http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/ Posts for alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:53:31 PST http://www.nnseek.com/ http://www.nnseek.com/img/64.png 64 64 NNSeek http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/iran_s_offer_of_peace_and_cooperation_shot_down_by_42298116t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/iran_s_offer_of_peace_and_cooperation_shot_down_by_42298116t.html
Neocons Blocked 2003 Nuclear Talks With Iran
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/porter.php?articleid=8778
by Gareth Porter

The George W. Bush administration failed to enter into negotiations
with Iran on its nuclear program in May 2003 because neoconservative
zealots who advocated destabilization and regime change were able to
block any serious diplomatic engagement with Tehran, according to
former administration officials.

The same neoconservative veto power also prevented the administration
from adopting any official policy statement on Iran, those same
officials say.

Lawrence Wilkerson, then chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin
Powell, says the failure to adopt a formal Iran policy in 2002-2003 was
the result of obstruction by a "secret cabal" of neoconservatives in
the administration, led by Vice President Dick Cheney.

"The secret cabal got what it wanted: no negotiations with Tehran,"
Wilkerson wrote in an e-mail to IPS.

The Iranian negotiating offer, transmitted to the State Department in
early May 2003 by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, acknowledged that
Iran would have to address U.S. concerns about its nuclear program,
although it made no specific concession in advance of the talks,
according to Flynt Leverett, then the National Security Council's
senior director for Middle East Affairs.

It also raised the possibility of cutting off Iran's support for Hamas
and Islamic Jihad and converting Hezbollah into a purely sociopolitical
organization, according to Leverett. That was an explicit response to
Powell's demand in late March that Iran "end its support for
terrorism."

In return, Leverett recalls, the Iranians wanted the United States to
address security questions, the lifting of economic sanctions, and
normalization of relations, including support for Iran's integration
into the global economic order.

Leverett also recalls that it was drafted with the blessing of all the
major political players in the Iranian regime, including the "Supreme
Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khomeini.

Realists, led by Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, were inclined
to respond positively to the Iranian offer. Nevertheless, within a few
days of its receipt, the State Department had rebuked the Swiss
ambassador for having passed on the offer.

Exactly how the decision was made is not known. "As with many of these
issues of national security decision-making, there are no
fingerprints," Wilkerson told IPS. "But I would guess Dick Cheney with
the blessing of George W. Bush."

As Wilkerson observes, however, the mysterious death of what became
known among Iran specialists as Iran's "grand bargain" initiative was a
result of the administration's inability to agree on a policy toward
Tehran.

A draft National Security Policy Directive (NSPD) on Iran calling for
diplomatic engagement had been in the process of interagency
coordination for more than a year, according to a source who asks to
remain unidentified.

But it was impossible to get formal agreement on the NSPD, the source
recalls, because officials in Cheney's office and in Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans wanted a
policy of regime change and kept trying to amend it.

Opponents of the neoconservative policy line blame Condoleezza Rice,
then the National Security Adviser, for the failure of the
administration to override the extremists in the administration. The
statutory policymaker process on Iran, Wilkerson told IPS in e-mail,
was "managed by a national security adviser incapable of standing up to
the cabal."

In the absence of an Iran policy, the two contending camps struggled in
2003 over a proposal by realists in the administration to reopen the
Geneva channel with Iran that had been used successfully on Afghanistan
in 2001-2002. They believed Iran could be helpful in stabilizing
post-conflict Iraq, because the Iraqi Shi'ite militants who they
expected to return from Iran after Hussein's overthrow owed some degree
of allegiance to Iran.

The neoconservatives tried to block those meetings on tactical policy
grounds, according to Leverett. "They were saying we didn't want to
engage with Iran because we didn't want to owe them," he recalls.

Nevertheless, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad was
authorized to begin meeting secretly in Geneva with Iranian officials
to discuss Iraq. The neoconservatives then tried to sandbag the talks
by introducing a demand for full information on any high-ranking
al-Qaeda cadres who might be detained by the Iranians.

Iran regarded that information as a bargaining chip to be given up only
for a quid pro quo from Washington. The Bush administration, however,
had adopted a policy in early 2002 of refusing to share any information
with Iran on al-Qaeda or other terrorist organizations.

On May 3, as the Iranian "grand bargain" proposal was on its way to
Washington, Tehran's representative in Geneva, Javad Zarif, offered a
compromise on the issue, according to Leverett: if the United States
gave Iran the names of the cadres of the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK) who
were being held by U.S. forces in Iraq, Iran would give the United
States the names of the al-Qaeda operatives they had detained.

The MEK had carried out armed attacks against Iran from Iraqi territory
during the Saddam regime and had been named a terrorist organization by
the United States. But it had capitulated to U.S. forces after the
invasion, and the neoconservatives now saw the MEK as a potential asset
in an effort to destabilize the Iranian regime.

The MEK had already become a key element in the alternative draft NSPD
drawn up by neoconservatives in the administration.

The indictment of Iran analyst Larry Franklin on Feith's staff last
year revealed that, by February 2003, Franklin had begun sharing a
draft NSPD that he knew would be to the liking of the Israeli embassy.

(Franklin eventually pled guilty to passing classified information to
two employees of an influential pro-Israel lobbying group and was
sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison.)

Reflecting the substance of that draft policy, ABC News reported on May
30, 2003, that the Pentagon was calling for the destabilization of the
Iranian government by "using all available points of pressure on the
Iranian regime, including backing armed Iranian dissidents and
employing the services of the Mujahedin e-Khalq."

