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Buran - the Soviet 'space shuttle'
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7738489.stm
Despite its looks, Buran was not a facsimile of the US shuttle. Some 20 years ago, on 30 September 1988, many readers of the Pravda newspaper - the official mouthpiece of the Soviet communist party - could not believe their eyes. Published somewhat inconspicuously on the second page, there was a photo depicting the familiar shape of the US space shuttle, but with Soviet insignia on its wings. Finally, years of rumours about a Soviet "copy" of the shuttle had been confirmed. However, the official Soviet press was quick to point out that despite its superficial resemblance to the US counterpart, the Russian shuttle, dubbed Buran or "snowstorm", was better and more capable. Within days, the new ship got a chance to prove it. On November 15, 1988, as snowy clouds and winds were swirling around Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Buran orbiter, attached to its giant Energia rocket, thundered into the gloomy early morning sky. They obliterated this crowning achievement of the Soviet space programme. Three hours and two orbits later, the 100-tonne bird glided back to a flawless landing just a few miles from its launch pad.
Bush Administration Once Again Attempts To Block Release Of Prisoner Abuse Photos In ACLU Lawsuit
Link: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/37721prs20081107.html
Photos Depict Abuse At Facilities In Afghanistan And Iraq
NEW YORK – The Bush administration petitioned a full appeals court late Thursday to reconsider a decision ordering the Defense Department to release photographs showing detainee abuse by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In September, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the government to release the photos as part of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking information on the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody overseas.
"This petition is a transparent attempt to delay accountability for the widespread abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody abroad by keeping the public in the dark," said Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU. "These photographs demonstrate that the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody abroad was not aberrational and not confined to Abu Ghraib, but the result of policies adopted by the highest-ranking officials in the administration. The immediate release of these photos is critical to bringing an end to the Bush administration's torture policies and for preventing prisoner abuse in the future." ► Judge asks media whether to release Guantanamo Bay 'torture' evidence ► Judge Opens First Habeas Corpus Hearing on Guantánamo Detainees
Russian Analyst Predicts Decline and Breakup of U.S.
Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21324.htm
A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.
Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily Izvestia published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse."
The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events. ►Colossal Financial Collapse The Truth behind the Citigroup Bank "Nationalization"
What the Garzon indictment states about the crimes of the Franco era
Link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/garz-n05.shtml
[General Eisenhower and General Franco] An investigation has been launched by leading prosecuting judge Baltasar Garzon into the thousands of mass graves scattered across Spain. To date not a single person has been prosecuted for the terrible crimes committed under the fascist dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. As the indictment points out, the Spanish courts have never carried out a criminal investigation into the crimes. Garzon's investigation covers three periods—the civil war from July 17, 1936 to February 1937, the state of emergency between March 1937 and early 1945 and the "repressive action" between 1945 and 1952 "marked by the elimination of guerrillas and people who supported them." From the start, the indictment makes clear that the intention is not to raise political issues but is "much more moderate"—the investigation of "forced disappearances." In the 15 days the prosecution was granted to draw up lists of missing persons, some 114,266 individuals were identified. The scale of the killings in some towns and cities was horrendous—in Cordoba 7,091 people disappeared, in Malaga 7,797 and in Burgos 4,800. According to the indictment "it is clear that such listings should be checked, analysed and revised to supplement and update them."
Investigation launched into Franco’s crimes
Link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/spai-n03.shtml
Spain's most prominent investigative judge has opened the country's first criminal investigation into the executions and repression carried out by the fascist regime of General Francisco Franco. In a 68-page court document, Baltasar Garzón accepted a petition demanding an investigation into the forced disappearances of Republicans under the Franco regime. The petition was filed by 13 associations of the families of victims of Franco. Garzón has ordered the opening of 19 mass graves, including one believed to contain the remains of the poet Federico García Lorca.
Andrew Cusack on Franco
Link: http://www.andrewcusack.com/net/franco/
“El Jefe de Estado que más ha hecho en el mundo moderno por la salvación de la catolicidad, pide a Dios, antes de entregarse al trabajo diario, que ilumine su inteligencia.” The Chief of State that has done more in the modern world for the salvation of Catholicism, prays to God, before giving himself to daily work, that illuminates his intelligence.
Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss 'Will Spark the Second American Civil War. Blood Will Run in the Streets'
It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.
A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo blog. Basically, Jong says her fear that Obama might lose the election has developed into an "obsession. A paralyzing terror. An anxious fever that keeps you awake at night." She also says that her friends Jane Fonda and Naomi Wolf are extremely worried that Obama will be sabotaged by Republican dirty tricks, and that if an Obama loss indeed comes to pass, the result will be a second American Civil War.
