Received Details From Banks, Credit Card, Telephone and Internet Companies
By MARK SHERMAN, AP
WASHINGTON (April 29) - The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court's approval, the Justice Department said Friday.
It was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed how often it uses the administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without a judge's approval or a grand jury subpoena.
Friday's disclosure was mandated as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, the administration's sweeping anti-terror law.
The FBI delivered a total of 9,254 NSLs relating to 3,501 people in 2005, according to a report submitted late Friday to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. In some cases, the bureau demanded information about one person from several companies.
The numbers from previous years remain classified, officials said.
The department also reported it received a secret court's approval for 155 warrants to examine business records last year under a Patriot Act provision that includes library records. However, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said the department has never used the provision to ask for library records.
The number was a significant jump over past use of the warrant for business records. A year ago, Gonzales told Congress there had been 35 warrants approved between November 2003 and April 2005.
The spike is expected to be temporary, however, because the Patriot Act renewal that President Bush signed in March made it easier for authorities to obtain subscriber information on telephone numbers captured through certain wiretaps.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Specter Wants More Debate on Spying
New expressions of frustration over how little information the administration has shared about the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping on Americans flared yesterday in the Senate, one day after House Republicans barred amendments that would have expanded oversight of the controversial program.
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Friday, April 28, 2006
Questions still linger on United Flight 93
Many questions linger
Posted on Thu, Apr. 27, 2006
Many questions lingerBy WILL BUNCH
VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING that is known about United Flight 93, the hijacked jetliner that crashed into a coal field in western Pennsylvania, has been put into the new Hollywood feature film about the doomed voyage.
Director Paul Greengrass not only relied on known transcripts and accounts of real conversations that took place during the Sept. 11, 2001, drama, but he even used some real pilots, crew and flight controllers in filming "United 93."
"They also believed, as the families believed, that making this film an accurate account - not a conspiratorial effort - would help us," Greengrass told the Boston Herald recently. "It gave the film a veracity, an authenticity."
But while Greengrass tackled everything known about the flight - which the government believes was purposely crashed by its four al Qaeda hijackers because of the uprising by passengers who'd learned of the World Trade Center crashes - there were things the movie could not address.
Those are the unknowns of Flight 93.
Today, few but the most radical skeptics about 9/11 would question the events at the core of "United 93," the struggle with heroic passengers that was captured on the cockpit voice recording played in a Virginia courtroom earlier this month.
But other questions remain - most notably about the government's response. Why was the hijacked jet not intercepted by the military jets that had been sent aloft after the Trade Center strikes? Did President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney order a shoot-down as the plane neared Washington? And why didn't it happen?
"Unfortunately, we have yet to have a serious and honest investigation into what happened on 9/11," said Paul Thompson, the author of "The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute."
Thompson believes that officials should still be held accountable for what he considers a flawed military response.
Here are some other questions:
Q. Why weren't military fighters under the command of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, able to intercept the doomed flight?
A. Ever since 9/11, Pentagon officials have insisted that NORAD was geared toward a foreign attack and not set up to deal with a domestic hijacking, but there is considerable evidence to contradict that. In fact, the 9/11 Commission found that NORAD had been planning for a June 2002 exercise called Amalgam Virgo 2 that involved a scenario with two simultaneously hijacked planes.
NORAD also told the 9/11 Commission that it hadn't been informed of the Flight 93 hijacking until it was much too late to respond. However, NORAD Commander Larry Arnold told an author in 2004, "We watched the 93 track as it meandered around the Ohio-Pennsylvania area and started to turn south toward D.C." That was about 27 minutes, or more, before Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pa.
In defending its actions, NORAD has said that it launched its remaining F-16 fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia at approximately 9:30 a.m. - roughly 33 to 36 minutes before Flight 93 crashed - but after another hijacked jet had struck the Pentagon, the fighters were needed to defend the perimeter of Washington.
Q. Did high-ranking officials from the Bush administration order fighters to shoot down Flight 93, and did Bush know about it?
A. The 9/11 Commission said that it was about 10 a.m. when Cheney - running the White House command center because Bush had been speaking at a Florida elementary school - was told that a hijacked plane was 80 miles away and was asked for military authority to shoot it down.
Joshua Bolten, the aide who is now White House chief of staff, testified that he suggested that Cheney reconfirm that order with Bush, and the two top officials and other aides said such a call had been made.
But according to a June 24, 2004, article in Newsweek, "some on the [9/11] commission staff were, in fact, highly skeptical of the vice president's account and made their views clearer in an earlier draft of their staff report. According to one knowledgeable source, some staffers 'flat out didn't believe the call ever took place.' "
Some have even speculated this issue is why Bush and Cheney took the unusual step of testifying jointly to the 9/11 Commission.
Q. Who was flying the fast-moving, low-flying white jet that was seen by a dozen or more Shanksville residents just seconds after Flight 93 crashed?
A. After several accounts, the government and a supporting 2005 article in Popular Mechanics said the mystery jet had been a Dassault Falcon 20 business jet owned by the VF Corp., a North Carolina clothing firm. The magazine said the jet was descending into Johnstown Airport and circled the crash site at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plane was seen by about a dozen witnesses, including Susan McElwain, who told Britain's Daily Mirror in 2002: "It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and two upright fins at the side... . It definitely wasn't one of those executive jets." Several residents said the plane resembled the military's A-10 Warthog.
Q. Why haven't we heard cockpit recordings nor seen the flight-data recording from the other three flights?
A. Government agencies have insisted that the "black boxes" (actually orange) found at the Pentagon were too badly damaged, while the four in New York were never recovered, which was a first.
However, the Daily News reported in 2004 that two Ground Zero rescue workers claimed they helped the FBI recover three of the four "black boxes" there. Last year, Philadelphia free-lance writer Dave Lindorff reported that a National Transportation Safety Board source told him: "Off the record, we had the boxes. You'd have to get the official word from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here."
