Author: roseeriter

Control by Herding

“works by diverting the attention of news consumers and honest news reporters, from one event that” is considered damaging to a diversionary event that is considered to be less damaging. “Sometimes the second event is designed to affect people’s opinion about the first event.

Control by Herding is usually done by creating an Arranged Coincidence of two events in time. A sensational nondamaging event works to hide a damaging event in the following ways.

“It reduces the time available for investigating the damaging event.

“It reduces broadcast time and column space available for reporting it.

“It provides an excuse for the Media Establishment to ignore the damaging event.

“It makes it difficult for an honest reporter to object to [media] management’s decision to reduce coverage of the damaging event.

“It diverts the public’s attention from the damaging event.

It is called Control by Herding “because the people being controlled are not being commanded. They are not being forced to do what they do. Most of them do not realize that thay are being controlled.

“Control By Herding might not seem bad unless” it is realized that “the more effective diversionary News Events are sensational ones. Being sensational usually means death or destruction, and that usually means an Evil act.”

The addled thinking of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency was on full display in late January when MDA officials conducted a missile defense war game on Capitol Hill.

In this war game, Midland, a fictional island nation located in the Sea of Japan, decides to attack its neighbors, South Korea and Japan. According to the formal briefing presented to participants and observers, this is because: “Tensions between Midland and Japan and South Korea have increased over oil reserves and fishing rights.” In this war game, Midland is not allowed to also attack North Korea because, well, Midland is North Korea. To be politically correct, MDA just doesn’t say so. Midland also attacks the United States, launching seven long-range missiles to “preclude U.S. involvement,” according to the briefing.
Your World At War

A recent Pentagon briefing claims the threat from enemy missiles is growing and shows missiles in 20 countries. But all but two of those 20 countries — Iran and North Korea — are either friends, allies, or countries from which we have no missile threat, e.g. Israel, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, South Korea, Moldova, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.

The purpose of the recent war game — conducted just as President George W. Bush’s new defense budget was headed for Capitol Hill — was for members of Congress, their staffs and the press to see a missile defense fantasy, and then support that fantasy with billions of new taxpayer dollars.

In other words, when a new destructive weapons capability exists — however apparently diabolical or unprecedented it is — the historical record overwhelmingly documents that it will eventually be used.

Nor will any commander have all or perhaps even most of the ideal information he will require to make a certainly correct decision. Retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Dave Frost put it very well: “No operational commander can be sure he knows what he needs to know.”

A Brutal Scene Caught on Tape
A 21-minute recording of a sexual assault shattered lives in O.C.

For a party in July 2002, skinny, fresh-faced Haidl gathered two teenage buddies and a 16-year-old restaurant hostess in the garage of his father’s home. The girl drank too much, and according to descriptions of the video in court, the boys took turns on her limp body, using a pool cue, a cigarette and a Snapple bottle.

Prosecutors saw incontrovertible evidence of sexual assault, but defense attorneys argued that the tape told an entirely different story — of a would-be porn actress who consented to an orgy and feigned unconsciousness for dramatic effect. At trial, a defense neurologist minutely analyzed the tape, saying the girl’s movements showed her alertness. Jurors deadlocked, saying they found the evidence ambiguous. At the second trial, jurors convicted the three of sexual penetration, but not rape.

Meanwhile, the defendants — Haidl, Nachreiner and Keith Spann — have grown into men in the glare of the national media, their faces maturing before millions while their frames filled out in jail scrubs. Haidl is now 20, Nachreiner and Spann 21.

Convicted last March for sexually assaulting the girl, they are now at the Orange County Jail. They will sit before Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseño for sentencing Friday, where a prosecutor will ask for prison and their lawyers will plead for mercy. Haidl could face up to 18 years, Spann 16 and Nachreiner 14.

“This is a time in their lives when growth is exponential, and that makes it all the more tragic and troublesome,” said defense attorney Barnett.

He characterized the case as unique, saying it involved teenagers from relatively ordinary families, no serious criminal records and a national media spotlight.

And not least, the explosive videotape. “You have a tape which is graphic and disturbing, and which is a reflection of a subculture that is really unknown to middle-class America,” Barnett said.

A Poverty Line That’s Out of Date and Out of Favor
A good example is the poverty line, the nation’s official measure of need. Economists have long argued that the poverty line should be revised to provide an accurate picture of who is actually poor. Yet it has remained essentially untouched since 1963, when Mollie Orshansky, an economist at the Social Security Administration, first came up with it.
Today, there is a consensus among economists that it is no longer on the mark. “Everyone agrees we need a better measure,” said Douglas J. Besharov, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland.

To him and many others, the public lacks an accurate test of who is poor, making it far harder to justify actions, whether by government or by individuals, intended to alleviate poverty.

The poverty line for a single person under 65 is now $10,160 in annual income, before taxes; for a family of four, it’s $19,806. According to the United States Census Bureau, the total number of Americans living in poverty in 2004 was 37 million.

