Sunday, January 3, 2010

"Got Truth?"

 by Aaron McNees

 "To demand the censors of public measures to be given up for punishment is to renew the demand of the wolves in the fable, that the sheep should give up their dogs as hostages of the peace and confidence established between them."  -Thomas Jefferson, 1794. 

*** editor's note: My second favorite website, Wikileaks, is down for a few days with the following message:"To concentrate on raising the funds necessary to keep us alive into 2010, we have very reluctantly suspended all other operations, until Jan 6."
Although the timing is a bit unfortunate for me personally, as I am just starting out on
a huge undertaking where Wikileaks plays a vital role, perhaps now would be a good time to try and introduce the most powerful weapon against malfeasance and hegemony since the Freedom of Information Act.  ***

   We've all encountered that venerable source of  information, the Wikipedia, the not-for profit web encyclopedia, which is edited by the community who uses it, a vast treasure trove for term papers, trivia, and settling disputes, although the information is sometimes less than one hundred percent reliable [citation needed]. There have been a multitude of wiki sites since Wikipedia's inception, ranging in subjects from car racing to croquet to cryogenics. The founders of Wikipedia believed that  free and  unfettered information was vital to serving the community as a whole. It is this fertile ground of net neutrality, a lofty concept that information should be easily accessible and presented in an impartial manner, that gave birth to Wiki's most startling prodigy, Wikileaks.org, also known as The Sunshine Press.


So just what is Wikileaks?
It is the sound of a thousand whistle-blowers tea-kettles screaming,
"Full steam ahead, damn the torpedoes".


Wikileaks.org is a veritable Pandora's Box of leaked sensitive documents from organizations, governments, and corporations.
They have uncovered corruption in corporations around the globe including the dumping of toxic waste on the Ivory Coast by the multinational commodities giant Trafigura, which made 108,000 so sick as to need medical attention and the deaths of more than a dozen people.
Wikileaks  published the hacked private emails of notable people and organizations (links only go to the google cache until they are back online) such as
Aryan Nations, Sarah Palin, the scientists involved the Climategate scandal, and the "Churches" of both Scientology and The Latter Day Saints.
Perhaps more seriously, they have also leaked sensitive or restricted materials such as  classified government and military documents from around the world, including rather embarrassingly enough, the 2001 counter-intelligence security manual from the UK's Ministry of Defense, which while not John Le Carre, definitely makes for interesting reading on a cold winter's night.
Sunshine Press also brought to light the details of illegal banking practices worldwide, including the illicit tax evasion haven of Swiss Bank Julius Baer, which tried to have the website shut down in US court...which caused such a public outcry that the judge reversed it's decision (and also brought additional scrutiny to the clients of BJB), and have exposed the details of shady off shore money laundering operations in the Caribbean and elsewhere.
Most recently and audaciously, they published the intercepted pager messages from NYC and DC on 9/11....
some 6.4 million words, over 15 thousand pages worth.
Which brings me to my huge project...more on that later.

***
from wikileaks.org:
"...November 25th, 2009,WikiLeaks released half a million US national text pager intercepts. The intercepts cover a 24 hour period surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington. The first message was from 3AM September 11, 2001, five hours before the first attack, and the last, 24 hours later. Text pagers (were) usually carried by persons operating in an official capacity. (it is important to remember this is before texting on phones became widely available -a.m). Messages in the archive range from Pentagon, FBI, FEMA and New York Police Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults at investment banks inside the World Trade Center.
The archive is a completely objective record of the defining moment of our time. We hope that its entrance into the historical record will lead to a nuanced understanding of how this event led to death, opportunism and war."
...

