Off the grid wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Popularity
On 13 April 2006, USA Today reported that there were "some 180,000 families living off-grid, a figure that has jumped 33% a year for a decade," and cited Richard Perez, publisher of Home Power Magazine,[4] as the source.[5] Assuming the same rate of growth, there would be a quarter million off-grid households in the United States by late 2007. Because many third-world citizens have never had the chance to go on the grid, current estimates are that 1.7 billion people live off-grid worldwide.[6]
[edit] Environmental impact
The State of California is encouraging solar and wind power generation that is connected to the electrical grid to avoid the use of toxic lead acid batteries for night time storage [7]. Grid-tie systems are more expensive due to the extra hardware costs (such as a grid-tie inverter) especially when old car batteries that can no longer supply enough current to start a car are re-used [8]
Going off-grid can be done for altruistic reasons or to lower the environmental impact of living, as the typically limited amount of on-site renewable energy available is an incentive to reduce its use. But if energy usage is not reduced, going off grid actually has a larger environmental impact vs using the grid, due to the lower efficiencies of the components. It is often done to residential buildings only occasionally occupied, such as vacation cabins, to avoid high initial costs of traditional utility connections. Other persons choose to live in houses where the cost of outside utilities is prohibitive, or such a distance away as to be impractical. In his book "How to live off-grid" Nick Rosen lists seven reasons for going off-grid. The top two are saving money, and reducing the carbon footprint. Others include survivalism, preparing for the collapse of the oil economy and bringing life back to the countryside.
USA Today
EXCERPT:
In May 2006, USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had been working with AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth to compile “the largest database in the world,” according to the anonymous sources inside the agency that went public.[6] This allowed the paper to uncover a new facet of the agency and further upset the White House after the New York Times revealed the Bush administration authorized the NSA to wiretap international phone calls and e-mails traveling within the U.S.[7]
Anarchy
EXCERPT:
Karl Hess (1923-1994) was an American writer and libertarian activist. He joined the Libertarian Party and was the editor of its newspaper from 1986 to 1990. This short text first appeared in the magazine “The Dandelion” in 1980. It stresses the position already highlighted by the historian and theoretician of the anarchist movement, Max Nettlau that anarchy means freedom and voluntary self-organization and no one in the anarchist movement is interested in prescribing which of the various “isms” (capitalism, communism, mutualism, Catholicism, etc.) any anarchist should follow. This message is very relevant now that the interest for anarchy is growing and that some people, who profess to be anarchists, are battling in order to promote very vigorously (and in some cases trying to impose) their own brand of anarchism, either anarcho-communism or anarcho-capitalism. To all of them the message from Karl Hess is: neither anarchist-communist nor anarchist-capitalist, because “there is no hyphen after the anarchist”
Linda Norgrove
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Linda Norgrove By AP/Heidi Vogt and Robert Kennedy Monday, Oct. 11, 2010
EXCERPTs:
1) In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen emphasized that "whatever happened, I would like to stress that those who are responsible of course are the captors."
2) Norgrove, 36, from Scotland's Isle of Lewis, worked on a U.S.-funded aid project for Development Alternatives Inc., a Bethesda, Maryland-based organization. She was abducted in an ambush on Sept. 26 while driving toward Asadabad, the capital of Kunar province, according to Afghan officials. She was to oversee projects in the area.
Linda Norgrove US commando disciplinary
EXCERPT:
Linda Norgrove managed to break free from her captors, but tragically was not seen by her rescuers, according to Guardian sources
Startling details of the daring rescue mission that ended in the death of the British aid worker Linda Norgrove can be revealed today, as a joint US-UK investigation into the incident gets under way.
The Guardian has learned that a US special forces soldier who is believed to have accidentally killed Norgrove is likely to face disciplinary action after failing to inform his commanding officers that he had used a grenade until long after the event.
Sources in Kabul and London have confirmed that during the assault on the kidnappers' hideaway the hostage broke away from her captors and lay in a foetal position to avoid harm.
The soldier from the elite Seal Team Six special forces unite failed to see Norgrove and tossed his fragmentation grenade in, which exploded next to her.
It has also emerged today that:
• US forces monitored the kidnappers using a network of informers and drones
US contractor deaths skyrocket in Afghanistan
EXCERPT:
Recently released Department of Labor records show that at least 521 U.S. contractors have been killed in Afghanistan since the war began in October 2001. The majority, 332, have been killed in the last 12 months alone -- an increase of 175 percent over the previous year.
According to the DOL's website, this is not an official count of the number of contractor deaths. The statistics only reflect the number for which an insurance claim was filed.
Contributing to this alarming trend is the Taliban's recent increase in targeting State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development "implementing partners" -- another name for firms contracted by the U.S. government to implement development programs in Afghanistan.
Taliban attacks US aid office in Afghanistan
EXCERPT:
The pre-dawn attack took place in the relatively peaceful Kunduz province.
Provincial governor Mohammad Omar said that Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers stormed the offices of Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI).
Development Alternatives Inc
EXCERPTs:
U.S.
Mandated Oversight Missing in Afghan Contracts
Sanada Sahoo
WASHINGTON, 15 Feb (IPS) - Lack of oversight of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contractors in Afghanistan is not a new story.
But when all eight USAID contractors in Afghanistan who had been called in for a roundtable meeting with Sen. Claire McCaskill earlier this month said they do not have to file any documents with USAID for the multi-million-dollar projects they are working on, even the senator was surprised.
"I knew USAID wasn't excited about SPOT filing," she said at the Feb. 3 roundtable meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight. "But I didn't know they were this unexcited."
In 2008, USAID, the State and Defence Departments signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing that the Synchronised Predeployment and Operational Tracker, or SPOT, would be the system of record.
However, representatives of the organisations present at the roundtable meeting said their contracts with USAID did not include a clause on having to file SPOT documents.
As late as November last year, the Government Accountability Office found that USAID does not require SPOT documents from its contractors in Afghanistan and has no time frame for doing so.
The roundtable had invited Black & Veatch, Creative Associates International, Chemonics International, Inc., Deloitte & Touche (BearingPoint), Development Alternatives, Inc., International Relief and Development Inc., International Resources Group, and the Louis Berger Group.
Among those present, all except the Louis Berger Group report exclusively to USAID. Louis Berger also reports to a private contractor.
Development Alternatives Inc. sourcewatch
EXCERPT:
Development Alternatives Inc.
From SourceWatch
Jump to: navigation, search
Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) is a development consulting company based in Bethesda, MD, USA.
DAI acted as a conduit for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) (through the Office of Transition Initiatives) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED} funds to the Venezuelan opposition to president Hugo Chavez. Furthermore, it was instrumental along with NED affiliated organizations for financing black propaganda on Venezuelan private network TV during the general strike in 2002. Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that DAI was required to keep certain personnel in Venezuela and had to consult with USAID about staff changes. Philip Agee, a former CIA officer, suggests that this is merely a cover for what passed for CIA operations in the past [Agee, op. cit. (transcript here)].
In 1990, Experience International Inc. was purchased by Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) and operated as that company's Agriculture and Agribusiness Division. [1]
EXCERPTs:
1) In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen emphasized that "whatever happened, I would like to stress that those who are responsible of course are the captors."
2) Norgrove, 36, from Scotland's Isle of Lewis, worked on a U.S.-funded aid project for Development Alternatives Inc., a Bethesda, Maryland-based organization. She was abducted in an ambush on Sept. 26 while driving toward Asadabad, the capital of Kunar province, according to Afghan officials. She was to oversee projects in the area.
Linda Norgrove US commando disciplinary
EXCERPT:
Linda Norgrove managed to break free from her captors, but tragically was not seen by her rescuers, according to Guardian sources
Startling details of the daring rescue mission that ended in the death of the British aid worker Linda Norgrove can be revealed today, as a joint US-UK investigation into the incident gets under way.
The Guardian has learned that a US special forces soldier who is believed to have accidentally killed Norgrove is likely to face disciplinary action after failing to inform his commanding officers that he had used a grenade until long after the event.
Sources in Kabul and London have confirmed that during the assault on the kidnappers' hideaway the hostage broke away from her captors and lay in a foetal position to avoid harm.
The soldier from the elite Seal Team Six special forces unite failed to see Norgrove and tossed his fragmentation grenade in, which exploded next to her.
