"Baxter is the only flu vaccine manufacturer to work with wild type flu viruses, felt to be more dangerous than the altered and attenuated (weakened) viruses other manufacturers use." --Canadian Press [link]

Too bad we don't have wizards anymore. I'd ask one if it's a good idea to make a new devil in order to make a new spell against it.

Smarter wizards probably knew it was better to keep it cool: the bastards -- once incarnated -- have a way of slipping out during the process.

****

A modern past-time, Mashable.com for tracking the first Web2.0 mashable epidemic: HOW TO: Track Swine Flu Online Also neat: Alltop - Top Swine Flu News

I was always kinda fascinated with the idea of "Biohazard"... All the varieties of influenza viruses, put together, is kind of like an operating system with a bunch of toggles ('H' and 'N' denote major ones). It is hard for nature to flip a bunch of toggles at once, but genetic scientists, and drugged up pigs, each can flip a ton of toggles very frequently, in their own way.

...Alright so evidently there is a bit of concern that I've lost my mind grumbling about the damn "swine flu" and its sketchiness. I am not flippin about this nasty bug. I say it is probably more than 10 times worse than SARS, but definitely not 100 times worse....

To combine two popular memes: Ron Paul's commentary on the swine flu, how he voted against the Gerald Ford mandatory swine flu vaccine (that killed a bunch of people in the most typical vaccine way), as well as questioning why the hell the Department of Homeland Security is calling the shots (so to speak) with public health.

Often conspiracy-friendly journalist Wayne Madsen sells the "engineered" angle on this as well. More: http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20090425

April 25-26, 2009 -- SPECIAL BULLETIN. New swine flu feared to be weaponized strain

According to two mainstream media journalists, one in Mexico City and the other in Jakarta, who spoke to WMR on background, they are convinced that the current outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in Mexico and some parts of the United States is the result of the introduction of a human-engineered pathogen that could result in a widespread global pandemic, with potentially catastrophic consequences for domestic and international travel and commerce.

The journalists have been told by top officials of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) about the grave dangers posed by the new and deadly swine flu strain, known as A-H1N1. The flu, never before seen by scientists, has already killed up to 68 people in Mexico ...... [.........]

Our Mexico City source said a top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, concluded that H1N1 possesses certain transmission "vectors" that suggest that new flu strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon. The UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are biological warfare agents. [impossible!!]

Our Jakarta source said WHO officials are afraid that the presence of gene segments from dreaded H5N1 bird flu in the A-H1N1 swine flu strain could mean that the new swine flu strain was engineered to "jump species." WMR has been informed that the CDC and U.S. Army dug up the body of an Inuit woman who died in 1918 in Brevig Mission, Alaska from an outbreak of Spanish flu. The influenza pandemic that year killed up to 100 million people worldwide in an 18-month period. Brevig Mission saw 72 of its 80 residents die within five days, the worst case recorded anywhere in the world. WMR has been told the genetic material recovered by the U.S. government from the corpse of the Inuit woman provided the basis for the development of the H5N1, or bird (avian), flu strain at the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, the point of origin for the Ames strain of anthrax used in the 2001 bio-war attacks against the U.S. Congress and the media.

Sooo... that's the biggie theory, then. The political question is whether the nasty petri dishes at CDC and USAMRIID will be seen in any kind of critical light.

*****

What bugs me is: an accident with one of the beastly lab bugs they create nowadays would look EXACTLY like this. The structure of the virus basically reeks of human genetic engineering, not random chance in nature. I don't know if it originated synthetically rather than organically -- who does? It's not important - what's important is that the synthetic flu could strike (again?).

The style of this "influenza A swine H1N1" thing seems just like the other weird flu virus hybrids that labs are synthesizing in huge amounts. I don't like the sound of this at all. Anything involving viruses and stuff gives the creepy-crawlies, and it should - we're talking about powerful, cascading pathogens.

The possibility of lab accidents with novel viruses and life forms (let alone "mad scientists" or evil schemes) is, to me, a greater likely source of weird viruses getting out and sparking pandemics than Mexican swine farms. [Comparable, but...]

If there's a critical stance to take, it's that the biological sciences industries want to keep chugging away and secretly ("competitively") mixing this stuff around in order to have stocks of new lifeforms and pathogens that are marketable. With pandemic vaccine development in particular, scientists often want to whip up the very combinations of proteins (and other traits) that they most fear arising in the wild.

All they have to do is lose a few grains of their test virus batches - or even worse, let some get combined in a hapless lab animal or lab worker - and then you have a totally new entity.

Nature can only make these virus remixes at a low rate; the CDC and other labs are turbocharging evolution and randomly throwing stuff together.

From the engineering side, viruses are not even that big, compared to full cells. If one has access to a lot of different types of diseases, the patterns can be found and mixed around, then amplified into huge quantities of brand-new pathogens.

The nasty Mexican swine farms and everything could also act as viral (and bacterial) amplifiers and mixers, certainly. Factory farming, with its doses of antibiotics, turbocharges bacterial and viral evolution.