Nevertheless, President Bush apparently initially saw nothing wrong
with trading information on MEK, despite arguments that MEK should not
be repatriated to Iran. "I have it on good authority," Leverett told
IPS, "that Bush's initial reaction was, 'But we say there is no such
thing as a good terrorist.'" Nevertheless, Bush finally rejected the
Iranian proposal.

By the end of May, the neoconservatives had succeeded in closing down
the Geneva channel for good. They had hoped to push through their own
NSPD on Iran, but according to the Franklin indictment, in October
1983, Franklin told an Israeli embassy officer that work on the NSPD
had been stopped.

But the damage had been done. With no direct diplomatic contact between
Iran and the United States, the neoconservatives had a clear path to
raising tensions and building political support for regarding Iran as
the primary enemy of the United States.

(Inter Press Service)

Posted In: alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks

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]]> Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:53:31 PST http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/spookillusion_newsgroup_danger_camouflaged_by_govt_42171908t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/spookillusion_newsgroup_danger_camouflaged_by_govt_42171908t.html
...The Fake Opposition:

Spooks want you to believe each newsgroup is a "group" of like-minded
individuals that are bound by their common desire to post messages and
have discussions with other people in their "group." They call
themselves "group-regulars," and they stick together like glue. They
claim collective ownership of the newsgroup forum as a way of
controlling it. Spooks project the illusion that a newsgroup is one
big happy family of like-minded individuals that love each other and
will gang-up on "outsiders," like Bongblaster.

Below is a message posted by Sheri, one of the "group-regulars" exposed
by Spookbusters. Sheri wants us to believe that "group-regulars" of
an arbitrary newsgroup decided to go on "group-vacation" to Mexico
where they rented a house and had a "group-drunken-gay-orgy." When
they got back to Seattle they posted pictures and articles about it in
alt.society.generation-x, unaware that Spookbusters were "grouping"
them with the spook spammers in a.d.p.c.

Sheri publicly denies she, Jason, and Wendi are government spooks:

>============ Quote on ==============
Tijuana Libel
I'm not sure what Spookbusters has against Jason and Wendy Simpson but
whatever it is, it seems to be pretty intense.
I met them. The group photo was taken on a trip to San Diego where a
large gathering from alt.society.generation-x came together to
celebrate News Year's Eve for 1997. Fun trip.

But I still don't remember any CIAesque escapades I may have been
involved with. Bummer.
http://boston.conman.org/2000/01/26.2
>============= Quote off ==============


BONGISM #9
The CIA denies involvement as standard operating procedure.
Denials indicate presence. (Squealing indicates pigs.)


alt.society.generation-x Is not an arbitrary newsgroup.
It's a spook recruitment center for people who want to spy on their
fellow Americans; for people who want to become the fake-opposition;
for people who want to infiltrate every niche of society, including the
newsgroups; for people who want to sell their worthless souls to the
devil named the CIA.


http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/review.cfm?rtype=4

Wanted: Gen X Spooks
by Uri Dowbenko

In case you missed it, the CIA is trolling for fresh blood.

Yes, the US Central Intelligence Agency -- that fun-loving,
drug-dealing, government-subverting dinosaur of a bureaucracy -- is
running ads for new recruits.

The ad, in the employment section of the Wall Street Journal (September
7, 1999), features a photo of a smug-looking thirty-something woman
with her chin in hand, and the preposterous headline -- "Do you have
what it takes? Integrity. Intellect. Common Sense. Patriotism.
Courage."

Sadly there was no mention of the applicant's ability to actively
participate in, or at least look the other way, when confronted with
state-sanctioned terrorism, like illegal drug smuggling or money
laundering.

Sponsored by the CIA Directorate of Operations, Clandestine Service,
the ad says you can't be older than 35 to enter the trainee program. In
other words, the ad copy is aimed directly at people who may be unaware
of the Agency's bloody and treacherous history.

"For the extraordinary individual who wants more than just a job, this
is a unique career, a way of life that will challenge the deepest
resources of your intelligence, self-reliance and responsibility," the
pitch continues.

"It demands an adventurous spirit, a forceful personality, superior
intellectual ability, toughness of mind, and a high degree of personal
integrity, courage and love of country."

Give that copywriter a raise. With outrageous lies like these, Gen-Xers
could sign up for the Gambino family with a clear conscience.

Then there's the close -- "You will need to deal with fast-moving,
ambiguous and unstructured situations that will test your
resourcefulness to the utmost."

Ambiguous? Ask CIA operative Oliver North, aka John Cathey. He could
lie to Congress with a straight face.

When veteran FBI Special Agent Richard M. Taus uncovered and reported
evidence of CIA drug trafficking by a group called the "K-Team," he was
set-up and sent to prison on phony charges.

"The K-Team had a front operation with the patriotic sounding name
National Freedom Institute and called its operation the 'Enterprise,'
the same that repeatedly surfaced in the Iran Contra congressional
hearings," writes Rodney Stich in his ground-breaking book Defrauding
America.

Taus discovered that that K-Team was a CIA operation, engaged in drug
trafficking, the looting of savings and loans, and other activities
related to what later became known as Irangate and Iraqgate.

Another of Stich's sources, Gene "Chip" Tatum confirmed these
allegations. He was the helicopter pilot who actually ferried CIA
operatives Oliver North, Felix Rodriguez, aka Max Gomez, and William
Barr -- CIA's Southern Air Transport attorney and later US President
George Bush's Attorney General -- in Central America.

Tatum describes one meeting to "determine where over $100 million in
drug money disappeared on the three routes from Panama to Colorado,
Ohio and Arkansas. This theft was financially draining the operation
known as the 'Enterprise'... The first call was made by Fernandez to
Oliver North, informing North that 'the money loss was occurring on the
Panama to Arkansas route, and that means either Seal, Clinton or
Noriega.'"