It has also emerged today that:
• US forces monitored the kidnappers using a network of informers and drones
US contractor deaths skyrocket in Afghanistan
EXCERPT:
Recently released Department of Labor records show that at least 521 U.S. contractors have been killed in Afghanistan since the war began in October 2001. The majority, 332, have been killed in the last 12 months alone -- an increase of 175 percent over the previous year.
According to the DOL's website, this is not an official count of the number of contractor deaths. The statistics only reflect the number for which an insurance claim was filed.
Contributing to this alarming trend is the Taliban's recent increase in targeting State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development "implementing partners" -- another name for firms contracted by the U.S. government to implement development programs in Afghanistan.
Taliban attacks US aid office in Afghanistan
EXCERPT:
The pre-dawn attack took place in the relatively peaceful Kunduz province.
Provincial governor Mohammad Omar said that Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers stormed the offices of Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI).
Development Alternatives Inc
EXCERPTs:
U.S.
Mandated Oversight Missing in Afghan Contracts
Sanada Sahoo
WASHINGTON, 15 Feb (IPS) - Lack of oversight of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contractors in Afghanistan is not a new story.
But when all eight USAID contractors in Afghanistan who had been called in for a roundtable meeting with Sen. Claire McCaskill earlier this month said they do not have to file any documents with USAID for the multi-million-dollar projects they are working on, even the senator was surprised.
"I knew USAID wasn't excited about SPOT filing," she said at the Feb. 3 roundtable meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight. "But I didn't know they were this unexcited."
In 2008, USAID, the State and Defence Departments signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing that the Synchronised Predeployment and Operational Tracker, or SPOT, would be the system of record.
However, representatives of the organisations present at the roundtable meeting said their contracts with USAID did not include a clause on having to file SPOT documents.
As late as November last year, the Government Accountability Office found that USAID does not require SPOT documents from its contractors in Afghanistan and has no time frame for doing so.
The roundtable had invited Black & Veatch, Creative Associates International, Chemonics International, Inc., Deloitte & Touche (BearingPoint), Development Alternatives, Inc., International Relief and Development Inc., International Resources Group, and the Louis Berger Group.
Among those present, all except the Louis Berger Group report exclusively to USAID. Louis Berger also reports to a private contractor.
Development Alternatives Inc. sourcewatch
EXCERPT:
Development Alternatives Inc.
From SourceWatch
Jump to: navigation, search
Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) is a development consulting company based in Bethesda, MD, USA.
DAI acted as a conduit for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) (through the Office of Transition Initiatives) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED} funds to the Venezuelan opposition to president Hugo Chavez. Furthermore, it was instrumental along with NED affiliated organizations for financing black propaganda on Venezuelan private network TV during the general strike in 2002. Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that DAI was required to keep certain personnel in Venezuela and had to consult with USAID about staff changes. Philip Agee, a former CIA officer, suggests that this is merely a cover for what passed for CIA operations in the past [Agee, op. cit. (transcript here)].
In 1990, Experience International Inc. was purchased by Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) and operated as that company's Agriculture and Agribusiness Division. [1]
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why Child Abuse Investigations Don't Help Kids
Mon October 4, 2010, by Maia Szalavitz, - 40 comments
http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/04/study-why-child-abuse-investigations-dont-help-kids/
Child welfare agencies have a thankless task: investigate reports of child maltreatment and determine, first, whether they are true or false, then whether more damage will be done by a) leaving children in a potentially harmful environment, or b) ripping them away from the only parents they know and placing them in a new family that may or may not be better.
Now a new study published Monday suggests that child abuse investigations do not result in long-term improvement in family functioning or child behavior, and in fact are associated with increased depression among mothers. An editorial accompanying the new study proclaims: "Child Protective Services [CPS] Has Outlived Its Usefulness." (More on Time.com: Side Effect of the Recession: An Increase in Child Abuse)
The study and editorial were both published in the most recent edition of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The research examined data on 595 at-risk children who were already involved in a study about the long-term causes and consequences of child maltreatment. It compared children whose families were investigated by CPS - about 28% of the sample - with those who were not.
The study did not investigate the effects of foster care placement: researchers looked only at cases where the child had the same maternal caregiver at age 4 and again at age 8, although those who spent some time in foster care were not excluded. Since about 80% of child maltreatment cases do not result in child removal, the results would probably apply to the majority of children in the CPS system.
According to lead study author Dr. Kristine Campbell, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah: "Over a long-term view, between ages 4 and 8, there was no evidence within this sample that a CPS investigation changed certain modifiable risk factors such as education, poverty and social support [for these families.] There was no change in family [functioning or child behavior problems] where a CPS investigation occurred, and for maternal depression symptoms there was actually a worsening."
Campbell notes that the research couldn't determine whether being investigated for child abuse caused depression among mothers — but it would obviously not be surprising if it did.
"I don't think we should be surprised by [the findings] and I don't think that it's role of CPS to fix poverty. But we do spend lot of money on investigations. They're mandated by law. If we are going to go through this process as a society and say that it's important to do investigations, we should look at it as an opportunity to prevent future problems," Campbell says. But her research suggests that that opportunity is currently being missed. (More on Time.com: Cyberbullying? Homophobia? Tyler Clementi's Death Highlights Online Lawlessness)
That's why editorial author Dr. Abraham Bergman, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington, proposes a radical solution. He suggests leaving investigations of physical abuse to police, turning prevention and treatment services over to public health nurses and leaving CPS with a narrower role as intermediaries when courts must be involved with child abuse.
He says that what CPS does now "is mostly investigation and not much support and it's an overwhelming task given to people who don't have much training and tremendous turnover." In the editorial, he cites a 2003 GAO investigation that found that only 28% of CPS workers even had undergraduate degrees in social work (15% had a bachelor's and 13% had a Master's) and that most workers had spent two years or less on the job.
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR), thinks the research illustrates obvious problems with the system, but believes different solutions are needed.
"My first reaction to the study is simple," he says. "They had to do a study to figure this out? This study simply confirms what NCCPR has been saying for years: Child Protective Services won't be effective until it becomes Child *Poverty* Services."
He adds, "That doesn't mean you have to eliminate poverty to eliminate child maltreatment - though whoever does the first will come closer than anyone else to doing the second. You can make enormous strides simply by ameliorating the worst effects of poverty."
Wexler thinks that much of the problem with CPS has to do with the way families are approached when trouble arises. "It's almost always a cookie-cutter 'service plan' requiring lots and lots of 'counseling' and 'parent education' while the actual problems of poverty are ignored. So the 'services' only add more burdens to this family," he says.
For example, a single mother who cannot afford daycare might leave her child home lone - telling the mother that this is a wrong-headed choice won't help her if she needs to work and has no safe place to leave her child. As a result, it's not surprising that CPS investigations don't produce change.
"I don't think we know how to solve this problem," says Dr. Bruce Perry, senior fellow at the Child Trauma Academy (full disclosure: Dr. Perry and I have co-authored two books). "A lot of times the situation calls for the formation of a healing relationship and so the very act of going there in an investigatory mode impairs the ability to form a meaningful relationship in which parents can be open, ask for and get help."
Eighteen states are currently experimenting with an approach that offers services rather than investigations to families in which the risk of severe abuse or neglect is not high. Wexler suggests that this "differential" or "alternative" response might make a real difference. "If you go into a home where the allegation is a typical case of neglect, extending an open hand instead of a wagging finger, you are likely to get more cooperation from the family," he says.
With research suggesting that the bad economy is increasing child abuse - and with no sign that extra funds to help will be forthcoming - it's more important than ever to determine which approaches work and target scarce dollars accordingly.
(Note: The Federal Administration for Children and Families, which is in charge of the Obama Administration's child welfare policies, did not reply to a request for comment before the deadline for this article.)
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/04/study-why-child-abuse-investigations-dont-help-kids/#ixzz125XZPRtg
Why Child Abuse Investigations Don't Help Kids
Mon October 4, 2010, by Maia Szalavitz, - 40 comments
http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/04/study-why-child-abuse-investigations-dont-help-kids/
Child welfare agencies have a thankless task: investigate reports of child maltreatment and determine, first, whether they are true or false, then whether more damage will be done by a) leaving children in a potentially harmful environment, or b) ripping them away from the only parents they know and placing them in a new family that may or may not be better.