*****

Conspiracy fun with homeland security bird flu trucks! It's a bit of a bummer to see people freaking out, but maybe some alarm is actually directed in a useful way. Never fear - there is plenty of fun conspiracy stuff going around. Something about Homeland Security moving around bird flu on PowerHour. Why not? Plenty of names and details for the true fans :-D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSV7jVOjIwQ
Includes some sort of Syracuse CIA front. How depressing would it be to work in a Syracuse CIA bio-scheme front? hah.

*****

I have been giving Baxter a hard time. Mainly, the Baxter incident shows that no one really wants to raise alarm about the risk of lab-created bugs. Now, they are looking all prime & ready to go:

Baxter to work to contain Mexico flu outbreak April 25, 2009 2:28 PM

Deerfield-based medical product giant Baxter International Inc. is working with the World Health Organization on a potential vaccine to curb the spread of the swine flu outbreak in Mexico, the company confirmed today.

Baxter, which has a growing vaccine business, has worked with foreign countries in the past to develop vaccines for the H5N1 virus commonly known as bird flu. Baxter has a cell-based technology that allows the company to more rapidly produce vaccines in the event of a pandemic than a decades-old method that uses eggs to process vaccines and can take weeks or even months longer.

"Upon learning about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico yesterday, Baxter requested a virus sample from WHO to do laboratory testing for potentially developing an experimental vaccine," company spokesman Christopher Bona told the Tribune this afternoon. "Baxter has research and development and manufacturing pandemic planning expertise to rapidly develop candidate vaccines against potentially emerging influenza viruses."

In the past, Baxter has developed vaccines and worked with countries to stockpile vaccines even while they undergo experimental testing. The idea behind the government stockpiles, in the case of the bird flu, for example, is to prepare against outbreak.

The company would not say whether the U.S. or other countries have contacted Baxter. Other companies, too, develop vaccines and have been used to stockpile vaccines. It's unclear whether other vaccine makers have also contacted the WHO.

Because it's so early in the vaccine development process, Baxter would not estimate on when a candidate vaccine would emerge for potential use.

The Mexican government is working to control a swine flu outbreak that has killed more than 65 people and potentially infected more than 1,000 in recent weeks, according to government and news reports. -- Bruce Japsen

The problem with Baxter, and this whole scene, is that Baxter sent out live avian flu and human flu, in the same cases, all over Europe, and no one seems to give a damn or realize what that might have done.

Thanks, Canadian Press!

How were bird flu viruses sent to unsuspecting labs? Updated Thu. Feb. 26 2009 7:45 AM ET The Canadian Press

Officials are trying to get to the bottom of how vaccine manufacturer Baxter International Inc. made "experimental virus material" based on a human flu strain but contaminated with the H5N1 avian flu virus and then distributed it to an Austrian company.

That company, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then disseminated the supposed H3N2 virus product to subcontractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany. Authorities in the four European countries are looking into the incident, and their efforts are being closely watched by the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Control.

Though it appears none of the 36 or 37 people who were exposed to the contaminated product became infected, the incident is being described as "a serious error" on the part of Baxter, which is on the brink of securing a European licence for an H5N1 vaccine. That vaccine is made at a different facility, in the Czech Republic.

"For this particular incident ... the horse did not get out (of the barn)," Dr. Angus Nicoll of the ECDC said from Stockholm.

"But that doesn't mean that we and WHO and the European Commission and the others aren't taking it as seriously as you would any laboratory accident with dangerous pathogens - which you have here."

Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses - if that indeed happened - could have resulted in dire consequences. Nicoll said officials still aren't 100 per cent sure the mixture contained live H5N1 viruses. But given that ferrets exposed to the mixture died, it likely did.

H5N1 doesn't easily infect people, but H3N2 viruses do. They are one of two types of influenza A viruses that infect people each flu season.

If someone exposed to the mixture had been co-infected with H5N1 and H3N2, the person could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people. That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.

Research published last summer by scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that in the laboratory, H5N1 and H3N2 viruses mated readily. While less virulent than H5N1, a number of the offspring viruses appeared to retain at least a portion of the killing power of their dangerous parent.

Baxter International, which is based in Deerfield, Ill., said the contamination was the result of an error in its research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

The facility had been contracted by Avir Green Hills to make what Baxter refers to as "experimental virus material" based on human H3N2 viruses.

Christopher Bona, Baxter's director of global bioscience communications, said the liquid virus product was not a vaccine and was developed for testing purposes only. He deferred questions about the purpose of the testing to Avir Green Hills, but said the batch was to be used in animals and was never intended for use in humans.

Avir Green Hills said in an email that it took possession of the material in late December. It later sent the product to the sub-contractors. The email said the material was stored and handled throughout under high biosafety conditions.

Alarm bells rang in early February when researchers at the Czech sub-contractor inoculated ferrets with the material and the animals promptly died. Baxter learned about the problem on Feb. 6, Bona said from Deerfield.

