COW CLONING UNDERWAY IN BRITIAN:COMING TO A SUPERMARKET NEAR YOU

via This Is London

Eight ‘clone farm’ cows have been born in the UK, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Their mother is a clone – created in a U.S. laboratory with cells taken from the ear of a prize-winning animal.

Meat or milk from the calves, flown into Britain as frozen embryos and implanted into a surrogate, could be on sale here within months. Though food from clones is barred from the food chain, there are no legal safeguards over their offspring.

Details of the births came as a study found an overwhelming majority of consumers object to all ‘clone farm’ plans.

Research published by the Food Standards Agency showed they consider it a dangerous manipulation of nature and are unhappy that scientists are racing ahead.

The Daily Mail revealed last year that clone farming had become a reality in Britain.
We identified the births of a Holstein calf called Dundee Paradise and her brother Dundee Paratrooper.

Now six more animals with the same clone mother have been born in the Midlands - taking the total to four males and four females.

Embryos from another clone are known to have been imported, although none has yet been born.
The food and farming department DEFRA has been accused of shocking complacency over clone farming.

Its officials admitted yesterday that they had no idea how many clone offspring are on British farms.
Four of the calves were born at Smiddiehill Holsteins in Albrighton, Shropshire.
This herd has since been broken up and sold and it is not known where the animals are now.
The FSA study, conducted by analysts at Creative Research, is the first in-depth investigation of public attitudes to clone farming.

It found that the more consumers learned about cloning, the more they objected. Authorities in the U.S. gave their approval to clone farm food in January.
There are suggestions that meat and milk from clones or their offspring could soon be in shops and restaurants there.

As the law stands, there is nothing to stop this food being imported to the UK without any controls or labels.

In theory, meat from any of the eight British calves could also go into stores at any time.
Creative Research director Dr Steve Griggs, said: ‘The majority of people came to the conclusion that they would not want to eat such food.

‘There was a strong sense from the public that this represents a quantum leap. They characterised animal cloning as very much interfering with nature and struggled to identify any convincing benefits for consumers.’

Dr Griggs stressed that the survey was carried out with consumers who were given a lot of information about cloning, rather than a simple opinion poll.
Advocates of cloning say the technique will let farmers create herds of supersize cows, able to produce vast amounts of milk – and better profits.

A number of laboratories have been set up in the U.S. to fulfil the demand for cloned cows and their offspring.
There is now evidence that British businessmen farmers, some of the UK’s leading breeders of Holstein milking cows, are buying into the idea.
But consumers are worried about the welfare of the animals involved.
Removing eggs needs painful techniques while cloning attempts have produced a high number of stillbirths and malformed young.

Dr Griggs said: ‘There were concerns about the ethical side, whether we have the moral right to go down this road. People were concerned this was a step on the road to cloned humans.’
On food, he said opinions were strongly affected by the scandal over human BSE, from eating beef, and the attempted introduction of GM food without proper checks.
‘Most people were concerned that cloning could result in food that was unsafe for human consumption,’ he said.

‘There is a very strong fear that something in this process of could do something to create a new disease or affect the food so it could be harmful.’
The researchers found most people want extensive testing of clone farm meat and milk over a five to ten-year period – similar to the tests on new drugs before they are cleared for use.
The public reaction is at odds with Government thinking. Defra has rejected recommendations from its own farming experts to set up a system to police the introduction of clone farming.
The Daily Mail’s revelations last year triggered a review of the law by the FSA and its EU counterpart, the European Food Safety Authority.

The EFSA is due to publish its decision on whether to impose controls on all forms of clone food, including from offspring, in the summer.
Its experts have signalled that there is no risk involved in eating the food, but its ethical advisers have warned against clone farming because of the harm to animal welfare.

CHEROKEE'S UNDER FIRE FOR RECOGNIZING "BLACK" FREEDMEN

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — The Cherokee Nation is rolling out a public relations campaign in response to federal lawmakers who say the tribe should be denied benefits unless it recognizes descendants of its former black slaves.

The campaign includes two Web sites discussing a 2007 referendum in which Cherokees decided to remove about 2,800 freedmen descendants and other non-Indians from tribal rolls, said Mike Miller, spokesman for the nation.

The sites also address what’s at stake if the congressional lawmakers have their way: denial of $300 million in federal money to the country’s second-largest American Indian tribe. The money pays for health clinics, Head Start programs, elderly care and housing assistance.

Tribal leaders say that if funding is cut off, more than 6,000 nation employees could lose their jobs, touching off a ripple effect that would devastate the economy of northeastern Oklahoma.

“People need a place where they can go for calm, rational facts on the issue, without hyperbole and without a political slant,” Miller said Wednesday. “What we’ve tried to put on here are some very straightforward things we’ve proven time and time again as facts.”

But an advocate for rights of the former slaves, known as freedmen, accused the nation of resorting to “propaganda.”

Marilyn Vann, president of Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, criticized the campaign, saying, “Anybody with money can put information out there that’s not correct.”

“I am very disappointed they continue to waste the taxpayers’ money on these things,” Vann said. “As long as they have that money, they will continue to do it.”

