Ilan Shturman, deputy director of the Israeli foreign ministry’s hasbara department (!), told an Israeli business newspaper in July that US$150,000 had been allocated for the first stage of a campaign to seed the Internet with hasbarats:

“Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed.”

. . . .

In January, Amir Gissin, Israel’s consul-general in Toronto, sent out a hasbara recruitment letter, which read in part: “If you are frustrated or concerned with the portrayal of Israel in Canadian News and with biased [sic] depictions, your voice can be heard. Now, think that you’re not alone 10,000 voices like yours can respond every day: praise, protest, inform, correct on leading Canadian news websites, in real time, effectively.”

The weakness with this tactic, as you probably figured out, is that hasbarats will inevitably shout and whine themselves into irrelevance. Eventually, intelligent people will tune out the zionist boilerplate, the anti-Muslim smears, and the interminable drone about the holocaust. Already, the once-dreaded epithet “anti-Semite” has lost all significance, as if it ever had any, and the person who hurled it is more likely to be mocked than feared.

. . . .

This tactic was tried at the recent Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) as Tel Aviv was spotlighted in a City-to-City program with Toronto. The ostensible purpose was to use an apolitical, cultural event to obscure the tyranny that Tel Aviv represents, but more than 1,000 filmmakers and performers, weren’t fooled. They put their names to The Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation, an open letter to the TIFF that protested the co-optation of the festival by the Israeli propaganda machine.

The protest accomplished precisely what the hasbarats tried to prevent. “Rather than talking about Israel’s rich cinematic culture, the buzz this week in Toronto has centered on the one thing Israeli officials had sought to avoid: the conflict with the Palestinians,” reported the Jewish Telegraph Agency.

Another major defeat for Israel came courtesy of Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert. After offering a knee-jerk condemnation of the City-to-City protests, he reversed himself the next day:

“I wasn’t prepared with enough facts about the events leading up to the Festival’s decision to showcase Tel Aviv in the City-to-City section. I [initially] thought of it as an innocent goodwill gesture, but now realize it was part of a deliberate plan to ‘re-brand’ Israel in Toronto, as a pilot for a larger such program. The Festival should never have agreed to be used like this. It was naïve for the plan’s supporters to believe it would have the effect they hoped for.”

. . . .

According to the authors of the Toronto Declaration:

“Many Palestinian artists and filmmakers, denied freedom of movement by Israel’s Occupation and pass system, are de facto boycotted, unable to communicate with their communities or travel freely. The double standard is mind-boggling and, slowly, these are the issues we are helping to put under a spotlight.”

Finally, it is important to note that the Declaration’s authors succeeded without any media help. They had no money to place ads, and no newspaper would publish their open letter. On the other hand, hasbarats had the full support (read: “obedience”) of Canada’s national media, and lost.

If a modest, unfunded, popular protest can effectively defeat an orchestrated propaganda campaign, what does that say about Israel’s ability to pose as a legitimate, democratic state? (Read more from usa.mediamonitors.net)

Didn’t know Sean Hannity was a die-hard libertarian? Why, because he still faithfully supports the wars, loves the PATRIOT Act, thinks water-boarding isn’t so bad, and says our military is too small?

Well, today on his radio show he tried to persuade a caller he was a libertarian, mostly just by repeating, “Look, I’m a libertarian, buddy” over and over. Not terribly convincing. Apparently, this isn’t the first time he’s said it either.

So two of the most listened to conservative talk show hosts have converted to libertarianism? First Glenn Beck, now Sean? There are still many skeptical about Beck and his true views, but it seems safe to say that there is no way Hannity is a libertarian. So why say it?

Glenn Beck’s ratings have soared as of late, passing Hannity on Fox in popularity. Beck has actually been speaking out against the war, though, and of course, calling himself a libertarian all the while. Does Hannity think that by just saying the word, Glenn Beck viewers will tune in to his show, too? Some will no doubt say that this is further proof that Fox is trying to hi-jack the true liberty movement underway by placing neo-conservatives, cloaked as libertarians, at the head of the Tea Party movement. (Read more from examiner.com)

If this had happened in Tehran, it’d be all over ABCNNBBCBS, and these guys would be heralded as heroes. Sadly, it happened right here in the U.S.S.A..

