Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
29/06/2006
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came out and publicly stated something that every unbiased observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has privately known for many years: that, to the Israeli oligarchs, the life of an Israeli citizen is "more important" than that of a Palestinian.
Speaking of the recent mass murders by the Israeli army of Palestinian civilians in Gaza (which were ostensibly to stop the firing of impotent qassam rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot by the Palestinian resistance ) Olmert said: "I am deeply sorry for the residents of Gaza, but the lives, security and well-being of the residents of Sderot is even more important."
Of course, Olmert's comment, and the deep-seated racism at the heart of Israeli politics that it appears to belie, can possibly be rationalised with the claim that it is not unreasonable that an Israeli PM would be more concerned about the lives of Israeli citizens than those of the Palestinian 'enemy'. After all, this is "war", is it not? Well, yes and no. Yes, if your definition of "war" is:
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Justices say Bush went too far at Guantanamo
5-3 ruling says military trials would violate U.S. law, Geneva conventions
Updated: 1 hour, 29 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.
In brief comments, Bush said he will work with Congress to get approval to try terrorism suspects before military tribunals.
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by Earle Holland
Columbus OH (SPX) Jun 25, 2006
For the first time, glaciologists have combined and compared sets of ancient climate records trapped in ice cores from the South American Andes and the Asian Himalayas to paint a picture of how climate has changed - and is still changing - in the tropics.
Their conclusions mark a massive climate shift to a cooler regime that occurred just over 5,000 years ago, and a more recent reversal to a much warmer world within the last 50 years.
The evidence also suggests that most of the high-altitude glaciers in the planet's tropical regions will disappear in the near future. The paper is included in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Lastly, the research shows that in most of the world, glaciers and ice caps are rapidly retreating, even in areas where precipitation increases are documented. This implicates increasing temperatures and not decreasing precipitation as the most likely culprit.
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RONA JOHNSON COLUMN
Posted on Sat, Jun. 24, 2006
On June 2, Dayne LaHooe was driving on a gravel road through Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming when something caught his eye.
"It was the most spectacular thing I've ever seen - I have never seen anything like it before," he said. LaHooe called after he read my June 10 column in the Herald about the fireball that streaked across the sky June 2.
"It shot across the sky and looked like it landed right behind the Tetons," he said.
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by Robert Lee Hotz
LA Times
June 25, 2006
JAKOBSHAVN GLACIER, Greenland - Gripping a bottle of Jack Daniel's between his knees, Jay Zwally savored the warmth inside the tiny plane as it flew low across Greenland's biggest and fastest-moving outlet glacier.
Greenland is losing 52 cubic miles of ice each year, more than anyone anticipated. The amount of freshwater ice dumped into the Atlantic Ocean has almost tripled in a decade.
Climate experts have started to worry that the ice cap is disappearing in ways that computer models had not predicted.
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by Greg Palast
June 23, 2006
Behind the "Delay" in Renewing Law is Scheme for Theft of '08
Don't kid yourself. The Republican Party's decision yesterday to "delay" the renewal of the Voting Rights Act has not a darn thing to do with objections of the Republican's White Sheets Caucus.
Complaints by a couple of Good Ol' Boys to legislation has never stopped the GOP leadership from rolling over dissenters.
This is a strategic stall - meant to de-criminalize the Republican Party's new game of challenging voters of color by the hundreds of thousands.
In the 2004 Presidential race, the GOP ran a massive multi-state, multi-million-dollar operation to challenge the legitimacy of Black, Hispanic and Native-American voters. The methods used broke the law -- the Voting Rights Act. And while the Bush Administration's Civil Rights Division grinned and looked the other way, civil rights lawyers are circling, preparing to sue to stop the violations of the Act before the 2008 race.
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Fish die, other wildlife scramble to survive in Fla.; one hole is 200 feet wide
Updated: 12:52 a.m. CT June 22, 2006
LAKELAND, Fla. - Two giant sinkholes almost completely drained a lake, leaving dead fish rotting on oozing mud flats and alligators and snapping turtles fighting for their lives.
Scott Lake began draining last week, and the larger of the two sinkholes grew this week to at least 200 feet wide and 15 feet deep, claiming a dock, concrete walkway and chain-link fence.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Linda Logan, a member of a local homeowners’ association.
