Opium Schmopium
# David Borden at StoptheDrugWar.org - What Is It About Opium? - drug warriors are complaining loudly these days about how heroin sales fund terrorism. If they'd think rationally, instead of doing everything they can think of to protect their theft-funded budgets, they'd realize right away that the best way to get rid of this flow of money would be to legalize drugs. I won't hold my breath. [drcnet]
# The Libertarian Enterprise - Letter from Frank Ney - commentary on Alan Korwin's letter in last week's TLE saying that John Kerry may have violated one of the 20,000 unconstitutional gun control "laws". I liked this one so much that I archived it as Washington Delende Est. [tle]
# L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - A Little Gun Talk - Neil steps off the political soap box to deliver a practical piece on his favorite shooting iron, the large-frame double action revolver. [tle]
I have collected large-frame revolvers, both single and double action, for decades now, and have them in three inches, four inches, four and five-eighths inches, five inches, six inches, six and a half inches, seven and a half inches, the aforementioned eight inches, and eight and three-eighths inches. There are a great many other choices offered, and I'm presently hankering after a five and a half and a ten.
But what I've recently rediscovered is that the best all-round choice you can make if you want a good, reliable, sturdy weapon and you don't want to start a collection, is a five-inch double action revolver.
Such a weapon is not unconcealable if you know what you're doing. It'll even fit in the hip pocket of your jeans if you're an average size.
# Charley Hardman - not so fast on barrett firearms - Ronnie Barrett may be talking a good line on refusing to sell his rifles to California, but if he really believed in ceasing sales to unconstitutional government agencies, he'd stop selling them to the U.S. military. Not bloody likely, since that's where Barrett derives the lion's share of their revenue. [saltypig]
is anybody really fooled by this tough guy stance? apparently so. too bad.
# Michael C. Rupert at The Mental Militia - Address of Michael C. Ruppert for the Commonwealth Club -- San Francisco, Tuesday August 31, 2004 - long, but interesting. People I respect on the smith2004 list say that "peak oil" is a myth, but it wouldn't surprise me to discover that Cheney and friends believe in it and acted accordingly in creating Amerika's Reichstag Fire. (By saying that peak oil is a myth, I mean that these smith2004 folks don't believe that the world has a limited amount of "fossil fuel". Rather, the Earth creates oil all the time. Still, it can only create that oil at a certain rate, so if we use it at a faster rate than it is created, we could deplete it until more can be created. Hence "peak oil" may well be a reality, just not for the reasons that fossil fuel believers would posit). [lrtdiscuss]
Almost everything i present to you today will be fully documented -- by means of approximately 1,000 endnotes -- in my soon to be released book, Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age Of Oil. The book, published by New Society Publishers, should be available for sale from the ftw web site within 2-3 weeks and it will go on sale nationally, through all major outlets, by mid-October.
September 11th
Both here in the United States and around the world I am not alone in believing that the attacks of septmeber 11th were facilitated, orchestrated and executed by the United States government. However, there is a great deal of misunderstanding and conclusion jumping about these assessments that is not supported by the evidence. I was trained as a police officer and detective, and for many years now I have been an effective investigative journalist because i have adhered to strict evidentiary and investigative standards.
The 9/11 attacks were the result of deliberate planning and orchestrated efforts by identifiable leaders within the U.S. government, and the energy and financial sectors, to see a Pearl Harbor-like attack which would provide the American empire with a pretext for war, invasion and the sequential confiscation of oil and natural gas reserves, or the key transportation routes through which they pass. 9-11 was a premeditated murder and in my book, and here tonight, I will name some of the suspects who committed the crime. In my book I will show you overwhelming evidence of their guilt which I would be proud and confident to place either before a district attorney or a jury.
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It is my belief, as I speak to you tonight that planet Earth is -- plus or minus one year -- at the all time peak of hydrocarbon energy production. Simply put, we have used half of all the oil god placed on this planet, and every drop, every barrel extracted from the ground from now on will become progressively more expensive, of lesser quality, and much harder to obtain. We have picked the low hanging fruit. As all experts agree, peak is something we will only know of a certainty as we view it in our rear view mirrors.
The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were the pretext for the American, and to a lesser extent, the British and Israeli empires to begin seizing, by force, those energy supplies needed to sustain their power, hegemony (whether regional or global) and their teetering economies.
