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Is CO2 a pollutant?

Will Happer, Princeton’s Galileo

William Happer EPW Testimony

February 25, 2009, Update on the Latest Global Warming Science, Testimony of William Happer, Professor of Physics, Princeton University

Is CO2 a pollutant?

November 16, 2014 Posted by | Environmentalism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

Syria ‘Hero Boy’ Video Revealed to be Government Propaganda

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By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | November 14, 2014

A dramatic video clip showing a young boy heroically rescuing a young girl amid a hail of gunfire in Syria has racked up millions of YouTube viewings and has been trending heavily on other social media platforms.

The mainstream media and US government jumped on the video as evidence of the absolute depravity of the Assad regime. What kind of monster purposely targets children?

Wrote the International Business Times :

The incident certainly is not the first time that Pro-Assad gunmen have targeted children in the nearly four years of the bloody civil war in Syria.

Liz Sly, the Washington Post Beirut bureau chief covering Syria, Lebanon, Iraq — and presumably an expert in the area? — promoted the video on her Twitter page, adding “wow” in her comments. Sly’s reporting consistently agitates for more US involvement in Syria on the side of the rebels, her anti-Assad bias is solidly established.

Then the “experts” chimed in. According to the London Daily Telegraph (article since consigned to the memory hole), the experts have “confirmed the authenticity” of the video.

Then the US State Department chimed in to magnify and focus the propaganda, tweeting that a boy “hero” rescued  a girl from an Assad regime sniper firing on civilians.

One problem: the whole thing was a fake. The Norweigan Film Institute, funded by the government of NATO-member Norway, chipped in $30,000 for the film to be produced in Malta and released publicly without informing viewers that it was not authentic footage.

The filmmakers made it clear to the Norwegian government in their funding application that they would not reveal that the footage was fake and authorities raised no objection to the operation.

The BBC wrote about how so many people were fooled by the film:

So once the film was made, how did it go viral? “It was posted to our YouTube account a few weeks ago but the algorithm told us it was not going to trend,” Klevberg said. “So we deleted that and re-posted it.” The filmmakers say they added the word “hero” to the new headline and tried to send it out to people on Twitter to start a conversation.

By the time its inauthenticity had been established, millions were outraged at the Assad government. Propaganda depends on framing the issue first. No one reads corrections once a false story is printed.

How convenient this is at a time when so many NATO member countries and the usual interventionist suspects are pushing hard for the US government to retool its Syria anti-ISIS campaign to first target the Assad government for destruction.

This episode should demonstrate how easy it is for governments to hide behind willing accomplices and the social media to produce and disseminate propaganda.

State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf recently drew some ridicule for stating that US evidence “proving” Russian involvement in the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine came from “social media” sources. Perhaps those “social media” sources she urges us to rely upon are similarly supported and funded by governments with an agenda to push.

They are lying to us.

November 16, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Officially Sanctioned Fraud at Dachau

By Mark Weber – The Journal of Historical Review – March/April 2000

Each year many thousands of tourists visit the site of the notorious Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany, not far from Munich. They see the crematory, the memorial shrines, and the museum. And in recent years, as an almost daily fixture, they see Martin Zaidenstadt. This elderly Jewish man lectures visitors to Dachau on his experiences as a wartime prisoner there. He is particularly passionate about the horrors of the camp’s gas chamber where, he explains, many prisoners were put to death with poison gas. He even claims that this gas chamber served as a model for Auschwitz (New York Times, Oct. 26, 1997). Zaidenstadt’s listeners respond to his heart-rending testimony with unquestioning sympathy. Many reach generously into their wallets.

But now a new 50-minute documentary film, “Martin,” and a new book, The Last Survivor: In Search of Martin Zaidenstadt, written by journalist Timothy W. Ryback and published by Pantheon, have subjected that testimony to critical review. Ryback establishes that the octogenarian Zaidenstadt was born in Jedwabne, Poland, but that his story of Dachau internment is a fraud. He probably never visited the camp until the 1990s, says Ryback, and his tales of gas chamber killings are untrue.