U.S. Rep. Diane Watson, a California Democrat who claims Indian blood and Oklahoma ties, introduced legislation last year to cut off federal funding to the nation unless it recognized the freedmen descendants.

For decades, descendants of slaves to Cherokees who were freed fought to reclaim their citizenship, even though they were adopted into the tribe in 1866 under a treaty with the U.S. government.

A ruling in 2006 by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court held that the Cherokee constitution assured freedmen descendants of tribal citizenship. That led to a petition drive for a ballot measure to determine who is a citizen of the nation, which claims 280,000 members.

Last year, nearly 77 percent of Cherokee voters decided to amend their constitution to remove the freedmen descendants and other non-Indians from tribal rolls. Critics of the vote pointed out that only a fraction of the nation’s tribal citizens - about 9,000 - cast ballots.

While the debate over who is a Cherokee citizen continues in federal and tribal court, the government’s proposal to punish the poorest of the tribe before courts make any ruling is not the solution, Miller said.

“Enron probably did some things that Congress didn’t like; did they ever get a $300 million fine?” he said. “We’re talking about hurting people who have very few resources.”

VIDEO:NAS "BLACK PRESIDENT"

D.C. NEIGHBORHOOD BECOMES POLICE STATE

Things of this nature has been talked about for years and we are seeing them come to fruition. It is kinda of scary in a sense cause who knows how far these measures will be enacted in violence plagued neighborhood. Here they come:

By Allison Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 5, 2008; A01

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced a military-style checkpoint yesterday to stop cars this weekend in a Northeast Washington neighborhood inundated by gun violence, saying it will help keep criminals out of the area.

“I knew eventually we’d be a police state,” said Wilhelmina Lawson, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years. “They don’t talk to us, they’re not community minded.”

Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers’ identification and ask whether they have a “legitimate purpose” to be in the Trinidad area, such as going to a doctor or church or visiting friends or relatives. If not, the drivers will be turned away.

The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative is the latest crime-fighting attempt by Lanier and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who have been under pressure from residents to stop a recent surge in violence. Last weekend was especially bloody, with seven slayings, including three in the Trinidad area.

ANIMATED VIDEO:YALL SHOULD ALL GET LYNCHED by NY OIL

WASHINGTON PLANNING TO "CHECKMATE" CHAVEZ

Washington planning to
'Checkmate' Chavez
By Stephen Lendman
6-2-8


So says Heinz Dieterich Steffan - German sociologist, economist, political analyst and Hugo Chavez consultant who claims he coined the phrase "21st century socialism" in the mid-1990s. He currently teaches at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City and writes often on Latin American issues.

In a May 21, 2008 Kaosenlared.net article and follow-up Montevideo, Uruguay debate, Dieterich was blunt. He said "Washington does not want to lose (Latin America) in competition with India, China and Europe." He called the situation "life or death" and that a military attack against Venezuela from Colombia is possible. Maybe likely, and Ecuador and Bolivia are also targeted.


He laid out a "checkmate" scenario:

-- weaken and destroy FARC-EP and ELN resistance; under Clinton in 1999, Plan Colombia was launched to do it; the Uribe government's March 1 attack against the FARC-EP camp was part of it; all regional aggression has Washington's stamp on it, especially when Alvaro Uribe is involved; he's the Bush administration's closest regional ally and willing co-conspirator;

-- neutralize Evo Morales in Bolivia as well, divide the country, and create a parallel state in its resource-rich provinces;

-- use these successes to "checkmate" Chavez and Ecuador's Raphael Correa; take further measures to do it; use Uribe's military and gunboat diplomacy after the Fourth Fleet becomes active July 1 - after a 60 year hiatus and no regional threat to warrant it;

-- since taking office in 2001, the Bush administration targeted Venezuela for regime change; it extended the timeline after its April 2002 coup failed; it made destroying Colombian resistance more urgent so Washington could use the country unimpeded as a launching platform against Chavez much like Honduras in the 1980s against Nicaragua's Sandinistas; the scheme is vintage Washington; it's still unfolding; it involves waging a "widespread offensive against Chavez and the Bolivarian forces from 2008 - 2009;"

-- regime changes in Bolivia and Ecuador will follow; in Bolivia "through separatism, the Trojan Horse of the Constituent Assembly and the 2006 formation of CONFILAR" - an International Confederation for Regional Freedom and Autonomy; in Ecuador by fostering discontent in the CONAI indigenous movement and weakening the government through destabilization; also by stoking secessionist stirrings in Guayas, the country's most affluent province.

Dieterich says Washington believes that "FARC and Evo Morales (weakening) are irreversible." Time will tell if it's so. That reasoning sets the stage for "subversion and paramilitary-military (actions) from Colombia (and) Fourth Fleet (aggression) against Venezuela and Ecuador." In his judgment, an operation may be "close" with the Bush administration's tenure winding down. He calls America a "bestial enemy" and this moment a "dangerous juncture." He hopes Chavez, Correa, Morales and other Latin American leaders are up to the challenge. The threat is that Venezuelan generals will buckle under a US incursion and not sacrifice themselves "in a war against the gringos."

