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http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/14/spies.revealed.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time when the Nazis threatened the world.

They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The full secret comes out Thursday, all of the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this week released a list of the names found in the records, will make available for the first time all 750,000 pages identifying the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives.

They were soldiers, actors, historians, lawyers, athletes, professors, reporters. But for several years during World War II, they were known simply as the OSS. They studied military plans, created propaganda, infiltrated enemy ranks and stirred resistance among foreign troops.

If I Were a Betting Man, I'd Wager that Cheney Was Behind the Anthrax Attacks

You'd have to be a terribly cautious and willfully blind person not to think that the Bush Administration was capable of orchestrating the anthrax attacks. You'd almost have to be a fool.

Years after the anthrax attacks were aimed at Democratic senators who were necessary to pass the "spy on Americans," cynically named "Patriot Act," suddenly the latest "prime suspect" commits suicide without leaving a note or anything, but then the FBI makes claims about how they "got their man" after how many seasons of incompetence in their investigation had passed?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/08/AR2008080802947.html

Bruce Riedel has written a piece in the Washington Post today warning of a pre-election attack from al-Qaeda. He writes:

"If it happened in Spain, it can happen here. The Madrid bombings reveal the close attention al-Qaeda pays to the electoral cycles in Western democracies. Osama bin Laden, the perpetrator of one of the greatest mass murders in U.S. history, is certain to want to have his say in our elections this fall. (Full disclosure: I'm an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign.) The record is clear: Al-Qaeda has developed a predictable pattern of behavior over the decade since it declared war on the United States that provides important insights into what we can expect in the next six months. Brace yourselves."

The article appears under the heading, "October Surprise." It's probably more "al-Qaeda" propaganda; but I have to wonder if it's a not-so-covert warning that the Bushies are planning something?

http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2008/08/beyond-reasonable-doubt.html
(see original blog for links)

U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said at a Justice Department news conference, "We regret that we will not have the opportunity to present evidence to the jury."

Everybody else regrets it too--since what came out today was another pastiche of innuendo and circumstantial evidence, with an awful lot of holes. Time for the FBI to present all of what it has to the court of public opinion, don't you think? A major benefit for the FBI of sharing its case would be restoration of confidence in the US' system of justice, the Justice Department and its FBI.

I worked all day at the hospital, but want to get something out tonight, in a hurry, regarding the strength of some of the evidence presented today. I'll no doubt have more to say once I have read the rest of the "evidence".

Here goes:

Bush Unveils Spy Guidelines, Angering House Overseers

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 1, 2008; A09

The Bush administration unveiled new operating guidelines for the nation's intelligence community yesterday in a move that boosted the authority of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) while triggering protests from lawmakers who complained that they weren't properly consulted.

The changes affirmed the DNI's role as head of the 16 U.S. spy agencies and expanded its power to set priorities and coordinate the sharing of intelligence. The DNI also was given an expanded role in foreign intelligence collection and in the hiring and firing of senior intelligence officials.

The changes were part of a long-awaited overhaul of Executive Order 12333, a Reagan-era document that establishes the powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence services. Most of the revisions merely reflect changes already in place since the DNI was established by Congress three years ago, partly as a response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/623820.html
Posted on Wed, Jul. 30, 2008

Alleged 9/11 mastermind won't testify - live
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed has balked at testifying in person at the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, defense lawyers said Wednesday. Instead, the jury will get written statements from the al Qaeda kingpin and another alleged plotter in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Lawyers for Salim Hamdan, 37, plan to use the testimony of Mohammed and Walid Bin Attash to try to exonerate the driver, Hamdan, of being an al Qaeda co-conspirator.

One of those men has already written Hamdan's lawyers that the Yemeni with a fourth-grade education ''Was not fit to plan or execute,'' according to defense attorney Harry Schneider of Seattle. ``He is fit to change tires. And oil filters.''

The argument dovetails nicely with the driver's defense that he never joined al Qaeda, did not know in advance about the details of al Qaeda terror plots and merely drove for $200 a month -- and not for ideology.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/nyregion/24x-health.html?ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print

By JAMES BARRON

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to announce on Thursday that it plans to award $30 million to hospitals and clinics that monitor and treat residents, students and other so-called nonresponders who were exposed to dust and smoke at ground zero.

These nonresponders were not among the rescue and recovery workers sent to the World Trade Center site after the twin towers were destroyed on 9/11. Some of those workers have complained of respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments. Thousands of firefighters, for example, developed what has become known as the World Trade Center cough.

Christine Branche, the acting director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said in an interview on Wednesday that the money was set aside in an appropriations bill that Congress passed and President Bush signed in December. She said it would be given as grants in three installments of $10 million, and would go to as many as three hospitals or clinics.

Here's an excerpt from the interview with Matt Taibbi, left gatekeeper, at the Onion AV Club:

AVC: In The Great Derangement, you document your infiltration into John Hagee's Cornerstone Church and your incognito participation in 9/11 Truth Movement meetings. Have you gotten a reaction from either camp since the book's publication?

Under the headline U.S.A. is Fall Guy for 911, the celebrity news site TMZ.com has aired a story regarding former 80s blonde bombshell Heather Thomas and her belief that 9/11 was an inside job.

Thomas told Retroality.TV that 9/11 was staged on behalf of the oil companies. See her exact comments at the link. Maybe leave some comments at TMZ, which gets lots of traffic.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/13/43-nation-mediterranean-u_n_112394.html

PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the disparate and conflicted countries around the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday to make peace as European rivals did in the 20th century as he launched an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean.

"The European and the Mediterranean dreams are inseparable," he told leaders from more than 40 nations in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. "We will succeed together; we will fail together."

The union Sarkozy championed as a pillar of his presidency brought together around one table for the first time dignitaries such rival nations as Israel and Syria, Algeria and Morocco, Turkey and Greece.

Coping with age-old enmities involving their peoples and others along the Mediterranean shores will be a central challenge to the new union encompassing some 800 million people.

"We will build peace in the Mediterranean together, like yesterday we built peace in Europe," Sarkozy said. He insisted the new body would not be "North against south, not Europe against the rest ... but united."

Check out these images of the media moguls gathering at Sun Valley.

Reuters offers a brief write-up.

From "The Future of North America" by Robert Pastor:

"North America's leaders should deepen economic integration by negotiating a customs union. They should establish a North American investment fund to narrow the income gap between Mexico and its northern neighbors.... And they should create a lean, independent advisory commission to prepare North American plans for transportation, infrastructure, energy, the environment, and labor standards." (page 86 in the print version)

"in 2006, the three North American leaders invited a group of CEOs from some of the largest corporations in North America to establish the NACC (North American Competitiveness Council). They focused on 51 recommendations, which included eliminating pesky regulations, and agreed on the need to work 'under the radar screen' of public attention." (page 87)

Pastor also attacks critics of deep integration, such as Lou Dobbs and others. The rest of the article contains Pastor's ideas for integration, and it's disturbing. Near the end, he writes,