Assorted Summer Weirdness: Chicken nuggets, killer blood, and Deadheads who actually do stuff

Whether you think Alex Jones is on-target with his Big Picture or not, you have to admit that a lot of the bizarre factoids he throws into his broadcasts make roughly as much sense as the stuff that people mutter to themselves on buses when they think no one is listening. Most of the time he's trying to impart half-digested information from credible sources, but he garbles it so badly it amounts to a one-person game of Whispers. Sometimes he has no idea what he's talking about, and it amounts to absurd alarmism. Either way, it's annoying as hell. While expanding his studio and cranking out a dozen films a year, he somehow forgot to hire a fact-checker to help make him sound sane. Oprah, Glenn Beck, and quite a few other radio and TV personalities have an identical problem, of course, but because Alex Jones' message is already so over the top (Everyone's trying to kill you! Get bullets and food before it's too late!), his mistakes tend to be super-sized as well.

• Bill and Melinda Gates have viruses that can reprogram your brain, and will be in total control of the weather 20 years from now. (July 5/10 broadcast) I'm not sure how these two things are related, but the message is clear: Bill Gates is the scariest mother on the planet. Never mind that pretty much everything Jones has ever said about Gates has been completely, utterly wrong. Not only does his dad run Planned Parenthood (he doesn't), but Gates wants to kill everyone (he doesn't) and he doesn't have to pay taxes (he does). Anyway, yes, brain researchers have been tampering with ways to alter brain activity using lasers and a virus that attacks blue-green algae. It's complicated, but the bottom line is that this research has absolutely no connection to Bill Gates or the Gates Foundation. It's being funded, sponsored, and carried out by MIT. And I know of no instance in which Bill Gates has expressed the slightest interest in controlling the weather. I mean why bother, he controls everything else.
• It has now been declassified that images of Patty Hearst were all scripted and stage-managed by the FBI. (July 5/10 broadcast) A Joseph Cannon story re-posted on Infowars just last year doesn't mention anything about this new, declassified information that blows the lid off the Hearst kidnapping - in spite of the misleading headline "SLA Worked for The Man". That's because there isn't any new, declassified information. The Hearst story has remained fundamentally the same on all sides since it occurred. When Kathleen Soliah went to trial, her attorneys tried to get testimony from a former SLA member who claimed that Hearst wasn't raped as she claimed, and that she expressed enthusiasm for robbing banks and such. This man, Jack Scott, died of cancer before his testimony could be recorded. So that's pretty much the extent of the "new information" that has come out about Hearst. The FBI hasn't released any new documents on the case... um, ever. If the SLA and/or the kidnapping were in any way engineered by the FBI, that has yet to be proven.
  
• Rockefellers coined the term "philanthropy" and basically started the practice. It's true that John D. Rockefeller made huge contributions to and founded numerous colleges, schools, and institutes, but philanthropy in general actually took a nosedive during the railroad-tycoon, bathing-in-gold-nuggets days when the Rockefellers came to financial power. American philanthropy in its true sense (not in its current, tax-dodging sense) originated with the early colonists and the founding brothers of the U.S., particularly Benjamin Franklin.
• Silicon has been found in chicken nuggets. If by "found" Jones means "has always been a listed ingredient in", then he is absolutely correct. Silicon dioxide, commonly known as silica, is used in many foods and drink mixes to prevent sticking. Silica also naturally occurs in most grains, water, and meats because it's one of the most common minerals on the planet. It's perfectly safe to digest in dioxide form. Even if chicken nuggets did contain ground glass, though, I think that would be the least of their problems.
  
• The NAACP promotes aborting 51% of black babies. This is a less a factoid than a deliberately misleading statement. The NAACP briefly gave its stamp of approval to legalized abortion in 2004, backing away from that position when supporters expressed disapproval. Since that time, the organization has largely avoided the issue - which is the wise thing to do, if the NAACP wishes to preserve its tax-exempt status.
  