He envisions a scenario much like against Cuba that led to the 1962 missile crisis - a naval blockade and sees "no cohesion" in Venezuela's military as there was in Cuba. The antidote is Latin American unity. The entire region is targeted. "It's time to seek what unites us," he says, and urges a democratic alliance among regional governments and social forces. "There is no other way because the enemy is very powerful and is made up of the alliance between the oligarchies and the gringos, and backed by Europe and Japan."

Dieterich says efforts in this direction have been proposed and rejected. Nonetheless, the n
'eed is urgent because failure is unthinkable - the end of participatory democracy and resurgence of neoliberal triumphalism throughout the hemisphere.

There's hope and opportunity to head it off. He calls the Colombian March 1 incursion "a serious political mistake," and that Bogota and Washington "underestimated the cost of this action." It will strengthen calls for negotiation and "will be capitalised on by the forces that (want) a peaceful solution to Colombia's armed conflict." It will also improve chances for "South American integration aims of progressive countries like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela." Ecuador and Bolivia as well. Uribe came out of this politically weaker. He'll "feel isolated diplomatically (and) will have to tone down his" belligerency. That remains to be seen for a hard right leader firmly in Bush's camp with "billions" in "inducements" to stay there.

The stakes for Washington and the region are huge. A rerun of the 1990s "Golden Age of Pillage" is unthinkable. So is another defeat for the Bush administration. With a scant eight months left, it may try anything to reverse its losses. It makes for very scary prospects:

-- saber rattling writ large;

-- regional gunboat diplomacy; -- a naval blockade against Venezuela and Ecuador;

-- a ground incursion from Colombia;

-- three Latin American leaders targeted for removal;

-- Cuba also;

-- possible assassinations as well; CIA is expert at it; their agents infest the region, and Target One is Chavez; and

-- according to an unidentified retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state, a planned air attack against Iran by summer; the idea is long-standing and goes back to the Clinton years; more recently, hawkish commanders replaced more hesitant ones; Congress is supportive, and, in an election year, major contenders practically preach it, at least in their rhetoric; they're also hostile to Chavez and comfortable with his removal.

He's alerted and revamping his intelligence services accordingly. The Interior and Justice Ministries will oversee a new General Intelligence Office and Counterintelligence Office in place of the current Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP). Similar military intelligence and counterintelligence components will replace the Military Intelligence Division (DIM) and will be under the Defense Ministry. Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin announced the changes on May 28, and said they're to counter US espionage and destabilization efforts. They're operative under the newly enacted Law on Intelligence and Counterintelligence. It was passed on May 28 by presidential decree under the legislatively-granted enabling law.

They'll be needed and lots more. According to Venezuelan Popular Unity (UPV) leader Lina Ron, the Chavez government is threatened. She cites a coup d'etat scheme called "Choquinaque" to oust it. It involves economic financing, psychological manipulation, and efforts to destabilize Venezuela's economy. Senior military commanders are being enlisted and bribed and opposition candidates promoted. The aim is to influence the outcome of the November 23 regional elections for mayors and governors. Pro-Chavez officials hold most posts, and Washington-backed subversion aims to unseat enough of them to change the balance of power.

Similar schemes back secessionist movements in the most affluent parts of Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador in its Guayas province. It has regional leaders alarmed and Chavez outraged and vocal. On his weekly radio and television program, he blamed "oligarchs" and "fascists" for targeting Bolivia after its most resource-rich state (Santa Cruz) supported more autonomy in a (largely symbolic) May 4 referendum. "The CIA and its lackeys (want regional control) but we will defeat that plan through integration, political union and ideological strength."

It's vital because Venezuela is also threatened. It's oil-rich Zulia state has similar secessionist ideas. Big Oil exploits them, and their local allies in the past supported a referendum to choose independence from Caracas. Its governor is Manuel Rosales. He ran against Chavez in 2006 and lost big. He backs the idea, is close to the Bush administration, and signed the infamous "Carmona Decree" after the April 2002 coup. It dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court, erased the Constitution, and ended Bolivarianism for the people. For now, more autonomy is enough for Rosales but unthinkable if Chavistas can help it. They condemn the idea and will fight it.

Stay tuned. November approaches in both countries. The Bush administration's tenure is short. But it's got plenty of time left to incinerate two continents and end the republic if that's its plan. An inert public needs arousing. Michel Chossudovsy says we're "at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history." It's part of a "war and globalization" process. The stakes for humanity are incalculable, but rogue states don't weigh them. World communities better while there's time.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening.

VIDEO:US TROOPS ADMIT KILLING INNOCENT IRAQI CIVILIANS

Several soldiers who have returned from combat zones talk with the American News Project about what they say is the widespread practice of using "drop weapons" to cover up the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. We feature five veterans and current members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, plus retired Lieutenant Colonel Gary Solis, a Vietnam War veteran and legal scholar who taught "Law of War" at West Point. Watch the video from ANP below:

FEAR OF A MUSLIM PLANET:HIP HOP'S HIDDEN HISTORY

Journalist Harry Allen once called Islam “hip-hop’s unofficial religion.” This theme is echoed by Adisa Banjoko, unofficial ambassador of Muslim hip-hop, who says: “Muslim influence was at the ground floor of hip hop. Hip hop came from the streets, from the toughest neighborhoods, and that’s always where the Muslims were.”

