The Gvlshornbook

CIA FACES SPY SHORTAGE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As CIA Director Porter Goss tries to rebuild the agency’s global operations, he faces a shortage of experienced spies created by a post-September 11 stampede to the private sector, current and former intelligence officials say.

Goss, who a year ago inherited a CIA wracked by criticism of intelligence failures over Iraq and the September 11, 2001, attacks, has come under fire from critics about the publicized departures of several high-level clandestine officers.

Reform advocates see the loss of senior officials as a natural consequence of changes intended to root out an old guard blamed for lapses that prompted Congress to put the CIA under a new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte.

It also doesn’t help when your Boss, in a snit will reveal you to be an agent or to show how tough he is about fighting terrorism outs a double agent to the press.

Oh,yeah, SIGN ME UP!

Biologists Observe Gorillas Using Toolss

For the first time, biologists have documented gorillas in the wild using simple tools, such as poking a stick in a swampy pool of water to check its depth.

Until now, scientists had seen gorillas use tools only in captivity. Among the great apes, tool use in the wild was thought to be a survival skill reserved for smaller chimpanzees and orangutans.

The research in the Republic of Congo’s rainforests was led by Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo, which released details of his study. Breuer is in Africa and was not immediately available for an interview.
“This is a truly astounding discovery,” he said in a statement. “Tool usage in wild apes provides us with valuable insights into the evolution of our own species and the abilities of other species.”

Other scientists said the observations were important, but not surprising.

Breuer’s observations were made late last year in a marshy clearing called Mbeli Baia located in Nouabale-Ndoki National Park where monitoring has been ongoing since February 1995.

The first instance was observed last October when a female gorilla (nicknamed Leah by scientists) attempted to wade through a pool of water created by elephants, but found herself waist deep after only a few steps. Climbing out of the pool, she retrieved a branch from a dead tree and used the stick to test the depth of the water.

HUD chief foresees a ‘whiter’ Big Easy 

A Bush Cabinet officer predicted this week that New Orleans likely will never again be a majority black city, and several black officials are outraged.

    Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, during a visit with hurricane victims in Houston, said New Orleans would not reach its pre-Katrina population of “500,000 people for a long time,” and “it’s not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.”

As a reminder: Cheney voted AGAINST sanctioning South Africa can Bush be any different?

the WH/PNAC LET this happen
Print Story: Atta known to Pentagon before 9/11 on Yahoo! News
Atta known to Pentagon before 9/11

Four years after the nation’s deadliest terror attack, evidence is accumulating that a super-secret Pentagon intelligence unit identified the organizer of the Sept. 11 hijackings, Mohamed Atta, as an Al Qaeda operative months before he entered the U.S.

The many investigations of Sept. 11, 2001, have turned up a half-dozen instances in which government agencies possessed information that might have led investigators to some part of the terrorist plot, although in most cases not in time to stop it.

But none of those leads likely would have taken them directly to Atta, the Egyptian architecture student who moved to the U.S. from Germany to take flying lessons and later served as Al Qaeda’s U.S. field commander for the attacks.

Had the FBI been alerted to what the Pentagon purportedly knew in early 2000, Atta’s name could have been put on a list that would have tagged him as someone to be watched the moment he stepped off a plane in Newark, N.J., in June of that year.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Foetuses found at Bogota airport
<> Colombian police have found the bodies of three human foetuses hidden in statues destined for the United States.
The discovery was made by officers searching for contraband at Bogota Airport on Tuesday.

The corpses were wrapped in plastic and concealed inside statues of Christian icons, which were smashed open.

Colombian police chief Gen Jord Alirio Varon said the four- to five-month-old foetuses could have been intended for use in Satanic rituals.Uhm… yes, of COURSE… why else… except maybe for the “pro-lifers” who would use them in THEIR rituals of abuse -

Gen Varon said the foetuses were found alongside crucifixes and medals.