The crooks are in charge. They have been for a long time.

Taxes are for little people!

In December 2008, the bank holding company Goldman Sachs reported its first quarterly loss. On the heels of this announcement, Goldman Sachs issued a statement confirming that its tax rate was dropping from 34.1 percent to 1 percent. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the US government in October 2008, expects to pay only $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008, compared with $6 billion in 2007. The New York-based Goldman Sachs cited “changes in geographic earnings mix” as the reason behind the decrease.

According to US Representative Lloyd Doggett, the shifting of income to countries with lower taxes is cause for concern. “The problem is larger than Goldman Sachs,” Doggett said, “With the right hand out begging for bailout money, the left is hiding it offshore.” (Read more from projectcensored.org)

Acne, agricultural land increase, Afghan poppies destroyed, Africa devastated,  Africa in conflict, African aid threatened, African summer frost, aggressive weeds, air pressure changes,  airport malaria, Agulhas current, Alaska reshaped, moves,  allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end,  amphibians breeding earlier (or not),  anaphylactic reactions to bee stings,  ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink, Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk,   anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear, Arctic tundra to burn . . . and much, MUCH more. (see the complete list at whatreallyhappened.com)

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man’s influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is.

. . . .

Skeptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth’s warmth comes from the Sun.

. . . .

The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).

For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.

But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.

These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.

So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.

. . . .

One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say its hotting up. (Read more from news.bbc.co.uk)

This is a clear illustration of one of the many contradictions in all we’ve been told about 9/11.

The Case of Lt. Kuczynski
by Hugh Turley

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Kuczynski’s E-3 Sentry was flying toward Pittsburgh with two F-16 fighter jets to intercept United Flight 93 according to the Aquin, the University of St. Thomas (MN) newspaper (April 12, 2002) and a companion article in the university’s alumni magazine.

“I was given direct orders to shoot down an airliner,” Kuczynski, a 1998 ROTC graduate of the university said. “It was one of those things where it was an absolutely surreal experience.” Kuczynski and his crew, deployed in defense of U.S. airspace, were about to intercept United 93 when it crashed.

The Boeing E-3 is the military’s airborne warning and control system called AWACS. It provides surveillance, command, control and communications to air defense forces. F-16 fighter jets under the E-3’s control would have done the actual shooting.

The Air Force’s official history of the day, “Air War Over America,” published by Tyndall Air Force Base, supports Kuczynski’s story. NEADS (North East Air Defense Sector) Commander Robert Marr reported that around 9:36, when it changed direction, while it is still flying west, United 93 was being monitored. NORAD Commander Major General Larry Arnold agreed, saying, “We watched the 93 track as it meandered around the Ohio-Pennsylvania area.”

Furthermore, Arnold, testified to the 9/11 Commission that he placed fighters over DC, “to put them in position in case United 93 were to head that way.”

On the first anniversary of the crash, Brigadier General Montague Winfield told ABC News that the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center “received the report from the FAA that Flight 93 had turned off its transponder, had turned, and was now heading towards Washington,” adding, “The decision was made to try to go intercept Flight 93.”

The 9/11 Commission Report, however, says flatly that the military was not aware of United 93 until it crashed. The official timeline has FAA headquarters knowing that United 93 was hijacked by 9:34, but not telling NEADS of the hijacking until 10:07, after the plane had crashed at 10:03 in Pennsylvania.

The Report clearly states, “…[n]o one from FAA headquarters requested military assistance regarding United 93. Nor did any manager at FAA headquarters pass any of the information it had about United 93 to the military.”

The first NEADS knew about it, according to the report, was at 10:07 a.m., when a call came in from the military liaison at Cleveland Center. “The NEADS air defenders never located the flight or followed it on their radar scopes,” it goes on. “The flight had already crashed by the time the military learned it was hijacked.”

Kuczynski’s E-3 Sentry aircraft was never mentioned in the official 9/11 Report. The Hyattsville Life and Times has been unable to reach Kuczynski for comment, but without Kuczynski’s story America’s true history is suppressed.