Hip-hop’s Muslim connection came initially via the 5 Percenter sect, and later expanded to embrace Nation of Islam (NOI), Sufi, and Sunni Islam. Since the 1980s, there have also been shifts where 5 Percenters have moved to NOI or Sunni beliefs. The same artists’ back catalog may reflect both his 5 Percenter beliefs and his later NOI faith. Islamic iconography, philosophy, and phrases are in fact so widespread in hip-hop, they show up regularly even in the works of non-Muslim rappers.

In spite of this pioneering and continuing role, Islam as a cultural force in hip-hop is severely under-documented. Elsewhere in mainstream media, the Muslim connection is never spoken aloud, even in the middle of thorough analysis and journalism. Ted Swedenburg calls this “almost willful avoidance.” In this, there are parallels to the larger invisibility of black Muslims, who have been shut out of many conversations around the role of Islam in America.

This deliberate invisibility mirrors America’s continuing unease with Islam. Black Muslims and hip-hop are frozen out of the larger debate over Islam because they would problematise the entire conversation. If we acknowledge that the largest segment of American Muslims are black Americans, it makes it more difficult to stereotype Muslims as “immigrants” or “outsiders.”

Furthermore, if we look at Muslim anger and see within it a portion that is African-American, we are forced to confront an indictment of American society. This is a viewpoint that the music press has assiduously avoided. Finally, the idea of Islam as a obscurantist force rubs against its positive influence within hip-hop. Hip-hop scholars have not been able to absorb or observe the Muslim role in creating unique rhyme flows and politically conscious hip-hop. Safer perhaps to avoid the topic.

Born Muslim, Born Black?

A dominant discourse links American Islam to Arabs and South Asians, considered new arrivals to America’s shore. But statistics tell a contradictory story. According to research presented by the American Muslim Council (AMC), in 1992, between 5 to 8 million Americans followed some variation of the Islamic faith.

AMC calculated the largest bloc of Muslims to be African-Americans at 42 percent. If African immigrants are included, the number goes up to 46 percent. South Asians are the next highest at 24 percent. Only 12 percent of American Muslims are of Arab descent (majority of Arab Americans are Christian). Looking at subsections within the black population, we find the proportions even higher: 30 percent of African Americans in the prison system are Muslim, many of whom convert after incarceration — following the trajectory of Malcolm X and Imam Jamil Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown).

There are many reasons why Islam has been popular among African-Americans from the beginning. Scholars point to the roots of Islam within the original slave populations. Silviane Diouf calculated that “up to 40 percent” of the Atlantic slave trade was Muslim.

to be continued…

VIDEO:DR.BOYCE WATKINS RESPONSE TO BARACK OBAMA DENOUNCING HIS CHURCH,PASTOR

As the Democratic primary nears its end and it becomes painstakingly clear that Senator Barack Obama will become the first “Black” Democratic nominee for President of the US there are more questions about what “type” of candidate Obama will become in the General Election than there are answers. The fact that this country will be split along racial lines is pretty much a given at this point but come October when Obama is looking back at some of the integral decisions he was forced to make at this pivotal point in the election will he also be seeing that factions of the “Black” community have also abandoned him as he attempts to move to the center of his political party? I hope he finds a comfort spot and isn’t pushed too far to the right as to where he loses his footing and falls off the ledge. Dr. Boyce Watkins builds on this delicate balancing act Barack will have to perform.

THE COMING ENERGY WARS-HOW $200 OIL WILL CHANGE THE WORLD

This spring, America hit a historic point. With average gas prices per gallon edging toward $4, America's notoriously profligate ways started to change fast. Americans are driving less, using mass transit more, buying fewer gas guzzlers, indeed shopping less wantonly in general, and lowering their previously unshakable confidence as consumers. Suddenly, Americans are acting differently; if not exactly like Swedes, then not quite like themselves, either. It's a shift that could change the world.

And there are more changes to come. So far the price shock has triggered the most obvious consumer shifts in the United States. Europeans, already greener, are also are buffered by a stronger currency, and Asians are protected from the spiking price of oil by subsidies that control the impact on gas prices at the pump. But if oil prices continue to rise, and the subsidy dam breaks, as seems likely, the energy revolution now transforming America will spread. "We sailed through $80 a barrel," notes energy authority Daniel Yergin, author of "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power" and chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "But that doesn't mean we'll sail through $200 a barrel. That sort of price would have enormous global consequences."