Ferrets are susceptible to human flu strains, but they don't die from those infections. Preliminary investigation found the material was contaminated with H5N1 flu virus, which is lethal to ferrets.

Nicoll said the fact the ferrets died supports the working assumption that there were live H5N1 viruses in the material Baxter produced.

Bona said Baxter has identified how the contamination happened and has taken steps to ensure it doesn't happen again. He said Austrian authorities audited Baxter's Orth-Donau research operations after the problem came to light and are satisfied with the steps taken.

Baxter is the only flu vaccine manufacturer to work with wild type flu viruses, felt to be more dangerous than the altered and attenuated (weakened) viruses other manufacturers use.

The company uses what is known as BSL3 level precautions in all its vaccine research facilities, Bona said. (Researchers at the U.S. CDC use BSL3-plus biocontainment when working with H5N1 viruses, a spokesperson for the agency said.)

People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses have somehow co-mingled in the Baxter research facility. That should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.

The company isn't shedding much light on how it did.

"It was a combination of just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure," Bona said. When asked to elaborate, he said to do so would give away proprietary information about Baxter's production process.

Bona said when Baxter realized its error, it helped the various companies destroy the contaminated material and clean up their facilities. And staff who had been exposed to the contaminated product were assessed and monitored by infectious diseases doctors. They were also offered the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu).

Baxter's error is reminiscent of a 2005 incident where a U.S. manufacturer of kits used by laboratories to test their detection capabilities included vials of H2N2 virus in several thousand proficiency kits. H2N2, the virus that caused the 1957 pandemic, has not circulated since 1968 and is thought to be a prime candidate to cause the next pandemic. That mistake, discovered by Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory, set authorities around the world scrambling to retrieve and destroy the vials of virus, which had been sent to labs in 18 countries.

Here's the fucked-up thing: it is damn near impossible for nature to recombine a lot of things, frequently. Certainly nature is constantly messing around, but it can't make a huge batch of a special three-part influenza hybrid. The odds are astronomical.

But now we've got these research labs making all the hypothetical possible flu combinations, so that they can, perhaps, have vaccine lines ready to go.

So all you gotta do to market your product is spill it on some buses in Mexico City, or whatever.

I'm ticked off about this. Some damn links.
step 1: don't open those live mashup packages from Baxter Where does anyone draw the dang line about 'bio weapons proliferation'???? Remember "bio-weapons"? Where did that concept slip off to - oh yes, we left it behind the beakers in the Bio-business lab. and yes the fabulous Illinois company, Baxter, with its spiffy special patented vaccine dev setup, is going to step up and research what's going on.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/04/baxter-to-pursue-swine-flu-vi... except they sent out the hot stuff before - along with the other cultures you'd want to make a mix
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Still-Think-They-re-Not-Tr-by-Mr-M-0903...

scientists find it an obvious brew - AP
http://www.prisonplanet.com/medical-director-swine-flu-was-cultured-in-a...
Bloomberg: "New version" excellent choice of words
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avEHg48g1qUg&refer=h...
National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/federal/stratergyimplementationplan.html

Right now, i am watching Red Dawn. hehe - the soviet spectres of doom come drifting thru the air, like a virus...

Yeah, I don't know if it's true, but it won't surprise me if it is. A Canadian guy with a big head injury discovered that THC-rich medicinal hemp oil relieved his suffering, but then he also discovered that hemp oil kills cancerous brain cells while leaving the good cells unharmed. In fact, there's a video of the bad brain cells shriveling up into dead little balls after THC treatment.

SETH: Using the same tests used to judge new chemotherapies, the SETH team discovered that this herbal compound kills human brain tumor cells at a concentration that is nontoxic to normal brain cells. A computerized microscope captured images of the cells every 5 minutes to compile the time-lapse videos. After 20 hours of treatment, Δ⁹-THC kills all cancer cells but leaves normal brain cells alive. Cell death is evidenced by cells shrinking to inanimate whitespheres.

Here's the photos:SETH. Parallel experiments were performed testing the effect of Δ⁹-THC on human brain cancer cells (glioblastoma multiforme, or GBM) and also on normal brain cells. Putting this herbal compound through the same tests that a new chemotherapeutic agent would go through revealed a potent and remarkably specific anti-cancer effect. Both types of cells were treated with the same concentration of Δ⁹-THC but after 20 hours only the cancer cells died. Cell death is seen in the lower right panel as cells shrinking to inanimate white spheres. For more information about this project, click toLEARN MORE.

More here: The SETH Group: background:

The major active component of the medicinal plant cannabis, Δ⁹-THC, has been shown in experiments with rats to have therapeutic potential against brain tumors. SETH Group scientists Garret Yount, Ph.D. and Sean McAllister, Ph.D. designed experiments in a time-lapse microscope to test whether Δ⁹-THC can stop the growth of human glioblastoma multiforma (GBM) brain cancer cells. Using the same tests that are used to judge new chemotherapies, the team discovered that the herbal compound kills human GBM cells at a concentration that is nontoxic to normal brain cells. Click here to see Featured Experiment.

future development: Test whether a combination of active components of medicinal cannabis, as present in the plant, will act synergistically and prove to be a more effective treatment against the growth of brain cancer cells compared to Δ⁹-THC alone.

