It's apparently of little interest to the press, but we think this is a top story:

Senate GOP hands Dems oil ultimatum

Senate Republicans have threatened to block nearly all other bills pending before the August recess if Democrats refuse to vote with them on expanding offshore drilling.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said bills that do not pertain to energy can wait until after the August recess, with gas prices now surpassing $4 per gallon. McConnell and top Republicans indicated Wednesday they would oppose any procedural votes to take up other legislation, which require 60 votes to succeed.

No surprise.

The Lightworker has said that even knowing what he knows now, he would not have supported the surge.

If a Republican, when given a series of facts demonstrating the success of something, said that he still wouldn't have supported it merely by uttering one word" "no," the press would never let him (or us) hear the end of it.

But the Obamedia is still basking in the glow of the Lightworker; they'll not say much more than they have to to maintain the thin patina of whatever credibility they think they have left.

Here's more:

Obama uses Western Wall as campaign prop and gets heckled

Will the press report it, or would that mar the rock star world tour vibe they're trying to weave?

John Edwards' possible affair and lovechild

Do you remember hearing anything about this in the press? No? But you do remember Larry Craig, right? And Foley? And David Vitter and Jack Ryan? Seems the only media source able to report on this was the National Enquirer.

Oh, and how about the Chicago Sun Times feeding into Obama's delusion that he's already been selected as our Great National Leader with this:

Obama doesn't know what committees he's on

He never shows up to the Senate anyways, so no one should be surprised that he can't remember. Still, if a Republican had done this....heck, if McCain had done this, there would be months of jokes about the doddering old fool and he's memory. But this is the Lightworker, who will bring peace and contentment to us all.

Heck, I heard a guy on the radio yesterday say he'd take a bullet for Obama. This is a cult.

We could just go on and on with this; it's endless. Last licks...

Human Events points out the vastly differing Rules for Democrats and Republicans

And we have this informative chart, courtesy of Powerline:

Received an action alert from friend and colleague Concrete Bob regarding an important event taking place on August 2nd in Somerset PA.

When a memorial to the victims of an Islamic terrorist attack is being built to specifications that will make it the world's largest mosque, we have a serious problem. Click the link above for more information on how you can take action.

The person who has stayed on top of all of this is Alec Rawls, author of Crescent of Betrayal - Dishonoring the Heroes of Flight 93. We received an email from him today on this subject, and he has given up permission to reprint it here. For more information, visit his website.

Here is that email:

Here are some details on the trip that Mr. Burnett and I (and hopefully a lot of others) will be making to Somerset on Saturday 2nd:

At about 1PM (when the Memorial Project meeting lets out) Mr. Burnett and I will host a press conference and a rally outside the Somerset County Courthouse (where the meeting will be held).

Saturday evening will find some buffet type place for dinner that can be flexible in accommodating our numbers. Sunday morning we will visit the crash site. (I am making arrangements with the Park Service now, in case we get a large turn out.)

The only reason to try to make it to the meeting itself (10AM-1PM) is if you want to sign up to speak at the public comment period at the end. Otherwise the meetings are pretty dreary.


For those of you who are new to this issue, the first thing everyone needs to know is that the giant crescent points to Mecca, and that it remains completely intact in the “broken circle” redesign. The unbroken part of the circle (the crescent) is unchanged. It is still a giant Islamic shaped crescent, still pointing to Mecca.

Here is the publicity photo for the original Crescent of Embrace design, laid out in the configuration of a crescent and star flag:



The copse of trees that sits roughly in the position of the star on an Islamic flag marks the crash site.

Here is a site-plan view of the crescent design, with the direction to Mecca superimposed:

The green “qibla” circle is from the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. A person standing between the most protruding tips of the crescent structure and facing into the center of the crescent (red arrow), will be facing almost exactly in the “qibla” direction (the direction that Muslims face for prayer, which is towards Mecca). Click picture for larger image.

