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Solve et Coagula writes: "It seems 'their' silly, poisonous and useless chemtrails didnt work out neatly, hmm!?!?! When do human beings realize/accept that we're part of Nature itself, to see the entire Cosmos as a lovely, caring Being where everything is in its perfect place for good reason, and when are we humble enough to start benefiting from these eternal forces..."

US Urges Scientists To Block Out Sun

David Adam and Liz Minchin

The US wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming.

It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a UN report on climate change, the first part of which is due out on Friday).

The US has also attempted to steer the UN report, prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), away from conclusions that would support a new worldwide climate treaty based on binding targets to reduce emissions. It has demanded a draft of the report be changed to emphasise the benefits of voluntary agreements and to include criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol, which the US opposes.

Operation Overlord II: NYPD Planned RNC Arrests

Joseph Goldstein, New York Sun

The police department had a code-name for its plan to cope with the invasion
of tens of thousands of protesters who were expected to take to the streets
during the 2004 Republican National Convention: Operation Overlord II. The
name is an apparent reference to the secret plan for the Allied invasion of
Normandy, which was codenamed Overlord.

Reports of the planning and intelligence gathering leading up to D-Day are
a part of military lore. But the preparations for Overlord II, which resulted
in the contentious detention of protesters during the convention, are still
unclear.


Over the city's objections, a fraction of the police documents from the
months before the August convention are expected to be made public in the
coming days, following a recent ruling that lifted a protective order over
them. The New York Sun has obtained several of those documents.
One document suggests that the decision to arrest — instead of ticket —
all persons whose protests were deemed illegal was made months prior to the
convention itself.

Moorish Religious Leader Charges Police Brutality

Delores McCain, Austin Weekly News

A press conference was held at Wallace Catfish Corner (2800 W. Madison St.) Jan. 18 by attorneys Lewis Myers Jr. and Berve M. Power, who represent Sheik Clifford Jackson-Bey, divine minister of The Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc., since 1979.


On Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006, Sheik Jackson-Bey alleges he was brutally attacked by a Chicago police officer during a routine search for one of his sons, for whom the officers allegedly had an arrest warrant.


Attorney Myers introduced Sheik Jackson-Bey as a national leader of the Islamic community. Jackson-Bey made the following statement to the press: "My name is Sheik Clifford Jackson-Bey. I am the National Grand Sheik of the Moorish Science Temple of America. I oversee a number of small temples here and around the United States. Our principles are love, truth, peace, freedom and justice, and we teach basically the art of nationality, the science of nationality and divine creed. Professionally, I am a paralegal. I do murder and narcotics case preparation for criminal defense attorneys."

Starbucks Workers Union Expands to Maryland in Spite of Harsh Anti-Union Effort

Rockville, Maryland- Employees at a Starbucks store here announced their
membership in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union today
and served a list of demands on their manager including a living wage, secure
work hours, and the reinstatement of union baristas illegally fired for
organizing activity. The action marks the expansion of the SWU to a third
state- baristas began joining the union in New York City and the campaign grew
to Chicago last August. Starbucks cafes were completely non-union in the
United States before the Industrial Workers of the World initiated its
organizing drive in 2004.

"No worker should have to deal with understaffing on one hand and the inability
to get enough work hours on the other," said Seth Dietz, one of the Maryland
baristas who declared his union membership. "Only an independent voice on the
job will win baristas the respect we deserve and that's the why the expansion
of the organization to Maryland is so gratifying."

The union believes that consistent pressure applied against the company at
Starbucks locations, in the community, and in the public arena has resulted in
higher wages and more steady work hours for baristas. After about two and half
years of organizing, many NYC baristas saw their wage increase almost 25%. The
SWU has also remedied individual grievances with the company in areas as
diverse as sleep-depriving work schedules, unsanitary working conditions, and
abusive managers. The campaign has captivated imaginations around the world
with support for the baristas coming from Europe, Korea, and New Zealand, among
other places.

Robert Anton Wilson, January 18, 1932 - January 11, 2007

Al Barger


Robert Anton Wilson, "Occupation: Mind Fucker" - The great and legendary novelist and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson has finally slipped this mortal coil, as was announced on his official and new blogger site. Pretty much his last official professional act was to start a blog from his deathbed in December 2006. A survivor of childhood polio, he passed after a long illness on Thursday, January 11, 2007 - a week short of a 75th birthday.

His best-known work was the Illuminatus! trilogy from the 1970s, a perhaps only partly fictionalized synthesis of every kind of conspiracy theory Wilson and co-author Sheas could mash together. Some of it seemed clearly ridiculous and impossible, some of it probably true. It was high comedy and a grand apocryphal history.

Tillie Olsen, Feminist Writer, Dies at 94

Kuie Bosman, NY Times

Tillie Olsen, whose short stories, books and essays lent a heartfelt voice to the struggles of women and working-class people, died on Monday in Oakland, Calif. She was 94.


Ms. Olsen died after being in declining health for years, her daughter Laurie Olsen said.