Posted on Thu, Apr. 27, 2006
Many questions lingerBy WILL BUNCH
VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING that is known about United Flight 93, the hijacked jetliner that crashed into a coal field in western Pennsylvania, has been put into the new Hollywood feature film about the doomed voyage.
Director Paul Greengrass not only relied on known transcripts and accounts of real conversations that took place during the Sept. 11, 2001, drama, but he even used some real pilots, crew and flight controllers in filming "United 93."
"They also believed, as the families believed, that making this film an accurate account - not a conspiratorial effort - would help us," Greengrass told the Boston Herald recently. "It gave the film a veracity, an authenticity."
But while Greengrass tackled everything known about the flight - which the government believes was purposely crashed by its four al Qaeda hijackers because of the uprising by passengers who'd learned of the World Trade Center crashes - there were things the movie could not address.
Those are the unknowns of Flight 93.
Today, few but the most radical skeptics about 9/11 would question the events at the core of "United 93," the struggle with heroic passengers that was captured on the cockpit voice recording played in a Virginia courtroom earlier this month.
But other questions remain - most notably about the government's response. Why was the hijacked jet not intercepted by the military jets that had been sent aloft after the Trade Center strikes? Did President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney order a shoot-down as the plane neared Washington? And why didn't it happen?
"Unfortunately, we have yet to have a serious and honest investigation into what happened on 9/11," said Paul Thompson, the author of "The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute."
Thompson believes that officials should still be held accountable for what he considers a flawed military response.
Here are some other questions:
Q. Why weren't military fighters under the command of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, able to intercept the doomed flight?
A. Ever since 9/11, Pentagon officials have insisted that NORAD was geared toward a foreign attack and not set up to deal with a domestic hijacking, but there is considerable evidence to contradict that. In fact, the 9/11 Commission found that NORAD had been planning for a June 2002 exercise called Amalgam Virgo 2 that involved a scenario with two simultaneously hijacked planes.
NORAD also told the 9/11 Commission that it hadn't been informed of the Flight 93 hijacking until it was much too late to respond. However, NORAD Commander Larry Arnold told an author in 2004, "We watched the 93 track as it meandered around the Ohio-Pennsylvania area and started to turn south toward D.C." That was about 27 minutes, or more, before Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pa.
In defending its actions, NORAD has said that it launched its remaining F-16 fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia at approximately 9:30 a.m. - roughly 33 to 36 minutes before Flight 93 crashed - but after another hijacked jet had struck the Pentagon, the fighters were needed to defend the perimeter of Washington.
Q. Did high-ranking officials from the Bush administration order fighters to shoot down Flight 93, and did Bush know about it?
A. The 9/11 Commission said that it was about 10 a.m. when Cheney - running the White House command center because Bush had been speaking at a Florida elementary school - was told that a hijacked plane was 80 miles away and was asked for military authority to shoot it down.
Joshua Bolten, the aide who is now White House chief of staff, testified that he suggested that Cheney reconfirm that order with Bush, and the two top officials and other aides said such a call had been made.
But according to a June 24, 2004, article in Newsweek, "some on the [9/11] commission staff were, in fact, highly skeptical of the vice president's account and made their views clearer in an earlier draft of their staff report. According to one knowledgeable source, some staffers 'flat out didn't believe the call ever took place.' "
Some have even speculated this issue is why Bush and Cheney took the unusual step of testifying jointly to the 9/11 Commission.
Q. Who was flying the fast-moving, low-flying white jet that was seen by a dozen or more Shanksville residents just seconds after Flight 93 crashed?
A. After several accounts, the government and a supporting 2005 article in Popular Mechanics said the mystery jet had been a Dassault Falcon 20 business jet owned by the VF Corp., a North Carolina clothing firm. The magazine said the jet was descending into Johnstown Airport and circled the crash site at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plane was seen by about a dozen witnesses, including Susan McElwain, who told Britain's Daily Mirror in 2002: "It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and two upright fins at the side... . It definitely wasn't one of those executive jets." Several residents said the plane resembled the military's A-10 Warthog.
Q. Why haven't we heard cockpit recordings nor seen the flight-data recording from the other three flights?
A. Government agencies have insisted that the "black boxes" (actually orange) found at the Pentagon were too badly damaged, while the four in New York were never recovered, which was a first.
However, the Daily News reported in 2004 that two Ground Zero rescue workers claimed they helped the FBI recover three of the four "black boxes" there. Last year, Philadelphia free-lance writer Dave Lindorff reported that a National Transportation Safety Board source told him: "Off the record, we had the boxes. You'd have to get the official word from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here."
Congress members arrested at Darfur protest
WASHINGTON (AP) — Five Congress members were willingly arrested and led away from the Sudanese Embassy in plastic handcuffs Friday in protest of the Sudanese government's role in atrocities in the Darfur region.
"The slaughter of the people of Darfur must end," Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., a Holocaust survivor who founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, said from the embassy steps before his arrest.
Four other Democratic Congress members — James McGovern and John Olver of Massachusetts, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Jim Moran of Virginia — were among 11 protesters arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly, a misdemeanor subject to a fine.
"We must hold the Sudanese government accountable for the attacks they have supported on their own citizens in Darfur," Olver said.
"The slaughter of the people of Darfur must end," Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., a Holocaust survivor who founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, said from the embassy steps before his arrest.
Four other Democratic Congress members — James McGovern and John Olver of Massachusetts, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Jim Moran of Virginia — were among 11 protesters arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly, a misdemeanor subject to a fine.