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Iran-Contra, in all its horrific corruption, was effectively "managed" by Lee Hamilton in the House and John Kerry (among others) in the Senate throughout the late 1980s to conceal the greatest crimes of the era; crimes committed by a litany of well-known government operatives. at the time, hamilton was the chairman of the house permanent select committee on intelligence.
While many activists regard 2004 democratic presidential candidate Kerry as something of a hero for bringing many details of Iran-Contra drug activities to light (and into the public record), others, more deeply versed in the evidentiary record, suspect that he also did a masterful job of keeping some of the most damaging Iran-Contra secrets -- especially records of CIA proprietary company operations -- hidden. I am among the latter group.
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To date, the case that 9/11 was perpetrated solely by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda has never been proved, even to the most rudimentary standards. In fact, some 35 months after the attacks there has not been a single successful 9/11 prosecution anywhere in the world. The only conviction that had been secured, a German prosecution against Mounir el Motassadeq, charged with aiding the so called Hamburg cell of Mohammed Atta, was overturned in 2004 because the US government refused to produce key witnesses such as Khalid Shaikh Muhammad or Ramzi bin Al-Shibh and other evidence relevant to the charges. Every defendant in a western criminal case has the right to examine the evidence used against him and to cross-examine witnesses.
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In my book I will make several key points:
1. I will name Richard Cheney as the prime suspect in the mass murders of 9/11 and will establish that, not only was he a planner in the attacks, but also that on the day of the attacks he was running a completely separate command, control and communications system which was superceding any orders being issued by the NMCC, or the White House situation room. To accomplish that end he relied on a redundant and superior communications system maintained by the US Secret Service in or near the Presidential Emergency Operations Center -- the bunker to which he and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice were reportedly "rushed" after flight 175 struck the WTC's south tower. I will demonstrate that the Secret Service possessed radar screens which gave them, and the Vice President, whose side the never left, with real-time information as good as or better than that available to the Pentagon;
2. I will demonstrate that in what are called national special security events the US Secret Service is the supreme US agency for operational control with complete authority over the military and all civilian agencies.
3. I will establish conclusively that in May of 2001, by presidential order, Richard Cheney was put in direct command and control of all wargame and field exercise training and scheduling through several agencies, especially FEMA. This also extended to all of the conflicting and overlapping norad drills on that day.
4. I will also demonstrate that the Tripod II exercise being set up on Sept. 10th in Manhattan was directly connected to Cheney's role in number 3 above.
5. I will also prove conclusively that a number of public officials, at the national and New York City levels, including then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, were aware that Flight 175 was en route to lower Manhattan for 20 minutes and did nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to order the evacuation of or warn the occupants of the World Trade Center. One military officer was forced to leave his post in the middle of the attacks and place a private call to his brother - who worked at the WTC - warning him to get out. That was apparently an act of desperation because no other part of the system was taking action.
6. I will also show that the Israeli and British governments acted as partners with the highest levels of the American government to help in the preparation and, very possibly, the actual execution of the attacks."
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There are many out there who just refuse to believe that oil and natural gas are running out. Some insist that oil is created automatically and infinitely by the Earth's core, disputing all known science showing otherwise. There are those who insist that alternative energies can be snapped into place immediately to allow for infinite economic and population growth.
Aside from looking at the events since 9/11 and seeing that they match a world of diminishing energy let's take a look at some recent developments around the world and see what they tell us.
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I have insisted for many years now that any fundamental change in the current human paradigm, a change that will really make a difference, is impossible until we, collectively and as a species, change the way money works.
In Crossing the Rubicon I will explain just how and why the world's current economic system is hastening and worsening a calamity of unimagined proportions. This all began for me some 27 years ago when, as a young policeman, I discovered that the CIA was deeply involved in the drug trade. The purpose of that involvement led me to discover, and prove using US Senate hearing records and documents from the CIA itself that an essential ingredient -- perhaps the essential ingredient -- in US economic supremacy was the maintenance of a flow of as much as $600 billion a year in drug profits through us financial markets and institutions.
What we are witnessing now is a collision: a collision of a financial system relying on fractional reserve banking, debt-financed growth, and a fiat currency system with a planet and energy resources that are finite, limited, and running out. Infinite growth is battling with finite energy. One is not possible without the other and I have absolutely no doubt as to which side will win.
# Gabe Romain at BetterHumans - Fossil Fuels Made without Fossils - some scientific evidence that oil and natural gas are not fossil fuels. Wikipedia's Abiogenic Petroleum Origin page has lots of relevant information. [smith2004]
