Russia is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads

Russia is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the cold war, senior military sources warned last night.

The move, in response to American plans for a missile defence shield in Europe, would heighten tensions raised by the advance of Russian forces to within 20 miles of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, yesterday.

Under the Russian plans, nuclear warheads could be supplied to submarines, cruisers and fighter bombers of the Baltic fleet based in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between the European Union countries of Poland and Lithuania. A senior military source in Moscow said the fleet had suffered from underfunding since the collapse of communism. “That will change now,” said the source.

“In view of America’s determination to set up a missile defence shield in Europe, the military is reviewing all its plans to give Washington an adequate response.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new…cle4547883.ece

Is the Matrix real???

This is an odd one, ain’t it???

Some personal information can be seen on Thomas Anderson’s “criminal record” that Agent Smith glances at when he interrogates Neo: The last update to the file was July 22, 1998 Neo’s date of birth is “March 11, 1962″ Neo’s place of birth is “Lower Downtown, Capitol City” Neo’s mother’s maiden name is “Michelle McCahey” Neo’s father’s name is “John Anderson” Neo attended “Central West Junior High” and “Owen Paterson High” (named after the film’s production designer). Seconds later a photocopy of his passport can be seen. There the place of his birth is CAPITAL CITY USA, his date of birth is the 13th of September 1971, the passport was issued on the 12th of September 1991 and will expire on the 11th of September 2001.

http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=12665matrix22jpgnl8.jpg

Gatineau Wal-Mart workers awarded contract

*HOORAY FOR GATINEAU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

A Gatineau Wal-Mart became the first in North America with a union contract yesterday when a collective agreement was put into place between the retailer and eight employees of the store’s auto shop.

After a three-year process that ended with a ruling by an arbitrator, the eights employees at the Tire & Lube Express centre, represented by local 486 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada should see their wages rise to a minimum of $11.54 an hour from the current $8.50 an hour.

The 50-page agreement represents 98 per cent of what the union asked for, said Guy Chénier, president of local 486. Workers who install tires, change oil and fill propane tanks also made gains on holiday salary and vacations.

The three-year agreement replaces a system where technicians were paid minimum wage and increases of 30 cents an hour were granted “randomly,” after a year or six months, said Mr. Chénier.

He said that while Wal-Mart might want to close the Maloney Boulevard location, it would be much harder because “we have a collective agreement in our hands.” The 200 staff members inside the store are not unionized.

Andrew Pelletier, vice-president for corporate affairs of Wal-Mart Canada, said that the company is “carefully reviewing the decision and its implications.” He said that Wal-Mart’s objective was running efficiently the operations of the Tire & Lube Express Centre and offering low prices.

There is a new, larger Wal-Mart near Hwy 50 and rue Saint-Louis, four kilometres to the west. When asked if closing the Maloney Boulevard location was possible, Mr. Pelletier would not speculate.

In 2005, Wal-Mart shut down its Jonquière store, northwest of Quebec City, days before an arbitrator was to impose a contract. The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear the union’s case that Wal-Mart violated Quebec labour laws, as well as the Charter of Rights, when it closed the store.

A Wal-Mart store in Windsor was the first to have a collective agreement, in the 1990s, but the union was decertified before the contract officially came into effect.

The Gatineau Wal-Mart’s collective agreement came into force yesterday.

The contract followed a three-year judicial battle, noted the local president, where Wal-Mart “kept contesting everything.”

The unionization was recognized by Quebec’s Labour Board in June 2005, but a month later the employer requested a judicial review. In February 2006, Justice Diane Marcelin of Quebec’s Superior Court rejected Wal-Mart’s request, and in July 2006, the minister of labour referred the dispute to an arbitrator. Hearings ended a few weeks ago, in early June.

A Wal-Mart human resources manager testified that auto shop workers at the Gatineau store near Montée Paiement had a starting salary of $8.50 per hour and that a store manager could recognize four years of experience to start a new hire at $9.70 or $10.90.