"We must hold the Sudanese government accountable for the attacks they have supported on their own citizens in Darfur," Olver said.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
House passes draconian intelligence bill
The cretins in Congress better start using their gray matter, if they have any, because the repressive legislation they pass that bites the people today will also bite them tomorrow.
No one is immune from the horrors of a police state. No one. None. Fall out of favor with the ruling clique, for whatever reason, and your goose is cooked.
And a police state is what they are creating, all under the guise of "national security" and keeping us "safe" from "terrorists."
The latest nightmare is buried in the HR 5020, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, which the House of Representatives passed, 327-96, yesterday. Among its provisions are giving National Security Director John Negroponte authority to devise a plan for revoking the pensions of retired intelligence agency employees "who commit unauthorized disclosures of classified information." That takes care of any retired whistleblowers.
If that weren't bad enough, the Baltimore Sun is reporting "It also would permit security forces at the National Security Agency and the CIA to make warrantless arrests outside the gates of their top-secret campuses."
Read Article
No one is immune from the horrors of a police state. No one. None. Fall out of favor with the ruling clique, for whatever reason, and your goose is cooked.
And a police state is what they are creating, all under the guise of "national security" and keeping us "safe" from "terrorists."
The latest nightmare is buried in the HR 5020, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, which the House of Representatives passed, 327-96, yesterday. Among its provisions are giving National Security Director John Negroponte authority to devise a plan for revoking the pensions of retired intelligence agency employees "who commit unauthorized disclosures of classified information." That takes care of any retired whistleblowers.
If that weren't bad enough, the Baltimore Sun is reporting "It also would permit security forces at the National Security Agency and the CIA to make warrantless arrests outside the gates of their top-secret campuses."
Read Article
House Ignores Public, Sells Out the Internet
Growing Right-Left Coalition Gains Momentum, Looks to Senate to Save Internet Freedom from Telecom Cartel
WASHINGTON -- April 26, 2006 -- Today the House Energy and Commerce Committee struck a blow to Internet freedom by voting down a proposal to protect Network Neutrality from attacks by companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.
The diverse, bipartisan SavetheInternet.com Coalition vowed to continue rallying public support for Internet freedom as the legislation moves to the full House and Senate. In less than one week, the coalition gathered more than 250,000 petition signatures, rallied more than 500 blogs to write about this issue, and flooded Congress with thousands of phone calls.
The "Markey Amendment" supporting Net Neutrality was voted down by a vote of 34 to 22. The "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act" telecom law, or COPE Act, passed out of the committee without any meaningful protection for Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality means all online activity must be treated equally, and companies like AT&T must allow Internet users to view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site.
"The Commerce Committee is headed in the opposite direction of where the American public wants to go," said Columbia Law Professor Timothy Wu, a pro-market advocate and one of the intellectual architects of the Net Neutrality principle."Most people favor an open and neutral Internet and don't want Internet gatekeepers taxing and tollboothing innovation."
Major telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get Congress to change the rules to let them discriminate on the Internet -- forcing Web sites to pay "protection money" to ensure their sites will work properly.
"Predictably, the careerist politicians on the House Energy and Commerce Committee rolled right over in their frantic desire to do the telecoms' bidding," said Craig Fields, director of Internet operations for Gun Owners of America. "It makes no difference to them whether the Internet will remain a free and vibrant marketplace of ideas. As far as they are concerned, if big business is happy, all is right with America. And so we look with hope to the Senate, that supposedly august body, which prides itself on its more 'deliberative' pace and tone. They paint themselves as conscientious adults -- perhaps, just perhaps, they'll actually act like such when it is their turn to decide the future of the Internet."
WASHINGTON -- April 26, 2006 -- Today the House Energy and Commerce Committee struck a blow to Internet freedom by voting down a proposal to protect Network Neutrality from attacks by companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.
The diverse, bipartisan SavetheInternet.com Coalition vowed to continue rallying public support for Internet freedom as the legislation moves to the full House and Senate. In less than one week, the coalition gathered more than 250,000 petition signatures, rallied more than 500 blogs to write about this issue, and flooded Congress with thousands of phone calls.
The "Markey Amendment" supporting Net Neutrality was voted down by a vote of 34 to 22. The "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act" telecom law, or COPE Act, passed out of the committee without any meaningful protection for Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality means all online activity must be treated equally, and companies like AT&T must allow Internet users to view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site.
"The Commerce Committee is headed in the opposite direction of where the American public wants to go," said Columbia Law Professor Timothy Wu, a pro-market advocate and one of the intellectual architects of the Net Neutrality principle."Most people favor an open and neutral Internet and don't want Internet gatekeepers taxing and tollboothing innovation."
Major telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get Congress to change the rules to let them discriminate on the Internet -- forcing Web sites to pay "protection money" to ensure their sites will work properly.
"Predictably, the careerist politicians on the House Energy and Commerce Committee rolled right over in their frantic desire to do the telecoms' bidding," said Craig Fields, director of Internet operations for Gun Owners of America. "It makes no difference to them whether the Internet will remain a free and vibrant marketplace of ideas. As far as they are concerned, if big business is happy, all is right with America. And so we look with hope to the Senate, that supposedly august body, which prides itself on its more 'deliberative' pace and tone. They paint themselves as conscientious adults -- perhaps, just perhaps, they'll actually act like such when it is their turn to decide the future of the Internet."