Imagine -- the late CIA drug transport pilot Barry Seal, former
Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, as well as Panama's General Noriega
were all suspected of skimming George Bush's cocaine profits.

"Fifteen minutes later the portable phone rang and Vice President
George Bush was on the line talking to William Barr," writes Stich.
"Barr said at one point, referring to the missing funds, 'I would
propose that no one source would be bold enough to siphon out that much
money, but it is more plausible that each are siphoning a portion
causing a drastic loss.'"

Tatum said that Barr then dialed another number immediately reaching
Governor Clinton. Barr explained the missing money problem to Clinton,
explaining that over $100 million of the Enterprise monies had
disappeared, and warning that the matter must be resolved or "it could
lead to big problems."

The problems were evidently ironed out. Bill Clinton became president,
one of the CIA's "few groomed men," who was promised his position on
the "short list" for the job, according to Terry Reed and John
Cummings, authors of Compromised.

In another instance, Tatum described "flying the group to Santa Ana,
Honduras meeting with Enrique Bermudez and other Contra leaders and
visiting a cocaine processing facility. Tatum described the strong
smell of jet fuel and acetone and the large fuel pods that had the tops
stripped off them and in which were fuel and leaves," writes Stich.

"Tatum repeated what Oliver North said, 'One more year of this and
we'll all retire.'"

The hubris of these criminals is unbelievable. And Oliver North, of
course has still not retired.

"North added, 'If we can keep those Arkansas hicks in line, that is,"
referring to Barry Seal and Governor Clinton... As Tatum listened to
these conversations he remembered the army officer's remarks, 'Tell no
one. There's no one big enough in your chain of command.'"

No kidding. Hearing Oliver North talk about the involvement of George
Bush and Bill Clinton in drug smuggling, Tatum wisely followed the
advice.

Or you could ask Ronald Rewald, an international wheeler-dealer who
thought he had it made. Hobnobbing with the world's movers and shakers,
Rewald was living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. He had a $2
million estate in Hawaii, a chauffeured limo took him to work everyday,
and he even played polo with the Sultan of Brunei, the richest man in
the world.

The subject of another book by Rodney Stich called "Disavow," Rewald
had a dark secret. He was just a front man for the CIA, an informant
since college when he began spying on "subversive" organizations like
the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) during the late 1960's and
70's.

Later as chairman of BBRDW -- Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald Dillingham and
Wong -- a Hawaii-based CIA front masquerading as a worldwide investment
company, Rewald thought he had nothing to fear. But then came the setup
and the fall. Today after spending ten years in prison as the fall guy
for the CIA, Rewald is reportedly still in denial.

According to Stich, BBRDW was a CIA proprietary, a company wholly owned
by CIA operatives, started, operated and funded by the CIA in 1979
using many of the same high level people that had staffed Nugan Hand
Bank.

Nugan Hand was the infamous Australia-based money laundry used by CIA
to disburse Southeast Asian drug revenues.

In a chapter of Defrauding America, Stich writes that "the CIA used
BBRDW as an international investment company cover with 120 employees
staffing offices in 16 countries including Hong Kong, India, Indonesia,
Taiwan, New Zealand,Singapore, London, Paris, Stockholm, Brazil and
Chile. CIA personnel opened and operated these far flung offices."

When his cover was blown by a Honolulu reporter, Rewald never saw it
coming. Since he'd been working for the CIA since his college days, he
just naturally assumed that the CIA takes care of its own. Rewald was
wrong.

"Disavowed" by the way, means "once your cover is blown, pal, you're on
your own."

The book Disavow by Rodney Stich and T. Conan Russell should be
required reading for anyone who's even thinking about working for the
so-called "intelligence" agencies -- CIA, DIA, NSA, FBI, ONI, etc.

Just as there is no honor among thieves, there is even less among
"spooks" -- the double-dealing spies of the world.

Disavow deals with global realpolitik and the important business of
state -- making drug deals, laundering money, buying elections -- the
professional expertise for which the CIA is absolutely unparalleled
anywhere on earth.

Ronald Rewald found out the hard way. If he ever writes his
autobiography, he should call it, "I Was a Chump for the CIA."

In this context, the brazen affront of the CIA's Wall Street Journal ad
is absolutely astounding.

"The CIA is an equal opportunity employer and a drug-free work force,"
the ad continues lying. "We represent America and we want to be
representative of America."

By the way, whistleblower and former FBI agent Richard M. Taus is still
incarcerated, a political prisoner of the CIA's treachery and phony war
on drugs.

(Letters of condolence can be sent to Richard Taus, 91A1040, LH,
Clinton Correctional Faciltity, P.O. Box 2001,Dannemora, New York
12929.)

Posted In: alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks

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]]> Wed, 17 Jan 2007 08:48:48 PST http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/more_proof_drinking_water_is_more_deadly_than_smoking_41998852t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/more_proof_drinking_water_is_more_deadly_than_smoking_41998852t.html to keep from getting busted: no one has ever been harmed - much less
killed - by smoking too much cannabis. The same can't be said about
drinking too much water.

==================================================

'Hold your wee for a Wii' competition kills woman
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=155259

A woman has died by water intoxication after competing in a 'hold your
wee for a Wii contest'.

The competition hosted on Californian radio station, KDND 107.9, had
contestants consuming large amounts of water, then holding off using
the toilet for as long as they could, the winner being to last not to
have relieved themselves.

But after competing for the Wii, 28-year-old Jenifer Strange complained
of headache and was later found dead in her home in Sacramento
California. The coroner found the cause of death to be water
intoxication.

