which she claimed that any Japanese people exposed to excess radiation would be less likely to develop cancer. I had trouble believing this until I actually saw said column (see link below). Here's a verbatim quote:

"With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer."

You can read the rest of her short column here if you're interested (although I can't think for the life of me why you would be).

So what the hay does she mean? Ms. Coulter appears to be talking about a hormesis mechanism, whereby a very low dose of a stressor induces a protective effect by activating cellular responses like DNA damage repair mechanisms that are beneficial or protective. Well, there's a couple problems with her idea, the most important one being that a hormetic effect -- assuming that radiation does indeed induce one(which is a question for ongoing research) -- would take place at very low doses. At higher doses, ionizing radiation will induce harmful effects that override any positive effect you get from activating protective mechanisms in cells. Ms. Coulter seems to be assuming that if a little smidgen is good, a lot must be great! By that logic, I could prove that overdosing on Tylenol is a sure cure for pain(well, maybe a sure trip to the ER, anyway)...or that being sunburned is good for you (hey, a little exposure to UV light triggers vitamin D production, right?) and so on...Presumably Ms. Coulter has never heard of radiation sickness.

Does she really believe this? Or is she just trying to generate controversy? I have a tough time figuring out. Either way, I have to say I'm surprised, because I like to read up on controversial subjects before I write about them so I can make sure I have some idea what I'm talking about  -- but Ms. Coulter apparently doesn't share those inclinations. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, however, because this is the same Ms. Coulter who apparently told an audience some years ago that the country would be better off if women weren't voting. If she could make an outrageous, irresponsible, sexist remark like that, then perhaps it shouldn't seem surprising that she's willing to write something like this.

I don't like the dumb blonde stereotype because it's silly and prejudiced and because I am blonde, after all, but goodness. When I read something like this, I really don't know what else to say.


At least it's good for a laugh, I guess.

U.S. Government Backs Libyan Al-Qaeda While Hyping Terror Attacks Inside U.S.

Hypocrisy run rampant: Obama administration fearmongers about Libyan-backed terrorists carrying out reprisal attacks in America while launching air strikes to support terrorists in Libya
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Achieving new heights of hypocrisy, the U.S government is hyping the threat of Libyan-backed reprisal terror attacks inside the United States, while launching air strikes in support of so-called “protesters” who have commandeered fighter jets and tanks, and are in fact Islamic fundamentalist Al-Qaeda cells who want to impose sharia law in Libya.

The New York Times reports that Libya may “lash out” against the Orwellian “no fly zone,” which in reality represents constant bombardment, by sending terrorists to carry out attacks against U.S. interests.
“Asked if American officials feared whether Colonel Qaddafi could open a new terrorism front, President Obama’s top counterterrorism official John O. Brennan said: “Qaddafi has the penchant to do things of a very concerning nature. We have to anticipate and be prepared for things he might try to do to flout the will of the international community.”
“Al Qaeda has a demonstrated track record of trying to exploit political vacuums, political change or uncertainty in a number of countries,” Mr. Brennan added. “The situation in Libya now will be no exception.”
This is pretty rich considering the fact that it was British MI6 and the CIA who paid Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda $100,000 dollars to assassinate Gaddafi in 1996.
In 2002 French intelligence experts revealed how western intelligence agencies bankrolled a Libyan Al-Qaeda cell controlled directly by Bin Laden to hatch a plot to kill Gaddafi that was foiled in March 1996. The cell was led by Anas al-Liby, who was with Bin Laden in Sudan before Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan.
Indeed, it was Gaddafi’s Libya who put out the first Interpol warrant for Bin Laden’s arrest in 1998. Western intelligence agencies blocked the warrant from being pursued, and allowed Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to go on and kill more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Some of the very rebels now being funded and trained by western forces were part of the Al-Qaeda cell that tried to kill Gaddafi on behalf of the United States and Britain 15 years ago.
As the London Telegraph reports, “The West and al-Qaeda on the same side.” Libyan Al-Qaeda leaders have offered their unanimous support for the ousting of Gaddafi.
“An al-Qaeda leader of Libyan origin, Abu Yahya al-Libi, released a statement backing the insurrection a week ago, while Yusuf Qaradawi, the Qatar-based, Muslim Brotherhood-linked theologian issued a fatwa authorising Col Gaddafi’s military entourage to assassinate him,” writes Richard Spencer, highlighting how the “rebels” are in fact religious extremists hell bent on imposing sharia law in Libya.
While the global establishment media has characterized these mobs as “protesters,” even as they commandeer fighter jets and tanks, and used allegations of Gaddafi brutality against them as a justification for air strikes, in reality they largely comprise of radical Islamic fundamentalists who will end up being more savage in their abuse of power than anything Gaddafi was ever accused of, should the air strikes lead to regime change. The ordinary Libyan people, the majority of whom support Gaddafi, are caught in the middle, which is why many of them are now trying to flee Tripoli.
The UN-backed air strikes have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with protecting the human rights of “protesters”. The air strikes and Tomahawk missiles have been launched in support of terrorist cells so that the US military-industrial complex can repeat its age-old trick of installing a radical Islamic regime which they can later overthrow, giving them strategic access to the region and allowing them to control the largest oil reserves on the African continent.
This is about giving war a new facelift, leaving the new world order free to pillage any country they like in the name of “humanitarian” assistance.
The fact that the establishment media, particularly the BBC, which has aggressively pushed this “humanitarian” hoax in its rapacious cheerleading effort for the conquest, is parroting the narrative that this is a just war, when in reality it is about helping Al-Qaeda terrorists to carry through a coup d’état, is the ultimate hypocrisy.
It’s a hypocrisy made more revolting by the fact that liberals who so vehemently opposed the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are now willing to offer their enthusiastic backing for military attacks having bought the sickening lie that the likes of the United States, which kills scores of innocent people every week with predator drone strikes, has now suddenly developed a conscience for human suffering.
It’s also galling to witness the likes of Fox News and mainstream conservatives, who screamed until they were blue in the face about a mosque being built at ground zero in New York, now ignorantly applauding a United Nations-ordered war with no congressional approval which is solely designed to bring Al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic fundamentalists to power.
The whole farce mirrors Bill Clinton’s bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Serbia, which were also about helping Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to topple autocratic but relatively moderate regimes, and were also military conquests packaged in the cloak of “humanitarian” deception by the global establishment media.