The 291-acre natural lake is owned by the surrounding homeowners south of Lakeland, 30 miles east of Tampa. Residents formed a committee to figure out what to do.
The lake could be restored. If the sinkholes are filled in, rain and runoff would refill the lake, but that could take years, and experts say they would have to wait for the lake to finish draining first.
Sinkholes form when groundwater levels drop, leaving empty crevices and cavities in the limestone aquifer.
Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
22/06/2006
Philip Merrill was the 71 year old president and CEO of Capital-Gazette Communications, Inc., which publishes Washingtonian magazine, the Annapolis Capital, and five other Maryland newspapers.
On June 10th, Mr Merrill's wife reported him missing when he failed to return from a days sailing in his boat, 'the Merrilly', on Chesapeake bay. The following day, the Merrilly was found floating 25 miles off the coast with its engine running. The first man on the scene reported that the boat was empty and that there was evidence of blood on the deck. Mr Merrill's body was subsequently found floating in Chesapeake bay on June 19th. Police said that he had apparently died of a shotgun blast to the head, and deemed his death a suicide even before an autopsy has returned its findings and despite the fact that Mr Merrill's body was found with an anchor tied to his feet.
While it might seem surprising that the mainstream media would completely ignore the fact that it is highly unlikely that someone would, or could, commit suicide by shooting themselves in the head with a shotgun and tieing an anchor to their feet, we need only remember the long list of politicians, journalists and scientists who 'officially' departed this life in equally impossible ways and whose suspicious deaths were met by the mainstream media with the same lack of journalistic integrity.
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Eight US Soldiers charged with the Murder o Disabled Civilian
Eight US service members have been charged with the murder of an Iraqi civilian. It is alleged that they shot the disabled Iraqi man and then tried to cover it up.
In the latest in a series of murder cases that have hit the US military in Iraq, seven US marines and a Navy corpsman were charged on Wednesday with kidnapping, premeditated murder and conspiracy in connection with the death of an Iraqi man. The soldiers are awaiting trail in California, where they could face the death penalty if found guilty.
The soldiers are accused of dragging Hashim Ibrahim Awad, from his home in the town of Hamdania on 26 April, torturing him and then shooting him. After the attack, the soldiers allegedly placed a stolen weapon and a shovel next to the body to give the impression that the man was an insurgent who was trying to bury a bomb at the side of the road.
Separately, another US soldier was charged with murder on Wednesday in connection with the deaths of three Iraqi prisoners in the province of Salaheddin in May. Three other soldiers had already been charged in connection with the same incident on Monday.
These cases are separate from the alleged killing by US marines of 24 Iraqi men, women and children in Haditha last November.
Together the cases have generated considerable international criticism for the US and unfavorable publicity for the marines in particular. Earlier this month the US military announced that troops serving in Iraq would undergo 30 days of ethical training.
LINK
Report says humans responsible for much of the warming
By John Heilprin, Associated Press
June 22, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer.
The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."
A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.
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Wed Jun 21, 2006 1:31pm ET
By Jeremy Lovell
LONDON (Reuters) - The southern end of the San Andreas fault near Los Angeles, which has been still for more than two centuries, is under immense stress and could produce a massive earthquake at any moment, a scientist said on Wednesday.
Yuri Fialko, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla, California, said that given average annual movement rates in other areas of the fault, there could be enough pent-up energy in the southern end to trigger a cataclysmic jolt of up to 10 meters (32 ft).
"The observed strain rates confirm that the southern section of the San Andreas fault may be approaching the end of the interseismic phase of the earthquake cycle," he wrote in the science journal Nature.
A sudden lateral movement of 7 to 10 meters would be among the largest ever recorded.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the earthquake that destroyed San Francisco in 1906 was produced by a sudden movement of the northern end of the fault of up to 21 ft.
Fialko said there had been no recorded movement at the southern end of the fault -- the 800-mile long geological meeting point of the Pacific and the North American tectonic plates -- since the dawn of European settlement in the area.
He said this lack of movement for 250 years correlated with the predicted gaps between major earthquakes at the southern end of the fault of between 200 and 300 years.