Now a new study published Monday suggests that child abuse investigations do not result in long-term improvement in family functioning or child behavior, and in fact are associated with increased depression among mothers. An editorial accompanying the new study proclaims: "Child Protective Services [CPS] Has Outlived Its Usefulness." (More on Time.com: Side Effect of the Recession: An Increase in Child Abuse)
The study and editorial were both published in the most recent edition of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The research examined data on 595 at-risk children who were already involved in a study about the long-term causes and consequences of child maltreatment. It compared children whose families were investigated by CPS - about 28% of the sample - with those who were not.
The study did not investigate the effects of foster care placement: researchers looked only at cases where the child had the same maternal caregiver at age 4 and again at age 8, although those who spent some time in foster care were not excluded. Since about 80% of child maltreatment cases do not result in child removal, the results would probably apply to the majority of children in the CPS system.
According to lead study author Dr. Kristine Campbell, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah: "Over a long-term view, between ages 4 and 8, there was no evidence within this sample that a CPS investigation changed certain modifiable risk factors such as education, poverty and social support [for these families.] There was no change in family [functioning or child behavior problems] where a CPS investigation occurred, and for maternal depression symptoms there was actually a worsening."
Campbell notes that the research couldn't determine whether being investigated for child abuse caused depression among mothers — but it would obviously not be surprising if it did.
"I don't think we should be surprised by [the findings] and I don't think that it's role of CPS to fix poverty. But we do spend lot of money on investigations. They're mandated by law. If we are going to go through this process as a society and say that it's important to do investigations, we should look at it as an opportunity to prevent future problems," Campbell says. But her research suggests that that opportunity is currently being missed. (More on Time.com: Cyberbullying? Homophobia? Tyler Clementi's Death Highlights Online Lawlessness)
That's why editorial author Dr. Abraham Bergman, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington, proposes a radical solution. He suggests leaving investigations of physical abuse to police, turning prevention and treatment services over to public health nurses and leaving CPS with a narrower role as intermediaries when courts must be involved with child abuse.
He says that what CPS does now "is mostly investigation and not much support and it's an overwhelming task given to people who don't have much training and tremendous turnover." In the editorial, he cites a 2003 GAO investigation that found that only 28% of CPS workers even had undergraduate degrees in social work (15% had a bachelor's and 13% had a Master's) and that most workers had spent two years or less on the job.
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR), thinks the research illustrates obvious problems with the system, but believes different solutions are needed.
"My first reaction to the study is simple," he says. "They had to do a study to figure this out? This study simply confirms what NCCPR has been saying for years: Child Protective Services won't be effective until it becomes Child *Poverty* Services."
He adds, "That doesn't mean you have to eliminate poverty to eliminate child maltreatment - though whoever does the first will come closer than anyone else to doing the second. You can make enormous strides simply by ameliorating the worst effects of poverty."
Wexler thinks that much of the problem with CPS has to do with the way families are approached when trouble arises. "It's almost always a cookie-cutter 'service plan' requiring lots and lots of 'counseling' and 'parent education' while the actual problems of poverty are ignored. So the 'services' only add more burdens to this family," he says.
For example, a single mother who cannot afford daycare might leave her child home lone - telling the mother that this is a wrong-headed choice won't help her if she needs to work and has no safe place to leave her child. As a result, it's not surprising that CPS investigations don't produce change.
"I don't think we know how to solve this problem," says Dr. Bruce Perry, senior fellow at the Child Trauma Academy (full disclosure: Dr. Perry and I have co-authored two books). "A lot of times the situation calls for the formation of a healing relationship and so the very act of going there in an investigatory mode impairs the ability to form a meaningful relationship in which parents can be open, ask for and get help."
Eighteen states are currently experimenting with an approach that offers services rather than investigations to families in which the risk of severe abuse or neglect is not high. Wexler suggests that this "differential" or "alternative" response might make a real difference. "If you go into a home where the allegation is a typical case of neglect, extending an open hand instead of a wagging finger, you are likely to get more cooperation from the family," he says.
With research suggesting that the bad economy is increasing child abuse - and with no sign that extra funds to help will be forthcoming - it's more important than ever to determine which approaches work and target scarce dollars accordingly.
(Note: The Federal Administration for Children and Families, which is in charge of the Obama Administration's child welfare policies, did not reply to a request for comment before the deadline for this article.)
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/04/study-why-child-abuse-investigations-dont-help-kids/#ixzz125XZPRtg
911 Commissioner says missile hits the Pentagon youtube
Rumsfeld says Pentagon hit by missile
EXCERPT:
"It is a truth that a terrorist can attack any time, any place, using any technique and it's physically impossible to defend at every time and every place against every conceivable technique. Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center. The only way to deal with this problem is by taking the battle to the terrorists, wherever they are, and dealing with them."
James Wallwork wikipedia
EXCERPT:
He was re-elected in 1971, 19733 and 1977. His running mate was Assemblyman, later Governor, Thomas Kean.
Wallwork sought the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey in 1981, but finished fourth in the GOP primary with 16% of the vote. He lost to Kean, who won the general election. During the campaign, Wallwork was reported to be the subject of an attempted assassination at a Veterans Administration hospital by a gunman disguidsed as a surgeon.[3] The incident was deteremined by the FBI to be a hoax.[4] In an unrelated indictment, federal prosecutors stated that the hospital chief of security had staged the attempt.[5]
Kean appointed him to serve as a Commissioner of the Bistate Waterfront Commission.
In 1993, Wallwork again ran for Governor, finishing third in the GOP primary with 24%. The winner was Christine Todd Whitman.
He married the former Lark Lataner of Orange, New Jersey in 1965. They have one daughter, Lyric Wallwork Winik, a writer who works for Parade magazine.
Thomas Kean Wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Kean is best known globally, however, for his 2002 appointment as Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, widely known as the 9/11 Commission
Christine Todd Whitman youtube
Christine Todd Whitman sourcewatch
EXCERPT:
Cheney Energy Task Force
"Whitman owns interests in oil wells in Texas and Colorado valued at between $55,000 and $175,000," reported the San Jose Mercury News on February 28, 2001 ("Top officials face conflict of interest queries over oil connections"). "She has promised to divest of them to meet ethics guidelines." The particular companies Whitman held investments in were CEX Operating Co. of Dallas, Hunt Oil Co. of Houston, and St. Mary Operating Co. in Colorado. The conflicts were highlighted during meetings of Vice-President Cheney's Energy Task Force.
Hunt Oil Company sourcewatch
EXCERPT:
The privately-held Hunt Oil Company—"one of the big money Texas donors behind the Bush family political empire"[1]—and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced September 8, 2007, that "they've signed a production-sharing contract for petroleum exploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurds passed their own oil and gas law in August.
"A Hunt subsidiary, Hunt Oil Co. of the Kurdistan Region, will begin geological survey and seismic work by the end of 2007 and hopes to drill an exploration well in 2008, the parties said in a news release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed."[2]
Jack Abramoff wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Jack Abramoff was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey into a wealthy and prominent Jewish family.[13] His father, Franklin Abramoff, was president of the Franchises unit of Diners Club.[14]
JD Hayworth's funds from Abramoff
EXCERPT:
Arizona's U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, ranked as one of the top recipients of campaign contributions from interests enmeshed in a raging lobbying scandal, has no reason to return the money, his top aide says.
Moreover, the donors want Hayworth to keep the funds, chief of staff Joe Eule said.
With four other politicians returning more than $250,000 in recent days to Indian tribes and others connected with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pressures have mounted for Hayworth and other recipients to follow suit. advertisement
Eule said that the Republican congressman has received campaign contributions totaling $150,000 from tribes affiliated at one time or another with the former lobbyist but that the donations had nothing to do with actions that have put Abramoff at the center of Senate and criminal investigations into possible influence-buying.
Click the url to see the list of doners below.
JD Hayworth and Jack Abramoff FIT Trust
Jack Abramoff wikipedia at pedia
EXCERPT:
On an episode of Public Radio International's This American Life that aired in June 2006, journalist Jonathan Gold described Abramoff as a high school bully. "He was the sort of person who would walk across the street to be unpleasant to somebody," Gold says, going on to describe how Abramoff knocked him and his cello down a flight of stairs.[7] The episode was number 314, "It's Never Over".
College and law school years
As an undergraduate at Brandeis University, Abramoff served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans, which organized student volunteers for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. He graduated in 1981 and earned his JD at the Georgetown University Law Center in 1986.
