waynemadsenreport.com
Another confirmation that Calipari was targeted by US forces
May 27-28, 2008
On March 4, 2005, US forces guarding the road from Baghdad to Baghdad Airport opened fire on the car transporting the deputy head of the Italian intelligence service SISMI and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, freed by hostage takers, to an awaiting plane bound for Rome. Calipari was shot to death by New York National Guardsman Mario Lozano. Sgrena was seriously wounded in the American attack.
Previously, WMR reported that National Security Agency (NSA) sources had revealed that Calipari’s identity was known in advance because his cell phone calls to Rome had been monitored by the agency’s assets devoted to intercepting communications in Iraq. WMR has received yet another confirmation that Calipari was purposefully targeted by US forces who feared he was bringing out of Iraq evidence proving US war crimes in Iraq. It was reportedly part of a quid pro quo arranged with Sgrena’s Iraqi captors who released her to Calipari in return for informing the world about US war crimes in Fallujah.
Our NSA sources have confirmed the evidence given to Calipari proved the use of poison gas and white phosphorus in Fallujah. NSA intercepts of phone conversations in Fallujah revealed that civilians were reporting that bombs and mortars used on the city contained poisonous gas and white phosphorus. The phone calls, intercepted by Arabic linguists at NSA, frantically reported that Iraqis were suffering from burning eyes, inability to breathe, and burning skin.
The latest report confirms an earlier WMR report from January 18, 2006: « the number two man in charge of Italian military intelligence, Nicola Calipari, and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, were targeted by the U.S. military in a purposeful assassination last year while they were enroute to Baghdad International Airport after Sgrena was freed by her Iraqi insurgent captors. Calipari was killed and Sgrena was severely wounded in the U.S. attack. Both had reportedly been given information by the insurgents about U.S. war atrocities committed in Iraq and other sensitive information that was embarrassing to the Bush administration. »
Friday, 30 May 2008
mosley sex party leads to mi5 resignation
Labels:
europe,
mi5/6,
secret services,
uk
.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/mi5-spy-quits-over-scandal/story-e6frf7m6-1111116374958
MI5 spy quits over scandal
Herald Sun (Australia)
Staff reporters
May 19, 2008
AN MI5 officer has resigned after admitting his wife was a prostitute who took part in a Nazi-style orgy with Formula One racing chief Max Mosley.
The man was a surveillance operative with several years of service.
His wife, 38, is believed to have approached the News of the World when she realised that Mr Mosley, a regular client, had booked five hookers for a sex session costing pound stg. 2500.
The paper’s report and pictures of the orgy led to calls for Mr Mosley to step down from his post as president of the FIA, the governing body of world motorsport.
Spy agency MI5 has denied the orgy was a sting it had set up to discredit Mr Mosley.
A government official confirmed that an MI5 officer had left the agency after his wife’s involvement became known.
« We do expect high standards of behaviour from all staff at all times, both professionally and privately, »’ the official told The Times.
« In any case where a member of staff is believed to have fallen below those standards, action will be taken. »
The officer was believed to be in his 40s and to have served in the military before joining MI5, where he was involved in surveillance operations, the paper reported.
He had responsibility for watching al-Qaida suspects, Russian spies, crime bosses and drug lords.
The disclosure raises questions about why the service’s vetting procedures failed to discover an agent’s wife was a prostitute, leaving him open to blackmail attempts.
Mr Mosley, 68 and married since 1960, is one of the most powerful men in world sport. He says he has no need to apologise for the orgy as his sex life is private and does not affect his work.
The F1 boss’s five-hour sex session with the five call girls took place in an underground torture chamber in Chelsea, west London.
The Oxford-educated former barrister is alleged to have re-enacted a concentration camp scene in which he played the role of guard and inmate.
The session is alleged to have involved prostitutes dressed as German officers and camp inmates.
It was secretly caught on video by one of the girls, who used the name Mistress Abi.
Sources said it was Abi’s husband who worked for MI5.
Mr Mosley told the Daily Telegraph: « This is an astonishing piece of information, which I will be passing on to my legal advisers. »
Mr Mosley has denied there were any Nazi implications in the orgy and is suing the News of the World.
He faces a confidence vote of FIA members to decide his future in Paris on June 3.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/mi5-spy-quits-over-scandal/story-e6frf7m6-1111116374958
MI5 spy quits over scandal
Herald Sun (Australia)
Staff reporters
May 19, 2008
AN MI5 officer has resigned after admitting his wife was a prostitute who took part in a Nazi-style orgy with Formula One racing chief Max Mosley.
The man was a surveillance operative with several years of service.
His wife, 38, is believed to have approached the News of the World when she realised that Mr Mosley, a regular client, had booked five hookers for a sex session costing pound stg. 2500.