WWIII: One Nation at a Time

Tony Cartalucci
Infowars.com
March 20, 2011
The globalists are infiltrating, corrupting, and turning the entire planet, one nation at a time in a combined scientific-geopolitical dictatorship that will be effectively impossible to reverse once it is completed. The latest Western-fueled conflagration in the Arab world indicates an accelerated regional strategy of destabilizing and taking over target nations. Nations like Russia and China, whose interests are being directly threatened and stripped away in this malicious melee, appear powerless and unprepared.
Some nations succumb in silence behind the scenes, others are invaded, mercilessly brutalized, and assimilated into the globalist combine. The civil society overlay the globalists use to establish what amounts to a subversive shadow government is always creeping forward no matter how hard a target nation may try to ward it off. Only in the most extreme cases, such as Qaddafi’s Libya has civil society been uprooted entirely – making military intervention an acceptable and inevitable alternative from a globalist perspective.
Indeed there is a battle raging between the corporate-financier oligarchs of New York and London and their ever growing collection of globalist stooges and vassal states worldwide against the rest of free humanity. Each nation that falls to the globalists, however far from our own shores it may be, empowers and emboldens them and is one nation closer to their ultimate goal of one world government.
They have created a perfect system, a strategy of tension, where we wrestle with one battle after another, work to head-off one war after another, expose meddling and subversion in one nation after another all while their agenda moves ever forward.
We all to one degree or another help advance the globalists’ strategy of tension by playing into these contrived crises and by failing to focus on the source of our torment. The alternative media has made gains in exposing and delegitimizing the “international community” however, we must understand that the myriad of pet agendas we keep and nurture are in many ways dividing and distracting us – playing directly into the globalists’ theatrical productions.
The tragedy playing out between the duped and misled people of Israel and the besieged Palestinians is an example of where the globalists have created the perfect, unsolvable conflict from which they can perpetually wring out leverage to advance their agenda. The very fake “War on Terror” is another example. We get caught up in the details, we pick sides, we expend energy fighting these battles and we lose sight within this puppet theater of the men pulling the strings above. We become blinded and cannot understand the necessity of leaving the puppets behind, climbing up above the stage and throttling the puppet masters themselves.
We must recall how these corporate-financier oligarchs got so much unwarranted power in the first place – by controlling and regulating our lives from far above. They got it by us paying into their corrupt system for generations, as we’ve traded personal responsibilities in for corporate ready-made convenience. They will keep their power as long as we keep paying into their system, kidding ourselves that if we dance with their puppets long enough we will become the masters.
While activism, protesting, and campaigning is noble indeed, it is entirely futile until you identify and target the very source of your torment. In every case, be it Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, the unending “War on Terror,” starving children, or even the bungling response of the “international community” over the disaster emanating from Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, the source of torment is the same: the unwarranted power wielded by myopically obsessed megalomaniacs, leveraging and squandering that power to enrich themselves at the cost of the rest of humanity.
We cannot depend on Russia, China, the other BRIC nations, or rouge nations like Iran to stand up against this expanding evil empire. In many ways they play directly into the strategy of tension themselves and run a similar risk of being folded in if their own people do not make this fundamental realization. The answer is to undermine this unwarranted power by no longer paying into their system through a full-spectrum boycott and the systematic replacement of the globalist corporate combines with local solutions.
We need not pen lengthy manifestos or declare in lofty terms our independence, we simply must begin taking the reins of our own destiny back by identifying how horrifyingly dependent we are on the globalists and rectifying it day to day by how we spend our money, time, and energy.
As a cloud of radioactive fallout blows seaward from Japan, as the Middle East convulses in engineered destabilization, as oil and food prices are manipulated by Wall Street speculators, the excuse of it being “too difficult” to boycott and replace the comfort and convenience offered to us by the corporate-financier oligarchs is beginning to ring rather hollow. Your life and the future of humanity depends on boycotting and replacing the globalists – World War III has already begun and is consuming the world one nation at a time.
We literally have nothing to lose by boycotting and replacing the globalists besides our servile dependence on their system. We will find, no matter what our pet agenda is, usurping this unwarranted authority from the global elite will infinitely advance our cause. For our various agendas are addressing but puppets upon the globalists’ stage, and by boycotting their system and excising them from our daily lives, we climb up above the theater and throttle the puppet masters themselves.

