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If anybody is interested in the type of news that has appeared on this blog, the websites below may be useful.

Guerrilla News Network
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Unexplained Mysteries
Info Wars
David Icke Headlines
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Independent Media Center
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There are also other websites that can be found under the “Links” section on the right side of this blog.

Numbered for Life

The Times - Every child in school numbered for life

All 14-year-old children in England will have their personal details and exam results placed on an electronic database for life under a plan to be announced tomorrow.

Colleges and prospective employers will be able to access students’ records online to check on their qualifications. Under the terms of the scheme all children will keep their individual number throughout their adult lives, The Times has learnt. The database will include details of exclusions and expulsions.

U.S. Mortgage Crisis Spreads past Subprime Loans

International Herald Tribune - U.S. mortgage crisis spreads past subprime loans

The credit crisis is no longer just a subprime mortgage problem.

As U.S. home prices fall and banks tighten lending standards, people with good, or prime, credit histories are falling behind on their payments for home loans, auto loans and credit cards at a quickening pace, according to industry data and economists.

Related posts can be seen here.

Ridiculous Diebold Voting Machine Security

The BRAD BLOG - DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINE KEY COPIED FROM PHOTO AT COMPANY'S OWN ONLINE STORE!

It was revealed in the course of last summer's landmark virus hack of a Diebold touch-screen voting system at Princeton University that, incredibly, the company uses the same key to open every machine. It's also an easy key to buy at any office supply store since it's used for filing cabinets and hotel mini-bars! That is, if you're not a poll worker who already has one from the last time you worked on an election (anybody listening down there in San Diego?).

The Princeton Diebold Virus Hack, if you've been living in a cave, found that a single person with 60 seconds of unsupervised access to the system, who either picked the lock (easy in 10 seconds) or had a key, could slip a vote-swapping virus onto a single machine which could then undetectably affect every other machine in the county to steal an entire election.

But the folks at Princeton who discovered the hack (after our own organization, VelvetRevolution.us, gave them the Diebold touch-screen machine on which to perform their tests) had resisted showing exactly what the key looked like in order to hold on to some semblance of security for Diebold's Disposable Touch-Screen Voting Systems.

But guess what? Diebold didn't bother to even have that much common sense.

This idiotic company has had a photograph of the stupid key sitting on their own website's online store! (Screenshot at end of this article.)

Of course, they'll only sell such keys to "Diebold account holders" apparently --- or so they claim --- but that's hardly a problem. J. Alex Halderman, one of the folks who worked on the Princeton Hack and tried to keep the design of the key secret for obvious reasons, revealed Tuesday that a friend of his had found the photo of the key on Diebold's website and discovered that was all he needed to create a working copy!

Other posts related to Diebold can be seen here.

Veterans not Entitled to Mental Health Care

San Francisco Chronicle - Veterans not entitled to mental health care, U.S. lawyers argue

Veterans have no legal right to specific types of medical care, the Bush administration argues in a lawsuit accusing the government of illegally denying mental health treatment to some troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

A Million Dead Iraqis

Reuters - Iraq conflict has killed a million Iraqis: survey

More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain's leading polling groups.

The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2,414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, rather than natural causes.

U.S. Mortgage Crisis Creates Ghost Town

AFP - US mortgage crisis creates ghost town

The streets are empty. Trash rustles down the road past rusted barbecues, abandoned furniture, sagging homes and gardens turned to weed.

This is Mount Pleasant, a neighborhood in southeastern Cleveland ravaged by the subprime mortgage crisis roiling the United States.

Faded "for sale" signs sit in front of deserted houses. The residents are gone, most after being evicted for missing their mortgage payments.

Related posts can be seen here.

72 000 Casualties

The Herald - 72,000 American casualties: toll of war on terror

The US has suffered more than 72,000 battlefield casualties since the start of the war on terror in 2001, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

The query by the campaigning Veterans for Common Sense organisation shows that 4372 American soldiers have died and another 67,671 have been wounded in action, injured in accidents or succumbed to illness in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The veterans' group had to force the US Defence Department to release the figures by persuading judges to uphold their FoI rights.

A second request to the Veterans' Administration, the government-funded body responsible for taking care of ex-servicemen and women, showed 263,909 soldiers with experience of the two 21st-century wars have so far received treatment for everything from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the aftermath of amputated limbs.

It also showed 52,375 veterans had been diagnosed with PTSD and 34,138 have received approval for disability claims for the psychological disorder. As of October 31 last year, 1.6 million Americans have been deployed overseas since 2001.