Although supposedly authoritative evidence of gas chamber killings at Dachau has been cited over the years — including “eyewitness” testimony at the main Nuremberg trial of 1945-46 — today no reputable historian credits such claims. It is widely acknowledged, even by the well-known “Nazi hunter” Simon Wiesenthal, that no one was ever “gassed” at the camp. (See, for example, “Wiesenthal Re-Confirms: ‘No Extermination Camps on German Soil’,” The Journal of Historical Review, May-June 1993, pp. 9-12.)

In today’s cultural climate, one is obliged to regard “Holocaust survivors” such as Zaidenstadt with an almost reverential indulgence. For example, the director of the state-run Dachau camp memorial, Barbara Distel, seems unbothered by Zaidenstadt’s deceit. Even though she is a government official, she permits his mendacious pan-handling. (One can hardly imagine Distel tolerating anyone who spent hours explaining to camp site visitors that American GIs who liberated the camp on April 29, 1945, summarily killed 500 German prisoners there. For more on this, see, J. Cobden, “The Dachau Gas Chamber Myth,” March-April 1995 Journal, pp. 14-26.)

Also typical is the attitude of Howard Kaplan, a Jewish writer in Los Angeles. In a recent article about Zaidenstadt published in an influential Israeli magazine, he acknowledges that “a difficult question arises from Martin’s fabrications,” but concludes on an upbeat note: “But is exaggerating the horror really an affront to truth? I’m not persuaded… What matters is that Martin has ultimately found his way back to Judaism at the doors of the crematorium.” (H. Kaplan, “The Man by the Door,” The Jerusalem Report, April 10, 2000, pp. 46-47.)

A recent New York Times article about the new “Martin” film acknowledges that Zaidenstadt’s “assertion” of Dachau gassings is “contrary to the official stories.” But instead of forthrightly identifying his “provocative contentions” as lies, the Times coyly tells readers: “In the end we learn that Mr. Zaidenstadt’s version of things isn’t entirely reliable, but isn’t to be dismissed either… The implicit message of ‘Martin’ [is] that everyone has a truth to deliver…” (“Holocaust Documentary Explores One Man’s Truth,” April 3, 2000.)

No one seems concerned about the toll that such deceit takes on the residents of the Bavarian town of Dachau, who must live in the shadow of the camp’s government-promoted infamy. For example, to avoid the stigma of having children born in the notorious city, many expectant mothers go elsewhere to deliver their babies.

The Zaidenstadt story points up the social-intellectual corruption that is an intrinsic by-product of what Rabbi Michael Goldberg (in his 1995 book Why Should Jews Survive?) aptly calls “the Holocaust cult.” All the same, Zaidenstadt now joins a growing list of demonstrably false “Holocaust survivor” eyewitnesses — a slate that includes Jerzy Kosinski and best-selling author Binjamin Wilkomirski. (See “Holocaust Survivor Memoir Exposed as Fraud,” Sept.-Oct. 1998 Journal, pp. 15-16.)

November 16, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , | 4 Comments

Anti-US military base candidate wins Okinawa governor race

RT | November 16, 2014

The fate of a contentious US military base, slated to be relocated on the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, is now in doubt after exit polls showed a gubernatorial candidate deeply opposed to the plan emerged victorious in the election.

The national broadcaster NHK, news agency Kyodo, Jiji Press and private broadcaster Nippon Television all projected victory for Takeshi Onaga after polls closed on Sunday night. Going into the election, opinion polls put Onaga, the former mayor of Naha, Okinawa’s capital city, firmly ahead of incumbent Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima.

Nakaima had supported the relocation of US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from Ginowan, a densely populated town in the island’s south. US military bases of various stripes currently occupy 38 percent of the town.

Onaga, who said his position was not anti-American, but rather about the people’s will, put the base’s future at the center of his political platform.

“We must not allow the construction (of the new base). Let’s show that the people of Okinawa Prefecture will not waver even if the governor and some other politicians are wavering,” Japan’s Asahi Shimbun daily cites projected victor Takeshi Onaga as saying on Saturday, during a last minute campaign speech.

Why should the burden fall on our shoulders?

The fifth gubernatorial held since the Japanese and US governments decided to relocate the base in December 1996, the Futenma relocation plan clearly dominated the election this time around.