Elsewhere on the fault, there were average slippage rates up to a couple of centimeters a year that prevented the build-up of explosive pressure deep underground.
Continued...
By Douglas Yates
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jun 20, 2006
Few would argue that trust, like democracy, is earned and not inherited. So how is it that we've missed the lessons of four generations of Bush family history?
As Kevin Phillips recounts in "American Dynasty," the Bush family presents a record of war profiteers who use public office to gain wealth and advantage. Along the way, Bush family business cronies receive political access and legitimacy.
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Tue Jun 20, 2006 1:22pm ET
By Chris Baltimore
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World oil prices could triple if the diplomatic standoff over Iran's nuclear program escalates into a military conflict, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States said on Tuesday.
Assuming oil prices were at current levels near $70 a barrel at the time of an attack, "You would see that (oil price) perhaps double or triple as a result of the conflict," Prince Turki Al-Faisal said at a press conference hosted by the United States Energy Association.
"The idea of somebody firing a missile at an installation somewhere will shoot up the price of oil astronomically," Al-Faisal said.
Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest crude oil exporter and the leading voice within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Oil traders have been worried that Iran, OPEC's second biggest oil producer, may halt exports if there is an escalation in the dispute over the Islamic republic's nuclear program.
President George W. Bush continues to emphasize diplomatic efforts, although he has declined to rule out military options should talks fail.
Tehran has yet to respond to an offer made by world powers to end the standoff, but it said on Sunday a "positive atmosphere" had been created that could help resolve the dispute.
Because all Middle East producers depend on the Strait of Hormuz to get their oil to market, military action in Iran would jeopardize the entire region's oil flows, Al-Faisal said.
Continued...
June 18, 2006
by Rodrigue Tremblay
New American Empire
"We know where [the weapons of mass destruction] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." [ABC 'This Week', March 30, 2003]Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
"It's obvious. [the Iraq War] was a mistake. And I've said this from the very start. I mean, you had no weapons of mass destruction, you had no connection with al-Qaeda, there was no danger to our national security. We don't put young people in harm's way unless we have a threat to our national security."Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), MSNBC- Meet the Press, June 18, 2006
"If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest."Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 3rd American President
Journalists keep asking the above question but are frustrated they never receive a straight answer. It has become more and more obvious to them that, from the start, the official story on Iraq never made sense. Last April, political commentator Chris Matthews of MSNBC-Hardball tried again to elicit an answer when he interviewed Republican Congressman Vin Weber, a card carrying member of the
Project for the New American Century. Here is one
exchange:
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Tuesday, June 20, 2006; Posted: 4:28 a.m. EDT (08:28 GMT)
TOKYO, Japan -- Japan will withdraw its ground troops from Iraq, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has announced.
Japan's 600 military troops based in the southern Muthana province are all non-combat personnel helping to rebuild the infrastructure.
Koizumi said on Tuesday the troops -- deployed in early 2004 -- had helped rebuild the infrastructure of the area where they were based, and he pledged further aid to Iraqi reconstruction, The Associated Press reports.
"Today we have decided to withdraw Ground Self-Defense Forces from the Samawah region in Iraq," Koizumi said in a nationally televised news conference. "The humanitarian dispatch ... has achieved its mission."
more
Tuesday, June 20, 2006; Posted: 12:34 p.m. EDT (16:34 GMT)
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) -- A South Pacific storm sent waves crashing into Central America up to 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) across the ocean, destroying at least 20 homes in Nicaragua and a small hotel in Guatemala, civil defense authorities said Tuesday.
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Signs of the Timesand
News24.com
Last Friday, an Israeli gunboat sitting off the Gaza coast deliberately fired shells at a family enjoying a picnic on the beach. Below is a link to the video of the aftermath. Please right click and choose "save as" to download and view it. Spread the word as far and wide as possible. Something must be done to stop this wanton inhumanity.
Gaza Beach Carnage VideoThere is only one word for the actions of the Israeli government and military towards the Palestinian people - slow and steady Genocide.
Ordinary Jews are not to blame for this. The responsibility lies with the small number of psychopathic Israeli right-wing "Zionist" leaders who, we can only assume, actually enjoy the sight of dismembered Palestinian children.