• A new kind of fake blood made from umbilical cord blood, designed for use on the battlefield, will cause "massive mutations". I had no freaking clue what Jones was talking about here. He was clearly referring to some kind of genetically engineered stuff, but so far as I knew there have been no major innovations in hemoglobin-based blood substitutes for a while. Besides, cord blood is already being used in transfusions. Then I learned that an Ohio company called Arteriocyte, with DARPA funding, has been developing artificial blood derived from stem cells. The product is pending FDA approval, but if it works it will turn stem cells into red blood cells through “blood pharming,” a machine process that artificially simulates what blood marrow does in the body. One umbilical cord’s worth of cells will be able to produce enough blood for three transfusions. So the question is, can blood pharming be dangerous? Will it cause mutations in people who receive transfusions? Theoretically, there should be no difference between your own blood and the artificially produced blood. The blood itself is not genetically engineered, it's just created outside the human body. When "test tube babies" were first introduced, people freaked out because the fertilization that normally takes place in the privacy of the womb was happening in a lab for all to see. Exploitation films about the weirdness of in vitro fertilization were cranked out, and conservatives ranted about the hubris of science and the dangers of messing with God's handiwork. Today, of course, millions of test tube babies have grown into healthy, productive, happy people.
• A secret "Dead Head Group" has been working diligently for years to tank the world economy, as reported by Rick Wiles about 9 years ago (and since reported by several alt news outlets, including NewsMax and of course Prison Planet).
  
  This leads to two key questions:
  
  1. What is the Dead Head Group, who belongs to it, and why would anyone in the business of making money want to kill the economy?
  
  2. Who the freaking hell is Rick Wiles?
  
  The second question is much easier to answer, so I'll start there. Rick Wiles is a radio evangelist who hosts his own syndicated program, TruNews Radio. He's also a prophet of sorts, predicting major world events.
  On to question #2. The only source of the Dead Head material is Russian economist Tatyana Koryagina. She revealed the existence of this shadowy group during an interview by Rick Wiles in November 2001, having left it out of her startling July 19, 2001 article in Pravda. In the 2001 article, she had announced that an August attack on the U.S. by a "shadow government" would collapse the country's economy. This indicates that she had some link to intelligence, as her prediction of a U.S. attack was off by only one month (note, please, that she didn't attempt to warn anyone outside Russia). But the "economic collapse" bit didn't quite pan out quite as she anticipated.
  
  In her interview with Wiles (available here), Korayagina didn't say that anyone was trying to sabotage the U.S. economy, but she did contend that neo-Marxist scholars have been trying to slow or limit industrial growth for the benefit of the planet. In other words, watch out for Commie treehuggers. Yawn. Nothing new here. But wait! Korayagina also mentioned that some of these money-hating bastards operate through secret societies. She coyly declined to name them, of course, but she did reveal that one such group is referred to as "The Dead Head".
  
  So that's it. A single Russian economist mentioned The Dead Head to a radio evangelist on a single occasion 8 years ago, without giving any specific details about it. We don't know any of the members, how it functions, where it operates, or anything else. The NewsMax article cited by Jones discusses Korayagina's prediction of collapse and Russia's possible foreknowledge of 9/11, but doesn't even mention the Dead Head group.
  "Underwhelming evidence" would be an overstatement, here. This is basically just one-woman urban legend. Korayagina had plenty to say about Marxists and other underminers of the economy. She hinted that these people, and those who want to rule the world, are "religious fundamentalists". She had lots to say about another unnamed secret organization that was involved with 9/11 and plans to take over the world, not making it clear if this group is connected to the Dead Head Marxists or is a parallel effort. She had very little to say about fiscal shortsightedness, national debt, inflated defense spending, speculators, or any of the other things that actually caused our current financial crisis. It seems to me that Ms. Korayagina simply had an axe to grind against communism and/or socialism and perhaps the Jewish people, and a fringe radio preacher gave her the opportunity to do so.
  