Arbitrator Alain Corriveau, who imposed the Gatineau agreement is expected to make a decision soon regarding a a first contract at a Wal-Mart in St-Hyacinthe, 60 kilometres southeast of Montreal, covering 200 associates and 10 technicians, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, are awaiting their first collective agreement.

For Mr. Chénier, the long battle was worth it.

“We are agents of change. We have to do the work, otherwise everything heads downhill. The ‘Wal-Mart state’ drives everything down.”

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/bustech/story.html?id=b32dc2e2-752d-4158-a19f-a17870573f26

S.F.’s black students lag far behind whites

San Francisco schools earned bragging rights on state standardized tests again this year – performing better than the state as a whole across every grade in both math and English – but any celebration was clouded by the subpar proficiency of the district’s African American students, who continued to fall further behind their peers.

Nearly all other categories of San Francisco students, regardless of ethnicity, income or English language ability, outscored the city’s black students in California Standards Test results posted Thursday.

On the plus side, the scores of black students did go up about 1 percentage point in math proficiency and nearly 1 percentage point in English.

But that wasn’t as much as everyone else, meaning the achievement gap in San Francisco got worse.

“The achievement gap is the greatest civil rights issue facing our country today,” school Superintendent Carlos Garcia said in a statement.

The number of white students who were proficient or better in both math and English was about 50 percentage points higher than the city’s black students. In second-grade English, for example, 23 percent of blacks were proficient, compared to 74 percent of whites.

Special education students had slightly higher proficiency rates than black students in second-, third- and fourth-grade math as well as fourth-grade English.

The district tested 41,000 students, including 4,800 African Americans, in grades two through 11 in the spring.

San Francisco schools face a steep uphill battle in boosting the test results of black students, educators noted.

The test results are not surprising, said Omar Khalif, ombudsman for the city’s Juvenile Probation Department and an advocate for education and children’s issues. Khalif, who is running for a seat on the school board in November’s election, said black students often face obstacles tied to neighborhood poverty, crime and broken families.

But some schools are succeeding in the black communities – schools that hold high standards, said Khalif, a Bayview resident.

San Francisco’s shrinking middle class, especially in the black community, also has an impact on schools, said school board member Hydra Mendoza, who is also the education adviser to Mayor Gavin Newsom.

“When you have a healthy middle class, it really does change the dynamic of schools and housing,” Mendoza said.

The median household income for the city’s black population was $31,080, about $10,000 less than blacks statewide, according to 2006 U.S. Census estimates.

The median income for the city overall, however, was an estimated $65,500, about $9,000 more than the rest of the state.

In addition, 25 percent of blacks in San Francisco in 2000 lived in poverty and comprised nearly half of those living in public housing, according to the city’s African American Out-migration Task Force and Advisory Committee.

Such statistics are not an excuse but at least offer some explanation, Mendoza said.

“I recognize there is still a huge achievement gap, but I don’t want to lose the idea that our kids are gaining,” Mendoza said. “Some are gaining at a faster rate. That is what is widening our gap.”

But district officials said they believe black students can and will catch their peers.

“It gives me hope when we find out there are some places, in spite of difficult situations, that are doing well,” Garcia said.

District officials cited E.R. Taylor Elementary School, Roosevelt Middle School and Balboa High School as examples.

The San Francisco school board adopted a plan this year to identify schools where the achievement gap is widening. Those closing the gap will also be recognized and modeled.

Also, city voters in June approved a school parcel tax to raise an estimated $29 million annually, boosting teacher salaries, training staff on the needs of disadvantaged students, and providing incentives to teach in hard-to-staff schools – where students are more often than not black, Hispanic and poor.

“All of this work is going to be around the achievement gap,” said Phil Halperin, president of the Silver Giving Foundation and co-chairman of the parcel tax campaign. “They are focused like a laser beam on making sure all kids get a quality education, all kids get what they need out of schools.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/15/MNFA12B94A.DTL

Mr. Bush, Enough!!

*BEYOND BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!*

So you have the colossal audacity, Mr. Bush, to “warn” Russia to pull back? As the wanton, perverse war criminal under whose watch the world saw the crime known as “shock and awe” committed, I’d say you were well out of your mind to suggest that Russia should pull back.