Our online petition, calling for Congressional investigation, lists two other intolerable features:

1. The 44 glass blocks that are to be emplaced along the flight path (matching the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists);

2. The tower sundial:



Traditional Islamic sundial, left. The gnomon's shadow is just reaching the outer curved vertical, indicating time for Islamic afternoon prayers. You can see the overt similarity to the Tower of Voices part of the Flight 93 memorial, on the right. Shadow calculations confirm that, when the Tower's shadow reaches the inner arc of trees, it will also be time for Islamic afternoon prayers.

The full list of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features goes on for a hundred pages. (Full expose here, updates here.)

Flight 93 has been re-hijacked, and we need help tackling the hijacker!

Hope to see you there.

Sincerely,
Alec Rawls

From Redstate:

The U.S. Congress is about to vote on H. R. 3221, the Housing Bailout legislation.

Discovered today, the legislation will funnel millions of dollars to La Raza and ACORN, two far left organizations.

The Democrats have structured the legislation so that the provision to give La Raza and ACORN your money cannot be stripped from the legislation.

Call your Congressman at 202-224-3121 and tell him to vote against H. R. 3221.

We should not be using your money to fund groups that would gladly help overthrow the United States in favor of a far left vision.

What a difference a bust makes.

Karadzic Arrest In Serbia Shows Power Of Elections

Analysts and Balkan-watchers say the surprise arrest recently of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic came about as a direct result of a pro-Western government coming to power in Belgrade following elections in May -- and previous power brokers falling out of favor.

The new Serbian government that came to power following elections in May -- an unlikely pairing of President Boris Tadic's Democrats on the one hand, and the Socialists of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic on the other -- is eager to advance its efforts to join the European Union.

Pro-Western forces have been looking to step up Belgrade's European integration for years, of course. But until now, those efforts ran up against a repeated roadblock -- the failure to apprehend Karadzic and his wartime military commander, Ratko Mladic, to face trial at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. 

The question of why any nation in its right mind would want to relinquish sovereignty to the degree required to be a part of the EU is another matter, but this certainly is an interesting development.

Civilizations come and go. Sometimes it has happened quickly, with some decisive battle. Often, when you look back through history, it seems sudden because it is compressed by the view back through time—but in fact, it was more gradual.

Our culture is in decline. Our people, in comparison to those whom we call "the greatest generation" have weakened (not every person, but in aggregate). Our sense of ourselves has waned. Our material abundance is at a high, but the shadows are growing long on our spiritual and patriotic life.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Here's yet another example of our slow slide:

Dumbing Down America's Colleges

...Wake Forest University, Bates, Bowdoin, and a few other small schools have recently decided to make the SAT optional for students applying for admission. Their argument for getting rid of these tests is that it will fling open the doors to “diversity” among the student body. Wake Forest President Nathan Hatch made the ludicrous claim that jettisoning the SAT would help the school, “move closer to the goals of greater educational quality and opportunity.”

Such decisions are less about a selection process intended to serve the best interests of both the student and the school than about marketing intended to put bottoms in classroom seats. It seems the biggest question in college admissions offices today is whether the parents of little Johnny or Jane can afford to pay tuition, even if it includes remedial courses. If the kid has a pulse, he’s in! ...

Can we rescue our culture and return to greatness? Are we too late? When the greatest generation goes, will there be enough people left who get it?

By Sharon McGovern

This is not a review, though I submit The Dark Knight kicks a** so very hard. Instead, this will be a brief look at themes employed in TDK; a sequel to Batman is a NeoCon. If you haven’t already contributed to the movie’s astonishing opening weekend take, you might want to decide right now if you want to read something that gives away a number of its plot points.

The Dark Knight begins with “the bat man” having become a fixture in Gotham. He inspires resentment for the toll his fight against evildoers is taking on the city and for his high-handed approach to law enforcement, as well as some loyalty among those who appreciate the dangers of whacking the hornets’ nest of the villainous elite—and a cadre of bat-groupies, vigilantes whom Batman contains and leaves for police pick-up along with the criminals they flail at. The war Batman is fighting is too dangerous and too compromising for amateurs. Still, it bespeaks a civic mindedness in Gotham that didn’t exist before, and hope in a previously hopeless city. Batman is a one-man surge.