Gaza picnic ends in carnageread more
By Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
Inter Press Service
06/12/06 -- BAGHDAD, Jun 12 (IPS) - In the wake of the Haditha massacre, reports of another atrocity have surfaced in which U.S. troops killed two women in Samarra, and then attempted to hide evidence of their responsibility.
Among the innumerable such cases people speak of, this one too has now come to light.
According to an earlier account, Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, a 35-year-old mother of two, was killed in firing along with her 57-year-old cousin Saliha Mohammed Hassan on May 30 when they were being transported to Samarra General Hospital for Nabiha to give birth.
What was not reported, according to an Iraqi human rights investigator who spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity, was that both women were shot in the back of the head by U.S. snipers.
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As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima.
At around 2:05 a.m. on Wednesday, residents of the northern part of Troms and the western areas of Finnmark could clearly see a ball of fire taking several seconds to travel across the sky.
A few minutes later an impact could be heard and geophysics and seismology research foundation NORSAR registered a powerful sound and seismic disturbances at 02:13.25 a.m. at their station in Karasjok.
Farmer Peter Bruvold was out on his farm in Lyngseidet with a camera because his mare Virika was about to foal for the first time.
"I saw a brilliant flash of light in the sky, and this became a light with a tail of smoke," Bruvold told Aftenposten.no. He photographed the object and then continued to tend to his animals when he heard an enormous crash.
"I heard the bang seven minutes later. It sounded like when you set off a solid charge of dynamite a kilometer (0.62 miles) away," Bruvold said.
Astronomers were excited by the news.
"There were ground tremors, a house shook and a curtain was blown into the house," Norway's best known astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard told Aftenposten.no.
Røed Ødegaard said the meteorite was visible to an area of several hundred kilometers despite the brightness of the midnight sunlit summer sky. The meteorite hit a mountainside in Reisadalen in North Troms.
"This is simply exceptional. I cannot imagine that we have had such a powerful meteorite impact in Norway in modern times. If the meteorite was as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb. Of course the meteorite is not radioactive, but in explosive force we may be able to compare it to the (atomic) bomb," Røed Ødegaard said.
The astronomer believes the meteorite was a giant rock and probably the largest known to have struck Norway.
"The record was the Alta meteorite that landed in 1904. That one was 90 kilos (198 lbs) but we think the meteorite that landed Wednesday was considerably larger," Røed Ødegaard said, and urged members of the public who saw the object or may have found remnants to contact the Institute of Astrophysics.
Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
08/06/2006
I really never knew that one's lower jaw could drop to the level of the midrift, but here I sit, dribbling on my toes, a living testimony to the capacity of the marvellous machine that is the human body to adapt to new data. Of course, it would be remiss of me not to thank the members of the Bush government for providing me with this experience and who have also provided me with a new appreciation for and understanding of the words 'lie' and 'blatant'.
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Mount Merapi shooting out lava, hot gases
Updated: 1 hour, 28 minutes ago
MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia - Officials evacuated 11,000 villagers from around Mount Merapi volcano as it shot out lava and superheated clouds of gas, authorities said Tuesday.
The mountain’s lava dome has swelled in recent weeks, raising fears that it could suddenly collapse and send out scalding clouds of fast-moving gas and debris into populated areas.
The government of nearby Magelang district mobilized more than 40 trucks and cars to evacuate about 11,000 villagers from three subdistricts near the foot of the mountain, said Edy Susanto, a district official.
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The great naturalist
E.O. Wilson of
Harvard University reports we are in the midst of a spasm of extinction that is reducing the number of species on earth to the lowest level since the cataclysmic end of the Age of Dinosaurs 65 million years ago. While there is endless debate on the level of these extinctions, Wilson estimates the rate at which species are dying is now one thousand times the "background level" at which whole species would otherwise disappear.
There have been only five great Ages of Extinctions in the history of the earth. How has humanity, in its brief time on earth, come to be the first species to cause a such a spasm of rapid mass extinction?
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For Immediate Action!
"Never in my life did I ever imagine I would have to disobey my president. But then again, never did I imagine my president would lie to go to war, condone torture, spy on Americans, or destroy the career of a CIA agent for political gain. I would rather resign in protest, but the army doesn't agree."