What’s a little shock and awe among inferior people we want to rob and destroy, eh?

What do human beings need an infrastructure for?

Why do they need clean water? Why do they need electricity?

What’s a little torture?

What’s a little regime change? Don’t recall when that was a goal of yours?

What’s a little deviant, perverted sexual experimentation and humiliation?

What’s a few secret detention camps?

What’s wrong with destroying an environment for 4 billion years and generations after generations of people? After all, they’re just rag heads, aren’t they Mr. Bush?

Perhaps when Russia even begins to match your tremendous feats of glory can you speak about pulling back you fool of the worst kind.

You can also tell your number two man to shut up. Cheney said “Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States.”

So how do you plan to answer this erroneously termed “aggression”? He says this will “worsen” relations with the United States? Buddy, relations with the United States could hardly be any worse than they are now.

The United States shows no respect for Russia. The United States shows no respect for any other country weaker than itself, much less a rival as you perceive Russia to be. How about your NATO? Today the west, tomorrow the world, eh? America uber alles!

How about your missile shield breathing down the neck of the Russian nation? There to protect Europe from Iran? The most totally absurd thing that only a moron would believe.

How about your deliberate breaking of your agreements regarding Serbian Kosovo? UN Resolution 1244 which your country agreed to, is the ink dry…you deliberately went against it and recognized Kosovo in total disregard and in violation of that agreement.

And you expect your words to be heeded or even listened to? You are joking! It is said when Caligula went mad he heard laughing.

Do you hear people laughing at you Mr. Bush?

Listening to you, your Vice President, Condi Rice and US and western officials complain about “regime change,” “invasion,” “bloodshed” and “suffering civilians” (in the light of their crimes across the world) have become nothing but laughable at best and highly infuriating and enraging at worst.

You are an idiot!

We seem to recall that when your Israeli friends were absolutely devastating the people of Lebanon, wantonly killing civilians, destroying their country’s infrastructure and destroying their environment also….the flapping jaw of your representative, Condoleezza Rice and your entire administration were saying no ceasefire, no nothing, just keep on going, keep on committing acts of state terrorism on innocent people, keep on committing your war crimes, you have them covered.

Well, Mr. Bush, this is it. Moscow better get this one right: No limited engagement nonsense. Moscow has the moral and legal right to carry out full scale military operations within Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia to ensure the safety of its citizens, to ensure the protection of Abkhazians and Ossetians and to finally destroy NATO plans for the Caucasus region.

No sane, informed, honest, rational person can blame Russia for reacting to a genocide against their own citizens in Georgia. But then you are NONE of those things.

The problem is not what Russia is doing, but how the US is reacting to it. If you were sane, if you were informed, if you were honest, if you were rational, if you were even marginally fair, you should be happy to see Russian forces put an end to the killing of Russian citizens by the Georgian military. But no, your government is advised by lunatics who belong in psychiatric wards instead of the Pentagon and White House. And you, Mr. Bush, belong in an international criminal court to be judged for your crimes against peace and your crimes against humanity.

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/106094-0/

ASPARTAME POISONING

*I have suffered from fibromyalgia since I was a teenager. I was addicted to Diet Coke for many, many years…after kicking the habit, I lost nearly 100 lbs and my health has improved. I still get fibromyalgia attacks, but not nearly as bad as they were. DIET DRINKS/ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS WILL NOT HELP YOU LOSE WEiGHT. THEY MAKE YOU GAIN!!!!!!!!*

Dangers of Aspartame Poisoning

The dangers of aspartame poisoning have been a well guarded secret since the 1980s. The research and history of aspartame is conclusive as a cause of illness and toxic reactions in the human body. Aspartame is a dangerous chemical food additive, and its use during pregnancy and by children is one of the greatest modern tragedies of all.

Why haven’t you heard about aspartame poisoning before? Partly because the diet industry is worth trillions of American dollars to corporations, and they want to protect their profits by keeping the truth behind aspartame’s dangers hidden from the public. When NutraSweet® was introduced for the ‘second’ time in 1981, a diet craze revolutionized America’s eating protocols and a well-oiled money machine was set into motion changing modern lifestyles.