===============================================

For the First Time in History: Marijuana Kills a Man:
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/7307704.htm
By Ben Tinsley
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

A 24-year-old Ponder man choked to death on a bag of marijuana he
stuffed down his throat in an apparent attempt to hide it from Corinth
police officers early Wednesday.

Officers said they had no idea Nickolas Sandoval was in possession of
drugs when they stopped about 2:30 a.m. to help him fix a flat tire in
the 5900 block of northbound Interstate 35E in Corinth, Cpl. Frank
Lott said.

"It started out as a welfare concern. It looked like he was attempting
to change his tire on his Ford Ranger," Lott said. "But then he
started doing the entire choking, grabbing throat, kind of thing. ...
Officers went from 'Oh, hey, here is someone with a flat tire,' to
'Hey, this guy is choking.' "

Officers noticed a plastic bag lodged in the man's throat, but it was
too far down for them to extract.

"The ambulance arrived and they had to use some kind of medical tool,"
Lott said. "The officers had worked on him using the Heimlich
[maneuver] until the EMS arrived and took over. EMS removed the lodged
article, and he was taken to the hospital."

Sandoval was pronounced dead in the emergency room of Denton Regional
Medical Center about 3:30 a.m., said Linda Anderson, a spokeswoman for
the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office. The cause of death has
been ruled as "asphyxiation due to aspiration of plastic bag," she
said.

Sandoval had been convicted in Denton County of multiple counts of
marijuana possession, a Class B misdemeanor, between September 1999
and December 2001, court records show. He pleaded guilty to the charge
in September 1999 and served a year of probation.

In August 2000, he pleaded no contest to another marijuana possession
charge and was sentenced to 40 days in jail. In December 2001, he was
sentenced to 95 days in jail for marijuana possession.

Also in December 2001, he pleaded guilty to a Class B misdemeanor
charge of driving while intoxicated and was sentenced to another 95
days in jail.

Neither Denton attorney Cary Piel, who represented Sandoval in 2001,
nor Denton attorney Steven T. Burgess, who represented Sandoval in
1999 and 2000, could recall much about his cases.

Calls to Sandoval's family were not returned Wednesday.

Corinth authorities are trying to piece together details of the
incident. They hadn't determined the amount of marijuana by late
Wednesday, but Lott said it was a "sizable amount." The bag was the
"standard lunch-bag type," he said.

"This was a weird situation, especially considering he wasn't being
stopped by us in the first place," Lott said. "I don't even think he
would have been questioned by us."

Posted In: alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks

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]]> Mon, 15 Jan 2007 05:52:21 PST http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/how_much_is_that_doggie_in_the_window_41957892t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/how_much_is_that_doggie_in_the_window_41957892t.html


My daughter wanted a God-fearing guy,
not a guy who works
(as opposed to studying
fulltime in yeshiva).

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3352019,00.html

How much would you pay for a groom?

The ultra-Orthodox world is in uproar,
this time it's not because of gays:

Parents of unmarried young women are refusing to pay
for fancy apartments, five-star weddings in
order to get a groom from prestigious yeshiva

Chaim Levinson Published: 01.14.07, 20:19

A., a 49-year old ultra-Orthodox man,
has five daughters and three sons.

His two older daughters are already married,
and he's about to marry off his third daughter.

But when his friends wish him mazal tov, he makes a face.


A daughter's wedding should
be one of the happiest events
in a parent's life,

but it's become a nightmare
because sought-after grooms
are demanding that the bride's
parents buy the couple an apartment,
and preferably in a desirable location.

"It's a known thing in our community
that you have to give the whole package
to get a good groom, that is,
to pay for the entire wedding
and buy an apartment and furniture," Says A.

"My two older daughters have
husbands from good yeshivas,
and each of them got two thirds
of an apartment from me.

"I spent my entire savings on that,
I took a second mortgage and loans.

Now I need to buy at least
half an apartment for my
third daughter, and I have no money.

My daughter wanted a God-fearing guy,
not a guy who works
(as opposed to studying
fulltime in yeshiva).

That's a problem.

How will I pay back more loans?

And what will remain for my younger daughters?"



Many of the ultra-Orthodox
have the same problem.

After paying back their own home mortgage,
the parents must pay hundreds of thousands
of dollars for their daughters' weddings.



Among the Lithuanians the price is
based on how smart and how good a
student the groom is.

Among the Hassidim,
the price is based on the
groom's family's prestige.

When families started going
bankrupt there was an outcry
against the heads of yeshivas
and the grooms who make excessive demands.



The price for a groom

The average ultra-Orthodox
family has seven-eight children.

Assuming that half are daughters,
every family has three-four daughters
to marry off.

Anyone wanting to marry his
daughter off to a talmid chacham,
an outstanding student who is
completely immersed in the Torah,
much pay for at least half of the
couple's apartment,
and preferably the entire thing.


An apartment in an ultra-Orthodox
complex in Betar Ilit or Modi'in
Ilit costs about USD 90,000.

If you add the wedding expenditures
and the purchase of furniture and
electrical appliances,

the expenses come to USD 110,000.

If we assume that a family
pays for only half a package,
every ultra-Orthodox family has
to part with some USD 200,000
within a few years just to
marry off its daughters.


The problem is that the
more impressive the groom,
the higher the demands.

Very high-quality grooms
demand an apartment in
Jerusalem and Bnei Brak
that is as close as possible
to the head of their yeshiva.

In Jerusalem and Bnei Brak apartment
prices are about USD 150,000- USD 250,000.

Grooms who are outstanding students
with a lot of chutzpah demand that
the wife's parents also pay a small
stipend to allow them to live decently.