Bruce Wayne is growing weary of bat-enforcement and as the city takes a turn for the sane (a glimpse of the bat signal discourages minor criminals), hopes to de-escalate his superhero duties and let the relatively ethical police and increasingly effective district attorneys take over. Then he could drop his twin masks—caped crusader and playboy rake—and properly romance the only woman he ever loved. The costs of being Batman wear at him, drain him of money, health, and reputation. What he’s doing is right, but it’s hard. The movie asks the viewer to consider what it would be like to be despised for doing unpopular things in order to fight evil. What would Batman be if he minded the polls?

Behind the scenes and (mostly) beyond the law, the bat-tactics bear an uncanny resemblance to methods used in the War on Terror. The mob bosses’ activities are traced though their finances. Extraordinary rendition is used to extract their chief money launderer from Hong Kong. Batman uses, ahem, extreme interrogation techniques forbidden to the police and D.A.s. It’s soul killing work and not always productive, but it is imperative within the narrative for Batman to have those options. If prisoners don’t cooperate when they are in relatively secure confinement, they are threatened with removal to more dangerous cells. Finally, every cell phone in Gotham is monitored in order to locate and frustrate the horrible new batch of terrorists in town. It’s warrentless wiretapping enhanced with echolocation. For some reason, this is most bothersome to Wayne’s technical advisor, a dapper black man who votes to use this ability, just once and never again.

But the most agonizing aspect to being Batman is the responsibility for the lives of the people of Gotham, and some of their deaths. He has meddled with the various criminal fiefdoms in the city and in their desperation to stop him, they have backed the new psycho in town and violence explodes. When Wayne protests “they have crossed the line” his advisor Alfred replies, “You crossed the line first, sir. You hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand. Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

That man calls himself The Joker. He has extorts millions of dollars from the criminal community, and sets the giant pile of money on fire in front of the horrified mob bosses of Gotham. He doesn’t need that much, he explains: bullets, gasoline, dynamite—all very cheap. He’s like Osama bin Laden turning his back on his family’s fortune and the sordid lifestyle of a Saudi aristocrat in favor of more rigorous and fanatical perversions financed by the sympathetic rulers of various oppressed precincts. The Joker declares, “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger” and wants to push Gotham to its breaking point. He has a variety of sob stories to explain his behavior and the scars on his face, but once you commit a certain amount of evil motives become less compelling. And yet some are more willing to blame Batman for inspiring his most lurid acts of violence than The Joker for planning and committing them.

When pressed, however, the good people of Gotham are, well, good. In their most terrifying challenge, a ferry full of citizens and a ferry full of convicts are each given detonators that will blow up the other. If neither presses the button, The Joker will destroy both at the stroke of midnight. The passengers discuss their situation, vote on potential outcomes, watch the minutes tick by, and finally decline to play The Joker’s game. It’s a relief, not just that a group of characters in a story survived, but that a filmmaker has given the stand-ins for the audience—even the worst among them—a break. Just as the occasional superhero movie pays tribute to the difficulties and rewards of heroism, sometimes they also give a nod to the essential decency of the American people. It’s a gesture all too rare in mainstream filmmaking.

Gotham’s champion is Harvey Dent, the city’s District Attorney. He is fearless, upstanding, and nimble enough to disarm—literally—a mob informant on the witness stand. He is the man Bruce Wayne would like to be if he weren’t burdened by his twin personae. But he has a weakness, symbolized by a two-headed coin. His show of flipping it and leaving decisions to fate is a fraud, though a harmless one at first. When he is maimed by The Joker and undone by grief, he is pushed from quirkily dishonest to downright villainous. He becomes obsessed with revealing the ugliness and dishonesty he feels must lie in everybody after he discovered it in himself and in the institutions he respected. He even goes so far as to nearly recreate the circumstances of the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, and force another aggrieved father to lie to his son: “Everything will be all right.” His degradation is tragic.

