The ability to trigger earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and even effect peoples brains and the Earth�s own tectonic plates is now a very real possibility.

The research has been done, the tests completed and the weaponry has been deployed, and maybe even used.

It�s called HAARP (High-frequency Active Aural Research Program) and was developed as part of the �Star Wars� initiative.

Asia Earthquake kills 120,000 [so far] EXACTLY one year after Iran quake killed 26,000

Incredible Coincidence: A massive earthquake in Asia unleashed tsunamis killing thousands, exactly one year to the hour after the Bam, Iran earthquake killed 26,000. What are the odds of two of the most destructive earthquakes in decades occuring exactly one year apart- almost to the minute!   more »

Director Stephen Gaghan’s gripping new film "Syriana" explores the roots of 21st century civilization’s biggest dilemma: Peak Oil.

Inexpensive fossil fuels – oil and natural gas – have floated both the corporate-controlled global economy and U.S. imperial planetary hegemony for the past several decades.

Now, the party is over, as "elephant" fields like Kuwait’s Burgan are peaking, oil companies are maintaining sagging portfolios by buying up other companies’ reserves (real and fictitious).

The world is beginning to grasp the significance of living without immediate and inexpensive access to one of the 20th century’s most vital resources.

To fully appreciate "Syriana’s" storyline, it’s important to understand that the world currently consumes 80 million barrels of oil a day, with the globe’s richest and most powerful empire (that’s the U.S.) burning up 20 million of those barrels.   more »

ENERGY & THE NEW WORLD POWER PLAY

The row between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas is the result of a powerful combination of world energy concerns and Russia's desire to exert its influence in its own back yard.

It is ironic that as Russia takes over the six months chairmanship of the G8 industrial countries, at the top of whose agenda is security of energy supplies, it chooses to reduce the security of its neighbour's natural gas imports.

The Russians say this is all a question of economics and that if Ukraine chooses to turn to Western ways, then it will get them - the market will rule and it will lose the old favouritism still shown to Russian friends like Belarus.

The Russians also point out that they have never stopped the supply of gas to Western Europe, which started in the days of the Soviet Union and has continued right through the upheavals that followed.   more »

Good soldiers follow orders and hundreds of American military men and women returned to the United States on holiday leave this month with orders to sell the Iraq war to a skeptical public.

The program, coordinated through a Pentagon operation dubbed “Operation Homefront,” ordered military personnel to give interviews to their hometown newspapers, television stations and other media outlets and praise the American war effort in Iraq.

Initial reports back to the Pentagon deem the operation a success with dozens of front page stories in daily and weekly newspapers around the country along with upbeat reports on local television stations.

“We've learned as a military how to do this better,” Captain David Diaz, a military reservist, told his hometown paper, The Roanoke (VA) Times. “My worry is that we have the right military strategy and political strategies now but the patience of the American public is wearing thin.”

When pressed by the paper on whether or not his commanding officers told him to talk to the press, Diaz admitted he was “encouraged” to do so.   more »

The Bush Administration is inexorably becoming a totalitarian regime, where dissent is suppressed and the populace cowed by repressive controls. In Fascism Anyone? Laurence Britt lists 14 characteristics of fascist governments.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism

President Bush gives his carefully orchestrated speeches to military audiences in arenas covered with patriotic symbols.

His text is loaded with jingoistic phrases, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” “To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor.” His Administration argues that dissenters are unpatriotic, advocates of “surrender.”

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights

The Bush Administration has the worst human rights record of any Presidency in the past 100 years. Bush authorized torture and illegal eavesdropping on civilians. He abandoned the Geneva conventions and suspended basic rights for those designated as “enemy combatants.”   more »

Wars are not waged by those who have to fight them. Those who fight wars know too well their terrible costs. Wars are waged by those who profit from them with minimal or no risk to themselves.

War is big business and it is immensely profitable for a select few who are insulated from the effects of war’s environmental impacts and social costs. War never serves the interest of working class people.

They are the result of menacing forces of greed and power masquerading as benevolent government, insulating us from contrived acts of terror. They are in fact anything but munificent.

Never is the trait of deceit more treacherous than when it leads to the loss of precious innocent life. It was obvious from the outset that George Bush lied about the pretext for war with Iraq.

His manservant, Colin Powell, sold the idea to the world in his infamous speech before the United Nations. It was widely known that Saddam Hussein had little war making capabilities; and he certainly did not pose a credible threat to the United States, Israel, or any Middle Eastern Country.

U.N. weapons inspectors such as Scott Ritter made this fact known long before the invasion began. Saddam Hussein was the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Boogey Man necessary to sell the American people on Bush’s illegitimate invasion and occupation of Iraq.   more »

Recent reports in the German media suggest that the United States may be preparing its allies for an imminent military strike against facilities that are part of Iran's suspected clandestine nuclear weapons program.

It's hardly news that US President George Bush refuses to rule out possible military action against Iran if Tehran continues to pursue its controversial nuclear ambitions.

But in Germany, speculation is mounting that Washington is preparing to carry out air strikes against suspected Iranian nuclear sites perhaps even as soon as early 2006.

German diplomats began speaking of the prospect two years ago -- long before the Bush administration decided to give the European Union more time to convince Iran to abandon its ambitions, or at the very least put its civilian nuclear program under international controls.

But the growing likelihood of the military option is back in the headlines in Germany thanks to a slew of stories that have run in the national media here over the holidays.   more »

There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in violation of the law, is impeachable. After all, Nixon was charged in Article II of his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he, too, claimed were national security reasons.

These parallel violations underscore the continuing, disturbing parallels between this Administration and the Nixon Administration - parallels I also discussed in a prior column.

Indeed, here, Bush may have outdone Nixon: Nixon's illegal surveillance was limited; Bush's, it is developing, may be extraordinarily broad in scope.

First reports indicated that NSA was only monitoring foreign calls, originating either in the USA or abroad, and that no more than 500 calls were being covered at any given time.

But later reports have suggested that NSA is "data mining" literally millions of calls - and has been given access by the telecommunications companies to "switching" stations through which foreign communications traffic flows.

In sum, this is big-time, Big Brother electronic surveillance.   more »

30 DECEMBER

2005: Bush Went from Swagger to Fuck-Up

XXX Porn: Crazy Christians Try to Tame The Beast [Masturbation]

Paul Krugman: The Bush Fall from Grace

Happy New Year? The Fucking Relentless Pursuit of "Happiness"

Bush in the [Lame Duck] Soup

Bob Herbert: Iraq Moves Us "Forward to the Past"

Conspiracy Theories: What Are 'They' Doing to Us?

The Golden Balls Awards for 2005