Harvard University estimates the cost of caring for Iraq and Afghan veterans over the next 40 years will amount to between £125bn and £350bn, depending on the long-term effects of trauma.

More than 240,000 of those deployed have received some form of counselling at veterans' centres.

British military losses in the two conflicts are 261 dead and more than 600 wounded in action. Another 3000 have been hospitalised as a result of road accidents or disease.

In central Afghanistan yesterday, nine Afghan policemen, including a district police chief, were killed in an anti-Taliban operation by US-led coalition troops, officials said. Several insurgents also died.

Also yesterday, a Nato soldier was killed and two others wounded when an explosion struck their patrol in the south of the country. The nationalities of the soldiers and the exact location of the blast were not given.

New Hampshire Recount Disparities

The BRAD BLOG - NH CONTEST: DIEBOLD MISCOUNTS REPORTED ACROSS MANY CANDIDATES, WARDS, IN FIRST DAY OF ELECTION CONTEST HAND COUNTS

Disparities being found during hand-counts of ballots, in many wards, many candidates. Diebold op-scan memory cards unaccounted for at the moment, Secretary of State (SoS) doesn't track them after elections, doesn't track error reports during elections. LHS Associates (see below) handles all of it instead, according to reports on the ground. Public records request reveals hundreds of ballots in one area scanned as blank due to incorrect ink used on ballots, and other problems on LHS problem report forms.

The BRAD BLOG - Huge New Diebold Disparities Found in Manchester, Ward 5 During NH Hand Counts

Previous posts can be seen here.

Doctors Saw Entry and Exit Bullet Wounds on Bhutto's Head

The Times of India - 'Doctors saw entry and exit bullet wounds on Bhutto's head'

The husband of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto has claimed that doctors who tried to revive her after a suicide attack "clearly stated" that they saw the entry and exit wounds of a bullet on her head, contradicting Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who said there was a wound only on one side.

"The doctors who first tried to revive her (Bhutto) had clearly stated that they saw bullet wounds entry and exit. The doctors were then threatened and hushed up. The authorities have all along been trying to cover up and changed their versions," Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview to The Washington Times.

Musharraf had earlier said in an interview that there is "no bullet wound other than on the right side......A bullet wound is a small hole, and if the bullet goes through it makes a big hole on the other side".

Zardari slammed Musharraf, saying that the president "has shown that he does not respect the constitution and considers his own word above that of the law", adding that the upcoming general election "cannot be free and fair."

"The electoral rolls are flawed. The election commission is far from independent. The media and judiciary are not free. The district governments and intelligence agencies are openly engaged in electoral fraud," Zardari said.

The PPP co-chairman, however, would not say if his party would seek the impeachment of Musharraf if opposition parties get a majority in the elections.

"This question is hypothetical. For now, we are focused on the elections," he said.

The last article in my older post seen here says there were no bullet wounds.

All my previous posts about this assassination can be seen here.

Digg.com Censoring Ron Paul

Prison Planet - Digg Caught Red-Handed Censoring Ron Paul Stories

UPDATE: After just one bury, this article too was deleted from Digg's upcoming category.

The self-proclaimed 'digital democracy' Digg.com has been caught red-handed artificially suppressing and censoring Ron Paul stories by expunging them from the website with just one bury, despite the fact that thousands of other Digg users are voting the stories up.

Digg allows users to vote stories up (digg them) or vote them down (bury them). The content of Digg's main page, which receives millions of readers a day, is decided upon this apparently democratic system.

For months allegations have been flying around concerning how stories about Ron Paul, which routinely receive well over a thousand diggs, rarely make it to the main page on Digg as a "popular" item.

A previous post: Digg Censors HD-DVD Key

Ex-congressman Charged in Terror Conspiracy

AP - Ex-lawmaker charged in terror conspiracy

A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday on charges of working for an alleged terrorist fundraising ring that sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

Mark Deli Siljander, a Michigan Republican when he was in the House, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about being hired to lobby senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

New Hampshire Recount Funds Frozen by PayPal

Prison Planet - Paypal Freezes New Hampshire Recount Funds

Paypal has frozen the fundraising account of the Granny Warriors, a Ron Paul supporters group who had been pushing for a recount in New Hampshire, causing a 3pm Tuesday deadline to be missed and the application rejected for lack of payment.

The Granny Warriors had raised the necessary $55,600 deposit for the recount but at the last minute before it was transferred to the New Hampshire Secretary of State, Paypal blocked access to the funds.

