A recent poll found 53% of Americans opposed the launch of the channel and two-thirds (67%) of Americans thought the US government should not allow it entry to the US market.

Al-Jazeera English TV date set

After repeated delays, the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera has announced a launch date of 15 November for its English-language news channel.

US President George W Bush once allegedly threatened to bomb the Doha-based station.

The channel is hoping to reach a target audience of 40 million households in Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia. (more…)

Part 2: (more…)

As we move toward the November mid-terms, we’re beginning to a more detailed and depressing picture of exactly what we’re up against as a nation in less than a week: two major new reports from independent research groups detail the myriad security breaches, and procedural and technical problems in the 2006 Ohio primaries; stories from early voting in Texas indicate that the paperless DREs in at least two counties may have a partisan bias; another major new report from the University of Connecticut details a whole raft of security vulnerabilities in Diebold’s optical scan voting machines; finally, BlackBoxVoting.org has released “push this, pull here” instructions for multiple voting on a Sequoia DRE, no hacking skills necessary.

This is a MUST READ…even my jaw dropped at some of the things that were uncovered in this article (i.e. make multiple votes by just holding a button on Sequoia voting machines). (more…)

MIAMI — Lawyers for alleged al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla have asked a Florida judge to dismiss the terrorism case against him, saying he was tortured and force-fed psychedelic drugs while held at a U.S. military brig for more than 3-1/2 years.

“The torture took myriad forms, each designed to cause pain, anguish, depression and ultimately, the loss of will to live,” Padilla’s attorney’s said in the motion for dismissal filed in Miami federal court earlier this month. (more…)

Remember Total Information Awareness?

In November 2002, the New York Times reported that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was developing a tracking system called “Total Information Awareness” (TIA), which was intended to detect terrorists through analyzing troves of information. The system, developed under the direction of John Poindexter, then-director of DARPA’s Information Awareness Office, was envisioned to give law enforcement access to private data without suspicion of wrongdoing or a warrant.

TIA purported to capture the “information signature” of people so that the government could track potential terrorists and criminals involved in “low-intensity/low-density” forms of warfare and crime. The goal was to track individuals through collecting as much information about them as possible and using computer algorithms and human analysis to detect potential activity. (more…)

Michigan raid part of unfolding agenda to mould schools into prisons and students into obedient slaves

A recent incident in which armed riot police raided a Michigan junior and high school as part of a drill that the children were not aware was about to take place raises the bar in the pursuit of an agenda to fully transform public schools into prison training camps set up to breed continuous generations of obedient slaves.

The Associated Press reports,

“A school safety drill that included police officers in riot gear with weapons has caused concern among some parents who say it was too realistic and frightened some students.” (more…)

Kerry savaged for hinting joining army not such a smart move when a Bush is in office, no one battered an eyelid when decider-in-chief guffawed and giggled over 655,000 dead Iraqis and nearly 3,000 dead troops

A quip by John Kerry in which he told a young audience that securing a good education would avoid them getting “stuck in Iraq” has been seized upon by Republican attack dogs as election fodder. The Senator’s comment killed nobody but when Bush joked about not finding WMD in Iraq, he was making light of 655,00 dead victims and nearly 3,000 dead troops - but the media barely battered an eyelid and Bush never apologized. (more…)