The Anomalies Report Volume 8, Issue 30 25 July 2004 I. Current Events Monday, July 19, 2004 Formerly Missing Marine Says He Did Not Desert Post QUANTICO, Va. -- A U.S. Marine who disappeared in Iraq and resurfaced nearly three weeks later in Lebanon insists that he did not desert. Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun told reporters at a Marine base in Virginia that he had been captured. Hassoun vanished June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah and reappeared earlier this month at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. http://www.local6.com/news/3547318/detail.html AP: Clinton Adviser Probed in Terror Memos WASHINGTON - President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after admitting he removed highly classified terrorism documents from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned. Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants. Some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing. Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said. "I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement to the AP. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20040720/ap_on_re_us/sept__11_berger_probe_2&printer=1 Putin fires top generals MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has fired three generals and a top state security official in a shake-up seen as an attempt to end feuding in the top ranks and a response to recent losses linked to Chechnya. The main casualty was General Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the general staff. A Kremlin statement said Kvashnin, 57 and in the job since 1997, would be replaced by his deputy, Yuri Baluyevsky. The head of Interior Ministry forces, General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, the top military commander in the North Caucasus, General Mikhail Labunets, and the deputy head of the FSB security service, Anatoly Yezhkov, also lost their jobs. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/19/putin.generals.reut/index.html Brazil Set to Start Shooting Down Drug Planes BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil is set to start shooting down aircraft suspected of smuggling drugs across its jungles in 90 days, now that it issued a controversial new law on Monday after a six year delay. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's signature on the law, which was approved by Congress in 1998, has prompted Washington to warn that it could curtail anti-drug cooperation with Brazil if it concludes there are not sufficient precautions to satisfy U.S. law. Publication of the measure in the government's official diary on Monday starts a 90-day clock at the end of which it goes into effect. Brazilian Defense Minister Jose Viegas has said the law is necessary to curb constant incursions by drug traffickers from neighboring countries into Brazil. http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/415834|top|07-19-2004::11:49|reuters.html Report: Tasers linked to five deaths PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- Medical examiners have found that Taser electric stun guns may have played a role in at least five deaths, contradicting the manufacturer's claim that the weapons never killed or injured anyone, a newspaper reported Sunday. Medical examiners in three cases involving suspects who died in police custody cited Tasers as a cause or a contributing factor in the deaths, The Arizona Republic reported. In two other cases, Tasers could not be ruled out as a cause of death. A small number of independent studies, including one issued by the British government in 2002, found that the weapon's safety has not been proven. According to The New York Times, the report in Britain, which has not approved Tasers for general police use, concluded that "the high-powered Tasers cannot be classed, in the vernacular, as 'safe.'" http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/19/tasers.safety.ap/index.html Marines Kill Knockout Gas Info NEW YORK (AP) -- A watchdog group has removed documents from its website that detail military research into knockout gases similar to the one used in the deadly 2002 Moscow theater siege after the Marine Corps warned they could pose a threat to Defense Department employees. The group, the Sunshine Project, claims the documents indicate that early 1990s Army research into knockout gases, which was canceled because of the Chemical Weapons Convention, was revived by the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate in the early 2000s. The Sunshine Project posted an e-mail on its site Thursday from Zachary J. Stewart, a lawyer with the Marine Corps Systems Command, saying the three documents were inadvertently sent to the group after it requested them through the Freedom of Information Act. http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,64260,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_9 British Helicopter Crashes In Iraq, One Dead LONDON (Reuters) -- A Royal Air Force helicopter crashed at Basra airport in southern Iraq on Monday and one of the crew members was killed, Britain's Defense Ministry said. Two others were injured in the crash. A ministry spokesman said: an investigation into the circumstances is ongoing. It is not believed to be a result of enemy action." http://news.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5706086 Mystery Of Milan's 'Devil Worshippers' ROME -- Police in Varese, west of Milan, last week added one more name to the list of young people they believe were murdered by a group of heavy metal enthusiasts who took the ultra-violent lyrics of their musical heroes too literally. Andrea Ballarin, 22, from the small town of Busto Arsizio, whose death in 1999 was recorded as suicide after he was found hanged in his old school, became the fourth person police believe fell victim to the brutal antics of a group of local losers, routinely described in the Italian media as devil worshippers. And there may be more horrors in store. Since the confession last month of a young heavy metal musician called Mario Maccione, which led to the discovery of the remains of two bodies in a wood north-west of Busto Arsizio, investigators have been combing the records of deaths in the area for others which may be linked to the group. On Thursday a further corpse was exhumed, this time in Milan, on the orders of the investigators. Besides the four deaths now linked to the "satanists'', at least five more are under scrutiny. Yet the authorities are still struggling to understand the nature of what they have discovered. Are they up against a cabal of fully fledged devil worshippers, committing human sacrifices, celebrating black masses and burying their victims by the light of the full moon? Or was this a gang of rebellious, small-town adolescents, dabbling in soft drugs and loud, nasty music, who, disastrously, took the "satanic" lyrics too literally and got sucked into committing violent crimes? http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=542113 Conservatives to Protest Anti-GOP Protest NEW YORK (AP) - Activists planning to demonstrate against the upcoming GOP convention should be on the lookout for young conservatives gearing up to protest the protesters. "To show that there is a group of people out there, there are Republicans that will protest them right back," said Tom Paladino, who leads the New York chapter of the newly formed Protest Warriors. "We are the right-wing freedom fighters - we are out there and are just as animated as the protesters can be," said member Jason Sager, of Brooklyn. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040719/D83TT7UO0.html Flicking -- not swatting -- mosquitoes might prevent infection TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- Flicking away pesky mosquitoes may be better than swatting the bloodsucking insects, which can risk infections if their body parts are smashed into human skin, researchers say. The issue is reviewed in an article published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine that focuses on a 57-year-old Pennsylvania woman who died in 2002 of a fungal infection in her muscles called Brachiola algerae. Doctors were puzzled because the fungus was thought to be found only in mosquitoes and other insects. But it's not found in mosquito saliva like West Nile virus and malaria, so a simple mosquito bite could not have caused the infection. Despite the Pennsylvania woman's case, Roger Nasci, a mosquito expert at a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facility in Fort Collins, Colo., said there is no scientific basis for switching to flicking. http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/07/19/flicking.mosquitoes.ap/index.html Crazed surgeon amputates penis A ROMANIAN surgeon underwent a fit of madness while operating on a patient's testicles and instead cut off the man's penis and sliced it into three pieces, hospital officials said. The surgeon, Naum Ciomu, was described as a senior member of the hospital staff and a professor of anatomy. http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10179536%255E13762,00.html Man In Superman Costume Attacks Motorists Attack Reportedly Leads To Street Brawl Police say a 21-year-old man dressed as Superman attacked some motorists in Ann Arbor early Sunday. "I guess this young man jumped in the back seat of the victim's vehicle and just started hitting him and when the victim attempted to call using his cell phone, (Superman) grabbed the cell phone and he stomped on it," said Sgt. Angella Abrams, of the Ann Arbor Police Department. "He was in costume, and it was a pretty terrible Superman costume at that," said Mark Majewski, who witnessed the incident. http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/3548529/detail.html Tuesday, July 20, 2004 Sandy Berger Probed Over Terror Memos WASHINGTON — Former President Clinton's national security adviser is under criminal investigation for taking highly classified terrorism documents that should have been turned over to the independent commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, FOX News has confirmed. Sandy Berger is under scrutiny by the Justice Department following the disappearance of documents he was reviewing at the National Archives. Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants after the former Clinton adviser voluntarily returned some sensitive documents to the National Archives and admitted he also removed handwritten notes he had made while reviewing the sensitive documents. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126249,00.html AP: Berger Steps Down As Kerry Adviser WASHINGTON (AP) - Former national security adviser Sandy Berger, the subject of a criminal investigation over the disappearance of terrorism documents, stepped aside on Tuesday as an informal adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "Mr. Berger does not want any issue surrounding the 9/11 commission to be used for partisan purposes. With that in mind he has decided to step aside as an informal adviser to the Kerry campaign until this matter is resolved," said Lanny Breuer, Berger's attorney. The investigation had threatened to become a political problem for Kerry a week before his nominating convention in Boston in which he hopes to persuade voters that he is ready to be commander in chief. The cornerstone of Kerry's argument against Bush is that he used faulty intelligence and poor judgment in waging war against Iraq. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040720/D83UOCR00.html Rolling blackouts likely in Phoenix Phoenix, AZ, Jul. 20 (UPI) -- Phoenix residents were warned power outages were likely Tuesday due to a transformer fire that further squeezed electricity supplies. Arizona Public Service said in a release that rolling blackouts were likely during the late-afternoon hours when temperatures were were expected to top 110 degrees and boost power demand to its highest point of the year. The fire that destroyed a 230-kilovolt transformer early Tuesday knocked out service to 50,000 APS customers in the northwest area of the valley. Everyone had their power restored by 8:30 a.m., although replacing the damaged transformer was expected to take longer. http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040720-010612-2387r.htm Chirac tells Sharon he is not welcome in France: TV French President Jacques Chirac informed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon he is not welcome in Paris after he urged all French Jews to leave the country immediately, Israeli television reported. Chirac had written that "after some weeks of contacts concerning such a visit it turns out that it is impossible ... and you are not welcome following your comments," according to Channel 2 television. An Israeli foreign ministry government spokesman refused to comment on "confidential messages." http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040719/1/3lsyx.html Police Charge Two CT Men With 'Potty Rage' (1010 WINS) (Stratford, CT) Police have charged two men in a confrontation that could be described as potty rage. The situation developed Friday night when a 52-year-old Stratford man took too much time in a bathroom at Burger King, police said. Andres A. Diaz, who was in the john, and Joseph Manuel Augusto, 37, who was waiting to use it, got into an argument when Diaz emerged, police said. Heated words escalated into a physical fight. The two men allegedly bumped chests, then chased each other around the restaurant with their weapons. Augusto had a small razor pocket knife and Diaz brandished a Burger King straw dispenser, police said. http://1010wins.com/topstories/winstopstories_story_202154723.html Wednesday, July 21, 2004 Nuclear arms reportedly found in Iraq BAGHDAD, July 21 (UPI) -- Iraqi security reportedly discovered three missiles carrying nuclear heads concealed in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad, official sources said Wednesday. The official daily al-Sabah quoted the sources as saying the missiles were discovered in trenches near the city of Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "The three missiles were discovered by chance when the Iraqi security forces captured former Baath party official Khoder al-Douri who revealed during interrogation the location of the missiles saying they carried nuclear heads," the sources said. They pointed out that the missiles were actually discovered in the trenches lying under six meters of concrete and designed in a way to unable sophisticated sensors from discovering nuclear radiation. http://interestalert.com/brand/siteia.shtml?Story=st/sn/07210000aaa01bea.upi&Sys=siteia&Fid=WORLDNEW&Type=News&Filter=World%20News Official denies nuclear arms found in Iraq Baghdad, Iraq, Jul. 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. military official Wednesday denied a report of Iraqi missiles carrying nuclear warheads being found in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad. The daily al-Sabah newspaper Wednesday had quoted sources as saying three missiles armed with nuclear warheads were discovered in a trench near the city of Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. A U.S. military spokesman in Tikrit told United Press International that the report was untrue. http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040721-081009-2541r.htm Iraq Interior Ministry Says Report on Nukes 'Stupid' BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's Interior Ministry dismissed as "stupid" a report in a local newspaper Wednesday that said three nuclear missiles had been found near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. A senior U.S. military official told reporters he had no information on the report in the Iraqi newspaper al-Sabah. He said officials were checking the report. Asked by Reuters about the report, a spokesman at the Interior Ministry said: "It's stupid." http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/265453|top|07-21-2004::09:48|reuters.html Israel sees "nuclear capable" Iran by 2007 JERUSALEM, July 21 (Reuters) - Israeli estimates of when Iran will be able to build a nuclear bomb have been shifted two more years to 2007, an intelligence report said on Wednesday and analysts credited the delay to international scrutiny of Tehran. Security sources quoted the report -- delivered to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in private and leaked in part to the media -- as saying that within three years Iran would have the means to produce an atomic bomb by itself. Iran vehemently denies pursuing nuclear weapons, arguing its atomic ambitions are limited to generating electricity. Tehran officials have also accused Israel of trying to distract the international community from its own assumed nuclear arsenal and stoking world opinion against the last Middle East foe which could challenge it militarily. In 2000, Israeli security sources told Reuters that Iran would be nuclear-capable within five years and was developing long-range missiles with which to lob warheads at Tel Aviv. http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004072114420002732619&dt=20040721144200&w=RTR&coview= Iraq blasts Iran's 'blatant' support for insurgents BAGHDAD — Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan said Iraq's neighbors have been supporting the insurgency against Baghdad. He cited Iran as exercising "blatant interference" in Iraq's affairs. "They [Iranians] confess to the presence of their spies in Iraq who have a mission to upset the social and political situation," Shaalan said yesterday in an interview with the London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat. "Since the establishment of the Iraqi state, Iranian intrusion has been vast and unprecedented." The defense minister did not cite other states as supporting the insurgency. But other Iraqi officials said Syria has failed to stop Al Qaida-inspired volunteers from joining the insurgency. They said the Iraqi government has invited its neighbors to a conference to discuss security cooperation. http://216.26.163.62/2004/me_iraq_07_21.html Presidential Determination No. 2004-40 MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE SUBJECT: Eligibility of Iraq to Receive Defense Articles and Services Under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as Amended, and the Arms Export Control Act, as Amended Pursuant to the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 503(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, and section 3(a)(1) of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended, I hereby find that the furnishing of defense articles and services to Iraq will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace. You are authorized and directed to report this finding to the Congress and to publish it in the Federal Register. GEORGE W. BUSH http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/07/20040721-7.html Six More Held in Iraq; U.S. Toll at 900 BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A militant group said Wednesday it had taken six more hostages - three Indians, two Kenyans and an Egyptian - and would behead them if their countries did not immediately announce the withdrawal of their citizens from Iraq. The U.S. death toll since the start of the war rose to 900 when a roadside bomb killed a soldier. The seizure of the hostages came a day after a Filipino truck driver was released in exchange for Manila's withdrawal of its 51-member troop contingent - a move criticized by Washington and other allies as encouraging more abductions. Those fears seemed to be realized with the new kidnappings. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040721/D83VB1L01.html Saudis find slain US hostage's head in a refrigerator RIYADH (AFP) - Saudi Arabia said the head of a slain US hostage had been found in a refrigerator in overnight raids targeting Islamist extremists, including an Al-Qaeda leader wanted for bloody attacks in the kingdom. "Paul Johnson's head was found in a refrigerator" during a police raid on a house in the Saudi capital, an official statement said. The 49-year-old American aeronautics engineer was kidnapped in Riyadh on June 12 and just six days later Islamist websites posted grisly pictures of his beheading, claimed by "Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula". Police also found rocket-propelled grenades, a surface-to-air missile, vast quantities of explosives and ammunition and 360,000 riyals (96,000 dollars) when they stormed the house. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1512&u=/afp/20040721/wl_afp/saudi_unrest_040721175308&printer=1 U.S. Sept. 11 panel lists missed opportunities - Post WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The final report by the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks will detail as many as 10 missed opportunities to detect or derail the hijackings, The Washington Post reports in Wednesday editions. Citing government officials and others familiar with the report, the newspaper said the panel faults both the Bush and Clinton administrations, but does not say the attacks could have been prevented. The bipartisan commission has been investigating government failures related to the 2001 hijacked plane attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people died, and is due to release its final report on Thursday. http://in.news.yahoo.com/040721/137/2f2oz.html Berger: Incident Was 'Honest Mistake' WASHINGTON (AP) - Former national security adviser Sandy Berger says he regrets the way he handled classified terrorism documents, calling the whole thing "an honest mistake." Republicans say the matter raises questions about whether the former Clinton administration official sought to hide embarrassing materials. "What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of experience in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering our nation's most sensitive secrets?" House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said. "Mr. Berger has a lot of explaining to do." http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040721/D83V66O80.html Clinton defends aide during Denver book stop Former president also takes swipe at Bush Bill Clinton defended his embattled national security adviser Tuesday as a man who "always got things right," even if his desk was a mess. "We were all laughing about it on the way over here," the former president said of the investigation into Samuel "Sandy" Berger on classified terrorism documents missing from the National Archives. "People who don't know him might find it hard to believe. But ... all of us who've been in his office have always found him buried beneath papers." In an interview with The Denver Post, Clinton questioned the timing of the Berger flap less than a week before the Democratic National Convention and two days before a presidential commission is slated to release its final report on the Bush administration's handling of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2284437,00.html DNC Press Release MCAULIFFE FILES FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST; Requests All Documents Shared Between the Department of Justice and White House Regarding Investigation of Sandy Berger Washington, D.C. -In response to the questionable timing of the public release of information regarding the investigation of former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe officially filed a Freedom of Information Act request today for the release of correspondence between the Department of Justice and the White House regarding this investigation. http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm Africa 'mercenaries' trial delayed HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The trial in Zimbabwe of 70 men accused of being mercenaries plotting to oust the government of Equatorial Guinea has been postponed for a day to give lawyers more time to prepare their case. The men were detained after landing at Harare's airport on March 7 and are charged with conspiring to carry out a coup in the oil-rich West African state with weapons bought in Zimbabwe. They are also charged with immigration, firearms and security offences. If convicted the men face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment in Zimbabwe, which accused U.S., British and Spanish spy agencies of aiding the alleged plot. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/07/21/zimbabwe.mercenaries/index.html Pushed by U.S., Greece to Allow Troops at Olympics ATHENS, July 20 - Under intense pressure from the United States, Greece will allow 400 American Special Forces soldiers to be present at the Olympic Games next month under NATO auspices and will also permit American, Israeli and possibly British security officers to carry weapons, Greek and American officials said. The delicate arrangements, which the officials say will not be formally acknowledged for fear of roiling anti-American sentiment, represent a significant departure from Olympic tradition, as well as from Greek law, which prohibits foreign personnel from carrying weapons within the country. Until now, the only nation known to have armed its security forces at the Olympics is Israel, whose agents have been carrying arms largely without prior approval from host countries since 1972, when Black September, a Palestinian group, killed Israeli athletes and officials in the Olympic Village in Munich. In addition to the Special Forces, the agreements call for 100 armed American agents to be used largely as bodyguards for American athletes and dignitaries. The F.B.I. is also sending a hostage rescue team, as well as evidence-gathering and analysis personnel who will be pressed into service in the event of an attack. They, too, will be armed, said an American law enforcement official. Despite the agreements, Greece and the United States are still in prickly negotiations over the rules that will govern the American security agents - how many there will be, what kind of weapons they can carry and when they can use them, and where they can operate, American and Greek officials said. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/international/europe/21gree.html?ei=5006&en=77264f05c4211320&ex=1090987200&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position= Democrats worry big media threaten democracy WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) - When the Democratic Party takes up its platform next week at the presidential nominating convention in Boston, one of the planks it will consider is media concentration. While the one-sentence statement is buried deep in the 41-page document, its supporters contend that it is a recognition by the party that big media is becoming a threat to democracy. "Because our democracy thrives on public access to diverse sources of information from multiple sources, we support measures to ensure diversity, competition and localism in media ownership," the proposed platform plank states. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., who helped get the plank in the platform proposal said the 27-word statement points out a big difference between the two parties. http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004072023030002691827&dt=20040720230300&w=RTR&coview= China frees surgeon after 're-education' The Chinese military surgeon who exposed the government's cover-up of the Sars crisis was released yesterday after seven weeks of "political re-education", his family said. Jiang Yanyong, 72, a semi-retired general in the People's Liberation Army, had been detained at a secret location where he was forced to undergo daily study sessions aimed to make him renounce a critical letter he had written about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. It was unclear last night whether he had signed a letter of contrition to secure his freedom. http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1265583,00.html Boat capsizes, pushing Asia flood toll above 800 GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Eight people drowned on Wednesday and 12 were washed away and feared dead when a boat capsized in a surging river in Bihar as fresh rains in Asia took the rainy season death toll to more than 800. The latest deaths in a series of weather-related disasters in the continent came from flood-hit Bihar when a crowded wooden boat, carrying around 40 farm workers fleeing to dry land, sank in swift currents, police said. South Asia's worst floods in over a decade have killed about 480 people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal and made millions homeless. http://in.news.yahoo.com/040721/137/2f2rb.html Flight crew beat up passenger DRUNKEN passengers often give air crews trouble, but Russia's leading airline today reported an 'unprecedented' reversal: a passenger was assaulted by intoxicated flight attendants. Two crew members on a domestic Aeroflot flight beat up a passenger who had complained that the flight attendants were drunk, airline spokeswoman Irina Dannenberg said. The passenger, identified only as A. Chernopup, was aboard a recent flight from Moscow to the Siberian city of Nizhnevartovsk, Ms Dannenberg said. http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,10200252%255E401,00.html Trillions more internet addresses may emerge The foundations have been laid for upgrading the internet with an improved system for identifying computers around the globe. A new identification technology has been built into a number of the internet's master, or "root" servers, which supply subsidiary servers, announced the US-based independent body that coordinates the internet's address system, the Los Angeles-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), on Wednesday. "This is a big, big step," said Vinton Cerf, who designed the communications protocol that supports most internet traffic flow, called TCP/IP, and is now a member of ICANN's board of directors. The internet uses a numerical system to identify computers connected around the world. Numerical addresses are mapped to names by domain name servers. For example, the domain name www.newscientist.com directs requests to computers with the Internet Protocol address 194.203.155.123, which identifies the computer hosting the site. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996192 Drought warning adds to India woe Amid devastating monsoon floods in India's north-east, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said much of the country faces another threat - drought. Mr Singh told parliament that rains were 25-50% below normal in some parts. His comments came as rain in Bangladesh and India's north-east showed no sign of abating - Guwahati, capital of Assam state, is the latest to be hit. And in Bihar, at least 15 people drowned when an overcrowded boat sank on the Gandak river. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3914715.stm Study to examine World War II shipwrecks HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A consortium of federal agencies, academic institutions and commercial firms is about to begin a study of seven vessels lost in the Gulf of Mexico during World War II, hoping to learn whether shipwrecks can function as artificial reefs in deep waters. Among the ships to be studied is the only German submarine believed sunk in the Gulf. The Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service said Tuesday that researchers hope to examine whether man-made structures such as shipwrecks work as artificial reefs in the deep waters, how they affect the environment, how the environment affects the structures, and the possible implications on the thousands of oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/07/21/shipwreck.study.ap/index.html Thursday, July 22, 2004 Border watch group claims to sneak fake WMD into US TUCSON - A border watch group claims it successfully sneaked into the United States carrying a fake weapon of mass destruction. American Border Patrol spokesman Glenn Spencer told the Arizona Daily Star the test was intended to show how easy it would be for terrorists to sneak deadly weapons across the border. Mike King, a former Army sniper who was assigned to Fort Huachuca as a National Guardsman after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said he's hoping the demonstration will help convince government leaders that the country's southern border is a national security risk. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0722Fake-Terrorist-ON.html Alaska Interceptor First in Defense System ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A ground-based missile interceptor was installed Thursday in Alaska's Interior — the first component of a national defense system designed to shoot down enemy missiles. Crews at Fort Greely lowered the 55-foot-long, three-stage interceptor into one of six silos built behind a double perimeter fence reinforced by heavy barbed wire. "We're coming to the end of an era where we have not been able to defend our country against long-range ballistic missile attacks," said Major Gen. John Holly, who heads the ground-based missile defense program for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency. Five additional interceptors will be installed at the 700-acre complex — another four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California — by the end of the year. Ten more will be installed at Fort Greely by late 2005, launching the Bush administration's multibillion dollar system. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20040723/ap_on_re_us/missile_defense_alaska_2&printer=1 Missed Opportunity Surveillance Tape Shows 9/11 Hijackers Passing Through Airport Security July 22, 2004 — An airport surveillance tape obtained by ABC News shows the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 easily passing through security at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., in the hour before the flight took off on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Flight 77, one of four planes hijacked by al Qaeda terrorists that day, would slam into the Pentagon later that morning — about half an hour after the second plane hit the World Trade Center in New York. All 64 people on board Flight 77 and another 125 at the Pentagon were killed. The surveillance tape shows the first two of the five hijackers — Majed Moqed and Khalid Almihdhar — as they enter one of the security screening areas, place their carry-on bags on the X-ray machine belt and proceed through the first metal detector. Both men set off the alarm and are subsequently directed to a second detector. Almihdhar does not set off the second detector and is permitted to go through the checkpoint, but Moqed fails once more and is then subjected to a personal screening with a metal detection hand wand. He appears to pass the inspection and is allowed to pass through the checkpoint. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/US/hijacker_surveillance_tape_040721-1.html Boston battens down for DNC Security precautions cast a somber mood on festivities. BOSTON – A convoy of mobile command centers will be ready to respond at this year's Democratic National Convention if communication systems in the city of Boston shut down. If something suspicious occurs around federal buildings, 75 wireless cameras will be able to zoom in on the details - perhaps a birthmark on a face, or the last number on a license plate. And random bag and package searches - by police, bomb-sniffing dogs, or even small robots - will protect the land, while by sea, the US Coast Guard will use radar and special infrared imaging to monitor unauthorized vessels in the Boston Harbor and Charles River. The words "political convention" once conjured images of fanfare. But as July 26 nears, it is the unprecedented security measures that have, thus far, dominated the theme of the first national convention since Sept. 11. Thousands of local, state, and federal authorities are working to turn the FleetCenter into a virtual citadel. Bioterror antidotes have been flown into area hospitals. Authorities are removing trash cans and sealing manholes. And at the end of each day, a police officer is just as likely as a concierge to greet the 35,000 delegates, journalists, and politicians in their hotel lobbies. It is an attempt to create a security blanket over Boston worth an estimated $50 million. But experts say the measures - intended to soothe - have also heightened anxieties, creating a mood that could color the future of all public events, especially political ones, in America. Hotels are also ratcheting up security measures. Harvey Brandt, chairman of the International Lodging, Safety, and Security Association in Boston, says that security officers will check IDs at many hotels before guests enter and then again at the elevator bank. One boutique hotel in the South End will use retina technology for identification. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0722/p01s01-uspo.html Guards left Berger alone, sources say Ex-security adviser reportedly told monitors to violate rules as he took breaks, took files. Washington — Former national security adviser Sandy Berger repeatedly persuaded monitors assigned to watch him review top-secret documents to break the rules and leave him alone, sources said Wednesday. Berger, accused of smuggling some of the secret files out of the National Archives, got the monitors out of the high-security room by telling them he had to make sensitive phone calls. Guards were convinced to violate their own rules by stepping out of the secure room as he looked over documents and allegedly stashed some in his clothing, sources said. http://www.news-leader.com/today/0722-Guardsleft-138802.html 9/11 Panel Suggests Intelligence Overhaul WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States could not protect its citizens from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because it failed to appreciate the threat posed by al-Qaida operatives who exploited that failure to carry out the deadliest assault ever on American soil, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission said Thursday. In issuing the panel's 567-page final report, commission chairman Tom Kean said none of the government's efforts to thwart a known threat from al-Qaida had "disturbed or even delayed" Osama bin Laden's plot. "(They) penetrated the defenses of the most powerful nation in the world," Kean said. "They inflicted unbearable trauma on our people, and at the same time they turned the international order upside down." http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040722/D84009S81.html EU: Israel Violating International Law TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - During a visit to the Jewish state, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Thursday said Israel's West Bank separation barrier violates international law. Solana's comments came just two days after the European Union infuriated Israeli leaders by supporting a U.N. General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to tear down the barrier in compliance with a world court ruling. "A country has the right to build a fence on its own territory but we believe the route of this fence is contrary to international law," Solana said during a joint news conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040722/D83VQK0G1.html Clear Channel to Experiment With Digital Radio Signals The future of radio may or may not lie with the transmission of digital signals, but Clear Channel Communications, the nation's largest owner of radio stations, said yesterday that it planned to spend more than $100 million over the next decade to find out. John Hogan, the chief executive of Clear Channel Radio, said in a phone interview that over the next year, the company planned to outfit 100 of its 1,200 stations with the capability to transmit a digital signal. It will then add at least 100 more stations a year for the foreseeable future. About 100 stations across the country - including eight owned by Clear Channel - are already experimenting with such technology because it is supposed to elevate a traditional FM signal to compact disk quality and an AM signal to the level of clarity of a current FM channel. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/business/media/22radio.html?ei=5006&en=a71c23019d811c0f&ex=1091246400&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position= Court rules California student poem not criminal SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California teenager who frightened fellow high school students by showing them threatening poems he had written did not commit a crime, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Student George T., who signed his work Julius AKA Angel, shared poems with several female students in 2001 when he was 15 years old at a San Jose school. "I am Dark, Destructive, & Dangerous," one of his poems read. "I slap on my face of happiness but inside I am evil!! For I can be the next kid to bring guns to kill students at school. So parents watch your children cuz I'm BACK!!" http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004072220190002812813&dt=20040722201900&w=RTR&coview= Friday, July 23, 2004 U.S. policy on Israel key motive for effort PLOTTER INVOLVED BIN LADEN TO GAIN MORE RESOURCES Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man who conceived and directed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was motivated by his strong disagreement with American support for Israel, said the final report of the Sept. 11 commission. Mohammed conceived the initial outline of the attack six years before its execution and brought the plan to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden because he thought he did not have the resources to carry it out on his own. The Sept. 11 report contains the fullest accounting of Mohammed's overarching role from original conception to supervision of details. Bin Laden, too, was fully involved, selecting all or most of the participants, ordering the substance and the location of their training, and contributing to the timing of the attacks and the selection of targets, the report says. http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/nation/9222612.htm Greece Asks NATO for Standby Force Outside Greece BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Greece has asked NATO to put hundreds of crack troops on standby in case of a terrorist attack during the Olympics, but they will not be based on Greek soil, Public Order Minister George Voulgarakis said Thursday. Voulgarakis, who is in overall charge of Olympic security, said the troops would be on alert in case of a "World War Three" type situation developing. "They will be outside Greece, in some third country. Maybe Germany, maybe some other country ready to come in," Voulgarakis told Greece's Alpha television. "Of course these are extreme measures and essentially we're talking about a case of World War Three." http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004072300340002819260&dt=20040723003400&w=RTR&coview= Egyptian Diplomat Abducted in Iraq BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Militants kidnapped a senior Egyptian diplomat as he left a mosque Friday and demanded his country abandon any plans to send security experts to support Iraq's new government, according to a video broadcast on the Al-Jazeera television station. Earlier Friday, U.S. forces launched a strike targeting 10 to 12 suspected terrorists tied to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant blamed for attacks against foreigners in Iraq. The suspects were gathered in the courtyard of house in Fallujah, the U.S. command said. The military did not mention casualties, but a hospital official said the attack wounded five civilians, including three children. The abduction of the diplomat threatened to undermine efforts of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday to persuade Arab and Muslim countries to provide troops to protect the U.N. mission in Iraq. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040723/D840OAQ80.html Pentagon Finds Bush's Guard Records WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon on Friday released newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard, though the records shed no new light on the future president's activities during that summer. A Pentagon official said the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight." Like records released earlier by the White House, these computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040723/D840ON180.html DNC: *Discovery* of Bush Records Late Friday Afternoon Questionable Washington DC - According to CNN, some of President Bush's missing records from his time in the Air National Guard were found today. The payroll records that were discovered were initially reported destroyed. In response, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe issued the following statement: "The supposed discovery of these records on Friday afternoon, as reporters converge on Boston to cover the Democratic National Convention, is highly questionable. If the Bush Administration continues to search, maybe they'll find answers to the long list of unanswered questions that remain about George W. Bush's time in the Air National Guard. Bush's military records seem to show up as randomly as he did for duty." http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1.htm Japanese Council Approves Human Cloning TOKYO - Japan's top science council voted Friday to adopt policy recommendations that would permit the limited cloning of human embryos for scientific research, an official said. The recommendations would let researchers use and produce cloned human embryos but only for basic research, said Tomohiko Arai, an official at the Cabinet's Council for Science and Technology Policy. The council, headed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, will now ask Japan's ministries to come up with specific guidelines, said Arai, who declined to speculate how long that might take. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=753&e=2&u=/ap/20040723/ap_on_sc/japan_cloning Mostly big quakes on San Andreas Fault, study says LOS ANGELES - A new study concludes that a long stretch of the mighty San Andreas Fault close to highly populated Southern California has usually only had very large earthquakes. The researchers' finding challenges an idea that frequent small temblors slowly relieve accumulating strain on faults and therefore reduce the likelihood of big quakes. Digging trenches at a site on the San Andreas 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles, geologists identified six events and found evidence that about 95 percent of slippage there has occurred during big quakes, with magnitudes ranging from 7.5 to 8, according to the study appearing in the current issue of the journal Geology. http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/state/9224384.htm?1c Peru's Snowy Peaks May Vanish as Planet Heat Up LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - The snow atop Pastoruri, one of the Andes most beautiful peaks and a big draw for mountaineers and skiers, could disappear along with many of Peru's glaciers in the next several years because of global warming, experts say. At 17,000 feet in the northern Andes, the glacier which covers famed Pastoruri has shrunk at a rate of 62 feet every year since 1980. Today it covers a surface area of 0.7 square miles, about 25 percent less than a quarter of a century ago. Pastoruri is one of 18 glacier-capped mountains in Peru suffering the effects of climate change, according Peru's National Environment Council, CONAM. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=5760059 Experts Warn of Two-Tiered Justice System LOS ANGELES - The extraordinary secrecy imposed by judges in the cases of Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant and Martha Stewart has some media experts and scholars warning that America is developing a two-tiered justice system — one for celebrities and one for everyone else. "The idea that you have justice and then you have celebrity justice is really offensive," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "Does the public understand what preferential treatment these people are receiving from the system?" "If they decide celebrities are entitled to a different kind of justice," Dalglish said, "we have lost press oversight of the system. Without that, we will never know if the rich and famous are getting the same justice as the rest of us." http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=487&u=/ap/20040723/ap_en_ot/celebrity_cases_2&printer=1 Police escort Fisk's chief from plane O'Leary disputes report she was loud and abusive Nine days after being named president of Fisk University, Hazel O'Leary found herself being questioned by the FBI last night after being escorted off a commercial airplane. O'Leary wanted to get off the plane as it waited on the tarmac for more than an hour after being diverted to Richmond, Va., yesterday evening because of storms, said Cpl. Frank Donkle of the Richmond International Airport Police. The crew of the Nashville-to-Washington flight told airport police that O'Leary, 67, was ''getting loud and abusive'' and had to be physically restrained at one point, Donkle said. http://www.tennessean.com/education/archives/04/07/54794437.shtml?Element_ID=54794437 Saturday, July 24, 2004 Israeli Minister Warns of Attack on Jerusalem Shrine JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's Security Minister warned Saturday of a possible attack on a Jerusalem mosque that is Islam's third holiest shrine by Israeli right wing groups seeking to derail a plan to pull out of Gaza. The comments follow a report by Israel's secret service that there is an increasing threat of an attack on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by right-wing groups who oppose his plan to pull troops out of Gaza and dismantle all 21 settlements. "The level of threat (of an attack) on the Temple Mount by Jewish extremists and fanatics, in order to ... be a catalyser for the change of the entire political process, has risen during the past few months, especially during the last few weeks, more than ever before," Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi said. He was speaking to Israel's Channel 2 television. http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004072417060002901893&dt=20040724170600&w=RTR&coview= Kerry Sees Hope of Gaining Edge on Terror Issue BOSTON, July 24 — Senator John Kerry said on Friday he would seek to persuade voters over the next three months that he would do a "better job than George Bush" in protecting the nation from terrorism, but acknowledged that the president now held an advantage on this pivotal issue. Mr. Kerry, setting the framework for the Democratic convention in an interview in Denver, declared that he would challenge the president on what polls suggest is Mr. Bush's greatest strength. He pointed to his military record and criticism of Mr. Bush's terrorism policies by the Sept. 11 commission. Mr. Kerry said that "it takes time" for a challenger to gain public confidence on such issues, but that he was "not worried about that." To demonstrate his point, he reached for a copy of the commission's report issued Thursday, which he brought to the interview, and said that if he was elected he would implement most of the report's recommendations right away. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/politics/campaign/25KERR.html?ei=5065&en=789ba5a17982cc66&ex=1091332800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print&position= Kerry camp spins its wheels AURORA, Colo. — Sen. John Kerry spoke about the plight of the American worker when he traveled to Detroit earlier this week, a safe message for the blue-collar workers who build cars there. So it was a little strange that the campaign picked as its press-pass logo for its Motor City tour the gleaming showcase car of a foreign auto company — Rolls-Royce — that makes cars priced far outside the financial reach of any middle-class voter. "That's an insult to the auto worker, it's an insult to the American worker, it's an insult to mainstream America," said Sam Burwell from Corunna, Mich., a third-generation auto worker for General Motors. "It also shows who he's really in touch with: his European, elitist French friends and not Americans like me. A Rolls-Royce, for cryin' out loud." http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040723-111416-8086r.htm Records Fail to Shed Light on Bush Service WASHINGTON (AP) - Newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard shed no new light on the future president's activities during that summer. A Pentagon official said Friday the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight." Like records disclosed earlier by the White House, the newly released computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months. The records do not give any new information about Bush's National Guard training during 1972, when he transferred to the Alabama National Guard unit so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of a family friend. The payroll records do not say definitively whether Bush attended training that summer because they are maintained separately from attendance records. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040724/D8415UKO0.html Mali calls for help to fight locust swarms BAMAKO, July 24 (Reuters) - Mali urged international donors on Saturday to help the government fight locusts swarms which threaten to destroy vital food crops in the West African country. West Africa is facing its worst locust crisis for 15 years with swarms moving rapidly south from Algeria and Mauritania. Forty-two swarms have already been spotted in Mali and Communication Minister Gaoussou Drabo said serious damage was already visible in some grassland areas. "We are threatened with a locust invasion...Every day we receive new reports (of locust swarms)," Drabo, who is also acting agriculture minister, said on the sidelines of a meeting with international development agencies. http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004072412110002895726&dt=20040724121100&w=RTR&coview= Sunday, July 25, 2004 Confusion reigns as security rules With 15-foot fencing and black netting, the area around the FleetCenter was transformed yesterday into the so-called hard zone, where uniformed soldiers and police officers in bright orange raincoats patrolled outside while the Secret Service completed its sweep of the facility for security threats in preparation for tomorrow's start of the Democratic National Convention. Because of the security sweep, several hundred reporters and news crews spent up to two hours waiting to get to office space inside the zone. ''It's the Secret Service," said one Boston police officer, after he sent reporters to the wrong entrance. ''They keep changing orders." About 500 journalists toting briefcases and cameras were herded around almost the entire perimeter of the FleetCenter, and across two ramps to Route 93 and onto the parking lot of the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/conventions/articles/2004/07/25/confusion_reigns_as_security_rules?mode=PF DNC Security Prep Enters Final Hours BOSTON (AP) - A team of U.S. Capitol Police carrying automatic weapons guarded a harborfront hotel and work crews dropped metal barriers around City Hall as security forces on Sunday completed preparations for the Democratic National Convention. "These next few hours certainly will be important as different units and agencies are settling into their roles," Massachusetts State Police Sgt. David Paine said. "But it's nothing new to these people. They're ready." Camouflaged military police staked out elevated subway lines overlooking the FleetCenter, where 4,350 delegates will convene Monday through Thursday to nominate their presidential candidate. A surveillance helicopter often hovered over the area. Bomb-sniffing dogs and officers roamed nearby streets. Metal barricades about 7 feet high directed foot traffic. In other ways, however, Boston was eerily quiet for a sunny summer day that would normally be bustling with tourists. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040725/D841VDIO0.html Convention Protesters Upset With Site BOSTON - As thousands of delegates, journalists and dignitaries stream into the FleetCenter, protesters for the next few days will be enclosed in a shadowy, closed-off piece of urban streetscape just over a block away. The maze of overhead netting, chain link fencing and razor wire couldn't be further in comfort from the high-tech confines of the arena stage where John Kerry (news - web sites) is to accept the Democratic nomination for president during the four-day convention that kicks off Monday. Abandoned, elevated rail lines and green girders loom over most of the official demonstration zone that slopes down to a subway station closed for the duration. To avoid hitting girders, tall protesters will have to duck at one end of the 28,000-square-foot zone. Train tracks obscure the line of sight to much of the FleetCenter. Concrete blocks were set around streets in the area, a transportation hub on the north side of downtown. Protesters likened the site Saturday to a concentration camp as they complained it is too far from the FleetCenter to get their messages across, even though the site is next to a parking lot where many delegates will pass on foot en route to the arena. Authorities say — and a judge agreed — the discomforts are needed for security in the post-Sept. 11 era. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&u=/ap/20040725/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_protests_2&printer=1 Morocco Lost Track of 400 Al Qaeda Suspects-Report MADRID (Reuters) - Morocco has warned Spain that it has lost track of 400 Moroccan Islamist militants who trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia or Chechnya, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday. Moroccan authorities gave the warning to Judge Baltasar Garzon, Spain's leading al Qaeda expert, in Rabat earlier this month, El Pais said, citing a person who was present at the meeting. Spanish Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso, asked about the report, neither confirmed nor denied it but said Spain and Morocco were cooperating closely in the fight against al Qaeda and there was a constant flow of information between them. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040725/wl_nm/spain_morocco_militants_dc_1 Iraq says satellite channels incite violence DUBAI, July 25 (Reuters) - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari accused regional satellite channels of inciting violence and hinted Iraq might stop Al Jazeera operating in the country. "Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, al-Manar and al-Alam have all become channels of incitement and opposed to the interests, security and stability of the Iraqi people," Zebari told Al Jazeera television. "There is strong talk from some Iraqi government officials about closing Al Jazeera. Unfortunately it is being manipulated by terrorist groups and we will not tolerate this biased coverage," he said. http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004072515410002943334&dt=20040725154100&w=RTR&coview= INTERNAL FIGHT OVER HOW MUCH BUSH BASHING AT CONVENTION Democrat party officials are struggling to contain the amount of anti-Bush and anti-war comments to be delivered this week during the convention in Boston, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. DNC chair Terry McAuliffe has expressed concern that nonstop Bush bashing from the podium could quickly spiral out of control and backfire. DNC staffers have also been told to be on the lookout for "unreasonable" Bush bashing signs held by delegates on the convention floor which could be highlighted on television. "We are not Michael Moore," McAuliffe has told his top staffers, according to a well-placed source. "Let's tell the voters what we stand for, not only what we stand against." http://www.drudgereport.com/dnc.htm ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ II. Features 1) American on trial for private "war on terror" claims Rumsfeld link 2) S.F.'s exclusive clubs carry on traditions of fellowship, culture -- and discrimination ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ American on trial for private "war on terror" claims Rumsfeld link KABUL (AFP) - A US citizen in court charged with running a private "war on terror" in Afghanistan claimed he and two other Americans were working with the full knowledge of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Jonathan Idema, who denies charges he detained and tortured Afghan citizens without US government consent, said they were hunting terrorists under the auspices of the Pentagon and said they had since been abandoned by US authorities. "The American authorities absolutely condoned what we did, they absolutely supported what we did. We have extensive evidence of that," said Idema, who is on trial with his subordinates Brent Bennett and Edward Caraballo. US-led coalition forces have disavowed all ties with Idema, while international peacekeeping troops said they were duped into helping Idema's team, who wore US-style uniforms, believing they were legitimate special forces operatives. Judge Abdul Baset Bahktiari allowed the three men and four Afghan associates on trial with them to delay proceedings for up to 20 days to allow them to prepare a better defense and find adequate translators. The adjournment came after two Afghan interpreters struggled to translate comments from the judge, prosecution and witnesses, and Idema protested that he and his associates would not be able to get a fair trial. "It is impossible for us to know what's happening," he said. US and Afghan authorities allege that Idema's freelance counter-terror cell illegally jailed and tortured eight Afghan citizens without government authority. The three US men and four Afghans face jail sentences of between 16 and 20 years if found guilty. Idema said that he had been running a counter-terrorism operation under deep cover for some months and had handed militants he had detained to US-led coalition forces for further questioning on several occasions. The group had emails, faxes and recordings to prove their links with senior US Defence Department officials, he added. "We were in contact directly by fax, and email and phone with Donald Rumsfeld's office, with the Deputy Secretary of Defence for Intelligence, and with Kevin Anderson, a four-star rank officer level at the Pentagon." Idema said that Anderson had offered his group a defence department contract but he had declined. "We did not want to go under contract because that would meant that we couldn't work with the access to Northern Alliance people we were working with," he said. He claimed to have handed the Taliban intelligence chief of the eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad to the FBI for questioning and to have foiled bomb plots and assassination attempts on senior Afghan government officials. Although the trial was formally adjourned, three witnesses who had been held in Idema's private torture chamber gave statements to the court. Ghulam Sakhi said he was seized while in a taxi en route to Kabul from northern Laghman province. The vehicle was searched and he was bound, hooded and taken to a private jail by Idema and his Afghan associates. While in captivity Sakhi was scalded with boiling water, had his head repeatedly forced under water and was kicked so badly on his chest he was left with breathing problems, he told the court. Kabul shopkeeper Sakhi said he gave his captors the name of fellow detainee Mohammed Arif Malikyar, an Afghan Education Ministry official, in an attempt to stop repeated beatings after he failed to recognise any of the pictures of terror suspects Idema's group had showed him. US news reports said Idema was a bounty hunter who had spent time in jail for fraud, formerly fought with Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan and may have been hunting senior Al-Qaeda leaders in the hope of claiming the substantial rewards on offer. US forces here are already under fire from rights groups for their mistreatment of detainees in Afghanistan, one of whom died while in custody. Taken and edited from - http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1512&u=/afp/20040721/wl_afp/afghanistan_us_crime_040721150745&printer=1 – Ed. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Members only S.F.'s exclusive clubs carry on traditions of fellowship, culture -- and discrimination On Saturday, some 2,000 CEOs and politicos and arty types arrived at the cool redwoods and lily-choked lake of the Grove, the famous Russian River playground of the powerful Bohemian Club. They say it's the place to be seen in America in July. Except, of course, you can't see them. Signs abound: No Thru Traffic. No Trespassing. Members and Guests Only. No Turn Around. Sentries scan the paths from above with binoculars, helped out by infrared sensors. And what are those important men doing out there for 17 days behind that elaborate security? Slipping into frocks and putting on pageants. The Bohemian Club, a beguiling mix of ultra-power hangout and high school play, is one of several elite private clubs in San Francisco, curious islands of conservatism amid a forest of Kerry for President signs. Of these, the Big Four are the Bohemian Club, the stodgy Pacific-Union Club atop Nob Hill, the gigantic sports-minded Olympic Club, and the tiny ultra-exclusive San Francisco Golf Club straddling the line between San Francisco and Daly City. Two admit women. Two do not. One admits women in town, but not in the country -- and not after dark. None admits the poor, except in white jackets. Or so sources say. Information is not easy to come by. It's secret stuff, very hush-hush. Members consent to talk to a reporter only if their names are withheld, and then say only the most laudatory things. They're just following the rules. The bylaws for the Pacific-Union Club, for example, read: "No information regarding any Club activity or function shall be released by anyone to the media." Also, one suspects, secrecy is part of the fun. It's impossible to talk about private clubs in this day and age without sounding censorious, but people have always liked having the right to choose who joins their private associations. Mills College in Oakland resisted a demand to let male students in. Many book clubs ban men because the women want to read "The Hours" and the men would want to read the new Alexander Hamilton biography. There are a number of fancy women's clubs here, such as the Town & Country (said to be the female Pacific-Union Club). We all like to gang together with people like us, and men seem to like it even more than women do. If there were only five men in all of North America, three of them would sneak out behind the house and start a club. The other two would not be asked to join. Clubs are reproved for excluding various sets of people, but excluding is, after all, the point. If there is to be an "us," there has to be a "not us." (Or your club is Costco.) And as one member remarked, when it comes to women, "It's not excluding. It's getting away from." When Augusta National in Georgia was pressured, unsuccessfully, to accept women two years ago, the appropriately named Mary Anne Case, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, couldn't think of a reason for its refusal to admit females "that doesn't involve somehow girls having cooties." These relics of the age of exclusion seem to be in no danger of going the way of other 19th century institutions. John van der Zee, who lives in Healdsburg, posed as a waiter at the Bohemian Grove one summer and wrote the 1974 book "The Greatest Men's Party on Earth." "When I did the book," he said, "I thought it would be valedictory. A way of life that was ending." That was 30 years ago. Today these clubs have long waiting lists. Paul B. "Red" Fay Jr., former undersecretary of the Navy who's on the roster of the San Francisco Golf Club (SFGC), the Bohemian Club (BC) and the Pacific-Union Club (PU), said, somewhat tautologically but sincerely, "The reason there's such a big demand is because everybody wants to get in them. " "PU is the pre-eminent club," said Sally Debenham, a San Francisco socialite. "The crème de la crème. Big, big heavy players in the PU Club. They take it seriously, the little darlings." The Pacific-Union's prohibitions have been characterized, said Merla Zellerbach, as "no women, no Democrats, no reporters." It's old guard, old money -- and many of the members are just plain old. The joke is that guest speakers must stop "when you hear the canes rattle." It's housed in what travel writer Jan Morris described as an "inconceivably gloomy" mansion standing on a block by itself on the crest of Nob Hill. Belonging to a club like this says a lot about who you are. Tell someone you're a member of the Pacific-Union Club, and you are saying you made it through a rigorous vetting to filter out the "not us." One local intellectual property lawyer joined seven years ago when he was 40. The selection process included a preliminary statement on his behalf by a Proposer and Seconder after which he got 12 sponsoring members and then took 10 members of the committee to dinner individually. One member described how it feels to play squash at the Pacific-Union Club and have a glass of wine afterward with his male friends. "It's an incalculatingly wonderful feeling, that of belonging," he said. Mostly, the members are old white guys. They want younger faces at all these clubs, but by the time people work their way up the waiting lists, the dew is off the bloom. The lawyer who went through the lengthy process to join the PU is also on a waiting list for the Bohemian Club. He's been on it for 20 years. Even stringent latter-day lunch policies haven't discouraged membership. Like many clubs, the PU has always asked members to dine there so many times a quarter. But members can no longer deduct the meals as a business expense. That's illegal if a club discriminates based on age, sex or race. In fact, club rules forbid talking business at all -- or even reading the business page. Architect George Livermore, who belongs to this club, the Bohemian Club and the Olympic Club, said, "They recently put out a notice saying it's been called to the attention of managers that papers have been brought to the table!" He said the place is now almost empty at lunch. Women can't lunch in the main dining room, only in a side room. When venture capitalist Annette Campbell-White worked for Hambrecht & Quist, the firm had a luncheon at the PU Club to welcome new partners and told her she couldn't attend -- then she could, but had to come in the back door. One partner accused her of ruining the party and suggested, she recalled, that next time she "take a business trip." Even the wives of members are asked to come in by the back door, Debenham said. She had foot problems once and used the front. It felt strange. "I was so trained to come in the back door." Livermore doesn't know why women can't come as guests. "Anything you include women in is always exciting," he said, noting the Olympic Club was smart to always allow women as guests. "Now that women are almost people," he joked, "why don't the other clubs do that?" The San Francisco Golf Club is so shy, Debenham said, it won't give out directions. "Even members get lost trying to find the place." Notice to lost members: You can find those undulating greens and gingerbready clubhouse behind those unnaturally tall eucalyptus trees in back of the "John Daly Blvd" freeway sign on I-280 just past San Francisco State. Slow at the sign for Thomas Moore Church and drive past the discreetly blocking shrubbery until you see the small sign: "SF Golf Club, Private." This club wishes to continue to fly way, way under the radar. Calls were not returned. So our information has not been confirmed or denied by anybody representing the club. David Burgin, former editor in chief of the San Francisco Examiner, said, "All your tycoons are over there." But that's not true. The club recently said no to one tycoon -- Scott McNealy, the CEO of Sun Microsystems. He was named the best CEO golfer in the country by Golf Digest magazine. Whatever this club is holding out for, it's not members with a great swing. Neither the club nor McNealy cared to comment. One should note, though, that McNealy's other sport is hockey, and computer money is new, not old. And, as you see, he brings the attention of the press with him. "It's the most difficult club to get into," said Paul Fay Jr., member since 1946. "It's just impossible," said Livermore, who has tried to get friends in. "They say, 'Forget it!' " Which means forget using the club's fabled fast course overlooking the windy Pacific. Designed by the revered A.W. Tillinghast, it's ranked among the best in the world. "The women are allowed to play on certain days at certain times," Fay said. "I think Thursday is their special day when they play in the morning, and then Sunday afternoons they can go out there and have their social activities and everything they want to run." Fifteen years ago, this club lost its role as host to PGA golf events because it had no minority members, either. It has not returned to hosting public tournaments. But clubs make sacrifices to keep their membership the way they like it. Farther south, Cypress Point, which Burgin described as "stinking rich," withdrew from the AT&T Pebble Beach tournament it had hosted for years. "Rather than admit minorities, they shattered their own tradition. How could you have that tournament without TV pictures of the 16th hole at Cypress Point?" Burgin asked. The 16th hole there is 230 yards airborne across an inlet. The San Francisco Golf Club, tiny and with no public functions, can be as persnickety as it likes about whom it lets in. And whom it keeps out. "They don't take Jewish people, which is outrageous," Livermore said. Others familiar with the club said this is true. Fay preferred not to comment on the policy but, when asked if there were any Jewish members, said, "I don't think they have one right now." "The Bohemian Grove is woodsy," said Astrid Hoffman of Tiburon, whose husband belongs to the St. Francis Yacht Club. "They have these little houses or clubs. They're like Cub Scouts with their dens. They try to outdo each other in drinks and food, have private concerts and get-togethers." There are 125 different camps -- Toyland, Dog House, Sons of Toil, etc. George H.W. Bush will be in Hill Billies, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The bylaws say that at least 100 members must be connected professionally with literature, art, music or drama. Such "associate" members pay much less -- but must sing for their supper, in an arrangement worthy of a Medici. "If you're a theatrical type, you shoot to the top of the list," Debenham said. "The Bohemian Grove is marvelously eclectic." Every year at the Grove, a freshly written play with a cast of hundreds is performed the last Sunday of the retreat. "We know in advance that the hero will be a king or commander adored by his men, and that he will see his duty and do it," said Healdsburg author van der Zee of what he calls "these lumbering pageants." One year, San Francisco novelist Herb Gold said he was offered an associate membership if he would help write the Grove play. Gold took fellow writer Earnest Gaines ("A Lesson Before Dying"), an African American, to a Wednesday night entertainment at the six-story downtown club. Five members, he said, were in blackface. One member clapped Gaines on the back. "Looks like you've played a little football," Gold heard him say. Shortly thereafter, the writers took their leave. "I guess I'm not clubbable," Gold said wryly. Those who are clubbable find themselves strolling past faces any American would recognize. "Never mind just plain CEOs and presidents," Hoffman said, "they have president presidents" -- such as former President George H.W. Bush, who has brought his sons. William F. Buckley was a member until he resigned last year. He'd play Bach pieces on the harpsichord at dusk on Friday nights (to campers who'd have preferred the Cal fight song, one member told me). The arts are a genuine part of the spirit of this club. But a bit more goes on. In 1971, President Richard Nixon, a member since 1953, was to be the lakeside speaker, but reporters had finally raised a ruckus