The moral of the first movie was that it didn’t matter what a person was underneath, but what they did that defined them. In this one, it not only matters what the characters feel or do, but how they seem. Nothing seems to be as it should in Gotham: clowns are sinister, bats are badass, and the most prominent businessman in the city is a feckless libertine. But the city needed a sterling ideal of law and order, one removed from the compromised police department and ineffectual attorney general’s office, and certainly from Batman and Bruce Wayne who were unreliable examples. Harvey Dent wasn’t as pure as his reputation, but Wayne realized a city full of masked men somebody needed to play the role of white knight. The Dark Knight job was taken.

I can remember a few years back learning a bit about shale oil. I remember someone saying, "that's great, we have so much of that. Why don't we start using it?"

I explained, of course, that the per-barrel cost of extraction was (at that time) much higher than regular crude.

Of course, there's little need to explain to anyone that today, those price levels are reversed.

U.S. govt to propose rules to develop oil shale

The U.S. Interior Department said on Monday it will propose regulations on Tuesday to establish a commercial oil shale program that could result in up to 800 million barrels of recoverable oil on public lands in western United States.

The environmental left will say anything it can in its effort to hobble capitalism and the West.

The companies themselves are going to downplay any harm it might cause.

Oh well, I guess we'll just have to dig a little deeper to find the truth. (Get it?)

By Christopher Cook

I have a dualistic and conflicted view of science and scientists.

One the one hand, I respect greatly the rigor and honesty with which most scientists conduct themselves. I respect the field's idealized desire for the truth, no matter where it leads.

On the other hand, I realize that while there is an idealized desire for truth, the unfortunate fact is that science, like every other human field of endeavor, is run by humans. And scientists, like all humans, run the gamut:

Some are honest. Some are honest but lazy. Some are honest but do the herd-mentality thing that is so common to human beings in general. Some are corrupt and venal for their own purposes. Some are corrupt and venal for much grander purposes.

The result is that science, in spite of its higher aims and more rigorous standards, gets corrupted just like anything we flawed humans touch. And thus, even in science, the results can sometimes be flawed, faked, forged, false, or forced down our throats.

Moreover, science is continually changing its view of things. Our body of scientific knowledge at any one time is just a snapshot. It's only what we know now, and its constantly changing. And yet, we often hear a certain smugness—from some scientists and some laypeople—about scientific conclusions, as if they are absolutely unassailable, simply because they're "science."

That smugness has always bugged me. I have tried to keep an open mind about the scientific claims I hear—relying on them to the degree required to live a normal life, yet not wrapping myself so tightly with the fabric of these claims that I cannot move. I know that science changes, so I never assume that a scientific theory is carved in stone.

Taking that attitude forward, I find it really offensive when some scientists are attacked or challenging the current or dominant view of a certain area of science.

I have learned a lot recently about just what happens to such scientists. I had an understanding of it before, but I recently heard a lot more about specific cases.

There was the amazing portion of Ann Coulter's Godless that covered Darwinian evolution. In these chapters, Coulter covers two topics: the paucity of evidence for this theory and the brutality with which those who dissent from it are treated.

Now, it's appalling that people—who are in the field of science, who are using the scientific method, and who happen to have come to different scientific conclusions—would be assaulted for challenging a scientific theory.

It's even more appalling that the theory being defended so savagely in this case—Darwinian evolution as an explanation for the origin and development of new species—has so very little solid evidence in favor of it. And, whether it ends up being a "true" theory or not, no one needs to be attacked of have their careers ruined for challenging it at any time.

Recently, I learned of another such situation: Those who challenge the existence of HIV and/or the notion that HIV leads to AIDS.

I am personally agnostic on the subject. I have done no real study on it myself. I have, for years, heard of such dissent, but I have no ideas about the relative scientific merits of their claims. My open and cautious view of science allows me to seriously consider what these dissenters have to say.

On the other hand, I value the information coming from the majority, for the obvious reason that there are a lot of people in this majority.

Then again, there are also a lot of people shilling for the "majority" view of anthropogenic global warming, and that view is increasingly looking less like science and more like a pile of steaming agenda with large chunks of hysteria in it.

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce the reason for this post, with its admittedly indulgent preamble:

Clark Baker, former Marine, former LAPD, and current private investigator has been exploring this world of AIDS "denialism" and he writes this of what he discovered:

"I have never written about anything more important. This story changed my life, and if you have the time and patience to understand what I have written, it may change yours as well."