June 2, 2006
First U.S. military officer poised to publicly refuse orders in support of
the illegal Iraq War requests your immediate support and assistance. Having
already attempted to resign his commission in protest, he now poised to
refuse deployment via simultaneous, cross-country press conferences, within
days.
"I refuse to be silent any longer. I refuse to watch families torn apart,
while the President tells us to "stay the course." . . . I refuse to be
party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to
deserve our aggression. I wanted to be there for my fellow troops. But the
best way was not to help drop artillery and cause more death and
destruction. It is to help oppose this war and end it so that all soldiers
can come home."
- LT, US Army officer*
A working group has formed to facilitate an unprecedented political and
legal support campaign on his behalf. Well respected civilian legal
representation has been secured. A legal and political defense fund has been
created. Many of us have already met LT* and have been moved by his
determination to help stop an unjust war.
We envision a broad political support campaign with this petition as our
basis of unity:
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No Bravery
James Blunt - No Bravery Lyrics
There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
Tears drying on their face.
He has been here.
Brothers lie in shallow graves.
Fathers lost without a trace.
A nation blind to their disgrace,
Since he's been here.
And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
Houses burnt beyond repair.
The smell of death is in the air.
A woman weeping in despair says,
He has been here.
Tracer lighting up the sky.
It's another families' turn to die.
A child afraid to even cry out says,
He has been here.
And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
But no one asks the question why,
He has been here.
Old men kneel and accept their fate.
Wives and daughters cut and raped.
A generation drenched in hate.
Yes, he has been here.
And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
Please see VideoBush-Iraq War
POSTED: 6:50 am EDT June 1, 2006
MIAMI -- Two fishermen said they were thrown from their boat early Thursday morning by a waterspout that formed in Biscayne Bay.
Jorge Diaz and a friend said they were fishing about 2 miles from Key Biscayne at about 3 a.m. when a tornado blew by, causing the water to spill into their boat and spin it "around and around."
The fishermen said they got scared and jumped out of the boat, swimming about 500 yards before the U.S. Coast Guard rescued them.
LINK
By Adam Gartrell
02jun06
A MASSIVE ocean vortex discovered off the West Australian coast is acting as a "death trap" by sucking in huge amounts of fish larvae and could affect the surrounding climate.
A team of scientists from The University of Western Australia Murdoch University, CSIRO and three American, French and Spanish research institutions announced the discovery of the vortex after a month-long research voyage in the ocean just west of Rottnest Island.
Led by Dr Anya Waite, a biological oceanographer from UWA, the 10-member team found the vortex – 200km in diameter and 1000m deep – spinning at speeds up to 5kph just off the Rottnest Canyon.
Dr Waite said the vortex, shaped like a giant child's spinning top, was created by current movement down the coast and is one of the largest ever found off of WA.
Visible from space, the vortex is acting as a "death trap" by sucking in fish larvae from closer to the shore, she said.
"It's actually acting as a predator, it's actually taking the fish larvae which need to stick around their natural habitat on the coast, and dragging them off to sea," Dr Waite said.
She said the climate above the vortex was noticeably different.
"It feels like you're in the tropics," she said.
"It's warm, soft, moist air, with flying fish, it's a very different environment."
It could also potentially affect climate further afield, she said.
"The vortex is moving a large volume of a very warm current out back into cooler waters, so essentially it's taking that heat and moving it away from the coast.
"So essentially that really changes the heat budget of our regional ocean and it's the ocean that determines climate."
Dr Waite said the vortex was unlikely to pose a danger to people sailing or diving in the area but the change was definitely noticeable.
"We were in a 70-metre boat and you could immediately feel the shift in the ship's tract, so you can certainly tell that there's something unusual going on out there," she said.
LINK
By Michael Kanellos
CNET News.com
May 23, 2006
BERKELEY, Calif.--There are a lot of projections about global warming, and almost all of them are scary.
Scientists who've studied the issue now almost unanimously agree that the ocean levels will likely rise at least a half a meter by 2100, and possibly more if current temperature trends and energy use continue, according to John Harte, professor of energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, speaking at the U.S.-China Symposium on Climate Change taking place at the school this week.