Implications: No chemotherapy can match this nontoxic anti-cancer action. The implication is that this plant compound could be a safe medicine against brain tumors, without the side effects of chemotherapy. These exciting results may be just the tip of the iceberg, however, because Δ⁹-THC is only one of many active compounds in medicinal cannabis. Other active constituents of the Cannabis plant (called cannabinoids) are also likely to have a nontoxic anti-cancer action.

******

Alright, well who is this Canadian guy? And is there a BitTorrentable documentary about it? Sure is!

TorrentBox.com - Torrent details for "Run From The Cure - The Rick Simpson Story". I'm downloading it right now!

And also, here is the guy's website: Cure Cancer with Hemp Oil - Phoenix Tears

A couple clips from that: Follow this link for CBC Journalist Wendy Mesley's documentary about the cancer industry unapologetically and unashamedly making billions of dollars through human misery. The programme was rerun on Sunday, April 2nd, 2006 at 7pm on the main CBC network.

"I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked..." Hippocrates

"Disabled retroviruses-fossils of molecular battles that raged for generations-make up eight per cent of the human genome." --New Yorker

In the category of awesome stuff, consider how retroviruses have apparently spent billions of years INFESTING YOUR DNA and indeed THE PLACENTA itself descended from VIRUSES. X-Files Black Oil is already here, people!!

How great is that? Feeling weird? It's not Scientology's "Thetans", instead it is the fragmented DNA of thousands of retroviruses that infected someone's sex organs during the last 5,000,000 years. And also these fragments effectively stuff up the actions of many new viruses: this is why chimps don't get sick from human HIV. Some insane old paleovirus (yes paleovirology) actually blocks the HIV from hurting the chimps from within the natural chimp DNA. It integrated to the chimp after they diverged from humans!

All these ancient diseases integrated with humans at such a slow rate, you can pick out the branching points of species' evolutionary chains by the sets of virus fragments their DNA picked up, cruising out the evolutionary tree.

PS who wants a flu vaccine now?

This seems to resemble the upcoming Will Smith flick "I Am Legend" perhaps?

Darwin’s Surprise Why are evolutionary biologists bringing back extinct deadly viruses?

by Michael Specter December 3, 2007

Disabled retroviruses-fossils of molecular battles that raged for generations-make up eight per cent of the human genome.

Thierry Heidmann’s office, adjacent to the laboratory he runs at the Institut Gustave Roussy, on the southern edge of Paris, could pass for a museum of genetic catastrophe. Files devoted to the world’s most horrifying infectious diseases fill the cabinets and line the shelves. There are thick folders for smallpox, Ebola virus, and various forms of influenza. SARS is accounted for, as are more obscure pathogens, such as feline leukemia virus, Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, and simian foamy virus, which is endemic in African apes. H.I.V., the best-known and most insidious of the viruses at work today, has its own shelf of files. The lab’s beakers, vials, and refrigerators, secured behind locked doors with double-paned windows, all teem with viruses. Heidmann, a meaty, middle-aged man with wild eyebrows and a beard heavily flecked with gray, has devoted his career to learning what viruses might tell us about AIDS and various forms of cancer. “This knowledge will help us treat terrible diseases,” he told me, nodding briefly toward his lab. “Viruses can provide answers to questions we have never even asked.”

When the sequence of the human genome was fully mapped, in 2003, researchers also discovered something they had not anticipated: our bodies are littered with the shards of such retroviruses, fragments of the chemical code from which all genetic material is made. It takes less than two per cent of our genome to create all the proteins necessary for us to live. Eight per cent, however, is composed of broken and disabled retroviruses, which, millions of years ago, managed to embed themselves in the DNA of our ancestors. They are called endogenous retroviruses, because once they infect the DNA of a species they become part of that species. One by one, though, after molecular battles that raged for thousands of generations, they have been defeated by evolution. Like dinosaur bones, these viral fragments are fossils. Instead of having been buried in sand, they reside within each of us, carrying a record that goes back millions of years. Because they no longer seem to serve a purpose or cause harm, these remnants have often been referred to as “junk DNA.” Many still manage to generate proteins, but scientists have never found one that functions properly in humans or that could make us sick.

Then, last year, Thierry Heidmann brought one back to life. Combining the tools of genomics, virology, and evolutionary biology, he and his colleagues took a virus that had been extinct for hundreds of thousands of years, figured out how the broken parts were originally aligned, and then pieced them together. After resurrecting the virus, the team placed it in human cells and found that their creation did indeed insert itself into the DNA of those cells. They also mixed the virus with cells taken from hamsters and cats. It quickly infected them all, offering the first evidence that the broken parts could once again be made infectious. The experiment could provide vital clues about how viruses like H.I.V. work. Inevitably, though, it also conjures images of Frankenstein’s monster and Jurassic Park.