Barton/COPE Bill to go to Vote this Week
A number of online campaigns have begun to send messages
to Commerce Committee Memebers - Please take a moment to visit these sites and
send emails or make phone calls:
to Commerce Committee Memebers - Please take a moment to visit these sites and
send emails or make phone calls:
Save Community Television:
Write a letter to Congress urging we protect community television, protect against
red-lining and protect net neutrality. Phone numbers for commerce committee
members also available.
http://saveaccess.org
Save the Internet Campaign:
Write letters urging Congress to keep the Internet free and open.
http://savetheinternet.com
Common Cause
http://www.commoncause.org/handsoffmyinternet
http://www.commoncause.org/CoSponsor2360
The Nation
Article by Jeff Chester
http://capwiz.com/thenation/issues/alert/?alertid=8488031&type=TA
MoveOn.org
http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet
Pulver Media
http://www.pulver.com/savethenet/index.html
Read the (PDF) marked up Barton/COPE
Bill here
(PDF)
MNN Releases NYC Action Alert
What you can do locally and nationally
about the COPE Act
Download
the PDF1.8MB
Defend Local Access
Local Communications Priorities: Community or Corporate Control?
Local access means giving communities the ability to create their own media and the power to decide how to best serve their own technology and communications needs. Those needs include everything from public access television channels to universal broadband Internet service.
Local access has never been more important. We are entering an era of "convergence." In the next few years, your telephone, television and Internet service will all come through the same pipeline.
In a fierce competition to corner the market and protect their astronomical profits, the largest cable and telecom companies are trying to take away the ability of communities to demand and obtain the communications technologies they need. Across the country, industry giants are working to subvert, hobble or eliminate the tools communities can use to hold them accountable.
Local access means giving communities the ability to create their own media and the power to decide how to best serve their own technology and communications needs. Those needs include everything from public access television channels to universal broadband Internet service.
Local access has never been more important. We are entering an era of "convergence." In the next few years, your telephone, television and Internet service will all come through the same pipeline.
In a fierce competition to corner the market and protect their astronomical profits, the largest cable and telecom companies are trying to take away the ability of communities to demand and obtain the communications technologies they need. Across the country, industry giants are working to subvert, hobble or eliminate the tools communities can use to hold them accountable.
Jay Leno attacked for gay jokes
Playwright urges Tonight Show host to find new targets
Tony-winning playwright Jeff Whitty has written an open letter to Jay Leno criticizing him for joking about gays.
“I know you know gay people, Mr. Leno. Are they just jokes to you, to be snickered at behind their backs?,” he wrote to the Tonight Show host.
Whitty, writer of the Broadway musical Avenue Q, said Leno’s frequent cracks about gays are getting old. He singled out a segment with a saddle made for gay cowboys.
“Man, that’s dated,” Whitty says of the Brokeback Mountain spoof. “I turned the television off and felt pretty f—king depressed.”
Whitty used his letter to remind Leno about the oppression gays and lesbians have lived through – and continue to endure.
“Gay people, to you, are great material,” wrote Whitty. “When I think of gay people, I think of the gay news anchor who took a tire iron to the head several times when he was vacationing in St. Maarten's. I think of my friend who was visiting Hamburger Mary's, a gay restaurant in Las Vegas, when a bigot threw a smoke bomb filled with toxic chemicals into the restaurant, leaving the staff and gay clientele coughing, puking, and running in terror. I think of visiting my gay friends at their house in the country, sitting outside for dinner, and hearing, within hundreds of feet of where we sat, taunting voices yelling ‘Faggots.’
“I think of hugging my boyfriend goodbye for the day on 8th Avenue in Manhattan, and being mocked and taunted by passing high school students.”
Whitty pointed out to Leno that many gay people have taken their own lives “because the world was so toxically hostile to them.” “You think gay people are great material. I think of a silent holocaust that continues to this day. I think of a silent holocaust that is perpetuated by people like you, who seek to minimize us and make fun of us and who I suspect really, fundamentally wish we would just go away.”
The playwright told Leno that coming out of the closet takes more courage than delivering a monologue on national TV every night.
“I daresay I suspect it takes bigger balls to come out of the closet than any thing you have ever done in your life,” he wrote.
Whitty insisted he has a sense of humour and conceded that much about gay life is funny. But he urged Leno to find new targets for his jokes. “I'm tired of people like you. When I think of gay people, I think of centuries of suffering. I think of really, really good people who've been gravely mistreated for a long time now,” he wrote. “You've got to cut it out, Jay.”Leno has apologized in the past to viewers who are offended by certain jokes or sketches. In March he called Wendy Brogin after she criticized him for making a joke about U.S. vice president Dick Cheney's hunting accident by using footage of a shooting outside the Van Nuys courthouse in 2003.
Tony-winning playwright Jeff Whitty has written an open letter to Jay Leno criticizing him for joking about gays.
“I know you know gay people, Mr. Leno. Are they just jokes to you, to be snickered at behind their backs?,” he wrote to the Tonight Show host.
Whitty, writer of the Broadway musical Avenue Q, said Leno’s frequent cracks about gays are getting old. He singled out a segment with a saddle made for gay cowboys.
“Man, that’s dated,” Whitty says of the Brokeback Mountain spoof. “I turned the television off and felt pretty f—king depressed.”
Whitty used his letter to remind Leno about the oppression gays and lesbians have lived through – and continue to endure.
“Gay people, to you, are great material,” wrote Whitty. “When I think of gay people, I think of the gay news anchor who took a tire iron to the head several times when he was vacationing in St. Maarten's. I think of my friend who was visiting Hamburger Mary's, a gay restaurant in Las Vegas, when a bigot threw a smoke bomb filled with toxic chemicals into the restaurant, leaving the staff and gay clientele coughing, puking, and running in terror. I think of visiting my gay friends at their house in the country, sitting outside for dinner, and hearing, within hundreds of feet of where we sat, taunting voices yelling ‘Faggots.’
“I think of hugging my boyfriend goodbye for the day on 8th Avenue in Manhattan, and being mocked and taunted by passing high school students.”
Whitty pointed out to Leno that many gay people have taken their own lives “because the world was so toxically hostile to them.” “You think gay people are great material. I think of a silent holocaust that continues to this day. I think of a silent holocaust that is perpetuated by people like you, who seek to minimize us and make fun of us and who I suspect really, fundamentally wish we would just go away.”