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Looks like some serious manipulation is happening.by Lisa Guliani
On May 31, 2006 at 4:30 pm I received an unexpected phone call from Patsy Smullin, owner of KOBI-TV Channel 5 in Medford, Oregon. If you read my latest article entitled,
Jeff Rense: A Reinvention of What? then you know that Patsy Smullin is Jeff Rense’s former employer. This was our third conversation in a weeks’ time, and regrettably it wasn’t as cordial as our previous exchanges.
Ms. Smullin began the conversation by asking, “Have you heard from the Eugene attorney yet?” She sounded extremely nervous and agitated and her voice was shaking.
I responded with, “An attorney; for what? No, I haven’t heard from anybody. What is this about?”
Smullin was having great difficulty expressing herself, and I was trying to put together the gist of what she was attempting (but unable) to say.
Smullin: You called me asking for Jeff Rense’s dates of employment and I had to do a lot of work to get that information for you. I had to go into another building to get that information for you.”
Me: “Yes, and I thank you. But what are you talking about now? What attorney? I don’t understand what you mean.”
Smullin: “You need to remove those two sentences from your article.”
Me: “Which sentences?”
Smullin: “The ones about Jeff Rense being a compulsive liar, and about him not being known for his honesty. You need to remove those.”
Me: “Why should I remove them? I didn’t misquote you at all. I wrote down exactly what you said. I have it in my notes. You knew I was writing an article.”
Smullin: (in a low voice): “That’s not the way I remember it.” (A pause, then excitedly) “You don’t seem to understand. I’m trying to help you.”
Me: “No, I don’t understand, because you haven’t told me what you’re talking about. That’s not the way you remember it? We just spoke YESTERDAY. What are you saying? Are you now suddenly denying that you made those comments? Are you calling me a liar? I wrote exactly what you told me.” No response to my questions. (Another pause.)
Smullin: “I’m saying you need to be very careful. I can’t say anymore.”
Me: “I need to be careful? Careful of what? Are you saying somebody’s going to sue me? If so; for what … for quoting you?”
Smullin: “No, no. I really can’t say anymore. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called, I’m sorry. I can’t say anymore.” Click.
Well, well, well; isn’t this interesting? Patsy Smullin seemed frightened – not at all the way she had sounded during our first two conversations. Previously, she’d sounded upbeat, friendly and more at ease. We’d had two very pleasant phone conversations; one on Friday, May 26, 2006 and the second on Tuesday, May 30, 2006. Ms. Smullin was indeed very helpful in providing the requested dates of employment as I’d requested. She was also quick to respond to my questions, and related recollections of Jeff Rense, her former employee.
At this point, I’d like to be very clear: Patsy Smullin knew perfectly well why I had contacted her. I fully identified myself right from the start, both with her secretary/assistant and to her personally. It is not my tendency to beat around the bush with people, so I told her that I’m an independent freelance writer and the purpose for my call was fact checking. In addition, I laid it out in no uncertain terms (within the first two minutes of our initial contact on May 26, 2006) that I was working on an article about Jeff Rense, and that this fact-checking was necessary in order to verify some information contained in online bios referencing his previous broadcast journalism career.
Let’s get this straight: Nobody forced Ms. Smullin to return my phone messages, to respond to my inquiries, or to answer any single question posed to her. Nobody tricked her, lied to her, or twisted her arm to do any of the above, and no one made her call on May 30th to provide me with the dates of Jeff Rense’s previous term of employment at KOBI-TV. She did these things of her own free will. To be honest, I didn’t expect her to call me back at all. I suspect that others in her position simply would not.
Moreover, I quoted Smullin’s responses precisely, as in verbatim-word-for-word regarding every single statement attributed to her in my article. Any and all of those comments she did make, voluntarily, and without embellishment, exaggeration or assistance from me.
Apparently, 24 hours after my article hit the Internet, “Somebody” had a real problem with the fact that I talked to Patsy Smullin. It is my distinct impression that “Somebody” wasn’t expecting this particular connection to happen. Surprise, surprise, Jeff. “Somebody” was undoubtedly blindsided by this piece – and I’m telling you right now, it wasn’t Patsy Smullin. My impression is that Smullin is a very nice lady, and someone is trying to intimidate her based upon this peculiar phone call I’ve just described “for the record”.