According to Nina J. Easton's book Gang of Five, Abramoff gained much of his credibility in the conservative movement through his father, Franklin Abramoff. As president of Diners Club, Abramoff's father worked closely with Alfred S. Bloomingdale, a personal friend of Ronald Reagan, and Abramoff would use the name in fundraising.
Abramoff's Bloomingdale connection
EXCERPT:
Alfred S. Bloomingdale died of throat cancer in 1982 in Santa Monica, California, aged 66. Newspaper headlines soon screamed with stories of his affair with Vicki Morgan as a result of unsubstantiated details provided in her unsuccessful multi-million dollar palimony lawsuit, which she filed after Betsy Bloomingdale refused to pay for Morgan's silence, and cut off all funds from the Bloomingdale estate that had been going to Morgan.
Although the case against Bloomingdale's estate was quickly dismissed by the courts, the entire affair was soon back in the headlines when Morgan was murdered in a brutal attack by her roommate less than a year after Alfred S. Bloomingdale had been interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Vicki Morgan - Bloomingdale and the White House scandal
EXCERPT:
Less than 24 hours after Vicki was laid to rest last week—in a hurriedly arranged service paid for by a mystery benefactor—Robert Steinberg, a Los Angeles lawyer with no official connection to Vicki or her accused murderer, Marvin Pancoast, claimed to be in possession of videotapes that were potentially highly embarrassing to the Reagan White House. According to Steinberg, the tapes—which he later said were stolen from his office—showed Vicki and three other women having sex with Bloomingdale, a Congressman, two top-level presidential appointees and several cronies of Ronald Reagan. There were also reports of other incriminating videotapes and written documents picked up by the Los Angeles Police Department at the murder site, though the LAPD would neither confirm nor deny the existence of such "evidence." Palimony pioneer Marvin Mitchelson, who filed Morgan's 1982 suit against Bloomingdale, claimed he had learned that a White House adviser had confirmed the existence of the LAPD tapes, and that they reportedly compromised a Reagan Cabinet member.
This was not the first time the Reagan White House had been embarrassed by Vicki. The erstwhile model first gained notoriety last summer when she hit Bloomingdale, a member of Reagan's "Kitchen Cabinet," with a $5 million palimony suit, the bulk of which was thrown out of court by a judge who called the relationship "no more than that of a wealthy, older, married paramour and a young, well-paid mistress." Morgan's lurid allegations about Bloomingdale's sadomasochistic romps spattered her own reputation even as they provided grist for Beverly Hills gossipmongers: She testified to watching a "drooling" Bloomingdale flog naked women until they wept.
How many explosions on 9/11 BE sure to watch the video
EXCERPT:
“What happened?” someone off-camera asks.
Firefighter #2 answers, “We was in an explosion.”
Rumsfeld says Pentagon hit by missile
EXCERPT:
"It is a truth that a terrorist can attack any time, any place, using any technique and it's physically impossible to defend at every time and every place against every conceivable technique. Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center. The only way to deal with this problem is by taking the battle to the terrorists, wherever they are, and dealing with them."
James Wallwork wikipedia
EXCERPT:
He was re-elected in 1971, 19733 and 1977. His running mate was Assemblyman, later Governor, Thomas Kean.
Wallwork sought the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey in 1981, but finished fourth in the GOP primary with 16% of the vote. He lost to Kean, who won the general election. During the campaign, Wallwork was reported to be the subject of an attempted assassination at a Veterans Administration hospital by a gunman disguidsed as a surgeon.[3] The incident was deteremined by the FBI to be a hoax.[4] In an unrelated indictment, federal prosecutors stated that the hospital chief of security had staged the attempt.[5]
Kean appointed him to serve as a Commissioner of the Bistate Waterfront Commission.
In 1993, Wallwork again ran for Governor, finishing third in the GOP primary with 24%. The winner was Christine Todd Whitman.
He married the former Lark Lataner of Orange, New Jersey in 1965. They have one daughter, Lyric Wallwork Winik, a writer who works for Parade magazine.
Thomas Kean Wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Kean is best known globally, however, for his 2002 appointment as Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, widely known as the 9/11 Commission
Christine Todd Whitman youtube
Christine Todd Whitman sourcewatch
EXCERPT:
Cheney Energy Task Force
"Whitman owns interests in oil wells in Texas and Colorado valued at between $55,000 and $175,000," reported the San Jose Mercury News on February 28, 2001 ("Top officials face conflict of interest queries over oil connections"). "She has promised to divest of them to meet ethics guidelines." The particular companies Whitman held investments in were CEX Operating Co. of Dallas, Hunt Oil Co. of Houston, and St. Mary Operating Co. in Colorado. The conflicts were highlighted during meetings of Vice-President Cheney's Energy Task Force.
Hunt Oil Company sourcewatch
EXCERPT:
The privately-held Hunt Oil Company—"one of the big money Texas donors behind the Bush family political empire"[1]—and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced September 8, 2007, that "they've signed a production-sharing contract for petroleum exploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurds passed their own oil and gas law in August.
"A Hunt subsidiary, Hunt Oil Co. of the Kurdistan Region, will begin geological survey and seismic work by the end of 2007 and hopes to drill an exploration well in 2008, the parties said in a news release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed."[2]
Jack Abramoff wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Jack Abramoff was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey into a wealthy and prominent Jewish family.[13] His father, Franklin Abramoff, was president of the Franchises unit of Diners Club.[14]
JD Hayworth's funds from Abramoff
EXCERPT:
Arizona's U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, ranked as one of the top recipients of campaign contributions from interests enmeshed in a raging lobbying scandal, has no reason to return the money, his top aide says.
Moreover, the donors want Hayworth to keep the funds, chief of staff Joe Eule said.
With four other politicians returning more than $250,000 in recent days to Indian tribes and others connected with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pressures have mounted for Hayworth and other recipients to follow suit. advertisement
Eule said that the Republican congressman has received campaign contributions totaling $150,000 from tribes affiliated at one time or another with the former lobbyist but that the donations had nothing to do with actions that have put Abramoff at the center of Senate and criminal investigations into possible influence-buying.
Click the url to see the list of doners below.
JD Hayworth and Jack Abramoff FIT Trust
Jack Abramoff wikipedia at pedia
EXCERPT:
On an episode of Public Radio International's This American Life that aired in June 2006, journalist Jonathan Gold described Abramoff as a high school bully. "He was the sort of person who would walk across the street to be unpleasant to somebody," Gold says, going on to describe how Abramoff knocked him and his cello down a flight of stairs.[7] The episode was number 314, "It's Never Over".
College and law school years
As an undergraduate at Brandeis University, Abramoff served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans, which organized student volunteers for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. He graduated in 1981 and earned his JD at the Georgetown University Law Center in 1986.
According to Nina J. Easton's book Gang of Five, Abramoff gained much of his credibility in the conservative movement through his father, Franklin Abramoff. As president of Diners Club, Abramoff's father worked closely with Alfred S. Bloomingdale, a personal friend of Ronald Reagan, and Abramoff would use the name in fundraising.
Abramoff's Bloomingdale connection
EXCERPT:
Alfred S. Bloomingdale died of throat cancer in 1982 in Santa Monica, California, aged 66. Newspaper headlines soon screamed with stories of his affair with Vicki Morgan as a result of unsubstantiated details provided in her unsuccessful multi-million dollar palimony lawsuit, which she filed after Betsy Bloomingdale refused to pay for Morgan's silence, and cut off all funds from the Bloomingdale estate that had been going to Morgan.
Although the case against Bloomingdale's estate was quickly dismissed by the courts, the entire affair was soon back in the headlines when Morgan was murdered in a brutal attack by her roommate less than a year after Alfred S. Bloomingdale had been interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Vicki Morgan - Bloomingdale and the White House scandal
EXCERPT:
Less than 24 hours after Vicki was laid to rest last week—in a hurriedly arranged service paid for by a mystery benefactor—Robert Steinberg, a Los Angeles lawyer with no official connection to Vicki or her accused murderer, Marvin Pancoast, claimed to be in possession of videotapes that were potentially highly embarrassing to the Reagan White House. According to Steinberg, the tapes—which he later said were stolen from his office—showed Vicki and three other women having sex with Bloomingdale, a Congressman, two top-level presidential appointees and several cronies of Ronald Reagan. There were also reports of other incriminating videotapes and written documents picked up by the Los Angeles Police Department at the murder site, though the LAPD would neither confirm nor deny the existence of such "evidence." Palimony pioneer Marvin Mitchelson, who filed Morgan's 1982 suit against Bloomingdale, claimed he had learned that a White House adviser had confirmed the existence of the LAPD tapes, and that they reportedly compromised a Reagan Cabinet member.