Still, much has changed since the 1950’s. Today, families spend something close to 12 percent of income on food, for example, not one-third. And while some of the remaining 88 percent may go to nonessentials, items such as housing, transportation and health care are significant, and expensive, factors.

Much is at stake. The poverty line is widely viewed as an indicator of social progress. A decline in poverty is seen as a national achievement, and an increase in poverty as a sign of problems.

Day to day, the poverty measure directly affects the lives of millions of Americans. At least $60 billion in federal aid annually is linked to the poverty measure, and $260 billion or so in Medicaid spending takes it into account. At the state and local level, thousands of government programs use the poverty line to determine eligibility.

So why hasn’t such an important statistic been updated to reflect modern conditions? The answer is politics. Thanks to a quirk of history, the poverty indicator, unlike many other economic statistics, is not under the jurisdiction of an authoritative statistical agency like the Bureau of Economic Analysis or the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Instead, it resides in perhaps the most political place of all: the office of the president. And during the last four decades, no president of either party has wanted to draw attention to a statistic that the nation has come to take for granted, especially if updating it might cause the number of people regarded as living in poverty to increase.

Dubai port deal is nothing compared to Ptech

While Congress and the media focus on the potential dangers of a UAE-owned company running American port operations, any possible threat is dwarfed by the current insecurity of the US government’s computer infrastructure, which has been compromised by a company with alleged multiple connections to terrorist financing.

The company, once known as Ptech (now GoAgile), has been contracted to provide sophisticated computer software to several government agencies, including the Army, the Air Force, Naval Air Command, Congress, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, Customs, the FAA, the IRS, NATO, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the White House.

Shortly after 9/11, the company’s primary investor, Yassin al-Qadi (al-Kadi), was identified by the US government as a specially designated global terrorist. Officials describe al-Qadi as one of Osama bin Laden’s “chief money launderers,” and allege he transferred as much as $3 billion to al-Qaeda during the 1990s.

Al-Qadi is a wealthy Saudi with connections to banking, diamonds, chemicals, construction, transportation, and real estate. He once headed Muwafaq, an Islamic charity the US Treasury Department described as an “al Qaeda front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen.”

Al-Qadi also maintained an unusually close relationship with notable US politicians. While attempting to defend Ptech, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts (ADCMA) revealed the fact that al-Qadi “was prominent in Washington circles and even showed President Jimmy Carter and Dick Cheney around during their visits to Saudi Arabia.”

Al-Qadi told an Arab newspaper in October of 2001 that he “spoke to [Dick Cheney] at length” and they “even became friends.” Similarly, while speaking with Computer World Magazine, Ptech cofounder Oussama Ziade said that al-Qadi “talked very highly of his relationship with [former President] Jimmy Carter and [Vice President] Dick Cheney.”

Ptech, under al-Qadi’s ownership, supplied the US government with what is known as enterprise architecture. According to Glenn Watt of Backbone Security, “Enterprise architecture is really the design, the layout, the blueprint if you will for the computer networks and computer systems that are going to go into an organization.” In regard to Ptech, he said, “The software they put on your system could be collecting every key stroke that you type while you are on the computer. It could be establishing a connection to the outside terrorist organization through all of your security measures.”

John Zachman, who is considered the “father” of enterprise architecture, said, “You would know where the access points are, you’d know how to get in, you would know where the weaknesses are, you’d know how to destroy it.”

Former FBI counterterrorism analyst Matthew Levitt has said, “For someone like [al-Qadi] to be involved in a capacity in an organization, a company that has access to classified information, that has access to government open or classified computer systems would be of grave concern.”
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In February 2003, Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote:

“[In 2000] Alamoudi was one of several Muslims invited to meet with candidate [George W.] Bush in Austin, Texas. Alamoudi is certainly influential — but he is also an open backer of terrorism. In October 2000, he was cheered at a pro-Palestinian rally in Washington, DC, when he declared: “We are all supporters of Hamas. . . . I am also a supporter of Hezbollah.” Three months later he was in Beirut for a terrorist summit, along with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda.”

Amazingly, Alamoudi — who allegedly has direct connections to the 9/11 conspirators — was invited to a prayer service with President Bush three days after the 9/11 attacks.

According to former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus, even after 9/11 “people in the intelligence community came and said-guys like Alamoudi . . . and other terrorists weren’t being touched because they’d been ordered not to investigate the cases, not to prosecute them, because they were being funded by the Saudis and a political decision was being made at the highest levels, don’t do anything that would embarrass the Saudi government.” He went on to say:

“[W]ho was it that fixed the cases? How could these guys operate for more than a decade immune from prosecution? And, the answer is coming out in a very strange place. What Alamoudi and al-Arian have in common is a guy named Grover Norquist. He’s the super lobbyist. . .

HOUSE LEADERSHIP ATTEMPTS TO SINK POPULAR HATE CRIMES LEGISLATION

Suspension Vote Is Calculated Effort to Stop Hate Crimes Legislation from Advancing

WASHINGTON — Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., offered legislation that passed today under a suspension of the rules designed to circumvent the House’s prior bipartisan passage of hate crimes legislation. The Children’s Safety and Violent Crimes Reduction Act of 2005 was considered as a clear calculation to try to stop the advancement of a hate crimes amendment which won a first-time, historical passage by the U.S. House of Representatives last September — 223 to 199, with 30 Republicans casting their votes in support.