If a family's boys are not considered
attractive as prospective grooms,
then the son also needs to have
one third of an apartment.

The result is that the average
family has to spend half a million
dollars in a short period of time,
and they have no sources of income.

And what is a family with 15 children supposed to do?


In order to finance all of this,
parents take out many loans and
insane mortgages.

The loans have to be paid back,
and the interest is high,
so the parents make use of
free loan societies.

But even they have to be paid back,
so the parents take more loans from
other free loan societies.

Another solution is to go to the
U.S. or Britain and ask for money
from wealthy Jews.


Before the wedding the terms
of the match are negotiated.

The ultra-Orthodox Bakehillah newspaper,
which writes a lot on this issue,
has published the price list for a groom.

For a prodigy in a prestigious yeshiva
such as Kol Torah or Hevron in Jerusalem,
Or Yisrael in Petach Tikvah or Bet Matityahu
in Bnei Brak, you have to pay for the whole package.


For a groom who is half a prodigy
you pay somewhere between the whole
package and 80 percent of the apartment.

For a good guy you have to pay
between half of the package and
two thirds of it,

and for an average guy you
have to pay for half an
apartment.


In yeshivas such as Grodna,
Be'er Ya'akov, and Haknesset Hagedolah,
which are a bit less prestigious than Hevron,
they demand two thirds of an apartment for
a prodigy and half an apartment for
an average guy.

In the average yeshivas they demand half an apartment.



"Sometimes you have several offers,
and the money the family offers is
definitely a significant factor in
the decision because then you can
sit in yeshiva and study the way
you ought to," says D.,

a student in a prestigious
Jerusalem yeshiva.

It's a market thing, supply and demand.

Of course you have to pay for a high-quality groom.

At our yeshiva we're the elite,
and people are prepared to pay
a lot for a groom."



Why do the bride's parents have
to take a loan in order to pay for
your apartment?



"It's painful to see parents taking loans,
but in order to sit and study in a yeshiva
you need funding.

You can't buy an apartment
on a yeshiva student's salary.

That's why the parents need to take money.

It's a wheel that can't be stopped."



Sometimes the grooms are more interested
in the assets they're going to receive
than in the bride they'll spend the
rest of their life with.

Ultra-Orthodox newspapers are full of
emotional letters from parents shouting
to the Heavens in the hope of
influencing the yeshiva heads.

Important rabbis are now supporting
the parents' point of view and calling
for an end to the economic madness.


The leader in this fight is Rabbi Yehuda Silman,
a Rabbinical Court judge in Bnai Brak and an
important adjudicator of Jewish law.


"In the Lithuanian yeshivas there's
a situation in which the more guys
in the yeshiva get an apartment,
the more prestigious the yeshiva
becomes," says Rabbi Silman.

"The yeshiva heads encourage
this to some extent, and in order
to preserve the yeshiva's reputation,
they demand of their students that they
make a match conditional on getting
an apartment."


Pressure on the guys

Many times the grooms don't want
complete apartments because they
know how their parents suffer,
but the yeshiva heads push them
to take the apartments with no
apologies.

After all,
the whole package is evidence
of the yeshiva's prestige, and
a guy who compromises harms the
yeshiva's good name.


In addition, a guy who compromises
has to go to work in order to pay
for the apartment, and then he can't
sit and study in yeshiva, which also
harms the yeshiva's good name.


The grandson of Rabbi Haim Kanievsky,
one of the most important rabbis in Bnei Brak,
was recently quoted in the ultra-Orthodox prss as saying,

"My grandfather is unequivocal in his
opposition to the demand for the
whole package."

"My grandfather's opinion is that all expenses,
including the purchase of an apartment, must be
divided equally between the groom's side and the
bride's side.

As for the apartment, my grandfather says that it's
better for the bride's side to pay a bit more in order
to show respect for the Torah, even a thousand dollars more."

Rabbi Silman also has a solution:
"You can get to a situation in which each side
gives USD 15,000, USD 5,000 for the wedding
and furniture, and USD 10,000 for the apartment.

The rest is done through a mortgage.
Since the young couple can't pay the
mortgage and stay with Torah study,
the monthly payment,
which are about NIS 1,300 a month,
will be divided in the first two years: half
will be paid by the parents on both sides,
and the other half by the young couple."


How can the young couple afford it?

"Let them seek income on the side.

You have to learn to get by in life.
They're not going to get everything
on a silver spoon their entire lives."


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]]> Sun, 14 Jan 2007 11:53:03 PST http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/telling_the_truth_about_jews_will_get_you_defamed_by_41752068t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/telling_the_truth_about_jews_will_get_you_defamed_by_41752068t.html Here in America, I stare at the land in which I live and see a
landscape I do not recognise
Published: 23 December 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2097774.ece

I call it the Alice in Wonderland effect. Each time I tour the United
States, I stare through the looking glass at the faraway region in
which I live and work for The Independent - the Middle East - and see a
landscape which I do no recognise, a distant tragedy turned, here in
America, into a farce of hypocrisy and banality and barefaced lies. Am
I the Cheshire Cat? Or the Mad Hatter?

I picked up Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid at
San Francisco airport, and zipped through it in a day. It's a good,
strong read by the only American president approaching sainthood.
Carter lists the outrageous treatment meted out to the Palestinians,
the Israeli occupation, the dispossession of Palestinian land by
Israel, the brutality visited upon this denuded, subject population,
and what he calls "a system of apartheid, with two peoples occupying
the same land but completely separated from each other, with Israelis
totally dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of
their basic human rights".