No explanation has been forthcoming from Paypal as to why the corporation froze the account.

"Emergency efforts by our folks on the scene in New Hampshire to push the recount through the Secretary’s office were not successful and a lot of frustration has been expressed on both sides as a result," writes a recount volunteer on the RonPaulWarRoom website.

"The problem was not with the Secretary of State for New Hampshire, it was with PayPal. I understand that the matter may remain unresolved and a recount may still be possible. I am hoping for additional information early Wednesday, January 16th."

However, The strict 3pm deadline for funds to be transferred imposed by Secretary of State William M. Gardner doesn't seem to be in accordance with the law, as Dennis Kucinich's Attorney Manny Krasner pointed out, only a written guarantee of payment is required to secure a recount.

On the Democrat side, Kucinich did transfer the funds in time for a recount and this will start today.

Volunteers are encouraging people to contact Paypal via https://investor.shareholder.com/paypal/contactus.cfm and voice their grievances.

Other posts about the New Hampshire 2008 primary can be seen here.

Germany Pardons Marinus van der Lubbe for Reichstag Fire

AFP - Germany pardons Dutchman beheaded for Reichstag fire

Seventy-five years since the Reichstag building in Berlin was gutted by fire, the Dutchman executed by the Nazis for starting the blaze has been posthumously pardoned by the German state, federal justice officials said yesterday.

Marinus van der Lubbe, a member of the Communist party, was cleared under a law introduced in 1998 to lift unjust verdicts dating from the Nazi era.

The Reichstag, the imposing stone building that housed the Nazi-controlled parliament, was gutted by fire on Feb. 27, 1933 -- one month after Adolf Hitler rose to power.

A Nazi court found Van der Lubbe guilty of arson and high treason and he was beheaded in 1934.

The verdict remains a source of controversy.

Some historians say the Dutchman admitted burning down the Reichstag alone in an attempt to rouse Germans to rise up against the Nazis.

Others believe he was made a scapegoat for a fire that the Nazis started themselves.

Japanese Politician Questions 9/11

Centre for Research on Globalization - Main Japanese Opposition Party Questions 9/11 in Parliament

Yukihisa Fujita of the Japan Democratic Party, made a 20 minute long statement at the House of Councillors, the upper house of the Diet (parliament) of Japan, ahead of the voting

He questioned the official version of 9/11 presented to the Japanese government and the public by the US administration in a session of the defence commission.

U.S. Needed in Iraq Until 2018

Reuters - Iraqi sees need for U.S. military until 2018: report

Iraq's defense minister said on Monday his country would need foreign military help to defend its borders for another 10 years and would not be able to maintain internal security until 2012.

Abdul Qadir's remarks, in an interview with The New York Times posted on the newspaper's Internet site, could become an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.

"According to our calculations and our timelines, we think that from the first quarter of 2009 until 2012 we will be able to take full control of the internal affairs of the country," Qadir said.

"In regard to the borders, regarding protection from any external threats, our calculation appears that we are not going to be able to answer to any external threats until 2018 to 2020," he said.

President George W. Bush has said U.S. troops may have to stay in Iraq for years but most presidential candidates, especially Democrats, would like them to withdraw much faster.

Qadir is currently visiting the United States. On his agenda is weapons acquisitions for the new, U.S.-trained Iraqi army. According to the Times, these included ground vehicles, helicopters, tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers.

The United States disbanded the country's previous armed forces built by Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president who was executed in December 2006.

The United States and Iraq have said they would negotiate a formal agreement governing the legal status of American military forces in Iraq but talks have not yet formally begun.

New Hampshire Recount

Previous post: Vote Fraud in New Hampshire

Wired - New Hampshire to Recount Ballots in Light of Controversy

Both Republican and Democratic candidates have asked the state of New Hampshire to conduct a hand recount of all primary ballots statewide, citing internet rumors about vote discrepancies and voting machine fraud in the primary results.

Ellen Dube, elections assistant at the New Hampshire Secretary of State's office, told me that the Republican recount will begin next Wednesday (January 16). She said her office had not yet received a formal request from Kucinich. She said the recounts would likely take at least two weeks to complete and would cost several thousand dollars each, since the state will have to pay all workers involved in the recount, including state troopers who will transport the ballots.

3000+ Marines for Afghanistan?

AP - US to Send 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan

The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military officials said Wednesday.