(edit: the (the alphanumeric headers, phone #'s and email addresses of some of the highlighted intercepts below have been edited or removed)


(edit: the (the alphanumeric headers, phone #'s and email addresses of some of the highlighted intercepts below have been edited or removed)



2001-09-11 13:41:46 Arch [1605106] A  ALPHA  odard, Cindy"|Hi baby! The hospital is a lockdown so I can't meet for lunch. It s a bit nerve-raking. I love you and hope you are ok XOXOXO |
2001-09-11 12:00:51   ALPHA  r nerve gas is located less than 100 miles from Terre Haute. The Terre Haute Mall has been closed.
2001-09-11 11:01:59 I'm going to go meet bruce for Bfast.  Call my cell phone if you need me.  I feel sick to my stomach, just nerves, but figure I need to eat.
2001-09-11 06:56:47 Arch [0912340] Bomb Scare, ND, 700 W. 40TH Male caller stated a bomb in the bldg, set to go of at 0815. 7811 notified.
2001-09-11 08:30:37 Skytel D ALPHA  Y! ||Leo Your neutrality is temporary. Each hour is worth millions. Remain a moving target. Astrology
2001-09-11 08:50:50 Skytel  BOMB DETINATED IN WORLD TRADE CTR. PLS GET BACK TO MIKE BRADY W/A QUICK ASSESSMENT OF YOUR AREAS AND CONTACT US IF ANYTHING IS NEEDED AT 212-647-xxx.
2001-09-11 17:54:58   tachan|S, when you hear of death, you appreciate life more. I am thankful that I have you next to me.
2001-09-11 18:51:58  bmull|Dean, I let Jakki off the hook. She told me to let her off the hook or choose death. I chose to let her off. 
2001-09-11 16:20:56  DaveMatthews8827@???.com|me casa|hey, come to my house and we will drain blood from our bodies...for Jesus
2001-09-11 10:27:33 "Geoffrey Crann" |hi son|bombing in NYC and Washington-----pray get to the chapel and say a = rosary
2001-09-11 10:27:33 Skytel [005345951] D  ALPHA  Attn:  Per Tom Dolan pls. meet at the 1st Conf. Room , and stay clear of windows.  Thanks, Vel J.
2001-09-11 10:27:33 Skytel [005332495] D  ALPHA   the cell.    Kill the bastards! Jim  


***
CBS did a very good article on the 9/11 pager intercepts (link here).
***
The messages are a mixed series of automated strings of numbers and human communications between the dead and the living, cryptic to read sometimes, yet still making a powerfully profound statement of the synergy between us all.
They are a poetic tribute in themselves to the solemn events of that fateful day.
There are a great many talented people going thru these pages right now for historic, journalistic, personal and other reasons, perhaps hoping to uncover some conspiracies or secrets which would try make sense of such an incomprehensible tragedy and the ensuing aftermath of war, loss of  liberty,and a deeply divided national psyche. We grasp at needles in straw haystacks and take comfort in patterns and organization, collections and archives, hoping to connect with something greater than ourselves that shines thru  like the voices of stars in the night sky......
trying to stave off the darkness of chaos and entropy.
Which again brings me to my project, and what I plan to call it:
"The 9/11 Transmissions: Voices in the Machines"

I will talk more about that in great detail later. There is a lot of work to be done.
....
more coming soon, I promise..
~ a.m.




_____________________________________________



The full archive can be still be downloaded as a simple text file:
http://911.wikileaks.org/release/messages.zip

_____________________________________________

 
Brought to today by our friends at The Sunshine Press


 


WikiLeaks












We rely on you to alert your community and press to the revelations here. Go to it!