Thus far, I have not been contacted by the aforementioned “Eugene attorney,” but if this does happen, I’ll certainly apprise everyone of the situation. I’m a little amused at how little time it took for “Somebody” to completely unravel and start throwing their weight around behind the scenes over this latest article I’ve written. I’ll give you three guesses as to who is driving the intimidation machine. Nah, this one’s a no-brainer. Make that one guess. Question: Is this how Jeff Rense intends to respond to my article? By putting the “thumb” on people? Fine, Jeff. If that’s how you want to play, then so be it.
Just so everybody; and particularly “Somebody” knows: I stand behind every single word written in my article – completely, and 110%. Furthermore, I do not intend to remove anything, including and particularly, the two sentences in which I quoted Patsy Smullin during our conversations. The two sentences that allegedly needed removal addressed the “honesty” of Jeff Rense and were the personal opinion of someone who actually knew him, as related to me over the course of two separate phone discussions. Patsy Smullin’s statements were quoted by me accurately, verbatim, and in their proper context; and it should be noted that she would be considered a very credible source of information.
Let it be known that I have never once in my life removed or retracted truthful information from any of my articles, and I am not going to be intimidated into such a cowardly act now by anybody, including a convoy of legal guns from Eugene, Oregon. I stand by EVERY SINGLE WORD in that piece. Patsy Smullin should be commended for telling the truth. Maybe the monkey should get off her back. She didn’t write the article. I did.
Message to Jeff Rense: You know exactly where I am and how to contact me. So, if you’ve got something to say to me, then be a man and do it directly, if you have the cajones. Unlike you, I don’t cower in shadows, wear wigs to disguise my identity, or put the squeeze on people - whether overtly or behind the scenes. Furthermore, it is not in my nature to shrink from cowards, hypocrites, liars, bullies, or from truth. I confront each of these squarely head-on, and will most certainly not shrink from the likes of you or any of your “legal thugs”. One would hope you’re adult enough to do the same.
I do not – and never will - fear the truth. Interestingly enough, it appears that you do. If you want to come after someone, well, here I am.
It’s your move.
Lisa Guliani
June 1, 2006
Source: University of Utah
Newswise — Atmospheric temperature measurements by U.S. weather satellites indicate Earth’s hot, tropical zone has expanded farther from the equator since 1979, says a study by scientists from the University of Utah and University of Washington.
Researchers say the apparent north-south widening of the tropics amounts to 2 degrees of latitude or 140 miles. But they do not know yet if the tropical expansion was triggered by natural climate variation or by human-caused phenomena such as depletion of the atmosphere’s ozone layer or global warming due to the greenhouse effect.
The study is being published in the Friday May 26 issue of the journal Science.
“It’s a big deal. The tropics may be expanding and getting larger,” says study co-author Thomas Reichler, an assistant professor of meteorology at the University of Utah. “If this is true, it also would mean that subtropical deserts are expanding into heavily populated midlatitude regions.”
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by Staff Writers
Miami (AFP) May 31, 2006
Caribbean and US coastlines are under greater threat in this year's tropical storm season with five out of nine projected hurricanes expected to rank as intense storms, US climatologists said Wednesday.
University of Colorado climate experts Philip Klotzbach and William Gray said on the eve of the official June 1 opening of the six-month Atlantic storm season that there was an above-average risk of a major hurricane landfall in the Caribbean Sea, and that the US east coast was under a much higher-than-average risk of being struck.
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May 31, 2006
HARTFORD, Conn. --Gov. M. Jodi Rell has directed state agencies to organize training sessions and exercises to prepare for the possibility of a hurricane.
The hurricane season in the north Atlantic begins Thursday and runs through Nov. 30.
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Last Updated Thu, 01 Jun 2006 09:35:44 EDT
CBC News
A 400-metre-long core of sediment recovered near the North Pole shows the region was subtropical about 55 million years ago.
Scientists consider the Arctic to be a bellwether for climate change, but until recently, they've had to rely on samples collected thousands of kilometres away from the Pole.
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