The playwright told Leno that coming out of the closet takes more courage than delivering a monologue on national TV every night.
“I daresay I suspect it takes bigger balls to come out of the closet than any thing you have ever done in your life,” he wrote.
Whitty insisted he has a sense of humour and conceded that much about gay life is funny. But he urged Leno to find new targets for his jokes. “I'm tired of people like you. When I think of gay people, I think of centuries of suffering. I think of really, really good people who've been gravely mistreated for a long time now,” he wrote. “You've got to cut it out, Jay.”Leno has apologized in the past to viewers who are offended by certain jokes or sketches. In March he called Wendy Brogin after she criticized him for making a joke about U.S. vice president Dick Cheney's hunting accident by using footage of a shooting outside the Van Nuys courthouse in 2003.
Al-Zarqawi Video Is A Pentagon Propaganda Psy-Op
April 10th Washington Post article said US would 'play up' role of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, target 'US home audience'
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com April 27 2006
The Pentagon is engaged in a psychological PR propaganda campaign to exaggerate the role of Musab Al-Zarqawi in Iraq and link the war in Iraq to 9/11. How do we know? Because their own leaked documents admit it.
How else can we therefore quantify yesterday's 'surprise' release of the Al-Zarqawi video tape as anything other than a cynical ploy on the part of the Pentagon to hoodwink the American public into believing that George W. Bush is leading US troops in a brave turf war against global terrorists?
Read article
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com April 27 2006
The Pentagon is engaged in a psychological PR propaganda campaign to exaggerate the role of Musab Al-Zarqawi in Iraq and link the war in Iraq to 9/11. How do we know? Because their own leaked documents admit it.
How else can we therefore quantify yesterday's 'surprise' release of the Al-Zarqawi video tape as anything other than a cynical ploy on the part of the Pentagon to hoodwink the American public into believing that George W. Bush is leading US troops in a brave turf war against global terrorists?
Read article
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
U.S. seeks to keep evidence from 9/11 families
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Prosecutors asked a judge to rethink granting 9/11 families suing airlines access to evidence gathered for the criminal case against al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema's April 7 order requires prosecutors to provide copies of all unclassified aviation security documents to attorneys representing September 11 families in a civil lawsuit pending in New York.
Read Article
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema's April 7 order requires prosecutors to provide copies of all unclassified aviation security documents to attorneys representing September 11 families in a civil lawsuit pending in New York.
Read Article
EU Lawmakers Allege Numerous CIA Flights
The CIA has conducted more than 1,000 clandestine flights in Europe since 2001, and some of them secretly took away terror suspects to countries where they could face torture,
European Union lawmakers said Wednesday.
Read article
European Union lawmakers said Wednesday.
Read article
Day Two Of Deliberations In Moussaoui Sentencing Trial Ends Without Verdict
Jurors in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial ended the second day of deliberations Tuesday without a verdict. Jurors asked the judge for a dictionary Tuesday, but were denied. The judge said sending in a dictionary would be akin to adding evidence to the case. Jurors are mulling over a 42-page verdict form. As the judge and jury broke for lunch, Moussaoui said, "747 fly to London," in an apparent reference to his dream that President George W. Bush will release him and he will be able to fly to London.
Fists fly at rabbi burial
Unplanned speaker sparks fight
A bizarre fistfight broke out among mourners in an Orange County synagogue just before the body of Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum was buried early yesterday amid battling over who will succeed the Satmar leader.
Punches were thrown and people were shoved when one of the rebbe's grandsons got up to address the crowd. But the grandson was not on the list of speakers that the grand rebbe's feuding sons, Aron and Zalmen Teitelbaum, had discussed.
A bizarre fistfight broke out among mourners in an Orange County synagogue just before the body of Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum was buried early yesterday amid battling over who will succeed the Satmar leader.
Punches were thrown and people were shoved when one of the rebbe's grandsons got up to address the crowd. But the grandson was not on the list of speakers that the grand rebbe's feuding sons, Aron and Zalmen Teitelbaum, had discussed.
A President resigned to defeat
With his approval rating at a dismal 33% and the chattering classes debating whether he is a lame duck or a dead one, President Bush has decided to tempt fate: He wants to see if he can make things worse. How else to explain his bizarre counsel of defeat on two issues facing America?
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Stolen from US history: its artifacts
Looters are taking mementos and other valuable relics at the rate of $500 million a year.
NEW YORK – In Italy, they are called tombaroli - tomb raiders - and punished with decade-long jail sentences and million-dollar fines.
In America, they plunder virtually unnoticed, stripping parks and historical sites of their cultural bounty without fear of getting caught.
In the MonitorWednesday, 04/26/06
Indeed, US officials say the brazen looting of ancient native-American artifacts, Civil War mementos, and other valuable relics is reaching epidemic proportions. In any given year, cultural thieves make off with $500 million in relics, the FBI estimates. On National Park Service land alone, they strike on average once a day.
"This is on a scale where it's radically affecting our ability to understand the past," says Martin McAllister, an independent archaeologist who has investigated over 200 damaged sites for state and federal departments. "We're talking a multimillion-dollar criminal enterprise here."
NEW YORK – In Italy, they are called tombaroli - tomb raiders - and punished with decade-long jail sentences and million-dollar fines.
In America, they plunder virtually unnoticed, stripping parks and historical sites of their cultural bounty without fear of getting caught.
In the MonitorWednesday, 04/26/06
Indeed, US officials say the brazen looting of ancient native-American artifacts, Civil War mementos, and other valuable relics is reaching epidemic proportions. In any given year, cultural thieves make off with $500 million in relics, the FBI estimates. On National Park Service land alone, they strike on average once a day.