US Military Beta tests internet kill switch during Japan emergency

By Mark Preston and Adam Levine, CNN

March 16, 2011 -- Updated 1009 GMT (1809 HKT)

Several websites, including YouTube, have been blocked from U.S. military computers in Japan to free bandwidth for recovery efforts.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• YouTube, ESPN, eBay among popular websites blocked on military computers
• Effort is intended to free up bandwidth for use in helping Japan
• Blockage is temporary and subject to change, Strategic Command says

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. military has blocked access to a range of popular commercial websites in order to free up bandwidth for use in Japan recovery efforts, according to an e-mail obtained by CNN and confirmed by a spokesman for U.S. Strategic Command.
The sites -- including YouTube, ESPN, Amazon, eBay and MTV -- were chosen not because of the content but because their popularity among users of military computers account for significant bandwidth, according to Strategic Command spokesman Rodney Ellison.
The block, instituted Monday, is intended "to make sure bandwidth was available in Japan for military operations" as the United States helps in the aftermath of last week's deadly earthquake and tsunami, Ellison explained.
U.S. Pacific Command made the request to free up the bandwidth. The sites, 13 in all, are blocked across the Department of Defense's .mil computer system.
"This is a response to a time of extreme demand for networks," Ellison said.
Ellison emphasized that it was a temporary measure.
"This blockage will be of a temporary nature and may increase or decrease in the size and scope as necessary," according to the message distributed to military announcing the move.
"We are doing this to facilitate the recovery efforts under way in Japan," Ellison explained. "We are trying to make sure we are giving them as many avenues and as much support as we can."
The blocked websites are:
* Youtube.com
* Googlevideo.com
* Amazon.com
* ESPN.go.com
* eBay.com
* Doubleclick.com
* Eyewonder.com
* Pandora.com
* streamtheworld.com
* Mtv.com
* Ifilm.com
* Myspace.com

* Metacafe.com

Governments, Corporations Push Cover-up of Japanese Nuclear Nightmare

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 16, 2011
A data map of radiation levels in Japan posted on the TargetMap website has omitted information from the Fukushima Prefecture where nuclear reactors are currently melting down.

The map reports a “survey” of the area is currently “underway,” in other words the Japanese government is not reporting the obvious fact the area is contaminated with deadly radiation and it does not want the Japanese people or anybody else to know the full story.
A coordinated coverup of the severity of the situation is underway. This sort of behavior is typical of governments, especially when they are interested in protecting their power base and protecting the interests of transnational corporations.
Normally stoic Japanese citizens are outraged over the lack of information forthcoming from the government. “Residents who have been evacuated after a radiation leak from a quake-hit nuclear power plant have expressed their anger with the lack of information about the incident and how to respond to it,” The Mainichi Daily News reports.
In the United States, countless numbers have flocked to stores in pursuit of iodine tablets, said to help prevent thyroid cancer. Americans are obviously not buying the line promulgated by federal and state government that radiation does not pose a threat.
Katrina and other incidents have instructed the people in the uselessness of government and its desire to protect them. Increasingly, people understand they have to be proactive and protect themselves and not rely on a gaggle of self-serving bureaucrats.
In Russia’s Far East, residents on Wednesday stocked up on iodine and checked radiation levels. Russia’s emergencies ministry toted the same line as other government’s around the world – there is no risk to human health and no danger from radiation is expected.
Potassium iodide tablets have been given to some U.S. military flight crews near Japan and the no-go zone for soldiers and sailors is larger than that declared by the Japanese government for its citizens.