This was not the first time the Reagan White House had been embarrassed by Vicki. The erstwhile model first gained notoriety last summer when she hit Bloomingdale, a member of Reagan's "Kitchen Cabinet," with a $5 million palimony suit, the bulk of which was thrown out of court by a judge who called the relationship "no more than that of a wealthy, older, married paramour and a young, well-paid mistress." Morgan's lurid allegations about Bloomingdale's sadomasochistic romps spattered her own reputation even as they provided grist for Beverly Hills gossipmongers: She testified to watching a "drooling" Bloomingdale flog naked women until they wept.
How many explosions on 9/11 BE sure to watch the video
EXCERPT:
“What happened?” someone off-camera asks.
Firefighter #2 answers, “We was in an explosion.”
Graphs for the Federal Reserve and who owns what APFN
Permindex
EXCERPT:
Paravicini Bank and Permindex
In the same year that Zapata and Pennzoil were moving toward hostile takeovers, a new Swiss bank opened in Houston with J. Hugh Liedtke and George Bush's securities adviser, W.S. Farish III, among the directors. Called "Bank for Investment and Credit Berne" (BICB), its stock was owned by Capital National Bank and Paravicini Bank, but investors included Seagrams, Boeing, Minute Maid in Zurich, the London subsidiary of Brown and Root and the Schlesinger Organization of London and Johannesburg. These investors are more than interesting in light of the fact that Paravicini is a descendant of the Venetian Pallavicini family, whose attorney in Rome,
Carlo d'Amelio, was the general counsel to Centro Mondiale Commerciale (CMC),
the Italian arm of Permindex. CMC was incorporated in Berne Switzerland, and D' Amelio sat on the board of directors during the time that Seagrams' attorney, Louis Mortimer Bloomfield of Montreal, was chairman of Permindex.
When the role of CMC in the attempted assassination of President DeGaulle of France was discovered, it fled Europe and re-emerged in Johannesburg, South Africa. However, the parent company, Permindex, continued to be managed from Montreal by Bloomfield. Clay Shaw, the man prosecuted in New Orleans by Jim Garrison for his role in the Kennedy assassination, was also a board member of CMC, with which his International Trade Mart had connections.
Coverups Bronfman-Bush
EXCERPT:
The Bush family ties to the Lairds and Lords of Scotland and England.
Lazard Brothers was controlled by officials in the British government. It was always the investment bank of David Rockefeller. And, besides Meyer and Walker, George Bush's other large investor in Bush-Overbey was British Assets Trust, Ltd., an investment company whose directors interlocked with the management of companies associated with Lord Kindersley, such as Hudson's Bay Company. The chairman of British Assets Trust in 1956 was J.G.S. Gammell in Edinburgh, Scotland, and in 1985 by J.C.R. Inglis, a partner in Shepherd & Wedderburn, WS, an Edinburgh law firm. Inglis was also a director of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Scottish Provident Institution for Mutual Life Assurance, Edinburgh American Assets Trust and Atlantic
Assets Trust, as well as chairman of European Assets, N.V., Gammell also had served as director of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, as did such other notables as The Right Hon. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, The Right Hon. Lord Clydesmuir and The Right Hon. Lord Polwarth. Polwarth, incidentally, began serving as a director of the Halliburton Company, parent of Brown & Root, in 1974.
Zapata Corporation and the CIA
EXCERPT:
FBI and CIA memos
Memo from FBI Special Agent in Texas, regarding call by "GHW Bush of Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company" received 75 minutes after JFK's murder
Memo from J. Edgar Hoover, referring to "Mr. George Bush of the CIA", briefed 24 hours after JFK's murderTwo Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memoranda have been offered to show connections between the CIA and George H. W. Bush during his time at Zapata. The first memo names Zapata Off-Shore and was written by FBI Special Agent Graham Kitchel on 22 November 1963, regarding the John F. Kennedy assassination at 12:30 p.m. CST that day. It begins: "At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer. .. BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential. .. was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel."
A second FBI memorandum, written by J. Edgar Hoover, identifies "George Bush" with the CIA. It is dated 29 November 1963 and refers to a briefing given Bush on 23 November. The FBI Director describes a briefing about JFK's murder "orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency. .. [by] this Bureau" on "December 20, 1963.
Permindex
EXCERPT:
Paravicini Bank and Permindex
In the same year that Zapata and Pennzoil were moving toward hostile takeovers, a new Swiss bank opened in Houston with J. Hugh Liedtke and George Bush's securities adviser, W.S. Farish III, among the directors. Called "Bank for Investment and Credit Berne" (BICB), its stock was owned by Capital National Bank and Paravicini Bank, but investors included Seagrams, Boeing, Minute Maid in Zurich, the London subsidiary of Brown and Root and the Schlesinger Organization of London and Johannesburg. These investors are more than interesting in light of the fact that Paravicini is a descendant of the Venetian Pallavicini family, whose attorney in Rome,
Carlo d'Amelio, was the general counsel to Centro Mondiale Commerciale (CMC),
the Italian arm of Permindex. CMC was incorporated in Berne Switzerland, and D' Amelio sat on the board of directors during the time that Seagrams' attorney, Louis Mortimer Bloomfield of Montreal, was chairman of Permindex.
When the role of CMC in the attempted assassination of President DeGaulle of France was discovered, it fled Europe and re-emerged in Johannesburg, South Africa. However, the parent company, Permindex, continued to be managed from Montreal by Bloomfield. Clay Shaw, the man prosecuted in New Orleans by Jim Garrison for his role in the Kennedy assassination, was also a board member of CMC, with which his International Trade Mart had connections.
Coverups Bronfman-Bush
EXCERPT:
The Bush family ties to the Lairds and Lords of Scotland and England.
Lazard Brothers was controlled by officials in the British government. It was always the investment bank of David Rockefeller. And, besides Meyer and Walker, George Bush's other large investor in Bush-Overbey was British Assets Trust, Ltd., an investment company whose directors interlocked with the management of companies associated with Lord Kindersley, such as Hudson's Bay Company. The chairman of British Assets Trust in 1956 was J.G.S. Gammell in Edinburgh, Scotland, and in 1985 by J.C.R. Inglis, a partner in Shepherd & Wedderburn, WS, an Edinburgh law firm. Inglis was also a director of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Scottish Provident Institution for Mutual Life Assurance, Edinburgh American Assets Trust and Atlantic
Assets Trust, as well as chairman of European Assets, N.V., Gammell also had served as director of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, as did such other notables as The Right Hon. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, The Right Hon. Lord Clydesmuir and The Right Hon. Lord Polwarth. Polwarth, incidentally, began serving as a director of the Halliburton Company, parent of Brown & Root, in 1974.
Zapata Corporation and the CIA
EXCERPT:
FBI and CIA memos
Memo from FBI Special Agent in Texas, regarding call by "GHW Bush of Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company" received 75 minutes after JFK's murder
Memo from J. Edgar Hoover, referring to "Mr. George Bush of the CIA", briefed 24 hours after JFK's murderTwo Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memoranda have been offered to show connections between the CIA and George H. W. Bush during his time at Zapata. The first memo names Zapata Off-Shore and was written by FBI Special Agent Graham Kitchel on 22 November 1963, regarding the John F. Kennedy assassination at 12:30 p.m. CST that day. It begins: "At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer. .. BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential. .. was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel."
A second FBI memorandum, written by J. Edgar Hoover, identifies "George Bush" with the CIA. It is dated 29 November 1963 and refers to a briefing given Bush on 23 November. The FBI Director describes a briefing about JFK's murder "orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency. .. [by] this Bureau" on "December 20, 1963.
NY Times article mentions my good friend Kent Knudson
EXCERPT:
In a well-known incident from 2003, an Arizona man was arrested in the shooting a cow that had wandered onto his property east of Flagstaff. The recent death of the man, Kent Knudson, revived talk of his case.