Carter quotes an Israeli as saying he is "afraid that we are moving
towards a government like that of South Africa, with a dual society of
Jewish rulers and Arabs subjects with few rights of citizenship...". A
proposed but unacceptable modification of this choice, Carter adds, "is
the taking of substantial portions of the occupied territory, with the
remaining Palestinians completely surrounded by walls, fences, and
Israeli checkpoints, living as prisoners within the small portion of
land left to them".

Needless to say, the American press and television largely ignored the
appearance of this eminently sensible book - until the usual Israeli
lobbyists began to scream abuse at poor old Jimmy Carter, albeit that
he was the architect of the longest lasting peace treaty between Israel
and an Arab neighbour - Egypt - secured with the famous 1978 Camp David
accords. The New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print", ho!
ho!) then felt free to tell its readers that Carter had stirred "furore
among Jews" with his use of the word "apartheid". The ex-president
replied by mildly (and rightly) pointing out that Israeli lobbyists had
produced among US editorial boards a "reluctance to criticise the
Israeli government".

Typical of the dirt thrown at Carter was the comment by Michael Kinsley
in The New York Times (of course) that Carter "is comparing Israel to
the former white racist government of South Africa". This was followed
by a vicious statement from Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League,
who said that the reason Carter gave for writing this book "is this
shameless, shameful canard that the Jews control the debate in this
country, especially when it comes to the media. What makes this serious
is that he's not just another pundit, and he's not just another
analyst. He is a former president of the United States".

But well, yes, that's the point, isn't it? This is no tract by a
Harvard professor on the power of the lobby. It's an honourable, honest
account by a friend of Israel as well as the Arabs who just happens to
be a fine American ex-statesman. Which is why Carter's book is now a
best-seller - and applause here, by the way, for the great American
public that bought the book instead of believing Mr Foxman.

But in this context, why, I wonder, didn't The New York Times and the
other gutless mainstream newspapers in the United States mention
Israel's cosy relationship with that very racist apartheid regime in
South Africa which Carter is not supposed to mention in his book?
Didn't Israel have a wealthy diamond trade with sanctioned, racist
South Africa? Didn't Israel have a fruitful and deep military
relationship with that racist regime? Am I dreaming,
looking-glass-like, when I recall that in April of 1976, Prime Minister
John Vorster of South Africa - one of the architects of this vile
Nazi-like system of apartheid - paid a state visit to Israel and was
honoured with an official reception from Israeli prime minister
Menachem Begin, war hero Moshe Dayan and future Nobel prize-winner
Yitzhak Rabin? This of course, certainly did not become part of the
great American debate on Carter's book.

At Detroit airport, I picked up an even slimmer volume, the
Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report - which doesn't really study
Iraq at all but offers a few bleak ways in which George Bush can run
away from this disaster without too much blood on his shirt. After
chatting to the Iraqis in the green zone of Baghdad - dream zone would
be a more accurate title - there are a few worthy suggestions (already
predictably rejected by the Israelis): a resumption of serious
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, an Israeli withdrawal from Golan, etc.
But it's written in the same tired semantics of right-wing think tanks
- the language, in fact, of the discredited Brookings Institution and
of my old mate, the messianic New York Times columnist Tom Friedman -
full of "porous" borders and admonitions that "time is running out".

The clue to all this nonsense, I discovered, comes at the back of the
report where it lists the "experts" consulted by Messrs Baker, Hamilton
and the rest. Many of them are pillars of the Brookings Institution and
there is Thomas Freedman of The New York Times.

But for sheer folly, it was impossible to beat the post-Baker debate
among the great and the good who dragged the United States into this
catastrophe. General Peter Pace, the extremely odd chairman of the US
joint chiefs of staff, said of the American war in Iraq that "we are
not winning, but we are not losing". Bush's new defence secretary,
Robert Gates, announced that he "agreed with General Pace that we are
not winning, but we are not losing". Baker himself jumped into the same
nonsense pool by asserting: "I don't think you can say we're losing. By
the same token (sic), I'm not sure we're winning." At which point, Bush
proclaimed this week that - yes - "we're not winning, we're not
losing". Pity about the Iraqis.

I pondered this madness during a bout of severe turbulence at 37,000
feet over Colorado. And that's when it hit me, the whole final score in
this unique round of the Iraq war between the United States of America
and the forces of evil. It's a draw!

Posted In: alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks

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]]> Sat, 13 Jan 2007 04:47:46 PST http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/victory_in_iraq_doesn_t_have_anything_to_do_with_freedom_41552644t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/victory_in_iraq_doesn_t_have_anything_to_do_with_freedom_41552644t.html massive military bases in Iraq ... for ever.

Some U.S. bases are so large, in fact, that they're being likened to
small American towns. Camp Anaconda, near Balad, for example,
encompasses 15 square miles, and features a miniature golf course, two
swimming pools, and a first-run movie theater. The base at al- Asad
also boasts a movie theater and swimming pool, as well as a Subway
restaurant, a coffee shop, and a Hertz rent-a-car facility. Meanwhile,
the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, which is currently under construction,
reportedly boasts 21 buildings (including a food court, swimming poll
and gym) and spans 104 acres, as opposed to the customary 10. "The
fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the
largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the
population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power
and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq's turbulent
future," the Associated Press reported.

Though the press seems reluctant to ask whether or not the U.S. is
constructing permanent military bases in Iraq ("American reporters
adhere to a simple rule: The words 'permanent,' 'bases,' and 'Iraq'
should never be placed in the same sentence," Tom Engelhardt
explained), with hundreds of "enduring" bases worldwide, it seems only
logical that the US military would be drafting similar plans for Iraq.