After more than twenty years of aspartame use, the number of its victims is rapidly piling up, and people are figuring out for themselves that aspartame is at the root of their health problems. Patients are teaching their doctors about this nutritional peril, and they are healing themselves with little to no support from traditional medicine.
Aspartame Information:

Aspartame Side Effects
Aspartame Case Histories
Phenylalanine
Phenylketonuria
Aspartame Detoxifcation:

How to Detox
Read about SweetPoison
Contact Janet Hull

What can you do about aspartame poisoning?

Set an example by changing your diet.
Tell everyone you know.
Talk to the schools and day care centers. Offer to speak at parent-teachers meetings.
Contact your local, state, and Federal government representatives.
If you see someone with a diet drink, ask if they have had any of the typical aspartame side effects.
Spread the word at your work.
Distribute the Aspartame Consumer Safety Network and Pilot’s Hotline number: 1-800-969-6050 or 1-214-563-4268.
Tell your doctor about the scientific research available proving the negative side effects of aspartame.
Register a complaint with the FDA, the FAA, the NutraSweet Company about aspartame poisoning.
Return all food products with aspartame, opened or unopened, to your grocer. Tell him/her the products make you sick. The grocer can return them to the manufacturer for a store refund. The manufacturer should get the message. So, will the grocer.
Spread the word on computer networks.
Publish articles in newsletters at your church, place of work, or neighborhood association.
Set a personal example for health and wellness.
Read more about Aspartame Side Effects
Awareness about sweeteners

Become aware of all unnecessary chemicals hidden in your foods. Be a food detective. Purify your diet as much as possible, and try to enjoy natural eating. Drink more purified water than any other beverage. Cut back on artificial food substitutes. Get back to the basics of eating and exercise regularly.

Read more about Aspartame and other Sweeteners
Phenylalanine – Aspartame Poisoning

Nutrition fact about Phenylalanine in aspartame:

The 1976 Groliers encyclopedia states cancer cannot live without phenylalanine. Aspartame contains 50% phenylalanine.

Phenylalanine is one of the essential amino acids found in proteins, but I am one of the believers that amino acids should be eaten in combination, not in isolated form. Nature provides amino acids in combination; only man isolates them for processing purposes.

Phenylalanine is found naturally in foods such as eggs, milk, bananas, and meat. If you are PKU (Phenylketonuric) or sensitive to phenylalanine, you will react to the phenylalanine in aspartame. You many want to get a blood test to check for this condition. Over the past 20 years, humans have become more aware of PKU reactions because human beings began using isolated phenylalanine to the degree it is harmful to some individuals, many as aspartame side effects. My suggestion would be to research PKU and phenylalanine extensively. Phenylalanine can be very harmful to diabetics.

Read all food labels and avoid anything with isolated amino acids. You want to buy products with at least eight amino acids in combination.

Read more about Phenylalanine and Aspartame
Aspartame and PKU

This sugar substitute, sold commercially as Equal and NutraSweet, was hailed as the savior for dieters who for decades had put up with saccharine’s unpleasant after taste. There are quite a few problems with aspartame. The first is phenylketonuria (PKU). One out of 20,000 babies is born without the ability to metabolize phenylalanine, one of the two amino acids in aspartame. Toxic levels of this substance in the blood can result in mental retardation. Beyond PKU, several scientists believe that aspartame might cause altered brain function and behavior changes in consumers. And many people have reported the following side effects from aspartame:
Fibromyalgia Syndrome and symptoms of Fibromyalgia
Multiple Sclerosis symptoms
Dizziness
Headaches
Menstrual problems

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html

USAF still silent on Stephenville

It’s been five quiet and patient days now since De Void began pressing the U.S. Air Force for a response to MUFON’s report on the UFO tracked by FAA radar near Stephenville, Tex., on Jan. 8.