A year ago no one was talking about $200 oil, and now everyone in the markets is, for scary reasons. Oil prices climbed from $10 in 1999 to $95 last year without slowing the surging world economy, in large part because the markets believed the spike was at core driven by rising demand, particularly from India and China, which feeds growth. There was concern over supply, too, but nothing like the tumult prompted by the stranglehold OPEC imposed on the world in the 1970s, at least not until recent months. As the per-barrel price climbed over the last few months, with futures reaching $135 last week, the consensus began shifting to a new more gloomy view: that not only would long-term demand, led by China and India, continue to grow, but that the supply threats, including increasing conflict, falling investment, industry bottlenecks and downward estimates of big field reserves in major oil states—aren't going away any time soon. Now many (though not all) serious people take $200 oil—and the prospect of another '70s-style oil shock—seriously. Goldman Sachs warned that the $200 barrier could be hit within the next six to 24 months.

That's way too fast for comfort (or should be) even for those who welcome high gas prices as a way to induce energy conservation and fight global warming. Already skyrocketing oil prices are causing real pain for ordinary people, threatening global economic growth, and reviving the specter of inflation. The price pressure is now particularly acute in big emerging markets like China and India, which in recent years had become paragons of fiscal responsibility that tended to dampen global inflation by exporting cheap goods and services. Now they threaten to become exporters of inflation, particularly if energy price controls give way. Americans now making up for their losses at the gas pump by flocking to Wal-Mart for cheap Chinese goods would be out of luck. Make no mistake: $200 oil in 2009 would be a painful shock, not just a green tax on gas guzzlers.

Oil drives so much of the global economy, it's almost impossible to fully imagine the world of $200 oil. No question, the shock will force nations to go greener much faster than now, particularly by conserving energy and developing and adopting new non-fossil fuels. But none of this can happen full stop in six to 24 months. So the predictions tend to be gloomy: some analysts see a shift toward regional trade, and even a major reversal of globalization itself, as rising transport costs make it too expensive to ship many kinds of goods long distances. A major acceleration in the transfer of wealth that has, in the past five years, shifted trillions of petrodollars from oil consumers to producers would alter the world balance of power—including a boost for the troublesome oil autocrats of Iran, Venezuela and Russia. At $200 a barrel the proven oil reserves of the six Gulf nations alone would rise in value to $95 trillion, about twice the size of public equity markets, according to Morgan Stanley managing director Stephen Jen. That would make the Sovereign Wealth Funds of oil states market kingmakers. Western efforts to press more openness on these funds, many controlled by royal courts, would surely grow.
CONTINUE READING STORY

VIDEO:MOORS IN EUROPE-BLACK GOLD

BABYLON IS BURNING!!! HOLLYWOOD EPISODE

"burn hollywood burn"

featuring Ice Cube Big Daddy Kane

CHUCK D:

Burn Hollywood burn I smell a riot
Goin' on first htey're guilty now they're gone
Yeah I'll check out a movie
But it'll take a Black one to move me
Get me the hell away from this TV
All this news and views are beneath me
Cause all I hear about is shots ringin' out
So I rather kick some slang out
All right fellas let's go hand out
Hollywood or would they not
Make us all look bad like I know they had
But some things I'll never forget yeah
So step and fetch this shit
For all the years we looked like clowns
The joke is over smell the smoke from all around
Burn Hollywood burn


EDITORS NOTE: I REALLY NEED TO GET THAT TRACK FROM PUBLIC ENEMY ASAP..JUST ONE MORE NOTCH TO THE PROPHETIC CLIPBOARD THOSE DUDES POSSESS (911 IS A JOKE!!NUFF SAID) AND THEY ARE ONE OF MANY GOLDEN AGE HIP HOP ARTISTS WE NEED TO RE-LISTEN TO BECUZ THEY ARE GIVING US TRUE PROPHESY,KNOWLEDGE,WISDOM & UNDERSTANDING..THESE ARE PHENOMENAL TIMES WE ARE WITNESSING AND LIKE NAS SAID IN HIS NEW SONG "SLAVE & THE MASTER" THE ONE EYE MAN IS KING IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND" SO THEREFORE WE MUST LOOK AT OUR REALITY AND MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS OCCURING BEFORE OUR EYES.WITHIN THESE PAST MONTHS WE'VE SEEN SHEER DESTRUCTION ON THE BEHALF OF MOTHER NATURE TO EVERY CORNER OF THE UNTIED STATES, FIRST THE TORNADOES TOOK OUT TRAILER PARKS,PIG FARMS & SO FORTH ACROSS THE HEARTLAND OF AMERICA THEN RECENTLY WE'VE BEEN FIGHTING FIRES HAVE BEEN FOR THE MOST PART ARSONS ACROSS FLORIDA AND CALI,NO TELLING IF THIS LATEST FIRE WAS AN ARSON OR NOT BUT IT DEFINITELY SUMS UP THIS WHOLE PHENOMENOM PERFECTLY.. BABYLON IS BURNING AT ALL STOPS AT ALL COSTS AND UNIVERSAL STUDIOS ENGULFED IN FLAMES IS WHAT WE CALL POETIC JUSTICE







LOS ANGELES (AP) - A large fire tore through a back lot at Universal Studios early Sunday, destroying a set from "Back to the Future," the King Kong exhibit and a video vault containing more than 40,000 videos and reels.

The blaze broke out on a backlot sound stage around 4:30 a.m. Sunday at the 400-acre property, but was contained later in the day, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman said.