"After every US military intervention since 1990 the Pentagon has left
behind clusters of new bases in areas where it never before had a
foothold," Zoltan Grossman of Evergreen State College recently
explained, adding that, "The only two obstacles to a geographically
contiguous US sphere of influence are Iran and Syria." And with wars in
Iran and Syria reportedly unofficially underway, promises of a
withdrawal ring decidedly untrue."

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/06/04/far06006.html

The American people are being played for suckers by the BushCo neocons.
The WMD story was only part of the con.

"I have been pleading with the American press corps for months to ask
the Bush administration one simple question, a question designed to
expose our true agenda: 'Are we, or are we not, constructing permanent
military bases in Iraq?'"

-- Sen. Gary Hart, March 31, 2006

===========================================

Want a picture of the future?

Imagine the entire planet under US/Israeli military occupations --
complete with torture chambers, execution chambers, and ovens.

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]]> Thu, 11 Jan 2007 05:25:14 PST http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/cia_pigs_help_bonesmen_to_get_rich_41424388t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/cia_pigs_help_bonesmen_to_get_rich_41424388t.html http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010907P.shtml
By Russ Baker and Jonathan Z. Larsen
The Real News Project

Monday 08 January 2007

New York - Newly released internal CIA documents assert that former
president George Herbert Walker Bush's oil company emerged from a
1950's collaboration with a covert CIA officer.

Bush has long denied allegations that he had connections to the
intelligence community prior to 1976, when he became Central
Intelligence Agency director under President Gerald Ford. At the time,
he described his appointment as a 'real shocker.'

But the freshly uncovered memos contend that Bush maintained a
close personal and business relationship for decades with a CIA staff
employee who, according to those CIA documents, was instrumental in the
establishment of Bush's oil venture, Zapata, in the early 1950s, and
who would later accompany Bush to Vietnam as a "cleared and witting
commercial asset" of the agency.

According to a CIA internal memo dated November 29, 1975, Bush's
original oil company, Zapata Petroleum, began in 1953 through joint
efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his
agency position that same year to go into private business. The '75
memo describes Devine as an "oil wild-catting associate of Mr. Bush."
The memo is attached to an earlier memo written in 1968, which lays out
how Devine resumed work for the secret agency under commercial cover
beginning in 1963.

"Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata
Oil," the memo reads. In fact, early Zapata corporate filings do not
seem to reflect Devine's role in the company, suggesting that it may
have been covert. Yet other documents do show Thomas Devine on the
board of an affiliated Bush company, Zapata Offshore, in January, 1965,
more than a year after he had resumed work for the spy agency.

It was while Devine was in his new CIA capacity as a commercial
cover officer that he accompanied Bush to Vietnam the day after
Christmas in 1967, remaining in the country with the newly elected
congressman from Texas until January 11, 1968. Whatever information the
duo was seeking, they left just in the nick of time. Only three weeks
after the two men departed Saigon, the North Vietnamese and their
Communist allies launched the Tet offensive with seventy thousand
troops pre-positioned in more than 100 cities and towns.

While the elder Bush was in Vietnam with Devine, George W. Bush was
making contact with representatives of the Texas Air National Guard,
using his father's connections to join up with an elite, Houston-based
Guard unit - thus avoiding overseas combat service in a war that the
Bushes strongly supported.

The new revelation about George H.W. Bush's CIA friend and fellow
Zapata Offshore board member will surely fuel further speculation that
Bush himself had his own associations with the agency.

Indeed, Zapata's annual reports portray a bewildering range of
global activities, in the Mideast, Asia and the Caribbean (including
off Cuba) that seem outsized for the company's modest bottom line. In
his autobiography, Bush declares that "I'd come to the CIA with some
general knowledge of how it operated' and that his 'overseas contacts
as a businessman' justified President Nixon's appointing him as UN
ambassador, a decision that at the time was highly controversial.

Previously disclosed FBI files include a memo from bureau director
J. Edgar Hoover, noting that his organization had given a briefing to
two men in the intelligence community on November 23, 1963, the day
after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The memo refers to one as
"Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency" and the other as
"Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency."

When Nation magazine contributor Joseph McBride first uncovered
this document in 1988, George Herbert Walker Bush, then vice president
and seeking the presidency, insisted through a spokesman that he was
not the man mentioned in the memo: "I was in Houston, Texas, at the
time and involved in the independent oil drilling business. And I was
running for the Senate in late '63. I don't have any idea of what he's
talking about." The spokesman added, "Must be another George Bush."

When McBride approached the CIA at that time, it initially invoked
a policy of neither confirming nor denying anyone's involvement with
the agency. But it soon took the unusual step of asserting that the
correct individual was a George William Bush, a one-time Virginia
staffer whom the agency claimed it could no longer locate. But that
George Bush, discovered in his office in the Social Security
Administration by McBride, noted that he was a low-ranked coast and
landing-beach analyst and that he most certainly never received such an
FBI briefing.

It was perhaps to help lay to rest the larger matter of the elder
Bush's past associations that the former president went out of his way
during his recent eulogy for President Ford to sing the praises of the
Warren Commission Report as the final authority on those days.

After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation
turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others to make sense of
that madness. And a conspiracy theorist can say what they will, but the
Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say on
this tragic matter. Why? Because Gerry Ford put his name on it and
Gerry Ford's word was always good.

In fact, Ford's role on the Warren Commission is seen by many
experts as a decisive factor in his rise to the top. As a Commission
member, Ford altered its report in a significant way. As the Associated
Press reported in 1997, "Thirty-three years ago, Gerald R. Ford took
pen in hand and changed - ever so slightly - the Warren Commission's
key sentence on the place where a bullet entered John F. Kennedy's body
when he was killed in Dallas. The effect of Ford's change was to
strengthen the commission's conclusion that a single bullet passed
through Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally - a
crucial element in its finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole
gunman."