"This is on a scale where it's radically affecting our ability to understand the past," says Martin McAllister, an independent archaeologist who has investigated over 200 damaged sites for state and federal departments. "We're talking a multimillion-dollar criminal enterprise here."
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
U.S. expert: Bird flu no imminent threat
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even if bird flu does arrive on U.S. shores on the wings of a migratory bird, the virus is unlikely to make the inroads in poultry -- or in people -- that it has in less developed countries, the nation's top avian influenza expert says.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/04/12/fauci.interview.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/04/12/fauci.interview.ap/index.html
Attack Iran, destroy the US constitution
Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith / Asia Times April 25 2006
The founding fathers of the United States were deeply concerned that the president's power to make war might become a vehicle for tyranny. So they crafted a constitution that included checks and balances on presidential power, among them an independent congress and judiciary, an executive power subject to laws written by Congress and interpreted by the courts, and an executive power to repel attacks but not to declare or finance war.
But the Bush doctrine of preemptive war, as laid out in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States and reiterated this year, claims for the president the power to attack other countries simply because he asserts they pose a threat. It thereby removes the decision of war and peace from Congress and gives it to the president. It is, as Senator Robert Byrd put it, "unconstitutional on its face".
The founding fathers of the United States were deeply concerned that the president's power to make war might become a vehicle for tyranny. So they crafted a constitution that included checks and balances on presidential power, among them an independent congress and judiciary, an executive power subject to laws written by Congress and interpreted by the courts, and an executive power to repel attacks but not to declare or finance war.
But the Bush doctrine of preemptive war, as laid out in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States and reiterated this year, claims for the president the power to attack other countries simply because he asserts they pose a threat. It thereby removes the decision of war and peace from Congress and gives it to the president. It is, as Senator Robert Byrd put it, "unconstitutional on its face".
Forced Microchip Implants
Still Ridiculing People Who Talk About Forced Microchip Implants?So why is it that we neeed bills banning mandatory mark of the beast system?
Steve Watson / Infowars April 25 2006
For over a decade now Alex Jones and others have been warning that the event of enforced microchipping of humans for tracking and security purposes is upon us. Despite countless policy documents calling for just this and hundreds of mainstream news reports covering the issue, many would dismiss this as utter science fiction or a "conspiracy theory" and refuse to look into the facts.
If we are such crackpots for warning that this agenda is upon us why is it that moves are now underway in Wisconsin for legislation to ban mandatory chipping of people by governments and companies?
The Associated Press reports that the plan, authored by Rep. Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, won approval in the Assembly last month. The state Senate is scheduled today to consider the measure
Steve Watson / Infowars April 25 2006
For over a decade now Alex Jones and others have been warning that the event of enforced microchipping of humans for tracking and security purposes is upon us. Despite countless policy documents calling for just this and hundreds of mainstream news reports covering the issue, many would dismiss this as utter science fiction or a "conspiracy theory" and refuse to look into the facts.
If we are such crackpots for warning that this agenda is upon us why is it that moves are now underway in Wisconsin for legislation to ban mandatory chipping of people by governments and companies?
The Associated Press reports that the plan, authored by Rep. Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, won approval in the Assembly last month. The state Senate is scheduled today to consider the measure
Brzezinski: Air Strike on Iran Could ‘Merit the Impeachment of the President’
Brzezinski: Air Strike on Iran Could ‘Merit the Impeachment of the President’ 
In an op-ed titled “Do Not Attack Iran,” former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski today makes the case against launching an air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. First on his list:
In the absence of an imminent threat (with the Iranians at least several years away from having a nuclear arsenal), the attack would be a unilateral act of war. If undertaken without formal Congressional declaration, it would be unconstitutional and merit the impeachment of the President.
In an op-ed titled “Do Not Attack Iran,” former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski today makes the case against launching an air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. First on his list:
In the absence of an imminent threat (with the Iranians at least several years away from having a nuclear arsenal), the attack would be a unilateral act of war. If undertaken without formal Congressional declaration, it would be unconstitutional and merit the impeachment of the President.
Understanding the Leak Scandal
Smears, Lies and Videotape: A Leak Scandal Documentary
The story of the CIA leak scandal is far from over. But so much has already happened, sometimes it’s easy to miss the big picture.
We’ve created a video to help you keep everything straight. It uses footage pulled directly from the White House, recent TV news clips and other archival video to explain exactly what happened and why it’s important. Most of the story is told by administration officials themselves.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/16/smears-lies-videotape/
The story of the CIA leak scandal is far from over. But so much has already happened, sometimes it’s easy to miss the big picture.
We’ve created a video to help you keep everything straight. It uses footage pulled directly from the White House, recent TV news clips and other archival video to explain exactly what happened and why it’s important. Most of the story is told by administration officials themselves.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/16/smears-lies-videotape/
8th General Calls For Rumsfeld’s Resignation
VIDEO: 8th General Calls For Rumsfeld’s Resignation
Fox News is reporting an eighth general has called for Rumsfeld’s resignation. Ret. Marine General Paul Van Riper said he constantly talks with many active duty and retired senior officers who share his feelings that Secretary Rumsfeld has not fought the Iraq war competently. He told Fox that Rumsfeld has run the Pentagon through intimidation and that a change in leadership is needed. Watch it:
Fox News is reporting an eighth general has called for Rumsfeld’s resignation. Ret. Marine General Paul Van Riper said he constantly talks with many active duty and retired senior officers who share his feelings that Secretary Rumsfeld has not fought the Iraq war competently. He told Fox that Rumsfeld has run the Pentagon through intimidation and that a change in leadership is needed. Watch it:
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Horrific Memories of the Holocaust
CNN's Kyung Lah has the story of two men who were there when the Holocaust came to an end.