Roughly 40,000 to 50,000 videos and reels were damaged in the vault, but there were duplicates stored in a different location, NBC Universal President and Chief Operating Officer Ron Meyer said.

"Nothing is lost forever," Meyer said.

The videos included every film that Universal has produced and footage from television series' like "Miami Vice" and "I Love Lucy." Firefighters recovered hundreds of those titles from the vault, Freeman said.

The iconic courthouse square from "Back to the Future," was also destroyed, Freeman said, and the famous clock tower that enabled star Michael J. Fox's character to time travel was damaged.

The King Kong exhibit is a stop on the studio's tram tour where the giant ape bellows at passengers and artificial banana scent fills the area, studio spokesman Eliot Sekuler said.

Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Daryl Jacobs said as many as three blocks of movie facades were destroyed, including two mock New York and New England streets used for filmmaking and tourist displays.

A commercial shoot was going on when the fire broke out, Sekuler said. The cause of the fire was under investigation. Universal Studios is located nine miles north of downtown Los Angeles that has thrill rides and a back lot where movies and television shows are filmed. One of the more familiar back lot attractions is the house featured in "Psycho."

Scenes from several blockbuster films and television shows have been filmed at the studios, including "War of the Worlds," "When Harry met Sally" and "Scrubs."

Meyer said the park would open at noon Sunday, and on a typical weekend day about 25,000 people visit the theme park. However, tram tours would avoid the King Kong attraction, Sekuler said.

More than 100 firefighters try to prevent the flames from spreading to nearby brush. A thick column of smoke rose thousands of feet into the air and for a time helicopters swept in to drop water. Three firefighters had minor injuries.

US HOLDING PRISONERS ON "TORTURE SHIPS"

An amphibious assault vehicle leaves the USS Peleliu, which was used to detain prisoners, according to the human rights group Reprieve. Photograph: Zack Baddor/AP

The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.

Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.

Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.

The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped.

It is the use of ships to detain prisoners, however, that is raising fresh concern and demands for inquiries in Britain and the US.

According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.

Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans.

Reprieve will raise particular concerns over the activities of the USS Ashland and the time it spent off Somalia in early 2007 conducting maritime security operations in an effort to capture al-Qaida terrorists.

At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 individuals were "disappeared" to prisons in locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantánamo Bay.

Reprieve believes prisoners may have also been held for interrogation on the USS Ashland and other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this time.

The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo."

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights.

"By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them."

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, called for the US and UK governments to come clean over the holding of detainees.

"Little by little, the truth is coming out on extraordinary rendition. The rest will come, in time. Better for governments to be candid now, rather than later. Greater transparency will provide increased confidence that President Bush's departure from justice and the rule of law in the aftermath of September 11 is being reversed, and can help to win back the confidence of moderate Muslim communities, whose support is crucial in tackling dangerous extremism."

The Liberal Democrat's foreign affairs spokesman, Edward Davey, said: "If the Bush administration is using British territories to aid and abet illegal state abduction, it would amount to a huge breach of trust with the British government. Ministers must make absolutely clear that they would not support such illegal activity, either directly or indirectly."

A US navy spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, told the Guardian: "There are no detention facilities on US navy ships." However, he added that it was a matter of public record that some individuals had been put on ships "for a few days" during what he called the initial days of detention. He declined to comment on reports that US naval vessels stationed in or near Diego Garcia had been used as "prison ships".

The Foreign Office referred to David Miliband's statement last February admitting to MPs that, despite previous assurances to the contrary, US rendition flights had twice landed on Diego Garcia. He said he had asked his officials to compile a list of all flights on which rendition had been alleged.

CIA "black sites" are also believed to have operated in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland and Romania.

In addition, numerous prisoners have been "extraordinarily rendered" to US allies and are alleged to have been tortured in secret prisons in countries such as Syria, Jordan, Morocco and Egypt.

VIDEO:JAY ELECTRONICA - Dimethyltryptamine

NEW AGE FREEMASONARY SEE MEMBERSHIP BOOM

The secretive society gains a higher, hipper profile as younger men seek out a place for fraternal bonding.
By Adam Tschorn, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 18, 2008
IN LOS FELIZ, across from a 7-Eleven on North Vermont Avenue, a few dozen men in their early 20s to late 80s share a dinner behind closed doors. Some wear full tuxedos with bow ties and jeweled cuff links, some have shoulder-length hair, and others wear open-collared shirts that reveal the slightest filigree of tattoo arching across their chests.

Over Italian food, retired lawyers and judges sit elbow-to-elbow with owners of scrap metal yards and vintage clothing boutiques. They hold forth on philosophy, the weather; they rib each other and joke about saving room for cannoli. As they reach for seconds, they reveal skull-cracking rings emblazoned with a compass and a square.

Meet the millennial Masons. As secret societies go, it is one of the oldest and most famous. Its enrollment roster includes Louis Armstrong and Gerald Ford, and it has been depicted in movies such as “The Da Vinci Code” and “National Treasure.” Once more than 4 million strong (back in the 1950s), it has been in something of a popularity free-fall ever since. Viewed with suspicion as a bastion of antiquated values and forced camaraderie, the Masons have seen membership rolls plummet more than 60% to just 1.5 million in 2006.