The unenviable man in the middle is Maj. Karl Lewis, the media chief for the 301st Fighter Wing at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base at Carswell Field. On Monday, Lewis said he hadn’t read the analysis, released in July, so he couldn’t address its conclusions.

De Void sent him the link at http://www.mufon.com/documents/MUFONStephenvilleRadarReport.pdf, and followed up with phone calls. Lewis, who’s already been burned once by getting caught outside the information loop, said Wednesday he was kicking it upstairs for comment. On Friday, the major said he was still “hammering away” for a response.

De Void doesn’t expect much; a simple “no comment” would suffice. Government bureaucracies are all pretty much alike, and the Air Force’s public position that it no longer collects UFO data is like the Drug Enforcement Administration’s robotic insistence that marijuana is a Schedule I drug on par with heroin and crank. Never let massive evidence to the contrary alter policy positions that might affect federal funding.

The downside of such calcified obstinacy is that it makes loyal employees charged with disseminating official nonsense to the real world look worthless.

When Lewis was initially queried in January about witnesses seeing the UFO being pursued by jet fighters, he said they probably mistook the planes for airliners because the USAF had nothing in the sky that night. Nearly two weeks later, Lewis had to reverse himself and said there were 10 F-16s in the vicinity.

Because the MSM never follows up on UFOs, the USAF paid no penalty for its initial obfuscation. But last month, MUFON used civilian radar records to profile an aircraft without a transponder making a beeline for restricted airspace over President Bush’s “Western White House” in Crawford. FAA data indicates jet inteceptors never responded.

Even though civilian agencies had no trouble complying with MUFON’s Freedom of Information Act requests, the military refused to release uncensored flight logs of its planes, and claimed it couldn’t find its own radar records from that night.

Memo to the brass: Do the right thing. Issue a “no comment” press release on Stephenville and quit hanging people like Karl Lewis out to dry.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080815/BLOG32/187004538&title=USAF_still_silent_on_Stephenville_

NICE Crop Circle From the 8th

http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2008/WesEndRoad/WestEndRoad2008.html

It looks very familiar to me. I can’t place it.

Where Does The Real UFO Threat Come From?

Just about everyone knows that exclamation from the classic television series “Lost In Space”.

I added it here as a way to introduce some levity because in UFOlogy I’ve found far too much danger out and about.

No, I’m not talking about mysterious men in black outfits who appear unannounced casting menacing glares like the UFO stories of old, I’m talking about the dangers of we humans and our oft times irresponsible behavior toward one another. To tell you the truth I don’t know what’s more dangerous, the so called alien threat or the real threat of having your fellow human being give you a beat down because of your involvement with UFOs.

I bring all this up because I have two stories to tell in regard to UFOs that involve witnesses too frightened to talk and witnesses of such high credibility who have talked and I should disclose their information soon. These two stories involve close encounters with UFOs in which multiple witnesses are involved, however, in one of these stories there were numerous pictures taken, law enforcement was present and the witnesses still alive after two decades. No one wants to come forward in that instance because of some improprieties in their on duty conduct let us say. So here we are with a major mystery that could be solved but the witnesses can’t come forward because some were drinking or getting high or messing around with someone else’s spouse while on duty and out and about.

It’s starting to sound like a country and western song.

In another incident it has taken 10 years to solve. It involves the huge boomerang or triangular shaped UFOs people have been reporting from around the world for over 30 years. I had a surprise witness show up at my online chat at the old Parascope Magazine on AOL several years ago and then a witness give me straight up information just a few weeks ago. Neither witnesses knows the another but their data matches enough for me to put together a story. I had to double check in regard to sources as each news service is different and the philosophies of journalism vary, but the information is so startling that I cannot deny it myself any longer.

UFOlogy is unfortunately peppered with bigotry. In the old days anyone talking about flying saucers and UFOs and aliens were ridiculed and far too often tossed into psychiatric centers against their will. History might include the late Secretary James Forrestal, another hometown hero of mine, whom documentation states was head of the U.S. venture into the then known as “Flying Saucer” problem. He too after having practically run WWII for us, ended up in psychiatric incarceration and met a still debated unceremonious end. Just a cursory glance at the history of UFOlogy shows our worst enemies seem to be psychiatrists. I’m sure anyone with kids in schools nowadays can attest to how many times your kinders have been said to be ‘uncontrollable’ and prescribed psychiatric medication. It’s like these headshrinkers are working for the other side.