“If you think about this for five minutes, it is wild stuff,” John Coffin told me when I visited him in his laboratory at Tufts University, where he is the American Cancer Society Research Professor. Coffin is one of the country’s most distinguished molecular biologists, and was one of the first to explore the role of endogenous retroviruses in human evolution. “I understand that the idea of bringing something dead back to life is fundamentally frightening,” he went on. “It’s a power that science has come to possess and it makes us queasy, and it should. But there are many viruses that are more dangerous than these—more infectious, far riskier to work with, and less potentially useful.’’

This explains pretty much every insane thing I've ever heard. "It wasn't me mom, it was ancient viruses inside me that sprang back to life!!!"

They are like ancient Linux patches that fix you up so you don't get the latest expl0it virus. Literally.

If that is how life really works, then frankly people we have to consider the idea that some of the dumbest conspiracy theories ever. Because the evil Iluminati are actually Different Viruses. Everyone's favorite crazed internet conspiracy theory: "The Elite are Shape Shifting Reptilians from Shangri La or whatever!" takes on a whole different spin. See Wikipedia:

Wikipedia, thanks: Reptilian humanoids are a common motif in mythology, folklore, science fiction, ufology, and the conspiracy theories of John Rhodes, David Icke, and Riley Martin. They are variously said to be extraterrestrials, supernatural entities, or the remains of a pre-Human civilization, and are known by many names, including Reptoids, dinosauroids, lizardfolk or lizardmen.

Alright now google is leading me in weird places: Reptilians and 2012.

And this one, which gets to my favorite conspiracy subject, conical hats:

Get Weird: Reptilians and 2012: it has to do with Sumerians: Quetzalcoatl - Crystalinks and Sumerian Gods and Goddesses. Sweet!!!

Shut up. Right now I am watching a video contending that over President Bush's shoulder is a GRAY ALIEN reflection during a press conference. Sounds crazy? Oh yeah well YOU'RE MADE OF VIRUSES! Via TheWatcherFiles.com - self-proclaimed X-File Christians who say that everyone in Congress are basically aliens or reptilians. What an awesome idea for a horror movie.

Wow. They have exposed these Reptilians in DC:

Akaka, Daniel (D - HI) Reptilian

Allen, George (R - VA) Reptilian

Bayh, Evan (D - IN) -- Alien/other type

Biden Jr, Joseph (D - DE) -- Reptilian

Bond, Christopher (R - MO) -- Reptilian

Boxer, Barbara (D - CA) -- Alien supported

Bunning, Jim (R - KY) -- Alien supported

Byrd, Robert (D - WV) -- Reptilian

Campbell, Ben Nighthorse (R - CO) Pleiadean (fallen to the other side)

Carper, Thomas (D - DE) -- Alien supported

Clinton, Hillary (D - NY) --Alien/other type

Conrad, Kent (D - ND) --Alien/other type

Crapo, Mike (R - ID) --- Alien supported

Daschle, Thomas (D - SD) --Reptilian

Dodd, Christopher (D - CT) -- Alien supported

Domenici, Pete (R - NM) --Reptilian

Dorgan, Byron (D - ND) -- Reptilian

Durbin, Richard (D - IL) --Alien supported

Feingold, Russell (D - WI) -- Alien/other type

Even Russ Feingold is an alien. How deep does it go? save us David Icke!

All right people... This post turned from sweet to completely ridiculous. Fuck it. It was the paleovirus!

Ah shit: Sarkozy calls for UN-led 'new world order':

The United Nations should avail itself as an instrument for a "new world order of the 21st century," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday in his first address to the General Assembly. Sarkozy, who won the presidency this year on a strong reform platform to modernize France, urged the world body to embark on programmes ranging from equal wealth distribution to fighting corruption in his speech full of references to France's past revolutionary ideals.

Jacobin Commie! Yikes!! The Neo Con New World Order etc. w00000!!11!!!

An ugly scenario: World War III: What World War III May Look Like - by Philip Giraldi - a former Intelligence officer:

The United States uses a neutron-type bomb against the main Iranian nuclear research center at Natanz, which it had already bombed conventionally and destroyed. It vows to bomb again if Iran continues to resist. Iran is defiant and fires another wave of Silkworms at U.S. ships, sinking one. Suicide bombers hit U.S. targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia and China place their nuclear forces on high alert. Pakistani militants take over parliament, aided by radical elements in the army and the intelligence service. India launches a preemptive strike against the main Pakistani nuclear centers at Wah and Multan, where the country's arsenal is believed to be concentrated. Pakistan has hidden some of its nukes elsewhere, however, and is able to strike back by bombing New Delhi. World War III has begun.