http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/us/2006/04/23/lah.holocaust.cnn
Graphic Video
http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/us/2006/04/23/lah.holocaust.cnn
Graphic Video
Find Uncle Sam's Hidden Files
Hear that big sucking sound? It's thousands of documents disappearing from government Web pages--some removed due to national security concerns, and others for political reasons. But at sites like the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, The Memory Hole, and Cryptome, you can find some of these missing files, along with other declassified but hard-to-find documents.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
John R. Hall: How the end will come
The following is a concise history of the end of civilization, written on my 60th birthday, August 23rd, 2008:
Read article: How the end will come
Read article: How the end will come
Kerry: we will never defeat terrorists by trampling our own freedom and democracy
"Thirty-five years later, in another war gone off course, I see history repeating itself. It is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a president who is wrong, a policy that is wrong, and a course in Iraq that weakens the nation. Again, we must refuse to sit quietly and watch our troops sacrificed for a policy that isn't working while Americans who dissent and ask tough questions are branded unpatriotic."
See article: John Kerry
See article: John Kerry
Will the USA attack Iran on June 6, 2006?
Or will another major event occur on that date?
Why do perpetrators choose to stamp their occult signatures all over major world events, in a similar manner to that of serial killers?
For 2 reasons:
They want to hide the truth from the masses, while communicating their success (in orchestrating a planned crisis) to the elite. Public radio broadcasts were used to transmit secret messages to resistance members in World War 2. Exactly the same method works now, albeit slightly more hi-tech.
Our Global Leadership believes that a planned crisis may fail unless it is carried out 'by the numbers'. The most venerated occult numbers are: 6, 11, 13, and multiples thereof, especially 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77 and 26, 39, etc. A triplication of numbers is considered even more sacred to the occultist: 111, 222, 333, etc. The most familiar triplication is 666, said to be 'the number of The Beast, mentioned in the Bible. This number is often disguised as an 18, which is a 6+6+6 or 3x6. (See 666 and 888 for an explanation of the significance of these numbers in the Bible).
Are we being set up for another 9/11 type event? Who are the people who want to scare the heck out of you?
Why do perpetrators choose to stamp their occult signatures all over major world events, in a similar manner to that of serial killers?
For 2 reasons:
They want to hide the truth from the masses, while communicating their success (in orchestrating a planned crisis) to the elite. Public radio broadcasts were used to transmit secret messages to resistance members in World War 2. Exactly the same method works now, albeit slightly more hi-tech.
Our Global Leadership believes that a planned crisis may fail unless it is carried out 'by the numbers'. The most venerated occult numbers are: 6, 11, 13, and multiples thereof, especially 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77 and 26, 39, etc. A triplication of numbers is considered even more sacred to the occultist: 111, 222, 333, etc. The most familiar triplication is 666, said to be 'the number of The Beast, mentioned in the Bible. This number is often disguised as an 18, which is a 6+6+6 or 3x6. (See 666 and 888 for an explanation of the significance of these numbers in the Bible).
Are we being set up for another 9/11 type event? Who are the people who want to scare the heck out of you?
Telecom Companies seriously threatening free speech
Congress is now pushing a law that would end the free and open Internet as we know it. Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. So Amazon doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.
Many members of Congress take campaign contributions from these companies, and they don't think the public are paying attention to this issue. Let's show them we care - please sign this petition today.
SAVE THE INTERNET
Many members of Congress take campaign contributions from these companies, and they don't think the public are paying attention to this issue. Let's show them we care - please sign this petition today.
SAVE THE INTERNET
Help Save Public Access TV!
Your Community Cable Channels (Public, Educational, Governmental) are under threat by pending legislation in the House and Senate. Take Action!
! April 14rd, 2006 URGENT CALL TO ACTION! Barton/COPE Bill to hit Congress after recessThe Barton /COPE Bill passed in the Senate Telecommunications Committee and is expected to be fast-tracked through the Commerce Committee and the Full Congress after the Holiday recess ends (April 26th). This is a fast train that we need to stop! What you can do today!
! April 14rd, 2006 URGENT CALL TO ACTION! Barton/COPE Bill to hit Congress after recessThe Barton /COPE Bill passed in the Senate Telecommunications Committee and is expected to be fast-tracked through the Commerce Committee and the Full Congress after the Holiday recess ends (April 26th). This is a fast train that we need to stop! What you can do today!
Rev. Moon's Conjugal Visitations
We all know the religious Right wants to tell us what we can't do in the bedroom, but no one asks what they want us to do instead.
There is, as Moon sees it, a profound sex crisis in America. "Satan," the Times publisher said in 2004, "is clinging to our sexual organs." Women are a "line of prostitutes," who should be punished for selfishness. "The concave organ [vagina] should be sealed with concrete."
"The women are the problem in history," he said in 2004. "Women who don't want to have children should cut away their breasts, bottoms and love organ because the purpose for those was first for the children. If they don't fulfill that purpose, then they are not needed."
"Woman's sexual organ is like the open mouth of a snake filled with poison," he said in 1996. Men don't get off any easier. Keep pliers in your pocket, he says, "and when you go to the bathroom, once a day, pinch your love organ. Cut the skin a little bit as a warning."
Moon has even a darker vision for gay men. Moon told an audience he'd like to see them removed in a "purge on God's orders.... Gays will be eliminated, the three Israels will unite. If not, then they will be burned. We do not know what kind of world God will bring, but this is what happens. It will be greater than the Communist purge but at God's orders." (No wonder the Times style guide puts "gay" in quotes.)
Far from being confined to his church, his philosophy has fueled years of voter mobilization drives, state and local candidacies and public campaigns opposing sexual liberties for nonmembers -- such as birth control, sex education, gay rights. There have been Moon-sponsored rallies for "pure sex" in the streets of Chicago, featuring mascots dressed up as gonorrhea bacteria. So don't mistake his sexual beliefs for a party to which you aren't invited. "By 2004, we have to reach the level of Jesus occupying Rome," he said in 2001, speaking of his American ambitions. "Invite me as master and owner, or it all will fade away and be broken. The Capitol Hill, the U.N. -- I should be the king."