Zapata Cattle Company
EXCERPT:
Various divisions of the Zapata Corporation (a CIA asset, organized by George Bush), such as Zapata Petroleum, Zapata Off-Shore and Zapata Cattle company were heavily involved in drug trafficking. The oil rigs were used to carry out the drug operations. Drugs would be off-loaded from ships onto the drilling platforms and then taken into the nearby coastal areas in helicopters that were constantly carrying supplies and personnel. CIA cable analyst Michael Maholy confirmed that this practice existed, having learned about it from cable traffic and his own observations while on the rigs. (Rodney Stich - Drugging America, pg 41)
What people urgently need to know is that the drugs are being distributed by those fronting for the drug war, who are offering 'solutions' at the same time. Much of the 'anti-drug' network is deeply corrupt and used as a vehicle for distributing drugs without detection. George Bush has fronted more wars on drugs than any other American politician and yet he is one of North America's premier drug barons. (David Icke - The Biggest Secret, pg 286)
Open Range (more)
EXCERPT:
On some parts of the nation, uncontrolled livestock grazing has degraded rangelands, accelerating erosion, facilitating mesquite invasions and replacing desirable plant communities with less palatable and less productive plants.
With cattle running in common, it is difficult to control grazing, provide rest periods and manage herd genetics. Thus, when the livestock are sold off the reservation, producers typically receive a price lower than the market price because of less desirable livestock genetics.
To improve range conditions, the nation was fenced into nine grazing districts during the 1930s, but local producers were not consulted. Traditional territories were split, causing economic hardship, provoking lasting resentment toward the government and creating animosity among some neighbors.
A SARE-funded project confronted the nation’s range management problems by addressing the unique social and environmental aspects of its rangeland management. Using a participatory
approach to planning and education, University of Arizona researchers facilitated dialog among tribal members and other range professionals to adapt range management principles developed in more productive grasslands to the environmental and cultural context of the Tohono O’odham Nation.
Cow Killer Kent Knudson takes own life/these guys are JERKS
EXCERPT:
Knudson headed up the local branch of the knucklehead Troofers. He's better known locally for having killed a cow or two that wandered onto his property in Northern Arizona, although of course the Truthers try to make it sound like some brave defense of his family:
During the years that Kent spent caring for his beloved mother who was developing Alzheimer's disease, Kent fell into legal trouble as a result of attempting to safeguard his mother against an invading herd of cattle on their 40 acre ranch near Snowflake, AZ.
Kent Knudson
The New West collides with open-range laws
Sidebar article - From the March 01, 2004 issue of High Country News
by Ray Ring
Kent Knudson picked up a rifle and opened fire, defending his 40 acres in Arizona, and got handcuffed and hauled to jail.
John Ward, driving a truckload of hay in Oregon one night, rounded a curve and smashed into 1,300 pounds of bad news.
Brad Dorendorf, mayor of tiny Bovill, Idaho, tried to negotiate with an invading horde that chomped flowers and defecated everywhere in his town.
All three, and countless other people around the West, have been drawn into the struggle over another remnant of the Old West: open-range laws. Where open-range laws are in effect, ranchers don’t have to fence in their livestock. If the neighbors want to keep cows off their land, they have to fence the beasts out. The principle dates back to the 1800s, when cattle barons let their herds roam over public land and any private land that wasn’t fenced off.
Thirteen Western states still have some kind of open-range law, according to The Associated Press. Yet as the West fills in, more people moving into rural neighborhoods are bothered by livestock straying onto their property, and increased traffic means more accidents involving livestock that stray onto roads. Every year, about a thousand motorists hit livestock on roads in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah, and several die, according to research by The Oregonian newspaper in 1997.
Yet ranchers can’t afford to pay 50 cents to $2 per linear foot to fence all the land their stock grazes, says Steve Pilcher, vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association. Much of the grazing land is federal, so either taxpayers would have to pay for fencing, or ranchers would have to abandon their federal leases, Pilcher says. "It could be devastating to local economies in ranching areas."
"It’s an absurd law in the context of modern American society," counters Jon Marvel, an Idaho environmentalist who tried, without success, to organize a national group to reform open-range laws in 1994. Open range can be undone by grassroots efforts. Typically, if enough residents in an area get fed up, they can petition their county governments to hold an election to decide whether their area should be "closed range," meaning, livestock must be fenced in. Such efforts have succeeded in many localities, but they have to overcome ranchers’ grip on local politics.
John Ward, himself a rancher, had been involved in just such a fight before he hit the cow last September, on state Highway 66 near Ashland, Ore. Ward had been trying to close the range along that highway, and to close another 23,000 acres around his purebred Hereford operation, which was threatened by invasions of another rancher’s cattle. Both those efforts were squashed by other ranchers who pressured county and state governments. Then, that night on the highway, "The cow just trotted down a hill onto the road, boom! — it really plastered my truck," Ward says. His insurance company paid $600 to reimburse the rancher who owned the cow, but only half the cost of a new truck, he adds.
Kent Knudson didn’t take the political route. Knudson, a freelance photographer, came home in January 2003 to find 20 cows trampling his yard near Snowflake, Ariz. He shot and killed one cow, and got charged with one felony count of "shooting livestock of another," which carries a maximum penalty of $150,000 fine and two-and-a-half years in prison, he says.
Knudson, who’s awaiting trial, reports he’s already spent $12,000 on lawyers. He’d lived around Snowflake for 40 years, he says, but now he’s moved to Phoenix partly because the rural culture turned against him. "The whole legal system up there is meant to do anything to help the ranchers."
Open-range laws are true "special-interest legislation," says one of Knudson’s lawyers, Foster Glass, who also represented another notorious shooter — Patrick Shipsey, a doctor and environmentalist who executed 11 cows that kept breaking through fences he’d installed around his 960 acres near John Day, Ore., in 1995 and 1996 (HCN, 11/25/96: Cows, ballot measure gunned down in Oregon).
Shipsey tried to challenge Oregon’s open-range laws, but was convicted of 11 felonies, and sentenced to 15 days in jail. He had to pay $12,199 in fines and restitution, and was required to do 880 hours community service. "His medical practice went to hell," and he also had to move, says Glass.
Many ranchers act responsibly, but one careless individual can give the industry a bad name, as happened last summer in Bovill, Idaho. One rancher’s cattle kept coming right into town, night after night, damaging residents’ yards and other property. The problem has ended now, but only because the rancher fell ill and his operation was taken over by a relative, says mayor Dorendorf: "Unfortunately, that’s what it took."
EXCERPT:
In a well-known incident from 2003, an Arizona man was arrested in the shooting a cow that had wandered onto his property east of Flagstaff. The recent death of the man, Kent Knudson, revived talk of his case.
Zapata Cattle Company
EXCERPT:
Various divisions of the Zapata Corporation (a CIA asset, organized by George Bush), such as Zapata Petroleum, Zapata Off-Shore and Zapata Cattle company were heavily involved in drug trafficking. The oil rigs were used to carry out the drug operations. Drugs would be off-loaded from ships onto the drilling platforms and then taken into the nearby coastal areas in helicopters that were constantly carrying supplies and personnel. CIA cable analyst Michael Maholy confirmed that this practice existed, having learned about it from cable traffic and his own observations while on the rigs. (Rodney Stich - Drugging America, pg 41)
What people urgently need to know is that the drugs are being distributed by those fronting for the drug war, who are offering 'solutions' at the same time. Much of the 'anti-drug' network is deeply corrupt and used as a vehicle for distributing drugs without detection. George Bush has fronted more wars on drugs than any other American politician and yet he is one of North America's premier drug barons. (David Icke - The Biggest Secret, pg 286)
Open Range (more)
EXCERPT:
On some parts of the nation, uncontrolled livestock grazing has degraded rangelands, accelerating erosion, facilitating mesquite invasions and replacing desirable plant communities with less palatable and less productive plants.
With cattle running in common, it is difficult to control grazing, provide rest periods and manage herd genetics. Thus, when the livestock are sold off the reservation, producers typically receive a price lower than the market price because of less desirable livestock genetics.
To improve range conditions, the nation was fenced into nine grazing districts during the 1930s, but local producers were not consulted. Traditional territories were split, causing economic hardship, provoking lasting resentment toward the government and creating animosity among some neighbors.
A SARE-funded project confronted the nation’s range management problems by addressing the unique social and environmental aspects of its rangeland management. Using a participatory
approach to planning and education, University of Arizona researchers facilitated dialog among tribal members and other range professionals to adapt range management principles developed in more productive grasslands to the environmental and cultural context of the Tohono O’odham Nation.