Onaga had campaigned on moving the base outside Okinawa, forcing other parts of Japan to pull their weight in maintaining the security alliance between Japan and the US.

He further demanded the island house no new MV-22 Ospreys, a loud tilt-rotor aircraft that locals view as dangerous.

“Okinawa has suffered a lot. Why do we have to suffer more,” Onaga told The Washington Post before the election.

Last December, Nakaima green-lighted the transfer of the base to the city of Noga, in the island’s north. As part of the transfer, he approved the central government’s late-2013 application to reclaim the sea area off Nago’s Henoko Bay, sparking protests from those opposed to the relocation.

The move followed reports Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had pledged 348 billion yen (roughly 3 billion US) in financial assistance to Okinawa, which has Japan’s highest poverty rate.

“I’d like to convey the message to the governments of Japan and the United States… that the wishes of the people here are different from the administrative action in December last year,” AFP cites Onaga as telling reporters.

According to Jiji Press, Onaga said he would “act with determination” to rescind approval for the plan and preparatory work was already underway.

Will the election change anything?

B2kwjaJIcAAAiAzIn August, Japan’s Ministry of Defense started a drilling survey in the area to prepare for the building of the base. The following month, 70 percent of Nago’s residents turned out to vote in a new municipal assembly, whose majority is opposed to the base relocation plan. Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine is strongly opposed to the construction of the new military complex in Nago’s Henoko Bay.

“Why should only Okinawa hold the burden for security of all of Japan, when the presence of US Marines doesn’t play a big role in deterring China?” Inamine said in May, echoing Onaga’s sentiments during a visit to Washington, DC. “I, as mayor, have operational control over two ports that are needed for use as construction landfill and I will exercise all powers in the municipality to block access.”

Currently, Okinawa houses 74 percent of all US bases in Japan, despite the fact the prefecture constitutes less than one percent of Japan’s total landmass. US military bases cover roughly one fifth of the island.

Their presence has served as a constant source of tension with locals due to crimes committed by servicemen, disruptions caused by military flights, noise, air pollution and massive land use by the US military.

While Onaga’s victory does not guarantee he will be able to hold up the $8.6 billion dollar relocation ($3.1 bill of which will be covered by Japan), it will likely string up Washington and Tokyo’s efforts to end years of deadlock over the issue.

If Abe attempts to veto local officials, his democratic credentials could be tarnished just days before he is expected to announce a snap general election.

November 16, 2014 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Jewish settlers storm Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem

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MEMO | November 16, 2014

Scores of Jewish settlers on Sunday stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem, a Palestinian official said.

“As many as 59 settlers stormed the holy compound through Al-Magharbeh Gate under the protection of Israeli police,” Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, director-general of the Organization for Muslim Endowments and Al-Aqsa Affairs, told Anadolu Agency.

The settlers wandered through the compound’s courtyards, passing through the Qibali and Marawani mosques inside the holy complex before departing through Al-Silsileh Gate, he added.

Meanwhile, Israeli police allowed Palestinian men to enter the compound while denying women’s entry.

“We performed the noon prayers outside the gates of the compound after we were denied access by Israeli police,” one of the women who had been barred from entering the complex told Anadolu Agency.

“At least 70 women were barred from entering the complex since the early morning,” the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told AA.

Tension has been running high in East Jerusalem since Israel closed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound late last month following the shooting of an extremist rabbi in West Jerusalem.

The closure of Al-Aqsa, along with the killing of a young Palestinian man suspected of shooting the rabbi, has fueled angry protests by Palestinians in East Jerusalem .

Earlier this month, an Israeli police officer was killed when a Palestinian driver ran over a group of Israeli pedestrians in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian motorist was shot and killed on the spot by Israeli police in the immediate wake of the attack.

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world’s third holiest site. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the “Temple Mount,” claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state – a move never recognized by the international community.

In September 2000, a visit to the site by controversial Israeli politician Ariel Sharon sparked what later became known as the “Second Intifada,” a popular uprising against the Israeli occupation in which thousands of Palestinians were killed.

November 16, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | 1 Comment