The European Union–Big Brother, Europe style–is making a move to kill the Internet.

“The latest move to kill off online freedom and the spread of information comes in the form of proposed EU legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video, whether that be a hard hitting political documentary film or your friends goofing around with diet coke and Mentos.” (Alex Jones Infowars, Oct. 20,2006).

“Personal websites would have to be licensed as a “television-like service”. Once again the reasoning behind such legislation is said to be in order to set minimum standards on areas such as hate speech and the protection of children.” (more…)

Scientists from the main observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences say that an asteroid can crash into the Earth in 2035 causing a global disaster, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported on Friday.

“We cannot exclude the possibility that the asteroid which is now orbiting the Sun will collide with the Earth in 2035,” the agency quoted the observatory spokesman Sergei Smirnov as saying. “But it will be only in 2028 that we will be able to determine the danger level,” the scientist added. (more…)

This week in Las Vegas, supposedly “dozens of people” were implanted with VeriChip microchips at an osteopathic medical convention.

That’s already weird, since osteopaths seem like the least likely people to want to turn human beings into numbered cyborgs. But several other things made this news story even weirder. First, there was the obvious enthusiasm shown by Las Vegas News 3 reporters Steve Crupi and Nina Radetich around the chipping.

• Video online here

(more…)

LONDON — The government is to consider using prison ships as a way of tackling the growing crisis of overcrowding in jails, according to media reports on Saturday.

Home Secretary John Reid has advertised for contractors to provide ships that could house up to 800 prisoners in England and Wales as the prison population neared its capacity of around 80,000 inmates.

“What he’s (Reid) determined to do is to ensure we’ve got sufficient prison places, and obviously, he’s looking at a number of ways of doing that and a prison ship is one possibility,” Home Office minister Vernon Coaker told the BBC. (more…)

In a small box titled “Names of the Dead” on page 10, The New York Times recorded the passing of Cpt. Mark Paine this week, who died after a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Iraq.

His local California newspaper, the Contra Costa Times, ran more than 700 words on Paine’s death, including interviews with his mother, father and even his old Scoutmaster, while the San Francisco Chronicle ran a 500-word obituary.

This local coverage of U.S. military deaths “actually has a bigger affect on public opinion than the overall trends,” said Matt Baum, an associate professor of politics at the University of California, Los Angeles. (more…)

The Republican National Committee’s (RNC) new political ad — featuring clips of Osama bin Laden and other terrorists making threats against the United States and clips of explosions — has not yet aired as a paid advertisement, but broadcast and cable news networks have already played portions of it several times as part of their news programming — essentially giving the RNC the opportunity to fearmonger on their airwaves free of charge. (more…)

SAN DIEGO The chair of the House Armed Services Committee asked the Pentagon today to remove C-N-N reporters embedded with U-S combat units.

The network televised portions of a video on Wednesday showing insurgent snipers targeting U-S military personnel.

Executives said the tape came to the network unexpectedly through contact with an insurgent leader.

Representative Duncan Hunter wrote in his letter that, quote, “CNN has now served as the publicist for an enemy propaganda film featuring the killing of an American soldier.” (more…)

On his October 18 radio show, Sean Hannity, unhinged over the idea of Republicans losing on November 7, exhorted Democrats to stay home and not vote. Two nights later, on Hannity & Colmes, Hannity accused the rest of the media of conspiring to discourage Repubicans from voting. Can you say projection? With video.

Media Matters has the audio of Hannity on his radio show:

I want you to stay home on Election Day because you must accept the fact that your party has abandoned you. You’ve gotta accept the fact that your vote doesn’t matter anyway. So all you Democrats, stay home. So, you know, why don’t you stay home on Election Day? This is how the press is going to report this: “Hannity says Democrats should stay home on Election Day.”

I sure hope they’ll report it, along with what he said during a discussion about the upcoming election with Newt Gingrich on last night’s Hannity & Colmes. “The media seems somewhat complicit. I argue that there’s even a sort of an institutionalized bias to sort of suppress voting and take away initiative from people. That’s how I feel, based on the news coverage.” (more…)

Human remains thought to be from victims of the September 11 attacks have been discovered by utility workers removing rubble from manholes where the World Trade Center once stood, a city official said on Friday.

“Human remains were recovered. We will be trying to do what we can to try to identify those remains,” said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for New York’s chief medical examiner. She said the office would run DNA tests in hopes of matching the parts with profiles gathered since the attacks. (more…)

Russian Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that final steps towards a full Military Dictatorship of the United States have been taken with the US Army announcing USARNORTH has now reached ‘full operational capacity’ and is now ready to:

“Execute homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities missions”, and “Conduct the Army-to-Army portion of the theater cooperation mission with Canada and Mexico”.

According to these reports, the first of the USANORTH plans for the total military takeover of the United States, from its few remaining civilian overseers, rest with a new series of draconian laws recently enacted by their top Military Leaders and which, among other things, suspends the right of habeas corpus for Americans, and which the American Military Leaders have ordered their courts to disallow, and as we can read as reported by the Washington Post News Service in their article titled “Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases”, and which says: (more…)

SCREW CNN (w/ graphics) [PG edition]

Which is the worse sin, presenting biased news and commentary, or providing total fluff and non-news and masquerading it as actual news.

Why is it that Americans don’t know, say, where England is, or who, like Bush circa 2000, the leader of Pakistan is? Blame it on the News. And, specifically, blame it on CNN. Sure, intrepid folks COULD go to NPR or BBC, but for the vast majority of Americans, they simply can’t, don’t have the time, don’t know about it…

CNN is a scourge. It leads our nation to stupidity. Unlike FOX, which we KNOW is bad, I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for CNN, perhaps because Ted Turner founded it and it was a maverick in its time… but no longer. Now it is a fawning imbecile who spews gossip and trivia and sensationalism like it is all-important. (more…)

High levels of debt are costing thousands of military personnel their security clearances and preventing them from serving critical overseas duty.

Records obtained by The Associated Press indicate the number of Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force personnel stripped of security clearances rose from 284 in 2002 to 2,654 last year, a ninefold increase. The Army, which has the most deployed troops, refused numerous requests to provide data, citing confidentiality rules.

“We are seeing an alarming trend in degrading financial health,” said Capt. Mark Patton, the commander of Point Loma Naval Base, who has testified before Congress and the California Legislature about service members’ financial stress. (more…)

On the October 16, 17, and 18 editions of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly aired portions of his October 16 interview with President George W. Bush, which consisted of such “tough questions” as whether Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) is “soft on terrorism,” whether “the anti-Bush press” is responsible for popular opposition to the war, and whether Bush was aware that critics “are trying to destroy you.” O’Reilly also asked Bush, “[Y]ou work hard, right?” (more…)

Disks containing what appears to be software code used in Maryland’s touchscreen voting machines in 2004 were delivered anonymously to a former state legislator, raising fresh concerns about the reliability of the voting system.

One of Maryland’s 5,500 new Diebold E-Poll Books
Former Democratic Delegate Cheryl Kagan, a critic of the paperless electronic machines, said she spoke Thursday with the FBI after the disks were delivered to her office.

An anonymous note said the disks had been “accidentally picked up” in the state election board offices. (more…)

WASHINGTON — US officials believe Venezuela is emerging as a “potential hub of terrorism” in the Americas, according to a congressional report.

Some US officials say “Venezuela is providing support — including identity documents — that could prove useful to radical Islamic groups,” says the report a House of Representatives panel.

The report says the Venezuelan government has issued thousands of “cedulas,” the equivalent of social security cards, to people from Cuba, Colombia and “Middle Eastern nations that host foreign terrorist organizations.” (more…)