I haven't written one of these “news reports” in a while, and people do occasionally tell me they miss them, so I figure I'll give it a go. A lot has happened since I last wrote, too much to cover, so I'll just write about what I see in the news today.
Ok, the introduction to this story contains an illegally elected president (as we all know at this point, the Florida election was a clear-cut Gore win), followed up by an enormous financial scandal which has since had its records sealed by the vice president due to his involvement. We of course also have the attrocious attacks of 9/11, which outside of the horrible deaths they lead to both in America and in Afghanistan, also shot Bush's approval rating through the roof and allowed the population to ignore the other problems… But lets rewind a bit.
Delmart Vreeland, a US naval officer held in Canadian prison for credit fraud, hacked the Pentagon computers earlier last year. From there, he downloaded the details of the planned attacks from the Pentagon computers. They outlined the attacks on the WTC, the Pentagon, and a number of other targets, followed by the instructions, “Let one happen. Stop the rest!” (I am going with the assumption that, like Bin Laden, the US assumed the towers would be damaged, but would not collapse — if they had not collapsed, the death count and financial damaged would have been a more “acceptable loss” if you're willing to think in such barbaric terms.)
At the start of August, he handed these complete details over to his Canadian jailers in a sealed and dated envelope — the Canadian authorities fully confirm that the date well preceeded the attacks as well as the contents of the letter. Unfortunately, beurocracy dictacted that the envelope wasn't opened until the 14th of September, even though it had been written over a full month before.
The US has of course demanded his extradition, and he is currently begging Canada for witness protection since he holds the information which goes a long way to proving that the US government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks . He's sure that he'll “disappear” as soon as he crosses the border — that said, I'd be surprised if Canadian witness protection is able to protect him from the CIA anyway… Even though my father built their information systems, so maybe I share some family blame, the Canadian intelligence services are sort of a laughing stock… It's no surprise that the Mossad travel with Canadian passports (it's not as if our Prime Minister's polite “would you please stop doing that” had much effect on them).
Link 1: Lots of information on the case
Link 2: An earlier story on Vreeland from a more mainstream source (I just wanted to include a mainstream source since the first is fringe, so I wanted you to know that they didn't just make this guy up — all the details can be found by searching the various Canadian papers, but the first source contains it in a single easy to digest form).
Last night I watched CNN for a while in my hotel room. They reported on a raid and interviewed the soldiers who talked about how the Al Qaeda fought to the last breath, etc. etc. etc… Then I read the same story in the New York Times which reminds us that these “fighting to the last breath” terrorists also had their hands tied behind their backs, and were yelling “For God's sake, do not kill us! We surrender!” You can debate the veracity of whether they really said that all you want, but I find it hard to believe that the Al Qaeda warriors standard combat outfit includes hands tied behind the back! Does this remind anyone of the hospital which treated ALL wounded, including Taliban, which was then classed an Al Qaeda stronghold? (Naturally, that meant executing the doctors, since they were “clearly terrorist sympathisers”. They're fucking doctors. They don't care what your politics are. They probably don't even want to know. They just want to stop all the dying. Unfortunately this open-hearted attitude lead to their own deaths.)
Quick links:
- Crash! – Once again the nuclear sub “Greeneville” has messed up again… Remember how they sunk a Japanese fishing boat last year? Well, this time they crashed into the US warship Ogden, pouring a few thousand gallons of diesel fuel into the ocean.
- Saudis ask US to leave – This has been all over the non-CNN news for a long time, but the US has finally confirmed that they've been asked to leave. Why can't the government just get it through their thick heads that they need to start focusing on alternative fuel research so they're not dependant on a bunch of psycho sheiks? America is very wealthy, and contains millions of brilliant, wonderful people — America can stand strong on its own without relying on the Middle East if it just tries.
- EU backs Arafat, not Bush – The rest of the world is finally growing the balls to very publicly turn on the US. The US is a sinking ship it seems, and it seems like the rest of the world is getting more and more uncomfortable with such a self serving fascist country holding so much power over the rest of the planet…
Oh, and for history buffs, today is the 66th anniversary of Iceland legalizing abortion — it was the first country in the world to do so. I know I tend to toot Canada's horn, but if I spoke the language, I think I'd choose most of the Scandinavian countries over Canada. Anyway, if you want to go waaaaay back, it's also the 214th anniversary of the Free Africa Society. The FAS was a Philadelphia based independant black self-help organization, and the first of its kind in America.
That said, Absalom Jones, the founder, was also one of the first, if not the first black minister in America, and thanks to his evangelic gift, he dramatically increased black congregation memberships — so much so, that blacks soon outnumbered whites at many Christian churches and as a kneejerk reaction, the whites freaked out and started segregating those churches.
Anyway, I could blab and blab and blab but I have a lot of work to do…