Sunday, November 1, 2009

"The Fog" by Aaron McNees

Photo by Pierre Robert

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There was a small cemetery outside of Austin, past Oak Hill, that lay beside a small white dirt road off Circle Drive, it was very old.I believe it was named Oliver Cemetery. There was an old white ranch house with horses next to it.My friend and I had been riding around the back roads of Oak Hill, and were getting high and feeling very care free, when we found a road called " Oliver Cemetery Road", and decided to investigate. Or rather, i did she only went down it because i wanted to seethe tombstones and make "etchings" with a pencil and paper by holding the paper against the grave marker, and rubbing it with the pencil.We got out of the car, and i made a few etchings, but they didn't turn out very well, the tombstones were easily over a hundred years old and had been deteriorating, covered with green mold. So many were of children' s graves, life was hard on the prairie back then, and children often did not make it to 10 year sold.It was sad and October and weirdly creepy, and the horses peered over the fence to watch us, so we went to the car to finish smoking our joint...about half way thru it, the sun started to set and we went for a little walk to see the horses again and perhaps give them some of our picnic basket sandwich crusts. The horses were gone, the wind started to blow, and a dark cloud flew low over us.The sun had just set, and everything was in a grey-bluish light, the headstones almost glowing in the diffused unearthly twilight.We were finishing up the roach in the ashtray, when night fell all at once and we joked around, that's weird and stuff, woohaha and all that. As we made spooky noises and played, the thickest fog i had ever seen in my life just rolled in and made billowing swirls around the car, enveloping it completely. This fog wasn't like the kind you see normally in Central Texas or Houston or even Louisiana, it was like the kind i remember my grandfather describing in England in WWII as he fished dead bodies out of the Atlantic. The Cemetery was at the bottom of a bowel-shaped depression, and the fog hovered and swirled. We could see nothing beyond it, a deathly white. I fancied seeing shapes in it, skulls and faces and flitting around, when i looked to her ashen face, white as the impenetrable fog, and she was shaking.Quickly i recalled my Aunt and Mothers cemetery advice " If you become frightened in graveyard at night, never tell your companion how scared you are, for if they are also afraid your fear will double and you will both panic and then something could happen."I didn't want 'something to happen', so I just asked her simply and gently as possible, "Are you ready to go?" " Uh-hhh huh-hh-h-h..." and she turned the key to the ignition.

Thank God, it started!
I just knew the zombies were about to break the
windows and pull us out screaming into that evil mist.
The sensation of Evil was palpable in the air, it was as thick as that cursed fog.
Thenext day, we were talking about how the horses seem to know something was going on, when we read in the paper about a horriblecase of satanic ritual abuse at preschool in Oak Hill. The children had been taken to that cemetery as part of the rituals they had performed, and it turns out there had been a coven holding black mass there for years.
-shivers-
ihave a link to the story in texas monthly about the criminal case of the daycare facility, but hesitate to place it here- if you arefamiliar with Operation Monarch, then you have my utmost sympathy. God bless you and remove your sorrows.

if you wish to have your nightmares, then i will send you the link. I don't recommend reading it.

postscript: We encountered this same fog lost as sin on hwy route 6 in east Texas. It was pea-soup thick, and we were so completely lost around Beaumont. As we panicked, the radio started playing this eerie church bell music, except it was without melody, and my friend began to scream turn it off. I had a premonition, and leaned forward to the radio. i tried change the station, punching each button so hard it hurt my finger. This was an old radio with mechanical preset buttons. It was on every channel. I tried the volume, but it stayed a constant atonal ringing of deadly chimes. at last, turning grim, i hit the am/fm button. we were on a lower frequency than those. finally i tried to turn the damn thing off, but it played on insolently mocking alien cathedral chamber "music". I knew what we were listening to, men describe hearing them on the battlefield before they die. It was The Bells Of Doom. Again remembering my Mother's sage advice, as my ex began screaming for me to turn it off, I pretended to be angry with her and growled, " Be quiet, Ilike it." She glared at me but i think she knew that i was just bluffing and scared shitless, so she didn't ask any more questions which was good, because i would have hated to tell her that i thought we were going to die .
Eventually we pulled over and the rain came and washed away the fog( as well as the bells), and we left in the pouring rain, so glad to leave the strange pocket dimension we had struggled with.
We found our way back to the hwy and were so glad to have made it home alive.