Only now the trend seems to be reversing itself, and nowhere more noticeably than in Southern California. The reasons seem clear. In another Masonic Hall, this one on La Cienega, a Sri Lankan-born banker, a sunglasses-wearing Russian immigrant and a continent-hopping Frenchman break bread, poke at their salads and chat about their health.

"For a time it looked as if Masonry was going into a sharp decline, if not the death throes," said UCLA history professor Margaret C. Jacob, who has written extensively about the fraternal order. "But it looks like it may be making a comeback."

That's because the Freemasons, whose tenets forbid soliciting or recruiting members, have enthusiastically embraced the Internet as a way to leverage curiosity about an organization with its roots in Europe's medieval stonemasons guilds. Freemasonry today sees itself as a thinking man's salon, a learned society with a philanthropic bent.

"We had a record number of new members last year," said Allan Casalou, grand secretary of the Grand Lodge of California. "We added 2,000 men, which is the most since 1998 and our seventh straight year of membership increases."

And, to paraphrase that Oldsmobile campaign, these definitely aren't your father's Freemasons. They are bar owners, male models and olive-oil brokers. They are men like Zulu, an L.A. tattoo artist with a swirling Maori-inspired design inked across his face and a panoply of metal piercing his ears, nose and face. They are men like Jonathan Kanarek, who runs a men's vintage clothing store on Hollywood Boulevard and whose retro chic wardrobe of polka-dot ascots, glen-plaid jackets and smartly pressed pocket squares earned him a spot on Esquire magazine's 2007 list of best-dressed real men in America. And they are men like Daemon Hillin, whose surfer-dude looks and blinding white smile can be found on Japanese TV, where he plays sidekick and comic foil to the Japanese version of the Hilton sisters.

They are also all men who want to be part of an all-for-one and one-for-all brotherhood built on shared ideals, philosophical pursuits and a penchant for rings, aprons and funny hats. As Zulu bluntly put it: "I joined because I was looking for people to hang with that were like-minded but also hip and cool, and a lot of tattoo artists tend to be drunks and druggies."

Hillin, who originally joined the Masons in Temecula, moved to L.A. and is interested in the Santa Monica-Palisades Lodge No. 307, one of the youngest and most diverse congregations in the state (the average age of active brothers is just 33). The lodge's senior deacon, Jim Warren, calls it " 'Star Trek' without the chicks." "We have every possible national origin, ethnicity and religious denomination you could imagine," he said.

Warren credits the Internet. "We were one the first lodges in the state to have a website up," he said. "That led to a huge spike in membership."

Other lodges followed suit, putting up their own sites and drawing a crowd. That's how prospective Mason Johnny Royal ended up at the door of Elysian Lodge No. 418 last month. Intrigued by the distinctive Masonic architecture that graces most halls, the 31-year-old publicist with sideburns to his chin and hair to his shoulders and a Renaissance lute player tattoo on his right forearm hit the Web.

What he read about the Masonic ideals -- wisdom, strength, beauty and the pursuit of knowledge -- made him decide to pursue membership. "My generation wants to be part of something beyond itself," Royal said. "I want to learn; I want to participate."

The Web generation

THE INTERNET hasn't only made it easier to learn about the Freemasons, Casalou says, it's changed the type of men coming forward. "There is so much information on the Internet that by the time someone comes to a lodge to seek membership, they already know a lot about Masonry," he said. "Which is a big departure from previous generations. And it means they are more likely to be active participants."



Zulu became curious about Freemasonry after tattooing Masonic symbology on several clients. He joined five years ago at age 39 and now serves as webmaster and senior warden of North Hollywood Lodge No. 542. He has also gone on to become both a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner (Masonic membership is a prerequisite for both), and next year he will become the leader of his lodge. "I'll be the first black worshipful master in the lodge's history," he said, using the proper term of respect.

But he probably won't be the last. Because California's contingent of Freemasons is expected to grow, the average age of its members, once 71 and now 65, is expected to drop. By 2018, as Casalou predicts, the state will be awash in 55-year-old pre-retirement Masons giving each other secret handshakes, wearing ritual aprons and invoking the Grand Architect of the Universe.

The Internet continues to help. Zulu said that he gets at least four e-mails a week from prospective Masons around the globe who see his tattooed and pierced visage at the lodge website and want to be reassured such an alternative look isn't a barrier to membership.

"Yeah, I think it's going to become hip and chic to be a Mason," Zulu said. "And that could be a dangerous thing."

adam.tschorn@latimes.com

VIDEO:WHITE HOUSE WHISTLE BLOWER McCLELLAN ON COUNTDOWN

On "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" Thursday Scott McClellan sat down for a nearly hour-long interview with the MSNBC host to discuss his new book, "What Happened". The wide-ranging interview covered everything from the CIA leak to Fox News to McClellan's critics to the possibility of military action in Iran.