  Then Jones comes along and translates "slow down economic development" as "utterly destroy the world economy". What he does not mention (or does not know) is that Koryagina attempted to play her own role in the collapse of the U.S. economy, by urging her fellow Russians to drop the U.S. dollar immediately - the same stance for which Jones has been excoriating the UN.
  
  
  

Please Stop with the David Duke Videos

Lately, many people have been spreading videos, quotes, and articles featuring David Duke via email, Facebook, blogs, etc. This is a tangential issue, because it's not something Alex Jones is doing himself. It's something that has become mysteriously popular among certain fans of Jones, particularly Truthers and Canadian "Freemen". I have to say something about it because I hate racism more than just about anything else on this planet, and I realize that (strange as this may seem to Americans), a lot of Canadians seem to be unaware of David Duke's history and motives. They like what he has to say about the Israel-Palestine issue, or Zionism, or what-have-you, so they think it's perfectly acceptable to share his "work" for the enlightenment of others.

Here's the deal. I've watched these videos and read these articles, and I can tell you in perfect confidence that everything David Duke has to say about Israel and Palestine has already been said elsewhere, by far more credible (and far less racist) people like Gwynn Dyer, Robert Fisk, and Norman Finkelstein - to name just a few. Duke is not doing original research. I doubt he's even been to Israel or Palestine, as there would be no impetus for a Christian white racial supremacist to hang out with Jews and Muslims (unless it's at a Holocaust denial conference or a PR event). I believe that Duke's recent moral support of Muslims is a ploy; he doesn't actually care about their rights and issues, but it benifits him to align himself with them in the short term, to promote his anti-Semitism.
So by using Duke's words, his videos, his image to spread a certain message, rather than going to the source material and putting together your own presentations on the conflict, you look like a total asshole. I guarantee that anyone who knows you're disseminating David Duke literature and vids will look askance at you for the rest of your life, wondering if you're secretly a racial supremacist. It will damage your credibility and reputation beyond measure, no matter how many times you say something like, "I don't like David Duke, I just liked what he had to say in this clip."
The attitude seems to be that it's OK to learn from and collaborate with racial supremacists as long as they're not being overtly racist. It's the same attitude I saw among Truthers who worked openly with Holocaust deniers, arguing that if you're united on one issue, it doesn't matter what else you believe. Maybe that's true, but look how much damage was done to the Truth movement by its affiliation with anti-Semites. The bottom line is that by failing to challenge racist disinfo and supremacist propaganda when you're directly faced with it, you are basically aiding and abetting it. You are giving your tacit approval to it. And if you are helping racists spread their message by sharing their videos and literature - for whatever reason - you are actually participating in it.

With the current attitude, it shouldn't be a surprise that white supremacists and white separatists have been making some major headway lately. The separatist movement has its own syndicated radio show, Political Cesspool (on which perennial Jones favourite Paul Craig Roberts has been a guest). And now David Duke, of all people, has somehow managed to dupe certain members of the public - once again - into believing that he has changed and that it's time to stop mentioning his "past" as a Klan leader and racist. If you have fallen for this, I strongly urge you to review even the most basic information about Duke, even just his Wikipedia entry. He does, beyond any shadow of any doubt, believe that the Christian white man is morally, spiritually, physically, and mentally superior to any other race on earth, and that he has a God-given mandate to spread this message to as many people as he can. This is not past tense. David Duke is not appearing on TV and giving radio interviews to offer you unbiased, helpful information about Israel and Palestine; he is using public forums to subtly denigrate non-Christian and/or non-white people so that you will begin to think of yourself as superior to them and jump all the way onto his bandwagon. He is a propagandist. He is a popularizer. He is a recruiter. If you're comfortable with this, go ahead and share his information with everyone you know. If you're not, take a stand. Stop being a vector of thinly veiled racist propaganda.

Alex Jones Censored Again

Alex Jones gets censored a lot. THEY have tried to silence him countless times by....by....