The move represents a shift in Pentagon thinking that has been slowly developing after months of repeated insistence that the U.S. was not inclined to fill the need for as many as 7,500 more troops that commanders have asked for there. Instead, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed NATO allies to contribute the extra forces.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that a proposal will go before Gates on Friday that would send a ground and air Marine contingent as well as a Marine battalion - together totaling more than 3,000 forces - to southern Afghanistan for a ``one-time, seven-month deployment.''

Previous post: More U.S. Troops to Afghanistan

Diana Thought She Would be killed over Campaign against Landmines

Telegraph - Diana 'believed she would be bumped off'

Diana, Princess of Wales believed she was going to be "bumped off" by MI6 because of her high profile campaign against landmines, the inquest into her death has been told.

Previous posts about the inquest can be seen here.

Poland Signals a Shift on U.S. Missile Shield

IHT - Poland signals a shift on U.S. missile shield

Signaling a tougher position in negotiations with the United States on a European anti-ballistic missile shield, Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski says the new Warsaw government is not prepared to accept U.S. plans to deploy part of the shield in Poland until all costs and risks are considered.

Previous posts about the missile shield can be seen here.

Iran/U.S. Boat Incident Video

AP - Recordings Show Iran-US Clash in Gulf

Video and audio recordings clearly show Iranian boats confronting U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, and a voice speaking in heavily-accented English can be heard threatening that the American vessels were going to explode, military officials said Tuesday.

U.S. video: LiveLeak - Full 4:26 raw video of /US Iranian incident



Iranian video: LiveLeak - Press TV airs Persian Gulf incident



Other articles:

AP - Iranian TV: Pentagon Video, Audio Fake

Iran on Wednesday called video and audio released by the Pentagon showing Iranian Revolutionary Guards boats confronting U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz "fabricated," a state-run television station reported.

ABC - U.S.: Voices on Recording May Not Have Been From Iranian Speedboats

Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.

A previous post: Pentagon: Iran Threatened U.S. Ships

Vote Fraud in New Hampshire

Prison Planet - Clear Evidence Of Widespread Vote Fraud In New Hampshire

Paul and Obama cheated out of 3rd and 1st by voting machines, hand count fraud.

There were several major vote fraud issues to arise out of the New Hampshire primary revolving mainly around Ron Paul and Barack Obama, who were both seemingly cheated out of third and first places respectively as a result of rigged Diebold voting machines and deliberate malfeasance in the counting of hand-written paper ballots.

- Obama had a 13 to 15 point lead over Hillary Clinton heading into the primary. Nothing occured that boosted Hillary's numbers immediately before the election, in fact immediately after the staged crying incident, many pundits argued it could only have harmed her chances. And yet Hillary somehow managed to instigate a near 20 point swing to defeat Obama by three per cent. If not for her 7% swing as a result of Diebold voting machines, Hillary would have lost to Obama. If Obama was struggling he would probably contest this bizarre outcome, but he is likely to accept the results simply to save face.

- The New Hampshire town of Sutton admits that it voided every vote Ron Paul received. The Congressman got 31 votes and yet due to a "human error," Sutton reported zero votes for Ron Paul. How "human error" can explain not counting 31 votes in succession for one single candidate is beyond the pale and Ron Paul's campaign should ask for a recount across New Hampshire immediately.

- As soon as people went public with the fact that their votes in Sutton had not been counted, other districts where Paul had supposedly received zero votes, such as Greenville, suddenly changed their final tallies and attributed votes to the Congressman.

- Going into New Hampshire Ron Paul was polling in the early teens and was a strong bet to take third place behind McCain and Romney. Four days before the vote, Rasmussen had Paul at 14% - a significant lead over Huckabee on 11% and Giuliani on 8% - and yet Ron Paul finished with just 8%. Proof of clear vote fraud, allied with the fact that Paul's numbers show a 6% swing from normally accurate pre-polling forecasts, clearly indicate chicanery was at hand, especially considering the fact that Paul lost those crucial few percentage points to Giuliani as a reuslt of electronic Diebold voting machines which are known to be wide open to tampering and fraud.

- Going purely on hand-counts, which as we saw in Sutton were by no means angelic but at least harder to cheat on than Diebold voting machines without getting caught, Ron Paul would have won 15% of the vote and finished third. This figure would have more accurately correlated to the pre-primary polls rather than the ridiculous 8% he was eventually given.