Towards the beginning of the interview Olbermann noted a passage in McClellan's book where he says Bush's foreign policy view was grounded in a "philosophy of coercive democracy." Olbermann noted, "it's a marvelous phrase, but is it an oxymoron?" McClellan said it was:

"[C]ertainly those [policies] have tarnished the reputation of the United States in a very negative way. And I think that has been harmful over the long term. But in terms of the coercive democracy, that was -- and you bring up a very good point about the oxymoron there -- but that was always the strategy for going into Iraq in first place. And I think that is what really drove the president's motivation to push ahead and rush into this. When I think that there were probably other options -- there were definitely other options available to him. He didn't have to box himself in. But when he went to the United Nations he said, either he disarms and the U.N. -- if he doesn't, then the U.N. goes in, or the security council authorizes it, or we will do it ourselves."
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT CONDEMNS USA /CHINA

LONDON (AP) — The United States is shirking its duty to provide the world with moral leadership and China is letting its business interests trump human rights concerns in Myanmar and Sudan, a human rights group said Wednesday.

Amnesty International's annual report on the state of the world's human rights accused the U.S. of failing to provide a moral compass for its international peers, a long-standing complaint the London-based group has against the North American superpower.

This year it also criticized the U.S. for supporting Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last November when he imposed a state of emergency, clamped down on the media and sacked judges.

"As the world's most powerful state, the USA sets the standard for government behavior globally," the report said. It charged that the U.S. "had distinguished itself in recent years through its defiance of international law."

As in the past, the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay came in for criticism. Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general, appealed for the American president elected in November to announce the jail's closure on Dec. 10, 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.

The State Department had no immediate comment on the report, but said the U.S. was justified in detaining enemy combatants at Guantanamo to prevent them from returning to the battlefield. The State Department has previously said Amnesty uses the U.S. as "a convenient ideological punching bag."

Emerging power China came in for a few punches, too. The report said China had continued shipping weapons to Sudan in defiance of a U.N. arms embargo and traded with abusive governments like Myanmar and Zimbabwe. It said that China's media censorship remains in place and that the government continues to persecute rights activists.

The report also accused China of expanding its "re-education through labor" program, which allows the government to arrest people and sentence them to a manual labor without trial.

But Amnesty said it detected a shift in China's position: In 2007, China persuaded the Sudanese government to allow U.N. peacekeepers into the Darfur region and pressured Myanmar to accept the visit of a U.N. special envoy.

Khan told The Associated Press that it was much easier to grapple with human rights problems when the West and China worked together.

"China has the leverage to work with certain governments," she said ahead of the report's release. But she said China needed to use that leverage responsibly.

"China is clearly a global power. With that comes global responsibility for human rights. It needs to recognize that economic growth is not enough," Khan said.

The Chinese Embassy in London referred a query about the report to Beijing officials. A woman who answered the phone at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said the ministry would look into the report. She refused to comment further or to give her name or position.

China has rejected previous such reports. It says its human rights record has improved in recent years.

Amnesty International said people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 and are denied free speech in at least 77.

But the report also highlighted an increase in mass demonstrations around the world, citing that as a positive sign of a growing willingness by people to fight for their rights.

"Black-suited lawyers in Pakistan, saffron-robed monks in Myanmar, 43.7 million individuals standing up on Oct. 17, 2007, to demand action against poverty, all were vibrant reminders last year of a global citizenry determined to stand up for human rights and hold their leaders to account," it said.

PIRATE ATTACKS AROUND THE WORLD RISE BY 20%

Mariners are being warned of a growing threat from pirates around the world after attacks on shipping rose by 20 per cent over the last year.

Gone are the cannon and cutlass, to be replaced by rocket propelled grenades and automatic rifles, but according to new figures from the organisation that collates reports of global piracy, the spirit of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow is alive and terrorising the ocean waves.

The International Maritime Bureau’s latest report reveals the first rise in pirate attacks since their previous peak in the mid 1990s. In one particularly savage incident in the Philippines in March, pirates shot dead the captain of a passenger boat and two of his crew before tying them to their anchor and tossing it overboard. They then shot the two remaining crew members and escaped in a motor boat.


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FOX NEWS WISHES FOR OSAMA & OBAMA ASSASINATION,THEN LAUGHS IT OFF

EDITORS NOTE:THIS SHIT IS GETTING OUT OF HAND!!

GIANT 'Real Time' TELESCOPE CONNECTS LONDON TO NYC

LONDON, England (CNN) -- As the first splinters of sunlight spread their warmth on the south bank of the River Thames on Thursday, it became clear that after more than a century, the vision of Victorian engineer Alexander Stanhope St. George had finally been realized.


The Telectroscope lets Londoners and New Yorkers see each other in real time.
1 of 3 In all its optical brilliance and brass and wood, there stood the Telectroscope: an 11.2-meter-(37 feet) long by 3.3-meter-(11 feet) tall dream of a device allowing people on one side of the Atlantic to look into its person-size lens and, in real time, see those on the other side via a recently completed tunnel running under the ocean. (Think 19th-century Webcam. Or maybe Victorian-age video phone.)



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