Read all about it in HIV, AIDS, and Gallo's Egg

By Clark Baker

Last June, I posted this report about US hospitals and how many rely on fraud, preventable injuries and infections to patients to compensate for losses due to our government’s insistence that private hospitals treat and care for uninsured and underinsured citizens, indigents, and illegal aliens.

[Photo: Dr. Robert Gallo]

I learned how hospitals destroy good physicians and how predatory hospital chains like Tenet, Kaiser Permanente, and Adventist pressure local physicians already in successful private practice to join their groups. Those who refuse are targeted for sham peer review by corporate administrators and MDs who accuse non-compliant physicians as dangerous, incompetent, or disruptive. While a few tenacious victims expend their life savings to preserve their clinical privileges, others aren’t so lucky. Faced with the malicious and devastating loss of their medical careers, many take their own lives; which is what the health care corporations prefer anyway. To them, it’s only business – nothing personal.

I was never impressed by concerns about “the evils of big pharma.” I assumed that drugs are expensive because of the R & D that goes into finding cures for disease. Until now, I never imagined that some of those same drug companies would support junk science to fund researchers who would then produce expensive drugs that cause illness and disease around the world; or support junk legislation that would force healthy mothers and their children to take drugs that kill (under the threatened loss of child custody), and then use their subsequent sickness and mortality as evidence that a non-existent disease actually exists.

Such a scheme would have made Machiavelli weep with joy.

A New Investigation

I was not concerned about "big pharma" until my visit to Washington DC last May. I was there to meet with members of Semmelweis Society International (SSI). This is an impressive group of medical professionals – physicians, nurses, surgeons, medical and law school professors, and former CEOs of health care corporations. Because of my own experience with retaliation and my ongoing interest in US healthcare and sham peer review, I was interested to hear their stories directly from them.

I accompanied Gil Mileikowsky, MD, the OB/GYN who first explained sham peer to me in 2006. I spent five days with the members – all dedicated men and women who care deeply about the political corruption of healthcare and who risked their own careers to report fraud or abuse within the healthcare system. I recorded and edited their testimony, and posted this video after members testified before the US Congress and Senate. I was also honored to testify regarding my experience as an LAPD whistleblower.

Two recipients of the Semmelweis “Clean Hands Award” were reporter Celia Farber and molecular biologist Peter Duesberg, PhD. I had not heard of them before and knew nothing of their relationship to a little known controversy about HIV and AIDS.

After 28 years as an investigator, I consider myself pretty skeptical about things until I see proof. Most of my work today is pro bono, so I can pick and choose who I assist. Witnesses are expected to lie, but if I discover that a client has misrepresented facts or lied to me, I will usually drop the case. I’m fortunate to have the time, energy, and resources to help good people get out of undeservedly bad predicaments. Not all lawyers are like Mike Nifong or David Sotelo, and not all private investigators work like Anthony Pellicano. Without unbiased credibility, investigators are nothing more than a liability to their clients.

As various members interacted with Farber and Duesberg, I learned that the HIV/AIDS issue had not been entirely resolved. Like Dr. Mileikowsky’s story about sham peer review, this sounded equally unbelievable.

When I returned to Los Angeles, several former members began to question the wisdom of presenting the awards to Farber and Duesberg. In response, SSI President (and neurosurgeon) Roland Chalifoux issued this press release to explain the rationale of the awards. But when two dissenters persisted, Dr. Chalifoux asked me to conduct an independent investigation of Ms. Farber and Prof. Duesberg, citing my investigative experience, independence, and almost complete lack of knowledge about HIV and AIDS.

I accepted the case.

Although I didn’t expect it at first, I was warned that I should expect attacks from the “other side.” I wasn’t sure what they meant but kept it in the back of my mind. It didn’t take me long to find out for myself.

When word got out that I had begun my investigation, several ex-SSI members told me that Duesberg and Farber were dangerous and "not worth my time" to investigate. Having met both in Washington, I found nothing dangerous about the reporter or microbiologist.