about a sitting president giving an off-the-record speech at the Grove. Nixon sent sugary regrets in a telegram that hangs in the city clubhouse today, saying that anyone could be president of the United States, but only a few could aspire to be president of the Bohemian Club. Privately, he said to John Ehrlichman and Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman (and the hidden tape recorder) in the Oval Office that May: "The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time -- it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco." That testy remark could have been pique. He didn't get to deliver his speech, and, as van der Zee noted, the Grove, its powerful members pledged to secrecy, provides an ideal audience on which to test a major policy address. "Every elected official knows there's no place more conducive to the conduct of political affairs than a gathering that has been declared nonpolitical," he said. Many have taken advantage. At www.sonomacountyfreepress.com, the Web site of the protest group called the Bohemian Grove Action Network (their logo depicts a tuxedoed patrician in a top hat swilling a martini as he straddles an MX missile) shows that speakers who have "given a Lakeside" include Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, George H.W. Bush and Michel Rocard, former prime minister of France. Nelson Rockefeller gave up a run for the presidency after his speech failed to move his fellow campers. And this is where, according to van der Zee and many other published sources, Bush asked Cheney to be his running mate in 2000, where Nixon advised Ronald Reagan to stay out of the coming presidential race in 1967, where Edward Teller and others in the Manhattan Project mapped out the atomic bomb in the autumn of 1942. Mary Moore of Occidental, a founder of the Action Network, which has helped organize demonstrations outside the Grove since 1980, said the speeches -- sorry, talks -- have been hard to acquire because her source inside moved on and the club took to locking the texts of the speeches in the guardhouse. (She did send us the 2002 membership roster.) The club would like all this secret stuff to stay secret, which means that the curious are always breaking in (Mother Jones, National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times, CBS). Media CEOs have had to interrupt their conversations to throw out their own reporters. When Dirk Mathison, San Francisco bureau chief for People magazine, sneaked onto the grounds, a Time Warner executive recognized him and walked him to the gate. The piece never ran. In fact, whole newspaper empires have been flung out. The club has an offshoot called the Family that came into being after the Hearst-owned Examiner ran a 1901 piece in which Ambrose Bierce predicted the assassination of President William McKinley. When McKinley was assassinated soon after, the club threw out its Hearst people and removed its newspapers from the clubrooms. The Family flourishes to this day, letting all kinds of people in and supporting a hospital in Nicaragua. Its new members are called Babies, and the president is the Father. "There is no mother," a member said. "The babies are brought by the stork." Curiously, the Bohemian Club was started by newspapermen much like the ones now landing in a heap of dust outside the gate. In 1872, an editorial writer for The Chronicle proposed a club so reporters could meet somewhere other than saloons. Van der Zee said, "It's not uncommon for founding principles to become institutional embarrassments, but few social clubs have made such a turnabout." It is called "social" because business is the last thing on anyone's mind at this club to which hundreds of CEOs and former government officials belong. "Oh, please," Debenham said. "The contacts are amazing." The late John Ehrlichman, domestic affairs adviser under Nixon and a guest at the Grove, once told a reporter, "Once you've spent three days with someone in an informal situation, you have a relationship -- a relationship that opens doors and makes it easier to pick up the phone." (This is reportedly called the "Mandalay effect," after the camp where the Bechtels stay, along with Kissinger, Colin Powell and our own George Shultz.) Women don't get to experience the Mandalay effect because they aren't allowed in, except on certain family weekends, and then they must be off the grounds by dusk. It's not clear what will happen to them if they're not. Maybe it has never happened. "Periodically a wife makes noise, and then it dies down," Hoffman said. She believes men need retreats like this. "It's that Masonic thing, the touching of the ring. Goes back to before the Crusades. The men feel safer without women. It's the same thing in a way when women get together. First it's jolly and then gets weird. Clannish." The importance of male bonding aside, it seems wrong to some for all this political talk to be going on with the press and half the population absent. Case finds it alarming that no women are at the Grove, especially when the policy discussions concern them. "People I know -- definitely not friends of mine -- say they've discussed the role women should be playing in the armed forces at the Grove." What's the law on this? The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution protects two kinds of associations: private or intimate associations (fewer than 400 members, such as the SFGC) and expressive associations formed to put forth a principle or idea. "You have to look at how big the club is, how committed to an ideology, and how exclusion is necessary matters to its purposes," Case said. "The Bohemians are principally Republicans. They discuss politics. They have, as it were, a point of view. That may qualify them as an expressive association." And don't forget this club has artistic leanings. It expresses itself in a Druid-like opening ceremony called Cremation of Care that features red pointy hats, torches and Care getting badly singed. Case has heard about that and has her own theory about why the club is all male. "The things they do would look too silly if women saw them." The huge athletic Olympic Club, with two golf courses by the ocean and a more tie-and-suit headquarters downtown, is the oldest and one of the most famous clubs in the country, and one of the biggest. Of the three clubs he belongs to, this is George Livermore's favorite. He lives across the street from the downtown site. "I go swimming at the Olympic Club and get drunk next door at the Bohemian Club," he said, merrily. His grandfather, Horatio P. Livermore, was a founder of the Olympic Club back in 1860 in a downtown firehouse and added two gorgeous 18-hole golf courses by the ocean in the 1920s. It has since hosted four U.S. Open championships. Like many clubs, it was begun by people who couldn't get in elsewhere -- in this case, Germans, Italians, Irish and Catholics. "I used to play golf there with a florist and another guy who sells vegetables and hauls lettuce and celery around the backseat of a Rolls-Royce," said Burgin, a member since 1969. "It's not a place merely for the rich and the swells." There's a 10-year wait for golf memberships. The lakeside clubhouse was designed by Arthur Brown, who designed San Francisco's City Hall and the Opera House. The club has lots of sport teams, bay swims, dinner, power pacing classes, an annual hike and dip on Ocean Beach, relays around Lake Merced, and crab feasts. "It's the best club in the world," said Stuart Kinder, president last year. "We have a broad-based membership that crosses all social and economic lines. You don't have to be a blue blood to be a member. You don't have to be wealthy." Marcus Musante, 25, is glad to have joined as a junior member, though he got scolded for wearing cargo pants to a golf lesson. "People are talkative. It's a social atmosphere. When you're young, just starting out there're few things as valuable as talking to an older professional. It's nice to pick their brains, and at the club they're willing to be open and share their pearls." When Musante told an older member that he was interning at a district attorney's office, "he recommended for me to go into government agency right out of school and try to cure the world of its problems until you realize you can't." Until 1992, women could golf but not go to the downtown club. That year it was discovered the club had three holes on public property. Louise Renne, then city attorney, said, "We told them, 'Stop discriminating or play with 15 holes.' " Women now are full members. "These days, athletic clubs would be mad to exclude women -- they're so much more involved in athletics than they ever have been," said Ron Fimrite, who's at work on a history of the club. The club is building new facilities on Sutter, largely for the women. Burgin doesn't go to the Olympic Club much anymore. "When girls come in, it flat changes," he mourned. "Used to be, you'd go in and the ballgame's on, tablecloths are plain, no flowers on the tables. You can sit down at anybody's table without formality, yell across the room and talk dirty. So goddamn annoying. Breaks my heart. "Ferchrissakes, can't a man have a place to go?" Taken and edited from - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/18/SFCLUBS.TMP - Ed. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ III. Historical Anomalies The Mysterious Megaliths of New England Located in the heart of modern-day New England stand sites of such great antiquity; sites so enigmatic, so sophisticated and seemingly inexplicable, serious scientists and archaeologists have denied their study because of their monumental implications: it would force them to throw away their preconceived notions about the achievements of ancient man into the historical garbage can. Mystery Hill, the Upton Cave, Calendar I and Calendar II, Gungywamp and Druid’s Hill are just several of the names given some incredibly important historical sites of which many have never heard a whisper. But their existence-and their importance-is becoming harder and harder to hide as more are discovered and interested folk become exposed to their grandeur. Sometime in the late 1600s or early 1700s, early American colonists began discovering and utilizing underground “root cellars” made of large but manageable pieces of dressed stone as storage houses for food stuffs. Colonists were also finding numerous stone buildings, usually of “one story, circular or rectangular in form, and up to 30 feet in length and up to 10 feet wide and eight feet high or more.” Many included roof slabs or lintels of several tons. Many also had carefully crafted openings in their roofs which allowed a small amount of light to pass through to the interiors. The colonial newcomers were convinced that these so-called root cellars had been constructed by the former Amerind inhabitants of the area-irrespective of the fact that their Indian neighbors showed little hint of an ability to work in large stone or the desire to do so. Before long, the inheritors of these properties thought their own American ancestors had built these cellars-some which were eighty feet deep and lined the entire way with roughly hewn stone. Simultaneously, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of oddly-inscribed flagstones were being found in the surrounding New England woods, carted off by farmers for use in stone walls or in larger stone structures in the settlements of the growing northeast. The angular cuts on these stones looked much like the marks a plow makes when it strikes a submerged piece of stone-at least they looked that way to most of the simple country farmers of the day. Others believed the markings appearing in rocks all across New England were “the action of the roots of trees.” For decades nothing at all was thought of them. As any New Englander can tell you, the entire northeast is strewn with large chunks of striated stone material left from the last era of glacial recession. But a local Puritan clergyman, Cotton Mather, was not convinced. In 1712 he discovered some strange incisions on an exposed seaside rockface in Dighton, Massachusetts-far from where any plow could have marked it. He immediately wrote to the Royal Society in London, England, to inform them of his find and to convey his belief that the rock carvings were in fact an ancient scriptural alphabet-perhaps several differing ancient alphabets. Unexpectedly, his letter generated little interest. The scientists of the Royal Society were already busy exploring newly discovered rock inscriptions in neighboring Ireland. These European inscriptions were later identified as Irish Hinge Ogam, a form of Gaelic Keltic writing unknown for centuries and stubbornly undecipherable. It is referred to as “hinge” Ogam because a central dividing line