A daughter of immigrants and a working mother starved for time to write, Ms. Olsen drew from her personal experiences to create a small but influential body of work. Her first published book, "Tell Me a Riddle" (1961), contained a short story, "I Stand Here Ironing," in which the narrator painfully recounts her difficult relationship with her daughter and the frustrations of motherhood and poverty.


At the time of the book's publication Ms. Olsen was heralded by critics as a short story writer of immense talent. The title story was made into a film in 1980 starring Melvyn Douglas and Lila Kedrova.


Ms. Olsen returned to issues of feminism and social struggle throughout her work, publishing a nonfiction book, "Silences," in 1978, an examination of the impediments that writers face because of sex, race or social class. Reviewing the book in The New York Times Book Review, Margaret Atwood attributed Ms. Olsen's relatively small output to her full life as a wife and mother, a "grueling obstacle course" experienced by many writers.

"Filmmaker Documents Case Against Professor:

Sundance To Screen Story About Artist"

Dan Herbeck, Buffalo News

The unusual case of Steven Kurtz is still a long way
from its conclusion at Buffalo's federal court, but a
California filmmaker already has made a movie about
it.


And the film about Kurtz — a University at Buffalo art
professor who faces federal charges for obtaining
bacteria cultures and growing them in his home — will
be shown next month at the prestigious Sundance Film
Festival.


"Strange Culture," a documentary featuring some
dramatized scenes of what happened to Kurtz, was made
by Lynn Hershman Leeson, an experimental filmmaker who
has won a number of awards for her work.


Leeson said she hopes the documentary will find a
buyer at Sundance and be released commercially. Even
if that doesn't happen, the 65-year-old filmmaker said
she considers the work an important one.

Agent provocateur: Michel Onfray

Brad Spurgeon

From The Toronto Star


CAEN, France— He is a self-described hedonist, atheist, libertarian, and left-wing anarchist. He is also France's best-selling philosopher.

At a time when a French high school teacher was forced into hiding after death threats for writing an article in Le Figaro in September calling Islam a violent, hateful religion and Christianity and Judaism non-violent, loving religions, Michel Onfray has already gone a step further: in Atheist Manifesto he dismantles and condemns as dangerous and archaic not only Islam, but Christianity and Judaism as well.
And after more than 30 books, he is finally seeing his ideas spread far beyond his native Normandy. His 2005 book, Traité d'athéologie, became a best-seller not only in France, where it has sold 230,000 copies, but also in Italy and Spain, and has sold well in other Latin countries, and even in Germany and Asia.

In the new year, it will become the first of his books to be translated into English. Published under the title Atheist Manifesto, it will arrive in Canada from Penguin in February.
Onfray has also received death threats, but far from going into hiding, he not only conducts lectures but also appears regularly on French television and radio and makes frequent appearances at philosophical forums around France and Europe.

Although he says that believing in religion's "children's stories for comfort" deflects from the real problems of existence and thus exacerbates them, he does not despise the believers. As a rebel against all manner of authority, he aims his ire at those who impose and organize religion and its ethics, morals and customs.

flies on the wall writes:

Notes from Oregon Eco-Sabotage Plea Hearings

Flies on the Wall

[Case background: ecoprisoners.org greenscare.org and cldc.org/green]

Today [Nov. 11, 2006] at the new federal courthouse in Eugene, Oregon, “Operation Backfire” defendants Joyanna Zacher, Nathan Block, Daniel McGowan and Jonathan Paul entered “guilty” pleas for several eco-sabotage related charges, as part of a global resolution agreement with prosecutors. Judge Ann Aiken presided over the hearings. The change of pleas from the four defendants resolves all current “Operation Backfire” cases in Oregon.


As part of this agreement, the four defendants have withdrawn their motion to obtain materials from possible National Security Agency surveillance. The global resolution agreement for the four defendants expressly indicates that Zacher, Block, McGowan and Paul accept their personal participation in crimes, but that these four have not and will not provide information on, inculpate or reveal the identities of anyone else. The four plea agreements are not sealed and are accessible to the public. The courtroom filled with supporters during these hearings; unfortunately, court staff turned away many additional people at the door. A press conference outside the court followed the four change of plea hearings.

Massacre in Chiapas:
Six Women, Three Men, Two Children, Assassinated in Montes Azules

Al Giordano, NarcoNews

Today, Monday, November 13, presumed paramilitaries committed a massacre in the Montes Azules jungle region of Chiapas, killing nine indigenous women and men and two children.


The assassinated, according to a hand-written document received by Narco News from inside Zapatista civilian communities in the region, are:


* Marta Pérez Pérez

* María Pérez Hernández

* María Nuñez González

* Petrona Nuñez González

* Pedro Nuñez Pérez

* Eliver Benítez Pérez

* Antonio Pérez López

* Dominga Pérez López

* Felicitas Pérez Parcero

* Noilé Benítez (8 años)

* A recently born infant yet to be baptized

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