Someone said recently that this stuff with total NSA surveillance and paramilitary Blackwater insanity looks like Baron Hausmann's reorganization of Paris: the creation of new forms and institutions that aren't really helpful against Islamic terrorists, but quite useful against violent domestic insurrections. Haussmann built those big Parisian avenues so that revolt organizers couldn't blockade parts of the city. Saddam took a page from this when rebuilding Baghdad...

Seems too true. And all the damn compasses keep pointing that way. The fascist shift, the real deal.......

Classic colonial powers in Iraq:

Here is the legal framework on that. More from Prof. Juan Cole:

A big feature of the literature on decolonization is the delight leaders such as Gamal Abdul Nasser and Ruhollah Khomeini took in abrogating laws bestowing 'extra-territoriality' on colonial personnel and even just civilians from the metropole, while in the subject country. Now extra-territoriality is back with a vengeance; and, of course, no colonial enterprise can be run without it. One can't have persons of the superior race hauled before a native judge; bad show, old boy, to let the wily oriental gentlemen get the upper hand that way.

The argument about whether Cheney/Bush went into Iraq over petroleum is not interesting. Of course they did, one way or another. The question is what exactly they thought they were doing about Iraq's petroleum. I would argue that they threw public resources (perhaps as much as two trillion dollars worth when all is said and done) to secure profits for private companies.

Fake terror threat manipulates Congress to further spy powers: The insanity continues as Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) claims that "bogus" intelligence claims were bandied about by the White House in order to get the extension of spy powers. Here you have a legislative example of the classic fear "staged war on terror" dynamic. It's all right here.

When did the dissing of generals start? Right wing noxious fumers like Jonah Goldberg have been ripping on generals since quite a while ago: VAPAHS!!!

Hence, in any case, conventional wisdom will always be happy if Republicans More Happy With the "Democratic" Congress than Democrats.

Dan Rather: the video producer, Mary Mapes, who got nailed by some kind of repackaged info bomb, thinks Dan Rather's big lawsuit is courageous. Mary Mapes: Courage for Dan Rather.

The Drugging of our children: Someone made a video, mainly about ADHD and pumping the kids' heads full of psychotropic social control agents. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's by someone named Gary Null (Google Video), who seems to have some other weird offbeat medical videos on Google Video.

AT&T going to tap the Internet & scan to catch your bad movies: Slashdot carried the story that:

Save the Internet writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the MPAA is trying to convince major ISPs to do content filtering. Now, merely wanting it is one thing, but the more important point is that 'AT&T has agreed to start filtering content at some mysterious point in the future.' We're left to wonder about the legal implications of that, but given that AT&T already has the ability to wiretap everything for the NSA, it was only a matter of time before they found a way to profit from it, too."

The chic TASER police state: Andrew Meyer was that kid at the Kerry rally tagged for no particular reason (though of course it's not safe to suggest elections are rigged in Florida, let alone mention secret societies!) Creepy embrace of tasers by the establishment media. Bill O'Reilly was really creepy about the whole thing. Emil Steiner in the WaPo says creepy stuff too. Protest for Tasered Student Continues. More creeps - a connection between ominous neocons and violence-loving O'Reilly: A marriage made in Hell. Media Matters - Beck said he "enjoy[s] watching" Taser videos; O'Reilly rolled out "Don't Taze me, bro!" bumper stickers. Stunning future ahead for Taser.

We have our own police state issues around here. PrisonPlanet has a new web page devoted to classic police brutality incidents. The new Pain Ray Gun "Silent Guardian" which basically is a microwave weapon that hurts a lot. Let me share a bit of probably-classified wisdom about microwave weapons: they are perfectly defeated by aluminum foil. Tinfoil hats at the ready!!! (Apparently, ISBN numbers are intellectual property nowadays too - no sneeking into your university bookstore to steal those serials and order 'em online! Yikes) Police Culture In the US. America’s Police Brutality Pandemic by Paul Craig Roberts. Veterans Disarmament Act To Bar Vets From Owning Guns if anyone says they have PTSD. Underground militia here we come, before the blue helmets sez ya crazy!

Great moments in Homeland Security: Because if you're not a terrorist, no problem (via here):

Zakariya Reed, a Toledo firefighter, said in an interview that he has been detained at least seven times at the Michigan border since fall 2006. Twice, he said, he was questioned by border officials about "politically charged" opinion pieces he had published in his local newspaper. The essays were critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, he said. Once, during a secondary interview, he said, "they had them printed out on the table in front of me."

Better yet: Alex Jones guys discover the horrible! Denver Sheriff's Office Helps Private Companies Take Blood And Saliva At Checkpoints. Nice! Ex-FEMA Leader Says Feds May Overreact. Michael Brown expects crazy feds. Shit!

Blackwater looks like the TASER International Comintern: At least those shady bastards are on the map right now. They're gonna get pegged by their own Zapruder film, hopefully. Here's an overview video from Jeremy Scahill, who was really good recently on MSNBC Countdown:

Bad economic news & views: "Greenspan Working To Destroy US Economy", at least suddenly talking down with great shock the excesses of Wall Street. Greenspan's Oil Claim in Context - by Dilip Hiro and Tom Engelhardt. Really helpful.