He said officials are trying to find out who sent the packages, which came from Barranquilla in Colombia and were destined for Miami in the US.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4293934.stm

Published: 2005/09/29 13:18:07 GMT

© BBC MMV

x-posted to the Hornbook
All too often, I hear “oh, you CAN’T do magick to do x/y/z. it’s bad ju-ju. Listen up folks:
Do you pray? You do magick
do you cross your fingers? You do magick
Do you say Geshundeit/Salud or bless when someone sneezes? You do magick

there are people out there “praying for you” and it isn’t altruistc. it is MAGICK. they are praying for your conversion to whatever (FundiXitianity) they write your name on paper and “nail it to a cross”

They also prayed for non-Christian students in their school and wrote their names down on paper.

In a solemn, symbolic offering, they nailed the pieces of paper to a wooden cross, set up beside the flag pole.

Matthew Cates, an North senior, said some Christians are afraid to share their faith at school. The event gives them a chance to see other Christians.

From the SYATP website:

This is a great strategy for getting your church involved in praying for Christian and non-Christian students at your school. See if you can purchase an extra yearbook from last year or plan ahead and by an extra one this year. Cut the pictures out in rows that include five to seven students and have them ready for people at your church to pick up. Ask them to pick up a strip of pictures and commit to pray for each student once a week. They don’t even have to know the student to pray for them. The key is to have them pray that if the student is a Christian, that God would use them to make an impact on their campus that day. That if they are not a Christian, that they would give their hearts to Christ. Can you imagine the impact that would happen if every student on your campus were prayed for once a week for the entire year? Another option, in case you can’t get a yearbook is to use a school directory or a list of students at your school. This should be a public list that’s available to anyone so you won’t be invading anybody’s privacy. If your school is big, involve other churches in this prayer effort and watch what God can do when His people pray.

and, as along as they are telling the students they can “discuss their religion” why not discuss YOURS? be it buddhist, jewish, sikh, hindu pagan - you have the RIGHT to carry YOUR holy books with you on campus, be it the Satanic Bible or your book of shadows. if it’s HOLY to YOU, you have the right to carry it and spread the Word about it.

HAIL ERIS, and dissmeinate the PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA w/THE ILLUMINATI TRILOGY AS APOCRPHYA

The Principia at Amazon

So, Wise up: Magick is being used against you. Fight back. Pray back Spiritual Warfare is as old as Physical warfare. Those that see their Spirit Selves victorious, are.

DeLay indicted on conspiracy charges

DeLay indicted on conspiracy charges
House majority leader’s position in jeopardy.
By Laylan Copelin

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
A Travis County grand jury today indicted U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on one count of criminal conspiracy, jeopardizing the Sugar Land Republican’s leadership role as the second most powerful Texan in Washington, D.C.

The charge, a state jail felony punishable by up to two years incarceration, stems from his role with his political committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, a now-defunct organization that already had been indicted on charges of illegally using corporate money during the 2002 legislative elections.

State law bans corporate money being spent in connection with political campaigns and Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, has spent almost three years investigating whether Republican groups and their business allies violated that ban. The groups helped elect a Republican majority to the state Legislature which, in turn, drew new Congressional districts that benefited Republican candidates.

DeLay and his associates insisted the corporate money was legally spent on committee overhead or issue advertising and not campaign-related activity.

An indictment does not force DeLay to resign as a member of Congress, but the GOP’s rules demand that he resign his post as majority leader as he fights the charges. Congressional Republicans earlier tried to drop that requirement, citing Earle’s investigation as a political vendetta, but they ultimately maintained the rule after withering criticism.

Let’s see if the GOoPers change the rules for him yet again….

AND THIS FROM DRUDGE:

Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’

Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

and what exactly is a trupodcast? it is the podcast of the monthly forums sponsored by TRU (Theater Resources Unlimited), an international network of producers, actors playwrites and others involved in themaking of theater. Found by Robert Ost, TRU promotes theater, and how to get it done. The first trupodcast is all about “Fundraising with less Effort. It will be as usual, found at ourmedia.org as At The Table Ep4 TRUPODCAST.

Don Adams, Star of ‘Get Smart,’ Dies at 82 - Los Angeles Times

Get Smart was one of my favorite comedies. Barbara Feldon, Agent 99, is now a sitcom writer.

Adams, a WWII veteran (USMC) was among the thousands of Americcan servicemen who served in the Pacific and took part in the landing and battle for Guadalcanal. (Source: Don Adams Adams was also the voice of Inspector Gadget and Tennessee Tuxedo

Would believe we’re gonna miss you, Don?