This modification played a seminal role in ending talk of a larger
conspiracy to kill the president. Knowledge of Ford's alteration has
encouraged theorists to scrutinize the constellation of other figures
who might have had a motivation to cover up the affair.

Meanwhile, there is much more to learn about George H. W. Bush's
friend, Thomas Devine. The newly surfaced memos explain that Devine,
from 1963 on, had authority from the agency to operate under commercial
cover as part of an agency project code-named WUBRINY.

Devine at that time was employed with the Wall Street boutique
Train, Cabot and Associates, described in the memos as an "investment
banking firm which houses and manages the [CIA] proprietary corporation
WUSALINE." These nautical names - 'Saline' and 'Briny' - or, for the
Bay of Pigs invasion 'Wave' - are CIA cryptonyms for the programs and
companies involved.

George H.W. Bush's own ties are amplified in the 1975 CIA memo,
dated November 29, which makes it clear that he had knowledge of CIA
operations prior to being named the new director of the CIA in the fall
of that year.

The 1975 memo notes that, through his relationship with Devine, "Mr
George Bush [the CIA director-designate] has prior knowledge of the now
terminated project WUBRINY/LPDICTUM which was involved in proprietary
commercial operations in Europe."

The Bush documents, part of a batch of 300,000 records the CIA
provided to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, were publicly
released in 1998 as the result of a lawsuit, donated to a foundation,
scanned into a database - and only just noticed by an independent
researcher.

Click the following to view original supporting documents: [1] [2]
[3]

--------

Russ Baker, founder of the Real News Project, and Jonathan Z.
Larsen, Real News editorial board member, are at work on a book about
George W. Bush and the Bush clan, due out later this year. They may be
reached at: russ@realnews.org.

-------

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]]> Wed, 10 Jan 2007 06:02:43 PST http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/without_a_constant_state_of_war_the_neo_con_empire_41325572t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/without_a_constant_state_of_war_the_neo_con_empire_41325572t.html
See them tumbling down,
Bearing their love to the ground,
Lonely but free I'll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling Tumbleweed.

Cares of the past are behind,
Nowhere to go but I'll find
Just where the trail will wind,
Drifting along with the tumbling Tumbleweed.

I know when night is gone a new world's born at dawn,

I'll keep strolling along,
Deep in my heart is a song,
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the tumbling Tumbleweed

1934
Sons of the Pioneers

- - -
D E A T H T O W A R M O N G E R A M E R I C A !

....and take apartheid Israel with ya.

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]]> Tue, 09 Jan 2007 05:06:40 PST http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/mi5_persecution_dirk_gently_on_the_toronto_case_41263876t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/mi5_persecution_dirk_gently_on_the_toronto_case_41263876t.html friend at the Toronto police department thought he would like
to fly up and take a look at a homicide which had occurred
the previous evening. He decided to skip the last day at the
World Holistics conference and take the next plane out of
San Francisco.

The flight was bad; Dirk had been hit on the back of the head
by the Newspaper trolley, the drinks trolley, the dinner trolley
and now the gift trolley. When the hostesses weren

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]]> Mon, 08 Jan 2007 12:03:52 PST http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/weed_contamination_in_the_uk_41250052t.html http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.no-spooks/weed_contamination_in_the_uk_41250052t.html
Sun Jan 7 23:59:01 GMT 2007

=====================

Title: UK: Warning to drug users

Author: Ben Kendall

Date: 02/01/2007
Source: Eastern Daily Press, UK

---
Drugs users across East Anglia were last night warned to exercise
extreme caution after research showed cannabis supplies are being
contaminated with harmful glass particles.

Campaign bodies lobbying for the legalisation of cannabis claim small
glass beads - believed to be an industrial spray used for glass frosting
- are being added to herbal cannabis in a bid to increase its weight and
making "deals" more expensive.

Norwich-based group Cannaprag says police raids during the summer of
2006 which saw large scale cannabis farms - including several in
Norwich, Yarmouth and King's Lynn - closed down have created a shortage
of the drug meaning dealers are contaminating supplies in a bid to meet
demand.

But this could have serious health consequences for thousands of users
with some already reporting mouth ulcers, sore throats and chesty
persistent coughs.

Cannaprag spokesman Derek Williams said the cannabis using community has
had suspicions about contamination for about six months but has only now
obtained evidence by analysing samples of the drug. At first the
substance was thought to be a relatively harmless material such as sands
but the results are far more worrying.

Mr Williams added: "What has become clear through this incident is that
the government has no method of warning illegal drug users of dangers
such as this and seemingly has no desire to do so.

"Government policy towards illegal drugs should not act in such a way as
to increase the danger of using them by adding unknown risks.

"Cannaprag is calling for public information campaign to raise awareness
of this contamination as a matter of urgency. It will be affecting a
huge number of people. A public health warning is urgently needed to
inform users that they should not smoke this contaminated cannabis and
dealers should not sell it."

Mr Williams said that such contamination is a result of prohibition and
legalising cannabis would allow the government to ensure the safety of
supplies.

"The reality is that people are going to use cannabis and, if that is
the case, the government should have some way of ensuring their safety.
The only way of doing this is through legalisation," he said.

Magnification of three samples shows small beads 50 - 120 micrometers
diameter, made of non-soluble high melting point glass like substance.

If smoked without a filter - as is common - these glass beads are drawn
into the lungs.

The author of the research has remained anonymous but Cannaprag and
other legalisation campaign groups are calling on the government to
conduct its own research.
http://new.edp24.co.uk/

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]]> Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:13:52 PST