Financial Times reported:

Fresh economic shocks on the scale of the current credit squeeze will occur if US house prices continue to fall, one of the country’s leading housing experts warned on Wednesday. Robert Shiller, a Yale university economist, told a US congressional panel that he feared “the collapse of home prices might turn out to be the most severe since the Great Depression”.

Fears of dollar collapse as Saudis take fright. The Saudis Call Bernanke's Bluff. Foreign reserve currencies quietly getting ditched. Krugman asked if this is the Wile E. Coyote moment (where he looks down and falls through the air). (On a side note, the NY Times has made its editorial stuff free again - and the old article archives going back many years. They want to sell more ads now. Sweet!)

Why the dollar is taking another beating now. First World Government junk bonds on the way. Suddenly, the British pound looks vulnerable. West ‘complicit’ in Third World corruption. How the Bush economy worked.

Looks like a good book: Naomi Klein's The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

On a more funny note: Chinese buy into conspiracy theory. yes the hokey tale of the Rothschilds has become a hit Chinese book, read by all apparatchiks, nomenclatura and bureaucrats of note!

If it's all coming down, the operative question might be: If Humans Are a Virus, Then What Is the End Game? Worth considering I suppose.

Discrediting the North American Union: Reason Magazine calls NAU agenda "a Xenophobic Fantasy". I wish. I found these weird MnDOT documents, there is a real something big out there. Of that much I am certain, and it has Minnesota manifestations.

How about those loose nukes: Simple Error My Ass, says Larry Johnson, a former CIA guy.

Mideast tensions: Israeli rightwing Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu claimed some credit around the suspicious Israeli airstrikes on Syria. It's worth noting that this was certainly a kind of hegemonic shifting, a frame bump in the discourse of international politics. War strikes become the norm, and Netanyahu is positioning himself to bask in the glory. Syria’s Illusory Nukes: More Propaganda.

This stupid prancing shit with Ahmadinejad: Grow Up. Hell yeah. Newt Gingrich: Bush Should Blow Up Iran's Natural Gas Insfrastructure. A good point:

Gingrich said: "I can't imagine why they put up with this. I mean, either General Petraeus is wrong and the military spokesman's wrong or the current policies we have are stunningly ineffective. ... We should finance the students. We should finance a Radio Free Iran. We should covertly sabotage the only gasoline refinery in the country. We should be prepared, once the gasoline refinery's down, to stop all of the gasoline tankers and communicate to the Iranian government, that, if they want to move equipment into Iran - into Iraq - they're gonna have to walk."

What was legal beagle Greta's response to this bloodthirsty, illegal and immoral suggestion?

She said, "That actually seems rather simple and easy to do." The sheer insanity of this is mind-boggling.

Gingrich's open call for sabotage of Iran's gas industry lends more credence to my theory that Iran's natural gas infrastructure, including recent construction on a pipeline to India, is the real target of the Bush administration, not the nuclear plants.

That's why they've over-hyped the nuclear issue. Seek the money to find the hidden agenda. The target is gas, not the atom.

Better yet! Think Progress: Durbin: Lieberman-Kyl Amendment Is ‘Dangerous,’ ‘Puts Us On Record’ In Support Of Iran War. Fuck he's right!!! It's another batshit insane blank check thing. Iran promises missiles will fly if US attacks. UK Times throws out major neocon propaganda, but still: Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike.

Senate Neocons Provoke Iran. Dress Rehearsal for War. For more,Informed Comment always good. Michael Scheuer, formerly known as CIA's "Anonymous," has one on Why Does Norman Podhoretz Hate America? about the "Islamofascist" bullshit. Quite good.

Iran's Ahmadinejad, public enemy No. 1? shorter: "Demonizing the Iranian president and making his visit to New York seem controversial are all part of the neoconservative push for yet another war" by Juan Cole.

The Russian oil company LUKoil gets West Qurna oilfield development. Good thing American soldiers liberated the contracts to such field by fiat of the gun. What it may cost to stay in Iraq (to secure Russian oil contracts, which may or may not become petrodollars).

Michael Ledeen vs Michael Ledeen: Sell arms to Iran vs. Iran is a warring enemy of America!! Neocons have all this evil innuendo about crushing the liberals, but they themselves are the treasonous bastards since they were selling weapons to Iran during the Iran-Contra Rockstar Geopolitical Party of All Time.

Old news: Greg Palast on Alex Jones in 2002 - old stuff but it mainly checked out. Venezuela, Florida elections, Saudis and Pakistanis in 9/11.

Last bits: The unmasking power of the freedom of speech and dialogue - on the Columbia academic situation. It's really ugly scene with Peter King on mosques, really bad: Extremism in religion is not against the law.

Interesting from dailykos: Hadrian's Forum: Catiline and Rome's "Housing Bubble"; Roman Progressives, Part 1.