“The United States Congress is not a card game. You can’t just keep re-shuffling the deck if you don’t like the first hand the majority deals you,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “The House has already passed hate crimes legislation by a clear majority. To callously disregard that vote signals how far out of step House leadership is with both the majority of Congress and the American people.”

The hate crimes measure enjoys strong bipartisan support and is endorsed by more than 175 law enforcement, civil rights, civic and religious organizations, including the National Sheriffs’ Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and many others. Hate crimes legislation is a crucial tool to allow the federal government to assist local authorities who lack the resources to effectively respond to the unique, sensitive and complex nature of hate violence.

“Hate crimes are often times crimes against children and our goal should be to protect all of America’s children from violence,” said Solmonese. “It is hypocritical to claim to promote child safety while squashing legislation that would keep millions of Americans, children included, safe from hate violence.”

The majority of the American people and members of Congress support hate crimes legislation. National polling, including a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released in November 2001, shows 73 percent of Americans supporting hate crimes legislation.

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Executive Order: Responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security with Respect to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet America’s social and community needs, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment of a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security.

(a) The Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary) shall establish within the Department of Homeland Security (Department) a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (Center).

(b) The Center shall be supervised by a Director appointed by Secretary. The Secretary shall consult with the Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (WHOFBCI Director) prior to making such appointment.

(c) The Department shall provide the Center with appropriate staff, administrative support, and other resources to meet its responsibilities under this order.

(d) The Center shall begin operations no later than 45 days from the date of this order.

Sec. 2. Purpose of Center. The purpose of the Center shall be to coordinate agency efforts to eliminate regulatory, contracting, and other programmatic obstacles to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the provision of social and community services.

Sec. 3. Responsibilities of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. In carrying out the purpose set forth in section 2 of this order, the Center shall:

(a) conduct, in coordination with the WHOFBCI Director, a department-wide audit to identify all existing barriers to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the delivery of social and community services by the Department, including but not limited to regulations, rules, orders, procure-ment, and other internal policies and practices, and outreach activities that unlawfully discriminate against, or otherwise discourage or disadvantage the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in Federal programs;

(b) coordinate a comprehensive departmental effort to incorporate faith-based and other community organizations in Department programs and initiatives to the greatest extent possible;

(c) propose initiatives to remove barriers identified pursuant to section 3(a) of this order, including but not limited to reform of regulations, procurement, and other internal policies and practices, and outreach activities;

(d) propose the development of innovative pilot and demonstration programs to increase the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in Federal as well as State and local initiatives; and

(e) develop and coordinate Departmental outreach efforts to disseminate information more effectively to faith-based and other community organizations with respect to programming changes, contracting opportunities, and other agency initiatives, including but not limited to Web and Internet resources.

Sec. 4. Reporting Requirements.

(a) Report. Not later than 180 days from the date of this order and annually thereafter, the Center shall prepare and submit a report to the WHOFBCI Director.

(b) Contents. The report shall include a description of the Department’s efforts in carrying out its responsibilities under this order, including but not limited to:

(i) a comprehensive analysis of the barriers to the full participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the delivery of social and community services identified pursuant to section 3(a) of this order and the proposed strategies to eliminate those barriers; and

(ii) a summary of the technical assistance and other information that will be available to faith-based and other community organizations regarding the program activities of the agency and the preparation of applications or proposals for grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, and procurement.

(c) Performance Indicators. The first report shall include annual performance indicators and measurable objectives for Departmental action. Each report filed thereafter shall measure the Department’s performance against the objectives set forth in the initial report.

Sec. 5. Responsibilities of the Secretary. The Secretary shall:

(a) designate an employee within the department to serve as the liaison and point of contact with the WHOFBCI Director; and

(b) cooperate with the WHOFBCI Director and provide such information, support, and assistance to the WHOFBCI Director as requested to implement this order.

Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) This order shall be implemented subject to the availability of appropriations and to the extent permitted by law.

(b) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

March 7, 2006.

Several new positions are being created worldwide for the new Iran office. In addition to beefing up Washington-based staff working on Iran, a regional center will be built in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to focus on neighboring Iran with four new foreign service posts and four local employees to do outreach. There will also be officers stationed in Germany, Azerbaijan and Britain to deal with Iranian expatriates.

The move is part of Rice’s recent restructuring of the department and her decision to redirect U.S. diplomatic priorities abroad, placing more emphasis on regional issues and threats.

Dubbed “transformational diplomacy,” Rice’s plan will shift several hundred diplomatic positions to what she called “new critical posts for the 21st century,” such as China, India, Nigeria and Lebanon, where rapid change is creating a need for a greater U.S. presence.

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In December Rice and President Bush launched a new initiative aimed at persuading Americans to study critical-need languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Farsi.