Here's a translation of Jong's more spirited quotes to the Milan-based Corriere, as selected by Rocca.
The Torturer's Tale
Link: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45726,opinion,the-torturers-tale
Lagouranis saw people crippled through prolonged use of the stress positions he forced them to adopt, and driven to the verge of insanity through weeks of sleep deprivation and psychological disorientation. But maybe it was worth it if it produced valuable intelligence in the fight against the insurgency? No, he says. As a method of getting intelligence it was useless. And besides, the aim of interrogations shifted subtly. "A lot of what we ended up doing was trying to gather confessions, not intelligence. I think that the commanders wanted to show that they were doing a good job and were picking up guilty people. But in fact we were just rounding up whoever was on the street. They just wanted us to force people to confess so that they could brief their commanders and say that they had captured all the terrorists."
What Now?
It's fascinating to read the commentators in mainstream journals like The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal all strenuously pretending that "the worst is over" (maybe... we hope... fingers crossed... hail Mary full of grace... et cetera). The cluelessness would be funny if it didn't involve a world-changing catastrophe. All nations that have reached the fork-and-spoon level of civilization are now engineering a vast network of cyber-cables that lead directly from their central bank computers to the Death Star that is hovering above world financial affairs like a giant cosmic vacuum cleaner, sucking up dollars, euros, zlotys, forints, krona, what-have-you. As fast as the keystrokes create currency-pixels, the little electron-denominated units of exchange are sucked out of the terrestrial economies into the black hole of money death.
Army deploys combat unit in US for possible civil unrest
Link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/mili-s25.shtml
For the first time ever, the US military is deploying an active duty regular Army combat unit for full-time use inside the United States to deal with emergencies, including potential civil unrest.
Beginning on October 1, the First Brigade Combat Team of the Third Division will be placed under the command of US Army North, the Army’s component of the Pentagon’s Northern Command (NorthCom), which was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks with the stated mission of defending the US “homeland” and aiding federal, state and local authorities.
The unit—known as the “Raiders”—is among the Army’s most “blooded.” It has spent nearly three out of the last five years deployed in Iraq, leading the assault on Baghdad in 2003 and carrying out house-to-house combat in the suppression of resistance in the city of Ramadi. It was the first brigade combat team to be sent to Iraq three times.
Pattern of Megalomania
Link: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/voices/2003/Pattern_of_Megalomania.htm
The hand full of men who seized power in the United States used the Supreme Court, “a small but critical segment of the state apparatus,” to facilitate their immediate takeover. The day after the September 11th, 2001 hijackings the Neocons established a shadow government absent of both legislative and judicial branches. On October 26th, 2001 President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act into law, abrogating Constitutional rights and the Bill of Rights, and facilitating the declaration of Martial Law. On November 5th, 2002 Bush signed The Homeland Security act, consolidating the duties of 22 federal agencies into one cabinet level Department of Homeland Security and strengthening Public Law 101-647. Signed by his father in November 1990, Law 101-647 allows Bush to declare a national emergency for almost any reason, an earthquake, a terrorist attack, or even an economic crisis. In the event of a Bush declared emergency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency – FEMA, is empowered to implement the horrific Executive Orders 10995 through 11005. As acting president of the United States during the declaration of a national emergency and Martial Law Bush can also issue Executive Orders, granting him far reaching powers to unilaterally create law without congressional oversight and approval.
Solar wind weakest since beginning of space age
Link: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080924193222.3r9aw25a&show_article=1
The intensity of the sun's million-mile-per-hour solar wind has dropped to its lowest levels since accurate records began half a century ago, scientists say.
Measurements of the cosmic blasts of radiation, ejected from the sun's upper atmosphere, were made with the Ulysses spacecraft, a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
The solar wind "inflates a protective bubble, or heliosphere, around the solar system," which protects the inner planets against the radiation from other stars, said Dave McComas, Ulysses' solar wind principal investigator and senior executive director at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
"With the solar wind at an all-time low, there is an excellent chance the heliosphere will diminish in size and strength," said Ed Smith, NASA's Ulysses project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
"If that occurs, more galactic cosmic rays will make it into the inner part of our solar system," added Smith.
Scientists say the weakening of solar wind appears to be due to changes in the sun's magnetic field, but the causes of these changes are unknown.
FEMA CONCENTRATION CAMPS: LOCATIONS AND EXECUTIVE ORDERS
Link: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/08/11/p27662
There over 800 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general's signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached. Ask yourself if you really want to be on Ashcroft's list. The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.