A town uses social networking for the Edwards campaign. Sounds like Matt Bai wrote an interesting book on the blogger roots blasting against the Democratic Party establishment.

Some crazy freakin' conservatives have a song about how much God hates America right now. This kind of masochism is how they are starting debates now. WHY SHOULD GOD BLESS AMERICA?!? These people WANT to KNOW!

Ok. ok...

Once in a rare while you come across a truly impressive conspiracy theory, one that rises above mere 'urban legend' status to give you the Creepy Crawlies and inspire a really sweet movie. Morgellons are that theory. The screenplay awaits.

Combine these two ideas: A) There were reports recently that laser printer toner generates nasty clouds of tiny nano-particles, worse even than street pollution. B) If you're a methamphetamine user, the noxious synthetic drug components can't break down and exit your system, so they come out in nasty lesions of drug goo. (when you go into jail, you get passed around for other people to lick the goo and get high). Combine these ideas and add a splash of AKIRA or the Cartman-Trapper Keeper episode:

Here's a quick Akira video. The part about 3:30 is what I'm talking about, where Kaneda becomes this super mega mechanized blob monster. I am REALLY sorry someone put this video to Linkin Park. Yikes.

The idea is that some people manifest mysterious fibers coming out of lesions in their body. Mysterious nano-fibers of unknown origin, growing out of wounds, transmitting radio and electromagnetic energy. Microscopic observation shows suffers' skin seething with fibrous materials under the skin. Tests show it's a non-biological material. It's not just lint on a sticky rash. But tests also show latent infections in many: for indeed, Lyme Disease, found in many Morgellon's sufferers, suggests a complex of infestations which erode immunity response.

Image showing striking autofluorescence of fibers from child's lip skin lesion.

Nothing was added to skin sample, except Gel/Mount mounting media and

coverslip. Image is an overlay of red and blue images. Imaging was done

using an Olympus Provis Microscope which employs standard wavelengths

for rhodamine (Excitation 550 nm/ Emission/565 nm ) and Fluoroscein/alexa

488 (Excitation 494 nm/Emission 519nm)

There is a long-familiar disease called delusional parasitosis, which is the 'bugs under your skin psychosis' thing. Here is what purports to be the only video of morgelons, really friggin fuzzy and weird:

Here is another better video which I couldn't embed and another one of Morgellons Disease "Alive and with Intelligence." The description material contains:

Please "Sign the Following Petition" to Congress regarding the Centers for Disease Control, that they would Investigate and Research Morgellons Disease: http://tinyurl.com/yu4tnb

"Alive and with Intelligence"

Fresh out of skin and muscle tissue, these sand like granules as they are sometimes referred to can contain the Fibers, just as the fatty tissues, or the cysts, or skin sample samples, which Fibers seem to move occasionally, as being "Alive"

These Fibers initially surrounded the granule, of which there was some movement, promting investigation. Upon pulling the Fibers off of the granulated center, this Fiber seemed to reach across towards the separated bundle.

Hello to everybody who are involved in the Dreaded and Disabling Disease called Morgellons, and "Welcome" to those of you who ought to be and soon will be.

My Website is "MorgellonsUSA.com".

In many of these Videos are seen Fresh Sample Tissues Showing the "Colored Fibers" Growing and are Produced Within the skin, the muscle and the fatty tissues. Sadly, this is only one aspect of the Disease, which is also very disabling, as it affects the brain and the neurological system also, among other things.

The many persons, Dermatologists and Physicians who fight this, and who say that it is only a phsychological Illness, have a hallucination and a delusion themselves. They don't wish to be

accountable for their great and major contributions in helping to spread this Illness, and for ruining the many peoples families, and lives of the persons who suffer from this. They

say that this Disease is Delusional, and call the patients who have this "DOP" or "Delusions of Parasitosis"

Many persons have been commited to Mental Institutions or given Anti-Phsychotic Drugs. Perhaps you know somebody or have a loved one who is going through this, and furthermore, the CDC has not done one single thing to Investigate or Fix this Problem. Are you next???

My email Address:

Admin@morgellonsusa.com

Also do please visit:

http://www.morgellons.org/

http://www.cherokeechas.com/

http://healthsciences.okstate.edu/morgellons/

On the other hand, Morgellons Watch is the obligatory debunking site, claiming that "morgellons" are a product of the enviroment, and the perceived disease is a combination of other stuff. And someone is out there saying that the aerial Chemtrails and government-engineered Lyme disease are at the root of it all.

Basically I thought this was a pretty wild tale, unexpectedly creepy-crawly and already full of peculiar medical paranoia, hazy videos and unknown factors. What If the Government has created special bioweapons to turn nanoparticle pollution into sinister fibers that will eventually integrate you into the Evil Biomatrix!?!!? Can the morgellons inter-communicate? Mwahaha!

This scientist Ettmuller made this drawing in 1682. The little bugs marked 'E' are typical scabies mites. Ettmuller found weird horrible itchy fibers in sickly little British children. Etc.

Like I said, the screenplay is waiting to be written.