or a facet edge was used to separate the subtly different individual characters. Little did anyone know at the time, the inscriptions found on both sides of the Atlantic were firmly connected. Yet how could Celtic writing, a style reminiscent of that from the first millennium B.C., be in America? Who were the authors of the many rock engravings? How could the carvers possibly have gotten to America a thousand years before the birth of Christ? Why had they come and what evidence is there to support such a far-fetched notion? And what of the large stone structures found across the American northeast, eerily similar to types found in Europe? The answers were being spoken loudly and clearly if someone could only listen to what the rocks and buildings themselves had to say. But time seemed to be running out. Thousands of the inscribed rocks were being broken up for building material and the larger stone structures were being dismantled or vandalized, destroying the monumental works of these mysterious builders. Calendar II: Vermont’s Mysterious Underground Chamber One summer day, I drove to the top of a mountain in central Vermont. At the top, I parked and started walking around. I get a certain feeling at power centers and I was picking up on this feeling as I found a standing stone and a recumbent stone with Iberian Ogam inscriptions believed to have been written by European Celts 3000 years ago. So much for Columbus “discovering” America. At the center of this cosmic place is a beautifully preserved underground chamber called Calendar II because it is oriented to the midwinter sunrise. If you sit inside the chamber and look out the entranceway on the morning of the winter solstice, December 21, the sun will rise in the center of the entrance. Analysis by archeoastronomer Byron Dix shows that the chamber was also used in lunar observations and eclipse prediction. This is only one of many such sites found all over New England. This chamber, like most other such chambers, is located over an underground water spring and a ley-line power center. As I entered the chamber, I felt a palpable presence in the air, an increase in energy density, an intensity of experience. It came to me that this chamber was specially designed to evoke these kinds of feelings and experiences. The overhead lintel stones weigh approximately three tons each. I couldn’t stay in the chamber for more than five minutes. The “volume” of the energy in this place was too high for my tastes and sensitivity. Monuments harbor the potential for universal creative power that can be directed for the progress of humanity. In India, such spots are called tantrapieds, places for liberation and enlightenment. These sacred places have a very spiritual vibration, facilitating deep meditation and contemplation. For answers, we first turn to an odd stone arrangement found in the hills of New England. The Mystery Hill complex, the largest and most sophisticated of its kind in North America, covers over 30 acres and is composed of monolithic standing stones, stone walls and underground chambers, most of which are aligned to obvious astronomical points. Even now the site can be used as an accurate yearly calendar utilizing the stones set up over two thousand (perhaps as long as 5,000) years ago. The lack of household artifacts and grave goods leads us to believe that the site was a ceremonial center and neither living quarters nor a “city.” Over the years the more interesting features and structures on-site have been given un-scientific names that insinuate inferred function. The “Watch House” is the name given to a chamber structure located outside the main complex at Mystery Hill. The roof is a massive, quarried slab of granite of several tons. On the back wall of the chamber the stones contain a high percentage of white quartz, a stone found in its pure form in many of the neolithic structures over the world and treasured by ancient peoples for its reflective qualities. This particular chamber is aligned to the February first sunrise and lunar minor south. At sunrise on this date the sunlight enters the entrance of the chamber and slowly moves along one wall until it illuminates the quartz crystals at the back wall, making the semi-precious gems sparkle noticeably. February first was one of the eight most important divisions of the Keltic year as we shall discuss in more detail later. The “Oracle Chamber” is one of the most interesting and important structures located at Mystery Hill-or anywhere for that matter. It is significantly larger than any other chamber found at the site and contains unique characteristics found nowhere else in any of the other megalithic sites in New England. A 4 inch by 6 inch shaft, lined with thin facing stones, runs from the exterior and enters through the interior wall at about chin level. The “Speaking Tube,” as it is called, emerges above ground, yet concealed underneath a sacrificial altar with runnels. It would seem that the speakers within the Oracle Chamber could talk into the tube, their voices warped and amplified, carrying up to the altar above and creating quite an impressive sound to a group of worshippers who might be gathered around the altar-in effect making the altar talk. Also found across the Mystery Hill site are huge monolithic standing stones (some now fallen) all of which line up to sun, moon or star alignments as seen from a central viewing slab located by one of the earlier researchers at the site. From this slab, monoliths align to the Midwinter solstice sunrise and sunset, the November one sunrise and sunset, the Spring and Fall Equinox sunrises and sunsets, the May one sunrise and sunset, the Midsummer solstice sunrise and sunset, the August one sunrise and sunset and true north (this stone is aligned to the star Thuban, the pole star of 2,000 B.C.). On these days the sun will either rise or set above worked monolith stones. Exact alignments coincide, according to scholars and astronomers, with a date of 2499 B.C. to 1900 B.C. Other impressive constructions on the site include a number of underground chambers with clear astronomical alignments. The calendrical orientations of these slab-roofed chambers, it would seem, would rule out these structures being constructed as root cellars by early American colonists or the woodlands Indians of the northeast as neither were concerned with alignments that coincide with the most important of yearly Keltic celebrations. Further, noted archaeo-astronomer Byron Dix has determined that New England is replete with underground chambers. He says, “ there are some 105 astronomically aligned chambers in Massachusetts, 51 in New Hampshire, 41 in Vermont, 62 in Connecticut, 12 in Rhode Island, and 4 in Maine.”1 Suffice it to say, it is obvious that the alignments found at Mystery Hill and other sites are not random. One of the central features of the Mystery Hill site is the sacrificial table/altar. It is a 4.5 ton grooved slab whose purpose is still under debate by scholars. In the words of archeologist and Mystery Hill curator Robert Stone: “ others believe it was used for sacrifices, not only because of its central location, its size, but also because the Oracle speaking tube was beneath it, as well as the carved channel [for the draining of blood] on the top surface. It is positioned on four worked stone legs and is located at the center of the site in a large courtyard.”2 It too bears a striking resemblance to altar stones found at megalithic sites in Europe. And we do know that blood sacrifice and altars such as these were connected firmly to Neolithic religions. But even more than mere physical resemblance to European sites, it was carbon dating, carried out under the supervision of respected scientists from Geochron Laboratories in 1971 that supported the disputed claims of researchers who were being ridiculed for insisting that Mystery Hill was a site of extreme antiquity. Carbon tests conducted on charcoal found alongside a stone pick and a hammer stone unearthed at an excavation near one of the underground chambers reveal a date of 2,000 B.C. The artifacts were clearly related to Neolithic pieces of the same era in the British Isles and Iberia. The excavation pit carbon tested had been undisturbed before digging and layers of strata above were perfectly intact. Unfortunately, many of the other structures at the site were carted away, vandalized or destroyed-yet what remains should be viewed as one of the most important historical sites in the Western Hemisphere. And Mystery Hill is not-by far-the only megalithic site in New England whose origins are somewhat clouded. Megalithic constructions known as dolmens can be found all across new England, the western part of Europe and even into Syria and South Africa. Dolmen comes from the Breton word for stone table as the dolmens in many instances are three, four or five smaller boulders topped by an immense, flat-topped boulder than can weigh any where from several tons to 90 tons. Many of these capstones are however roundish, dressed stones, and not flat topped. The dolmen usually was erected to commemorate the death of a chieftain or an historical event of great importance and scriptural incisions usually accompany the dolmen on stone markers. Some experts believe that the dolmen was actually a tomb that was then covered in huge amounts of earth-in effect a tumulous tomb in which the earth has been eroded away. Dolmens are frequently occurring structures in the American northeast. There are in fact over 200 examples of dolmens in New England alone and some very impressive examples can be found in our country as far away as California. Another frequently occurring megalithic structure familiar to all readers is the stone circle. We know of the great Stonehenge complex in England with its huge stones found there and the many calendrical alignments they delineate. But there are ancient stone circles in New England as well. Probably the most intriguing archaeological site in Connecticut is located in Groton and is called “Gungywamp,” thought to be an ancient Indian name, but actually ancient Gaelic meaning, “Church of the People.” Besides containing beehive chambers and petroglyphs, the Gungywamp site has a double circle of stones near its center, just north of two stone chambers. Two concentric circles of large quarried stones large slabs laid end to end-are at the center of the site. Extensive fire burning on some of the slabs is apparent which leads many to believe it was an ancient altar. Nearby there are several large pillar stones and one boulder slab that have been carefully positioned along astronomical site lines. Visiting the Gungywamp site on the afternoon of September 21st, Dave Barron, the head of the Gungywamp Society, saw a sight that he would never forget. He said, “The setting sun had cast a beam of light through the vent shaft at the back of the chamber. This beam of light slowly moved down the east wall and spotlighted into the small beehive crypt near the entrance. This stone-lined tube was designed precisely to permit the Equinoctical sunset to fully penetrate the chamber’s dark interior on only two days during the year-March 22nd and September 21. The high density of garnet in the stones magnified the intensity of the sunlight entering the chamber. It certainly acts as a predictable calendar. The Gungywamp site has been carbon dated to 600 A.D.”3 James Whittall had this to say about an astonishing megalithic site he viewed at LeBlanc Park in Lowell, Massachusetts: “There I saw a sight I had not seen since my travels in the British Isles. Situated on a mound were weathered megalithic stones. I was filled with disbelief-it just couldn’t be-western Europe, yes, but here in Massachusetts-no. The reality of the scene was astonishing.” This oval mound was measured at 112 feet long by 56 feet wide. And the stones, as Whittall predicted, provided astronomical alignments. The monoliths were oriented east to west, and bearings of the sight indicated that it had been used to observe solar events. The first observation was made on September 22nd, the fall equinox, from the highest stone on the western side from the peak of the eastern most stone. The sun set behind stone number four just as Whittall had surmised. Taken and edited from - http://planetvermont.com/pvq/v9n1/megaliths.html - Ed. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Quote of the week – “I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president.” Hillary Clinton, commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Anomalies Report is copyright 1999-2004, The Anomalies Group. Please send replies, questions, comments, or submissions to: anomrprt@texas.net. To unsubscribe to this e-mail, please send a reply to the above address with “REMOVE” in the subject line.