Cow Killer Kent Knudson takes own life/these guys are JERKS
EXCERPT:
Knudson headed up the local branch of the knucklehead Troofers. He's better known locally for having killed a cow or two that wandered onto his property in Northern Arizona, although of course the Truthers try to make it sound like some brave defense of his family:
During the years that Kent spent caring for his beloved mother who was developing Alzheimer's disease, Kent fell into legal trouble as a result of attempting to safeguard his mother against an invading herd of cattle on their 40 acre ranch near Snowflake, AZ.
Kent Knudson
The New West collides with open-range laws
Sidebar article - From the March 01, 2004 issue of High Country News
by Ray Ring
Kent Knudson picked up a rifle and opened fire, defending his 40 acres in Arizona, and got handcuffed and hauled to jail.
John Ward, driving a truckload of hay in Oregon one night, rounded a curve and smashed into 1,300 pounds of bad news.
Brad Dorendorf, mayor of tiny Bovill, Idaho, tried to negotiate with an invading horde that chomped flowers and defecated everywhere in his town.
All three, and countless other people around the West, have been drawn into the struggle over another remnant of the Old West: open-range laws. Where open-range laws are in effect, ranchers don’t have to fence in their livestock. If the neighbors want to keep cows off their land, they have to fence the beasts out. The principle dates back to the 1800s, when cattle barons let their herds roam over public land and any private land that wasn’t fenced off.
Thirteen Western states still have some kind of open-range law, according to The Associated Press. Yet as the West fills in, more people moving into rural neighborhoods are bothered by livestock straying onto their property, and increased traffic means more accidents involving livestock that stray onto roads. Every year, about a thousand motorists hit livestock on roads in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah, and several die, according to research by The Oregonian newspaper in 1997.
Yet ranchers can’t afford to pay 50 cents to $2 per linear foot to fence all the land their stock grazes, says Steve Pilcher, vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association. Much of the grazing land is federal, so either taxpayers would have to pay for fencing, or ranchers would have to abandon their federal leases, Pilcher says. "It could be devastating to local economies in ranching areas."
"It’s an absurd law in the context of modern American society," counters Jon Marvel, an Idaho environmentalist who tried, without success, to organize a national group to reform open-range laws in 1994. Open range can be undone by grassroots efforts. Typically, if enough residents in an area get fed up, they can petition their county governments to hold an election to decide whether their area should be "closed range," meaning, livestock must be fenced in. Such efforts have succeeded in many localities, but they have to overcome ranchers’ grip on local politics.
John Ward, himself a rancher, had been involved in just such a fight before he hit the cow last September, on state Highway 66 near Ashland, Ore. Ward had been trying to close the range along that highway, and to close another 23,000 acres around his purebred Hereford operation, which was threatened by invasions of another rancher’s cattle. Both those efforts were squashed by other ranchers who pressured county and state governments. Then, that night on the highway, "The cow just trotted down a hill onto the road, boom! — it really plastered my truck," Ward says. His insurance company paid $600 to reimburse the rancher who owned the cow, but only half the cost of a new truck, he adds.
Kent Knudson didn’t take the political route. Knudson, a freelance photographer, came home in January 2003 to find 20 cows trampling his yard near Snowflake, Ariz. He shot and killed one cow, and got charged with one felony count of "shooting livestock of another," which carries a maximum penalty of $150,000 fine and two-and-a-half years in prison, he says.
Knudson, who’s awaiting trial, reports he’s already spent $12,000 on lawyers. He’d lived around Snowflake for 40 years, he says, but now he’s moved to Phoenix partly because the rural culture turned against him. "The whole legal system up there is meant to do anything to help the ranchers."
Open-range laws are true "special-interest legislation," says one of Knudson’s lawyers, Foster Glass, who also represented another notorious shooter — Patrick Shipsey, a doctor and environmentalist who executed 11 cows that kept breaking through fences he’d installed around his 960 acres near John Day, Ore., in 1995 and 1996 (HCN, 11/25/96: Cows, ballot measure gunned down in Oregon).
Shipsey tried to challenge Oregon’s open-range laws, but was convicted of 11 felonies, and sentenced to 15 days in jail. He had to pay $12,199 in fines and restitution, and was required to do 880 hours community service. "His medical practice went to hell," and he also had to move, says Glass.
Many ranchers act responsibly, but one careless individual can give the industry a bad name, as happened last summer in Bovill, Idaho. One rancher’s cattle kept coming right into town, night after night, damaging residents’ yards and other property. The problem has ended now, but only because the rancher fell ill and his operation was taken over by a relative, says mayor Dorendorf: "Unfortunately, that’s what it took."
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
See Kent's Picture and watch the video
EXCERPT:
Monday, October 04, 2010
Professor Richard D. Wolff, fresh off a summer lecturing in Greece and France, gives his analysis on the massive European mobilizations and strikes. He also compares the US movement to the European one, finding the European workers to be much more advanced in their struggle.
Kent Knudson
EXCERPT:
Kent Knudson, best known locally for shooting and killing someone else's cow on his property as well as his role in 9/11 Truth AZ, committed suicide on September 25.
"Kent had been suffering from depression over yet another traumatic legal difficulty and facing two felony charges, on top of his 'Cowcrap' conviction," writes friend Sham Rao.
Knudson was 60 years old.
CowCrap
n the right.—Pamela Rice]
EXCERPT:
Discouraging words from cow pie land
Open letter from Kent Knudson
• December 8, 2005
... My case could and will change the Arizona laws (eventually)—I can guarantee that! I will make sure it happens, but it will happen quicker with a little support from organizations like yours. [Does he mean VivaVegie?] Help fill the courtroom with supporters. We can't afford to have the ranchers win another court case when all the facts are against them! All they have is their lies and biased law enforcement to support their abuses! Call me.
kent
cowcrap@cox.net
602-246-4299
(If you don't get into politics, it will get into you.—Ralph Nader)
Arizona Justice!
When mom and I returned home from three days in the hospital, we found our property overrun with a herd of over 30 wild cattle. When the rancher was informed that his cattle were trespassing on our fenced property and causing a serious threat, I was told that he could not remove them until the next day. Since my mom, who had Alzheimer's disease, often wandered outside, I knew that I must remove the cattle myself. While dealing with this threat, a cow was unintentionally [See Associated story below.] killed. I informed the rancher and he said he would come and talk with me about it, but instead, the next day officials from the Navajo County Sheriff and Arizona Department of Agriculture showed up and immediately arrested and handcuffed me (in front of my ailing mom) solely on the word of the rancher, without even looking for a dead cow or determining the cause.
I was jailed for a day and later charged with a felony and forced to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees for something that should not be a crime and certainly not a felony. So far, I have spent nearly $30,000 on lawyers. More than one of my lawyers has tried to settle this case and told me that the authorities would not settle but wanted to make an example of me! They have never even given me the opportunity to pay for the cow!
People have told me "if you were a Mormon, none of this would be happening to you". If justice is dispensed based on religious persuasion, then that is another of my rights that is being trampled.
Since this began, nearly 3 years ago, I have written about the injustices of western cattle ranching. If I am being prosecuted for my writings, then my freedom of speech is also being denied!
Our family has lived on 40 acres near Snowflake, Arizona for over 25 years. Some ranchers think their cattle have more rights to our private property than we do. So called open range laws are nothing more than special interest laws that place one group (ranchers) above another group (property owners) and are therefore unconstitutional!
Property rights, civil rights, religious freedom, and freedom of speech—all have been violated in my case! This case is still being prosecuted against me and I am told that I could go to prison for 2.5 years and be fined $150,000, while losing my voting rights! A trial date has finally been set for Dec. 21, 2005 in Holbrook, Arizona.
Is this justice or ranching out of control? Where is the common sense?
For additional information (and there is plenty), send me a message—thanks! Please forward this message widely.
Kent Knudson
602-246-4299
cowcrap@cox.net
(Cage cattle, NOT people!!)
Eric Williams
Feathered Bastard
Liar's poker: Eric Williams and the Chandler 9/11 conference
By Stephen Lemons, Mon., Feb. 26 2007 @ 10:16AM Comments (0)
Categories: Feathered Bastard
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Holocaust-denier Eric Williams at his conference booth on Sunday.