- Numerous districts reported totals of anything up to 22% for "other candidates".Londonderry, the "other" candidate received 10%. Many are now alleging that these "other" votes were merely siphoned from Ron Paul to keep his final number low. What on earth does this black hole of "other candidates" mean? How can one vote for a candidate that is not on the ballot without spoiling the ballot paper? The district of Lisbon reported 22.5% votes for this mysterious "other" candidate, while in the large district of

- Rudy Giuliani, the 9/11 candidate who beat Ron Paul thanks to the aid of a 3% swing on Diebold voting machines, received 9.11% of the vote in three different towns. Coincidence or somebody's idea of a sick joke?

Prison Planet - New Hampshire District Admits Ron Paul Votes Not Counted

The head clerk of the New Hampshire town of Sutton has been forced to admit that Ron Paul received 31 votes yet when the final amount was transferred to a summary sheet and sent out to the media, the total was listed as zero. The fiasco throws the entire primary into doubt and could lead to a re-count.

Table Comparing Machine vs Hand Counts

Harmful Pesticides Found in all Human Subjects Tested

Science Daily - Potentially Harmful Pesticides Found In All Human Subjects Tested

A study carried out by researchers from the Department of Radiology and Physical Medicine of the University of Granada, in collaboration with the Escuela Andaluza de Salud Pública, found that 100% of Spaniards analyzed had at least one kind of persistent organic compound (POC´s), substances internationally classified as potentially harmful to one’s health, in their bodies. These substances enter the body through food, water or even air. All of them tend to accumulate in human adipose tissue and easily enter into the organism through the aforementioned mediums.

Pentagon: Iran Threatened U.S. Ships

Reuters - Iranians threatened U.S. ships in Hormuz: Pentagon

Five Iranian boats made aggressive maneuvers and showed hostile intent towards three U.S. Navy ships at the weekend in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route in the Gulf, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The Pentagon said the incident was serious. It described the Iranian actions as "careless, reckless and potentially hostile" and said Tehran should provide an explanation.

In Tehran, the Iranian foreign ministry described the incident as ordinary.

"The example that happened on Saturday was similar to previous cases and is an ordinary and natural issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told Iran's official IRNA news agency.

"This is an ordinary issue that happens for the two sides every once in a while and, after the identification of the two sides, the issue is resolved."

Ron Paul Holds Own New Hampshire Forum

Houston Chronicle - Snubbed by Fox, Paul holds own N.H. forum

Shut out of a GOP presidential candidate forum sponsored by Fox News, Ron Paul staged his own televised town hall meeting today in which he fielded questions from undecided voters two days before the key primary election here.

Bhutto had Proof of Plans to Rig Elections

All previous posts about things relating to this assassination can be seen here.

Reuters - Bhutto had "proof" state rigging poll

Benazir Bhutto was poised to reveal proof that Pakistan's election commission and shadowy spy agency were seeking to rig an upcoming general election the night she was assassinated, a top aide said on Tuesday.

Senator Latif Khosa, who authored a 160-page dossier with Bhutto documenting rigging tactics, said they ranged from intimidation to fake ballots, and were in some cases unwittingly funded by U.S. aid.

Bhutto had been due to give the report to two visiting U.S. lawmakers over dinner on December 27, the day she was killed in a suicide bombing.

Turkey Bombs Rebels in Iraq

Reuters - Turkish warplanes strike rebels in northern Iraq

Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish guerrilla targets in northern Iraq on Wednesday, Turkey's general staff said, in the fourth such cross-border raid in five days.

Bloomberg - Oil Rises After Report Turkey Attacked Kurdish Rebels in Iraq

Crude oil rose for a third day in New York on concern shipments from Iraq may be disrupted after the Turkish military attacked bases of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

A previous post: Turkey Bombs Northern Iraq

More on Internet Censorship in Australia

A previous post: Internet Censorship in Australia

New article: Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Conroy announces mandatory internet filters to protect children

Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy says new measures are being put in place to provide greater protection to children from online pornography and violent websites.

Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.

Online civil libertarians have warned the freedom of the internet is at stake, but Senator Conroy says that is nonsense.

He says the scheme will better protect children from pornography and violent websites.

"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road," he said.

"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."

Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service.

He says the Government will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet.

"There are people who are going to make all sorts of statements about the impact on the [internet] speed," he said.

"The internet hasn't ground to a halt in the UK, it hasn't ground to a halt in Scandinavian countries and it's not grinding the internet to a halt in Europe.

"But that is why we are engaged constructively with the sector, engaging in trials to find a way to implement this in the best possible way and to work with the sector."