A few years ago Mexican journalist and one-man-army Jaime Maussan visited me in Los Angeles. Jaime was in town to host one of his highly popular UFO seminars at one of the big theatres and we somehow meandered toward the topic of psychiatry and how it’s been used to intimidate and treat witnesses, whistle blowers, victims regarding UFOs. If anyone knows Jaime Maussan they know he’s not one to take a backseat to any controversial issue and sure as heck he told me about how the government in Mexico tried to take away his son and put him in psychiatric incarceration because he was just being a typical active little boy.

Big mistake.

Jaime used his journalistic skills and no nonsense drive and stomped a mud puddle in their hind parts and walked it dry as the old country saying goes. He practically destroyed the criminal psychiatric industry in Mexico.

The same should be done here in the U.S. as well.

Again, people are afraid to come forward in regard to UFOs and we who do research and reports have to take this into consideration and never betray that trust. It’s frustrating but if one cannot keep one’s word then one is worthless.

Recently I got attacked by some UFOlogists because I dared enter into the equation the unfamiliar. That’s typical of mainstream science and why such feats as flight, radio, electricity, to speak of a few, would never have been invented if the know-it-alls of their day had been listened to.

Remember, even the vaunted New York Times stated that not only could man not achieve flight, but also 70 years later that we’d not be able to reach the Moon.

So much for credibility.

Humans make their best strides forward by ignoring common sense, especially when that common sense is federally funded or better defined, institutionally supported.

On this we must always be vigilant but not to toss caution to the wind.

Here then are the parts of the UFO equation we need to address. It’s not necessarily a look into the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, meaning that some UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin, but instead a look at ourselves and certain phenomenon that are with us on a daily basis, tons of documentation to support them, yet never addressed by mainstream science and the media.

So let me get metaphysical on our butts for a moment. These two phenomena that need to be looked into are OBEs short for Out of Body Experiences and past life phenomena.

I can hear the old school UFOlogists grumping and groaning because how dare we use science to look into the spiritual. Everyone knows science says there’s no God or spirit, but if that’s the case, why do six billion or more people still believe? Even when they’re starving and under weapons fire they still believe. Even when massive disasters wipe out tens of thousands they still believe. When men’s war machines wipe out millions like during the Holocaust, people still believe in the spirit. I’m reminiscing of the scene from the classic Dr. Seuss story “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” where the green old Grinch puzzled as to how the citizens of Whoville still believed in Christmas after he’d stolen their presents.

We’ve had well over 100 years of study of OBEs and past lives study. It’s simple to prove if it’s real or not yet no major media source nor scientific body has yet to leap onto TV and declare so. As usual some psychiatrist comes into play and tosses someone in a padded cell or whatever new Frankenstein like restraints they use or the issue is shuffled off to the giggle factor factory.

Bottom line is why not a look at it? Might this fill in some blanks regarding many of the phenomena associated with UFOs?

Let me be brief here. The main reason science and news won’t touch the issue is because the datum is so overwhelming that we are more than just physical creatures that to declare such as fact to the mentally deranged war mongers and greed merchants would send these poor chaps over the deep end. How much would the world change if we discovered we, the real being, was indeed immortal? Silly as a March hare but immortal? Irresponsible and childlike, but immortal? That means the last guy you murdered would some day come back and might want to even the score. Or how about that assassinated witness showing up with the goods but in a new body? That’d change the criminal justice system for sure.

All I’m doing here is pointing out that when we don’t have answers it’s because we’re not asking the right questions or making our questions right.

We don’t know everything there is in regard to the science of physics or biology or any of our sciences. We’re still learning, studying, testing.

That doesn’t mean however that we’re to berate and chastise others because they dare to explore new areas, new niches.

Life doesn’t know boundaries and neither should we.

http://rense.com/general83/dngr.htm