Well, basically just by tampering with his stuff on YouTube once in a great while.

This time, The Obama Deception was removed from a YouTube channel called ChangeDaChannel, apparently by a hacker. This isn't as big an "emergency" as the temporary removal of Jones' unoffical YouTube channel was, yet Steve Watson at Prison Planet calls the hack a "gross violation" of the First Amendment. The first problem with this statement, of course, is that hacking is not a First Amendment issue. The second problem is that even if YouTube removed the video, YouTube is and always has been a private corporate entity that can censor to its heart's damn content. Anyone who has not grasped this yet needs to, I dunno, maybe pay attention? Third problem: The Obama Deception is still available by the truckload. I have like five copies, and you can find it on just about every video-sharing site. You can order it from NetFlix, for the love of all that's holy! If this is censorship, lay some on me.

Creepier than the censorship claim is the statement that Jones is on "high-alert". What does that even mean? Are you we supposed to man our stations or something? Well, sort of. Aaron Dykes lays out the steps we're supposed to take to fight the end of freedom of speech on the internet, which I've helpfully paraphrased:

Every single time you go online, spend 5 minutes typing “The Obama Deception”, “Police State 4″, or “Endgame” into every major search engine. I'm not sure why this would take 5 minutes. Anyway, here's hoping Samuel Beckett's work will make a comeback.

Use celebrity/mainstream media hype to bring attention to real issues. "Hey, did you hear Lindsey Lohan might go to jail? Oh, and by the way, the Rockefellers are trying to kill your children with tapwater."

Nag the hell out your family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and random strangers to watch The Obama Deception. Then recruit them as Amway reps, ask them if they've accepted Jesus Christ, and sell them a vacuum cleaner. They'll love you.

Oh, and before we forget: Let your elected reps know you support an Internet free of surveillance and censorship. Then watch The Obama Deception.

"Treason"

At the end of this month, Arizona's anti-immigration law will take effect. SB1070 requires all immigrants to carry proof of citizenship at all times, and gives Arizona law enforcement officers the right to ask for that ID if they reasonably suspect someone they're dealing with of being an illegal immigrant. Those who don't produce their ID on demand can be detained. Arizona has not yet decided what constitutes reasonable suspicion of illegal immigrant status; the Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training Board is tasked with figuring out that key part of the law. This will be quite tricky, as race is not an accepted criterion for suspicion. But the law is aimed specifically at Mexican illegals. Hmm. Complicated.
The passage of the bill was spurred, in part, by the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz in March. On the day he was shot, Krentz reportedly used a two-way radio to tell his brother he had been seen an "illegal alien" in the area. He did not impart any other information. The attitude of many Arizona citizens seems to be, "We know it was an illegal drug smuggler, we just don't have any evidence of that, or any suspects."

Let me make it clear, for the record, that I have a great deal of sympathy for illegal immigrants from Mexico. If I had a family in one of the poorest parts of that country, I would certainly sneak into a safer, more prosperous country in the hope that my children would have opportunities they could never otherwise have. That's natural. We want the best for our families. So the problem is not with the illegal immigrants themselves. I don't believe, as Jones has stated, that they are "diluting the culture", because the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, anyway. Yes, I know that increased crime rates are being attributed to illegal immigration and/or trans-border drug smuggling - but that's not a situation that needs new laws. It just needs tougher enforcement of existing laws, and/or increased funding for law enforcement in high-crime areas.
The bottom line is, though, that I oppose illegal immigration. As difficult as it is to face, I believe that Mexicans must stay in Mexico until they can enter the U.S. lawfully to live and work. That's just the way it is.