There is, as Moon sees it, a profound sex crisis in America. "Satan," the Times publisher said in 2004, "is clinging to our sexual organs." Women are a "line of prostitutes," who should be punished for selfishness. "The concave organ [vagina] should be sealed with concrete."
"The women are the problem in history," he said in 2004. "Women who don't want to have children should cut away their breasts, bottoms and love organ because the purpose for those was first for the children. If they don't fulfill that purpose, then they are not needed."
"Woman's sexual organ is like the open mouth of a snake filled with poison," he said in 1996. Men don't get off any easier. Keep pliers in your pocket, he says, "and when you go to the bathroom, once a day, pinch your love organ. Cut the skin a little bit as a warning."
Moon has even a darker vision for gay men. Moon told an audience he'd like to see them removed in a "purge on God's orders.... Gays will be eliminated, the three Israels will unite. If not, then they will be burned. We do not know what kind of world God will bring, but this is what happens. It will be greater than the Communist purge but at God's orders." (No wonder the Times style guide puts "gay" in quotes.)
Far from being confined to his church, his philosophy has fueled years of voter mobilization drives, state and local candidacies and public campaigns opposing sexual liberties for nonmembers -- such as birth control, sex education, gay rights. There have been Moon-sponsored rallies for "pure sex" in the streets of Chicago, featuring mascots dressed up as gonorrhea bacteria. So don't mistake his sexual beliefs for a party to which you aren't invited. "By 2004, we have to reach the level of Jesus occupying Rome," he said in 2001, speaking of his American ambitions. "Invite me as master and owner, or it all will fade away and be broken. The Capitol Hill, the U.N. -- I should be the king."
Friday, April 21, 2006
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Additional evidence against Rove
Lawyer won't rule out Rove indictment
Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.
Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.
BUSH'S LOSE-LOSE WAR WITH IRAN
Is this as nuts as it sounds?
Journalist Andrew Sullivan notes: "There is something unreal about the bellicose statements coming from some sources in the Bush administration towards Iran. "
Journalist Andrew Sullivan notes: "There is something unreal about the bellicose statements coming from some sources in the Bush administration towards Iran. "
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Iraq civil war may spread, say Saudis
Saudi Arabia issued a stark warning yesterday that Iraq was in the grip of civil war which threatened to "suck in" neighbouring countries.
Prince Saud al-Faisal:b at
odds with Britain over Iraq
Marriage Protection Amendment
The so-called "Marriage Protection Amendment"
Recently we learned that radical right wing groups and their supporters in Congress are gearing up their base for a vote on the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment again in June. Our response must
be immediate and loud. Please take a moment to take action right now.
Recently we learned that radical right wing groups and their supporters in Congress are gearing up their base for a vote on the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment again in June. Our response must
be immediate and loud. Please take a moment to take action right now.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Germany to Open Nazi Records
Germany Agrees to Help Open Nazi Records on Some 17 Million Jews Persecuted During the Holocaust
German Federal Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries gestures while making a statement on the International Tracing Service, Tuesday, April 18, 2006 in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Neil Young - 'Let's Impeach the President'
Neil Young: 'Let's Impeach the President'
HLN Showbiz Tonight's Sibila Vargas looks at prominent musicians' anti-war songs
HLN Showbiz Tonight's Sibila Vargas looks at prominent musicians' anti-war songs
Monday, April 17, 2006
22 states prepared to restrict abortion
The divided States of America
22 states prepared to restr
ict abortion
UNDERSTANDING THE MAP
A look at the criteria used to rate state legislatures' likely action if Roe v. Wade were overturned. (Some states have characteristics that fall into more than one category; the ranking reflects consideration of multiple factors.)
1. States considered likely to enact significant additional restrictions on abortion:
• Some have in place "trigger" laws -- bans on abortion that would take effect if Roe were reversed.
• Some are debating bans on abortion or "trigger" laws this year, or are gathering signatures for a ballot initiative to ban abortion.
• All have passed eight or more of 11 current restrictions on abortion tracked by the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
2. States in the middle:
• None has an abortion ban that would be triggered by Roe's reversal.
• None has enacted legislation to protect access to abortion if Roe were reversed.
• All have passed four to nine of the 11 current restrictions on abortion tracked by the Guttmacher Institute.
3. States considered most likely to protect access to abortion:
• Some have enacted laws that would ensure abortion rights if Roe were overturned.
• All have passed seven or fewer of the 11 current restrictions.
Contributing: Source: USA TODAY analysis of data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute
22 states prepared to restr
ict abortionUNDERSTANDING THE MAP
A look at the criteria used to rate state legislatures' likely action if Roe v. Wade were overturned. (Some states have characteristics that fall into more than one category; the ranking reflects consideration of multiple factors.)
1. States considered likely to enact significant additional restrictions on abortion:
• Some have in place "trigger" laws -- bans on abortion that would take effect if Roe were reversed.
• Some are debating bans on abortion or "trigger" laws this year, or are gathering signatures for a ballot initiative to ban abortion.
• All have passed eight or more of 11 current restrictions on abortion tracked by the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
2. States in the middle:
• None has an abortion ban that would be triggered by Roe's reversal.
• None has enacted legislation to protect access to abortion if Roe were reversed.
• All have passed four to nine of the 11 current restrictions on abortion tracked by the Guttmacher Institute.
3. States considered most likely to protect access to abortion:
• Some have enacted laws that would ensure abortion rights if Roe were overturned.
• All have passed seven or fewer of the 11 current restrictions.
Contributing: Source: USA TODAY analysis of data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute
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