While the rest of the civilized world was at home Sunday watching Marty Scorsese finally win an Oscar, I was hanging out with the conspiranuts at the Chandler 9/11 conference, and though I have only limited time because I'm on deadline this morning, I felt I should make a very brief report here. I'll follow up later, after I'm off deadline, with a more detailed account.
Holocaust denier Eric Williams was present and he did have a booth where he was selling his T-shirts, DVDs, and books -- all but his infamous The Puzzle of Auschwitz. I spoke to him, and he informed me that he was planning to re-release his Shoah-shirking tome due to popular demand. He also told me he'd made a nice bit of scratch at the conference, and I believe him because one guy was writing him a check for some merch as I approached. He seemed quite proud of the fact that conference keynote speaker Meria Heller had quoted him so glowingly during her Friday address.
I later learned from some disgruntled symposium participants that Williams had been invited up onstage by NY activist Janette MacKinlay during a "9/11 Unity" panel talk earlier in the day, which according to the schedule also included Kevin "the Holocaust's a myth, bubee" Barrett, conference leader Kent "Cow Killer" Knudson, and Steven "this is the only way I can make a name for myself" Jones. Williams even addressed the crowd briefly. So much for statements by Knudson that Williams was "out," and assurances on 911Accountability.org that Williams had "stepped down from involvement in the 9/11 Accountability Conference." According to Sham Rao (sp?), who called himself, "Kent's right hand man," Williams was allowed to have his booth and participate because of the work he'd done before being ousted as the Conference Director and Web master. Uh, so much for "accountability."
Could UFOs have been behind 9/11? They tell me al-Qaeda is Martian for "kill Earthlings."
Several attendees told me that Williams had become a divisive issue for the conference, and that a number of conference-goers were pissed he'd been allowed to be there. Volunteer organizer Pete Creelman, who is himself Jewish, seemed especially embarrassed by Williams getting up on stage for the Unity thing.
"That wasn't good," he admitted. "I would agree. I don't think he should've been invited up on the platform in view of all that's happened."
To sum up for the moment, not everyone present was a complete fruitcake. There were some relatively sane folks there such as Philly attorney Phil Berg and others. And one attendee from Boston, Mark McKertich, actually bought me a couple of beers at the Crown Plaza San Marcos bar! But otherwise, it was nutbar city, as some of these videos that were on sale at one vendor booth reveal. I didn't make the conference Saturday, but I'll have more from my Sunday visit later today or this evening.
EXCERPT:
Monday, October 04, 2010
Professor Richard D. Wolff, fresh off a summer lecturing in Greece and France, gives his analysis on the massive European mobilizations and strikes. He also compares the US movement to the European one, finding the European workers to be much more advanced in their struggle.
Kent Knudson
EXCERPT:
Kent Knudson, best known locally for shooting and killing someone else's cow on his property as well as his role in 9/11 Truth AZ, committed suicide on September 25.
"Kent had been suffering from depression over yet another traumatic legal difficulty and facing two felony charges, on top of his 'Cowcrap' conviction," writes friend Sham Rao.
Knudson was 60 years old.
CowCrap
n the right.—Pamela Rice]
EXCERPT:
Discouraging words from cow pie land
Open letter from Kent Knudson
• December 8, 2005
... My case could and will change the Arizona laws (eventually)—I can guarantee that! I will make sure it happens, but it will happen quicker with a little support from organizations like yours. [Does he mean VivaVegie?] Help fill the courtroom with supporters. We can't afford to have the ranchers win another court case when all the facts are against them! All they have is their lies and biased law enforcement to support their abuses! Call me.
kent
cowcrap@cox.net
602-246-4299
(If you don't get into politics, it will get into you.—Ralph Nader)
Arizona Justice!
When mom and I returned home from three days in the hospital, we found our property overrun with a herd of over 30 wild cattle. When the rancher was informed that his cattle were trespassing on our fenced property and causing a serious threat, I was told that he could not remove them until the next day. Since my mom, who had Alzheimer's disease, often wandered outside, I knew that I must remove the cattle myself. While dealing with this threat, a cow was unintentionally [See Associated story below.] killed. I informed the rancher and he said he would come and talk with me about it, but instead, the next day officials from the Navajo County Sheriff and Arizona Department of Agriculture showed up and immediately arrested and handcuffed me (in front of my ailing mom) solely on the word of the rancher, without even looking for a dead cow or determining the cause.
I was jailed for a day and later charged with a felony and forced to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees for something that should not be a crime and certainly not a felony. So far, I have spent nearly $30,000 on lawyers. More than one of my lawyers has tried to settle this case and told me that the authorities would not settle but wanted to make an example of me! They have never even given me the opportunity to pay for the cow!
People have told me "if you were a Mormon, none of this would be happening to you". If justice is dispensed based on religious persuasion, then that is another of my rights that is being trampled.
Since this began, nearly 3 years ago, I have written about the injustices of western cattle ranching. If I am being prosecuted for my writings, then my freedom of speech is also being denied!
Our family has lived on 40 acres near Snowflake, Arizona for over 25 years. Some ranchers think their cattle have more rights to our private property than we do. So called open range laws are nothing more than special interest laws that place one group (ranchers) above another group (property owners) and are therefore unconstitutional!
Property rights, civil rights, religious freedom, and freedom of speech—all have been violated in my case! This case is still being prosecuted against me and I am told that I could go to prison for 2.5 years and be fined $150,000, while losing my voting rights! A trial date has finally been set for Dec. 21, 2005 in Holbrook, Arizona.
Is this justice or ranching out of control? Where is the common sense?
For additional information (and there is plenty), send me a message—thanks! Please forward this message widely.
Kent Knudson
602-246-4299
cowcrap@cox.net
(Cage cattle, NOT people!!)
Eric Williams
Feathered Bastard
Liar's poker: Eric Williams and the Chandler 9/11 conference
By Stephen Lemons, Mon., Feb. 26 2007 @ 10:16AM Comments (0)
Categories: Feathered Bastard
Share
0digg
Holocaust-denier Eric Williams at his conference booth on Sunday.
While the rest of the civilized world was at home Sunday watching Marty Scorsese finally win an Oscar, I was hanging out with the conspiranuts at the Chandler 9/11 conference, and though I have only limited time because I'm on deadline this morning, I felt I should make a very brief report here. I'll follow up later, after I'm off deadline, with a more detailed account.
Holocaust denier Eric Williams was present and he did have a booth where he was selling his T-shirts, DVDs, and books -- all but his infamous The Puzzle of Auschwitz. I spoke to him, and he informed me that he was planning to re-release his Shoah-shirking tome due to popular demand. He also told me he'd made a nice bit of scratch at the conference, and I believe him because one guy was writing him a check for some merch as I approached. He seemed quite proud of the fact that conference keynote speaker Meria Heller had quoted him so glowingly during her Friday address.
I later learned from some disgruntled symposium participants that Williams had been invited up onstage by NY activist Janette MacKinlay during a "9/11 Unity" panel talk earlier in the day, which according to the schedule also included Kevin "the Holocaust's a myth, bubee" Barrett, conference leader Kent "Cow Killer" Knudson, and Steven "this is the only way I can make a name for myself" Jones. Williams even addressed the crowd briefly. So much for statements by Knudson that Williams was "out," and assurances on 911Accountability.org that Williams had "stepped down from involvement in the 9/11 Accountability Conference." According to Sham Rao (sp?), who called himself, "Kent's right hand man," Williams was allowed to have his booth and participate because of the work he'd done before being ousted as the Conference Director and Web master. Uh, so much for "accountability."
Could UFOs have been behind 9/11? They tell me al-Qaeda is Martian for "kill Earthlings."
Several attendees told me that Williams had become a divisive issue for the conference, and that a number of conference-goers were pissed he'd been allowed to be there. Volunteer organizer Pete Creelman, who is himself Jewish, seemed especially embarrassed by Williams getting up on stage for the Unity thing.
"That wasn't good," he admitted. "I would agree. I don't think he should've been invited up on the platform in view of all that's happened."
To sum up for the moment, not everyone present was a complete fruitcake. There were some relatively sane folks there such as Philly attorney Phil Berg and others. And one attendee from Boston, Mark McKertich, actually bought me a couple of beers at the Crown Plaza San Marcos bar! But otherwise, it was nutbar city, as some of these videos that were on sale at one vendor booth reveal. I didn't make the conference Saturday, but I'll have more from my Sunday visit later today or this evening.
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