Two dissenters, James Murtagh, MD and Kevin Kuritzky, were friendly to me at first and “appealed to my better judgment.” Their friendly pressure intrigued me and I began my investigation by checking into their allegations.

Both essentially charged that Duesberg and Farber were liars and that both were responsible for millions of HIV deaths in Africa. I wasn’t as troubled by their allegations as I was by their insistence that I stop my investigation. It seemed incongruous that the individuals who alleged genocide would also pressure me to not investigate their own allegations.

As both Murtagh and Kuritzky increased their hostility, the more interesting the case became.

From: Kevin Kuritzky [mailto:kevink4@mac.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2008 9:50 PM
To: Celia Farber
Cc: SSI Membership
Subject: Re: Official Nominations

Celia - why don't you take your parasitic, attention-whore behavior elsewhere, to a place where people actually care.

You have been exposed to most of Semmelweis, and South Africa doesn't want your uneducated "faux-journalistic" crap opinions either. The entire world have basically discredited you countless times, and all the attachments I have sent verifies this. Go back to doing what you appear to know best, which is to .

Your anecdotal stinking pile of bullshit is only trumped by the real science of people who are actually qualified to talk about this, not someone like you who .

Your false, damaging, and absurd views on HIV are not welcome in the medical community. Now I suggest you exit before you are exposed even further into the pit that you continue to dig.

It was hard to imagine that Kuritzky had once been accepted to the Emory School of Medicine and even more bizarre that his collaborator, Dr. Murtagh, would permit such an attack. Fifteen minutes later, Murtagh replied to Kuritzky:

From: Jim Murtagh [mailto:jmurtag@mindspring.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2008 10:05 PM
To: celiafarber; kevink4@mac.com
Subject:Fwd: Official Nominations

Dear Kevin,

I asked you to be kind to Ms. Farber because she is obviously ill. Her has distorted her judgment. We are dealing with very sad pathology in the AIDS denialists. What I really want to know is who wrote the SSI press releases? Who put Gil up to this? Obviously, Gil and Roland did not cook this up themselves.

It is sad that Farber did not respond to a single one of your well-documented points. I believe the entire SSI (and ex-SSI members) should be proud of the factual manner in which Kevin has investigated this affair.

Ms. Farber again resorts to made up facts, and ignores the 5,000 scientists who demonstrated that Koch's postulates have been fulfilled.

Kevin, you documented 12 double blind studies. Your research puts any doubt to rest. HIV causes AIDS. This is as certain as the earth is round, and that the moon is not made of green cheese.

At the time, I did not know that Murtagh and Kuritzky were being supported by pharmaceutically funded operatives from South Africa, Cornell University, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

It got worse.

On June 19th, I became a victim of their attacks just as I had been warned. Kuritzky initiated a “spam attack” against my name and professional email account and phones, generating thousands of unwanted spam messages and phone calls that offered everything from gay porn to paid vacations. Because I was prepared, I was able to positively identify the source of the attack by matching Kuritzky’s IP address used before and after the attacks as the same address used to generate the attack. I eventually filed a crime report with the LAPD and continue to prepare a criminal and civil case against both.

As of last week, I completed and delivered my report to SSI and will now post it in its entirety below. If you want to understand what I now accept as the most significant criminal conspiracy I have ever imagined, get your coffee and strap on your seatbelt.

The investigation I call Gallo’s Egg took me from America’s “War on Cancer” (1971-1981) to the early history of HIV and AIDS. It reaches from the cities of West Hollywood and San Francisco to the continents of Africa, Asia, and Australia. It led me to the steps of the National Institutes of Health, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and some of America’s most prestigious universities and research centers. It involves hundreds of billions of dollars of misdirected tax-supported funding and some of the most financially successful pharmaceutical companies in the world.

I have never written about anything more important. This story changed my life, and if you have the time and patience to understand what I have written, it may change yours as well.

If Americans, our courts, and our legislature permit the continued corruption of science and medicine by our pharmaceutical industry, I fear that the 232-year experiment we call “The United States of America” will have failed.

CB


And now, please read my full investigation report:

The Semmelweis Investigation: "AIDS Denialism” vs. “Dr. Gallo’s Egg"