The U.S. military has developed a radiation protection drug known as Ex-Rad, but it is not currently available for the commoners.
“We train and equip all of our people to operate in all kinds of environments,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan told Reuters. “So we know how to measure (radiation), we know how to test. We know how to respond. We know how to take precautions.” The Navy said it had repositioned ship due to “radiological and navigation hazards.”
And yet the Pentagon – or anybody else – for that matter is not testing radiation levels in and around Japan, or if they are they are not releasing the data to the public.
The U.S. has positioned sophisticated radiation detection equipment in Asia. For instance, last month the National Nuclear Security Administration announced the successful installation of radiation detection equipment at the Port of Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
The equipment, however, is not designed to detect radiation escaping from nuclear plants built by transnational corporations such as General Electric, but is intended to be part of the effort to guard against the ostensible threat posed by CIA created terror groups such as al-Qaeda.
The Department of Homeland Security, in cooperation with the the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice, has doled out millions to a program designed to refurbish, package, and distribute surplus DOE equipment to agencies nationwide with the stated purpose of providing equipment to mitigate terrorist, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats.
The equipment is not intended to detect radiation from exploding transnational corporate nuclear reactors, obviously a much more ominous threat than one supposedly posed by Muslims operating from distant caves.
As a recent Wikileaks revelation reveals, the government received warnings over the stability of its power plants from an international watchdog more than two years ago, but the warnings were disregarded. In December of 2008, the IAEA said that safety rules were outdated and strong earthquakes would pose a “serious problem” for nuclear power facilities.
Once again, government secrecy is the rule of the day and the health and welfare of citizens ranks low on the list of priorities.
Government will invariably protect at all cost the interests of multinational corporations, including those building faulty nuclear plants located on or near earthquake fault lines, over the safety and well-being of the people.

You may need this: RADTriage™ 2.0 Radiation Detector

http://www.nukepills.com/radiation-detector.htm

Reports: Japan’s radiation problem appears out-of-control

Tokyo - Latest reports from Japan reveal a country drowning in sorrow from last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, and it will now have to give undivided attention to a disaster of surging radiation levels at Fukushima’s Daiichi nuclear facility.

Scientists are warning that the fires associated with explosions at the Daiichi nuclear plant, where fuel storage pools have overheated, may be letting off radioactive steam.

David Lochbaum, nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said: “If the spent fuel pool is on fire, the chances of radioactivity getting to the public are very much higher,” the Guardian reports.

Lochbaum said a shutdown last year at the No. 4 reactor led to the emptying of its reactor core into the spent fuel pool. “There is much more material there because there is at least one reactor core plus what there was to start with, and it is in a building that has a big hole in the side of it.”

According to Reuters, there are no longer flames at the No. 4 reactor which exploded on Tuesday. Workers have been attempting to clear debris for road construction so fire trucks can access the Daiichi complex.

The Japanase government still insists the radiation levels discharging from the Fukushima site are low. “People would not be in immediate danger if they went outside with these levels. I want people to understand this,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said in a televised news conference, Reuters reports.

Latest reports from TEPCO call the brewing nightmare a “specific incident,” defining it as an

Extraordinary increase of radiation dose at site boundary.

TEPCO also reports there are no longer signs of fire at the No. 4 reactor

The Japanese government has instructed evacuations for those within a 20km radius of the site, and all citizens within a 30km radius of the site should remain indoors. That area involves some 140,000 people.

High radiation levels at the site prevented a helicopter from a planned operation of dropping water on No. 3 reactor’s fuel rods, in an attempt to cool them.

The No. 3 reactor is now the priority, as Reuters reports it is the only reactor at Daiichi using plutonium in its fuel mix. Plutonium is highly toxic to humans, lingering for years in bone marrow and liver, leading to cancer.

High winds have also hindered attempts at using helicopters for dropping water and boric acid at the No. 4 reactor in an effort at slowing the nuclear reaction, even as Edano indicated doubts of that plan.

“It's not so simple that everything will be resolved by pouring in water. We are trying to avoid creating other problems,” Edano said, the Guardian reports.

“We are actually supplying water from the ground, but supplying water from above involves pumping lots of water and that involves risk. We also have to consider the safety of the helicopters above,” Edano added.

U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Katrina R. Menchaca A U.S. Air Force search and rescue team spots a boat tossed on its side amid residential buildings and other debris in Japan Like • 1 person liked this

Emperor Akihito made his first public comments since last Friday’s Tohoku-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake.

“I am deeply concerned about the nuclear situation because it is unpredictable,” he said on live television. “With the help of those involved I hope things will not get worse,” according to the Guardian.

Winds at the Daiichi plant on Wednesday were blowing offshore, pushing any contamination over the Pacific Ocean.

Many flights to Tokyo have been halted or rerouted over fear of increased radiation levels. On Wednesday, Australia and France have urged their nationals to depart the country.

Adding to the devastating plight of Japan’s citizens, a cold front moved through the region, dumping snow in some of the heaviest-hit areas of the earthquake and tsunami.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/304724#ixzz1GmsekguW