But SB1070 has sparked fears of racial profiling and discrimination, and not without cause. I know that the U.S. doesn't treat even its legal immigrants well. Each new wave of immigrants is put through trial by fire: Racism, discrimination, marginalization, abuse. Hispanic Americans obviously don't relish the idea of being set apart from other citizens.
This is not the first attempt by a state to crack down on illegal immigration with extreme measures. Janet Napolitano, now secretary of Homeland Security, repeatedly vetoed similar legislation when she was governor of Arizona. A far less rigid anti-immigration bill, California's Proposition 187, was shot down in 1994.
An April Rasmussen poll showed that 70% of Arizona voters approved of SB1070.
On the other hand, San Francisco and a few other cities have passed laws protecting illegal immigrants from federal immigration law.

On Tuesday (July 6), the Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Phoenix against the state of Arizona and Governor Jan Brewer, seeking a court injunction to prevent the law from taking effect. The suit claims SB1070 interferes with existing federal immigration laws, and is therefore invalid.
Attorney General Eric Holder stated that "diverting federal resources away from dangerous aliens such as terrorism suspects and aliens with criminal records will impact the entire country's safety."

Jones calls this lawsuit "treason", raising the question: Is it legal and Constitutional for the federal government to oppose (via lawsuit) a state law?

The answer is "yes". The federal government cannot repeal or amend state law, not even by executive order. But there's nothing to stop it from challenging the constitutionality of a state law in federal court, which is exactly what the DoJ is doing now. This is made possible by the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which basically states that federal law is the law of the land and can not be superseded or negated by state law. The "preemptive doctrine" derived from this clause permits the federal government to challenge any state law that encroaches upon federal regulation, law, interest, etc. But don't go thinking that this doctrine always works in the federal government's favour; it's actually very difficult, in most such cases, for the federal side to prove it has "occupation of the field". One fascinating example is Silkwood v Kerr-Mcgee (1984). After Karen Silkwood died in 1974, her family filed suit against Kerr-Mcgee. They were awarded $10 million in punitive damages, and Kerr -Mcgee fought the judgment by arguing that the federal government (in the form of the Atomic Energy Commission) was responsible for any "irregularities" at the nuclear facility where Silkwood had worked. In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that in this case, federal regulation did not supersede state or local regulation and Kerr-Mcgee would have to pay up (they settled out of court instead, for a fraction of the original judgement). In other words, Kerr-Mcgee was held responsible for lax safety at their Oklahoma plant even though it met federal (AEC) standards. The University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law has an informative page on these issues.
You might not like it, but the DoJ lawsuit against Arizona is constitutionally sound and perfectly legal. It will be up to a judge to decide if, as legal precedent indicates, naturalization is in the federal domain. If the Arizona law stands, then we may have a problem. Immigration and naturalization could become a state-regulated affair, with each state setting its own standards of citizenship. You could be a legal resident in Vermont but an illegal in New Jersey.

An equally important question: Is SB1070 unconstitutional? The answer, I believe, is "yes". The 14th Amendment states, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States..." I'd say that stopping a citizen and demanding to see proof of citizenship is an abridgment of that person's rights. The argument that "he might be an illegal" is moot, because anyone might be an illegal. Now one of the Anonymi who commented on this post (along with many other supporters of SB1070) has pointed out that a driver's license can suffice as proof of citizenship, since you have to present your papers to acquire one. Therefore, there's nothing wrong with an officer asking someone for proof of U.S. citizenship. Jones states, in his special alert video about "Obama's treason", that SB1070 is just a "mirror" of federal immigration law. This is false. Federal law does not require immigrants to carry proof of citizenship at all times. It does require non-citizens ("permanent residents") to carry their green cards, but no citizen is legally required to carry any form of ID at all times.
You can argue that Arizona is struggling to fill in the gaps in federal legislation, but you cannot validly claim that the Arizona law is similar in any way to federal laws already on the books.

Jones also argues that the 11th Amendment, which forbids the federal government or any state from suing a state on behalf of a foreign entity, renders the DoJ suit unconstitutional. He's apparently referring to his belief that "foreign bankers" are taking over the U.S., and that illegal immigration suits their purposes nicely. He also seems to think the 14th Amendment makes the DoJ lawsuit unconstitutional. This is why Alex Jones is not a lawyer, folks.