"Halloween Spirits" by Aaron McNees

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"Jack O' Lantern", Clayton Bright

One fine Halloween evening in 1993 as i was getting ready for a night of reveling, raucousness,revenge and candy, i was taking a shower and shaving and cut myself rather deeply upon the neck. As the blood ran down my arm, i marveled at its quantity and a strange whim overtook me and i said, aloud " I offer this blood up to the Halloween Spirits"

It ran in a strait line down my arm and headed to the drain, where the water made a vortice. As it ran, i noticed i could not see it hitting the drain and indeed was disappearing before it got to the drain at about six inches from the swirling whirlpool below. eventually it creeped me out and i got out of the shower and had to use direct pressure to get it to stop while i got ready for Halloween, i was going as a "free agent" of the grim reaper. The cut was not deep but it stung and i was a little pale in the face and my makeup came out quite deathly. I had a good time and chalked it off to the strangeness of surface tension and imagination.

The next year, 1994, as i readied for Samhain again, i was very careful in the shower and neither invited spirits of any kind into my shower nor did i attempt to shave deeply, i was just shaving the sides of my face for a rough Goatee and never touched my neck at all with the razor blade. Never the less, I still bled profusely with the water again disappearing down the drain into the dark vortex of the subterranean tunnels that run below. Needless to say, i hurried from the shower and got ready quickly, feeling some dark force was watching and toying with me just a little bit.

All Hallows Eve, 1995- i got in the shower saying nothing, no lights but a small white candle and Did Not Shave. As you might have guessed , my neck bled anyway and looked particularly creepy in the dim candle light.

Since then, i have had no further episodes, altho i still do not shave in the shower on Halloween and make sure the door is open and the lights are on.

Whoooohhhaaaahhaaaahhh!

Sunday, December 30, 2007

...tigers i have loved....


"Tatiana and Haluma"

I love tigers. they have long been my favorite of all the animals on god's green earth.
On a gruesome christmas day this year, two more of these majestic and almost extinct creatures have died violent deaths. Both were shot.
The first was named Tatiana, a four year old 350 pound tiger and she died because the wall that enclosed her compound at the san francisco zoo was far too low at only 12.5 feet. It should have been at least 18 feet to even remotely keep her contained...but she should have never been in a cage in the first place.
on christmas day, Tatiana decided to become a tiger again and escaped her prison enclosure by springing her mighty muscles and extending her claws, vaulting over the edge of her compound wall, going hunting for the last time in the jungle of the san francisco zoo. She attacked three men, killing one and severely injuring two more before she was shot to death by four officers rescuing the prey of the tiger.
I dont blame the cops for doing their jobs, but..
i dont blame Tataina for doing hers, either.
The second tiger had no name and was found dead here in dallas. I am naming her Haluma, which means "the roar of the tiger" in bengali. She was only a year or two old, and weighed 180 pound. Hamula was declawed and found with a leash still wrapped around her neck...and with 5 gunshot wounds in her head. It would appear that she was kept as "pet" and probably had been killed by her "owner" within just a few hours after the attacks at the san francisco zoo.... probaly out of fear.
The last in line:
all species of tiger are endangered and many are bordering on being completely wiped away from this earth....the main reasons being hunting for fur and body parts which are used in chinese medicine, and the destruction of their habitats by developing nations.
what poor stewards we have been to the world god gave us.
bengal tiger: only apx. 3,500 left in the wild
siberian tiger: only apx 400 left in the wild
indochinese tiger: only apx 1,500 left in the wild
malayan tiger: only apx 700 left in the wild
sumatran tiger: only 450 left in the entire world.
south china tiger: only 59 left in the entire world
the balinese, javanese, and caspian tigers are completely extinct. vanished. gone.
it is estimated there are 20,000 tigers in captivity world wide, with 12,000 being kept as "pets" here in the united states, 4000 tigers here in texas alone, and as many as 500 tigers in the houston area... an appalling 90% of all kept tigers suffer from abuse, including the ones kept in chinese "tiger farms".
please, people...
i get sick of feeling helpless all the time.
so i'm going to try to make a difference. please sign this petition to

Zhou Wenzhong, Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to the U.S:

Save Tigers: Urge China to Maintain Ban on Trade in Tiger Parts

thank you everyone for signing the petition.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

new account ...

here are a pair of 'hot' chicks!
groan.
give me a break, i'm new here.