Ironically, SB1070 could (and by "could" I mean "probably won't be") used as a gateway to the kind of mandatory universal ID cards that Jones & Co. fear. If immigrants must be required to carry proof of citizenship, why not the rest of us? It's interesting that both Jones and former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano criticized the Real ID Act, which contained anti-immigration provisions. Jones did so because he doesn't like the idea of national ID cards; everyone would be required to have one. However, the bulk of the administration of the Real ID system is under state control.

"Admitting"

admit: 5. to allow or concede as valid 6. to acknowledge; confess
(Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language)

Jones loves to say that NWO conspirators have openly "admitted" to terrible things (scientists have "admitted" that chemtrails block out the sun, for instance).

Here's one that Jones has been particularly fond of lately: The U.S. military admits to growing opium poppies in Afghanistan! To mainstream news sources, no less! That's some pretty big news. The public should be hopping mad about that, but I guess we're all too busy watching Idol and kissing fascist butt to pay any attention, right?

Er, maybe not. Maybe the stories that Jones cites don't actually say a damn thing about American soldiers growing poppies.

Okay, screw the "maybe". The articles really don't say a damn thing about U.S. soldiers cultivating opium, and there's no evidence that they're doing so. Check it out:

- Jones claims that Reuters reported on the "admission". Reuters actually reported "Efforts to curb Afghan opium crop fail this year".
- The AP has turned out stories about the increased rates of opium use and addiction in Afghanistan, but has not (as Jones says) put out any "admissions" that the U.S. military is growing poppies or producing opium.
- Fox News supposedly blew the whistle, too. On his Sunday broadcast Jones declared, "Fox News interviewed a Marine Corps colonel who admitted, 'Yes, we grow the opium over there. We have to, or the Taliban will get the market.'" Jones is apparently referring to Geraldo's interview with Lt. Col. Brian Christmas, which revealed only that the Army is providing security for all cash crops in occupied parts of Afghanistan, and is currently tolerating the cultivation of poppies rather than destroying them, to avoid further pissing off Afghan citizens. Lt. Col. Christmas said nothing about the military growing opium. On the contrary, he said the army is buying up the harvested poppies just to get them off the market, and hopes that with encouragement the farmers will choose to raise food crops instead.
Now the ethical nature of all this is highly questionable, and you'd be right to question the army's real motives here. But did Lt. Col. Christmas (or any other colonel) say, "We're growing the poppies to push the Taliban out of the market?". No. The Taliban wasn't even mentioned. The attitude expressed was that poppy-growing is a cultural practice that just isn't worth fighting tooth-and-nail (duh).

Once again, Jones' idea of "admitting" and mine are quite different.

Forecast Something Else

One year ago and a day ago, Bob "International Forecaster" Chapman declared on The Alex Jones Show that Bernie Madoff would be dead by this time. Actually, he said that Madoff would be "dead"... shipped off in the middle of the night to some super-secret hideout. You know, like Ken Lay?

I don't have to tell you that Madoff is alive and well. He's serving his life sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution Butner Medium in North Carolina, working at the prison canteen. Aside from two scraps with other inmates late last year, there has been no violence against him. He has not suffered any health problems more serious than hives.

Infowhat?

There's silliness to spare on Infowars right now. There are a few articles on important issues, like "Dollar Plunges After UN Call to Ditch Greenback", and a piece that questions neo-natal screening for schizophrenia. There's mention of possible HIV infection at a VA hospital in Missouri. There's stuff that is also saturating the mainstream media right now (job loss, allegations of police misconduct and brutality at the G20, Goldman Sachs links to the oil spill, etc.). But then there are these messes:

• "Scientists admit chemtrails are creating artificial clouds". As I've said before, Jones' idea of "admit" and mine are slightly different. In the Daily Mail article cited by Paul Joseph Watson, scientists are "admitting" only that jets leave contrails, and that the skies over areas with heavy flight traffic can be so full of contrails/moisture/clouds that the amount of sunlight reaching the ground is decreased. This is not a newsworthy story. It is a side effect of jet pollution, and maybe we should worry about that before we even get started on "chemtrails". First off, how much of today's hugely increased jet travel is actually necessary? Much of it is for business trips that don't accomplish anything that couldn't be done with Skype or even just an old school teleconference.
• The "art" of looking for occult symbolism in pop music videos, which has been taken to tragicomic lengths by the likes of Lenon Honor and "Vigilant Citizen", has caught the attention of the Guardian - a paper that just loves to walk the wobbly line between the Washington Post and Weekly World News. Dorian Lynskey's article "Lady Gaga and the New World Order" describes Vigilant Citizen's theories about Lady Gaga's links to the Illuminati, Satanism, and mind control. But Lynskey clearly doesn't put much stock in them. He even notes similarities between Vigilant Citizen's work and the anti-rock rantings of uberconservatives like David Noebel, which is not a flattering comparison. And at the end of the article, Lynskey concludes that such analysis is a textbook example of "the paranoid style". He writes, "To the Vigilant Citizen, a pop star appearing 'vacuous, incoherent and absent-minded' must be 'a tribute to mind control' rather than them actually being vacuous, incoherent and absent-minded." I have no idea why Jones & Co. think this article supports any of their contentions about the New World Order. It's just a fluff piece about a slick-but-weird American website and American right-wing paranoia in general. The Guardian is laughing at you, Mr. Jones. For the record, I don't believe Lady Gaga is actually vacuous, though her music might be. IMO, any chick who tattoos Rilke on her flesh has more than the usual shit going on upstairs. And let's face it, she's a hell of a lot more interesting than Madonna with her macrobiotic gruel and her abducted children. It's Paul Joseph Watson's commentary that's vacuous. His analysis of pop music trends boils down to "pop music sucks" and "robots are scary". He trashes Katy Perry for failing to become the next Amy Grant, but gives Eminen a green light for "pushing back" against the "Babylon system". Hey, never mind those tributes to rape and murder, or the blatant pharmaceutical product placement, or the same promiscuity that you revile in female popstars, or the overt occult references in his early work. Never mind that in his song "My Darling", Eminem says he "sold his soul" just like Katy Perry. I mean, he rapped a little about 9/11 Truth, so it's all cool, right? If inconsistency was a terminal disease, Watson would be in ICU right now.
  
• "Israel Suspected in Bogus Claim Iran Developing Nuclear Trigger", by Kurt Nimmo, has one hell of a misleading title (one that was echoed in the latest issue of Nexus magazine, BTW). Now I don't doubt for a second that the nuclear threat posed by Iran is trumped-up or even just fabricated, but exactly who suspects Israel of creating the claim that appeared in the Times of London last December? Reading Nimmo's title, you'd think some government officials or investigative reporters suspect Israel. But no. The only person who has named Israel as a suspect is long-retired CIA agent Philip Giraldi, and his "evidence" is thin indeed. The intelligence officials who are actually looking into the 2009 report haven't reached any such conclusions. So the question becomes, is Giraldi a reliable source? The Nexus article mentions that in 2005 Giraldi identfied Michael Ledeen as an author of the infamous "yellowcake document" that led to the Plame Affair. This turns out to be an empty claim, as no one has conclusively proven its authorship. Besides, the first such allegations against Ledeen were made by journalists in 2004. Something quite similiar happened with the "Habbush letter"; Giraldi declared that Dick Cheney was behind the forgery, but only after journalist Ron Suskind did the actual work. Are we seeing a pattern here? A journalist digs up some juicy intel info, and Giraldi pokes his head out of retirement to say, "Oh, yeah, I already knew about that, and here's what my former colleagues from two decades ago have to say about it." Then he gives the alt media a few scraps of info that don't really contribute any knowledge to the events in question.