The paper’s report and pictures of the orgy led to calls for Mr Mosley to step down from his post as president of the FIA, the governing body of world motorsport.
Spy agency MI5 has denied the orgy was a sting it had set up to discredit Mr Mosley.
A government official confirmed that an MI5 officer had left the agency after his wife’s involvement became known.
« We do expect high standards of behaviour from all staff at all times, both professionally and privately, »’ the official told The Times.
« In any case where a member of staff is believed to have fallen below those standards, action will be taken. »
The officer was believed to be in his 40s and to have served in the military before joining MI5, where he was involved in surveillance operations, the paper reported.
He had responsibility for watching al-Qaida suspects, Russian spies, crime bosses and drug lords.
The disclosure raises questions about why the service’s vetting procedures failed to discover an agent’s wife was a prostitute, leaving him open to blackmail attempts.
Mr Mosley, 68 and married since 1960, is one of the most powerful men in world sport. He says he has no need to apologise for the orgy as his sex life is private and does not affect his work.
The F1 boss’s five-hour sex session with the five call girls took place in an underground torture chamber in Chelsea, west London.
The Oxford-educated former barrister is alleged to have re-enacted a concentration camp scene in which he played the role of guard and inmate.
The session is alleged to have involved prostitutes dressed as German officers and camp inmates.
It was secretly caught on video by one of the girls, who used the name Mistress Abi.
Sources said it was Abi’s husband who worked for MI5.
Mr Mosley told the Daily Telegraph: « This is an astonishing piece of information, which I will be passing on to my legal advisers. »
Mr Mosley has denied there were any Nazi implications in the orgy and is suing the News of the World.
He faces a confidence vote of FIA members to decide his future in Paris on June 3.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
$oro$: huge recession ahead
George Soros: ‘We face the most serious recession of
our lifetime’
12:53am BST 27/05/2008
‘This is a period of wealth destruction. The people who make money will be few and far between. There will be a lot more money lost than made. » When George Soros - the phenomenally successful hedge fund manager - says this, you know something is wrong, very wrong. And indeed it is. The 77-year-old billionaire sinks back into the sofa in his Chelsea townhouse and exhales.
He has managed to make money almost consistently for over half a century - from his early days as one of the world’s first major hedge fund traders to his involvement in Black Wednesday as the man who « broke the Bank of England », and in the latter years generating multi-billion-dollar annual profits throughout the 1990s. The conditions today are almost uniquely dismal, however.
« I think this is probably more serious than anything in our lifetime, » he says. In short, his feeling is that the United States and Britain are facing a recession of a scale greater than the early-1990s, greater even than the 1970s.
« I think the dislocations will be greater because you also have the implications of the house price decline, which you didn’t have in the 1970s - so you had stagflation and transfer of purchasing power to the oil producing countries, but here you also have the housing crisis in addition to that. »
# The financial crisis in full
Such apocalypticisms would be less worrying were it
not that Soros was among the few prominent experts who
warned of the dire consequences facing the American
economy years ago, when the housing bubble was still
inflating.
But even cottoning on to the big economic story early on hasn’t meant guaranteed success. He returned from retirement last summer, and no sooner had he started trading than he pulled hundreds of millions of dollars of investment out of the US and the UK. It was enough to help him to a 32pc return last year. But amid the turbulence of 2008, he admits he is barely breaking even.
One of the problems is that leverage, the juice that has driven the hedge fund and finance trade in recent years, has all but dried up; the other is that the impending economic slump will be far-reaching and painful.
In the UK, the economic clouds are particularly dark, he says. « House prices have risen over the years and are further away from sustainable than in practically any other country, in terms of household indebtedness and the relationship of house prices to incomes. » The slump may be more gentle than in the US, he adds, but it will be more drawn out.
« This is going to be compounded by the fact that the financial industry weighs more heavily on the economy than in other countries, because London is the centre of the global financial system, and you have the unfortunate condition that the Bank of England is bound into inflation targeting, and is not in a position to lower interest rates until you have an economic slowdown. »
The nice decade, he says, borrowing a phrase from Bank Governor Mervyn King, is over and now the Bank has struck a « Faustian bargain between economic slowdown and inflation ».
Ah, the Bank of England. There can be few more eventful relationships between one man and a bank than this one. There is no doubt he remains proud of his central role in Black Wednesday, when he helped drive Britain out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, making around a billion dollars in the process. He is reminded of it by the fact that sterling has recently fallen some 20pc against the euro.
« It’s much better than the straitjacket sterling was in when I broke the Bank of England. »
For which, by the way, he is, rightly, unapologetic:
« The ERM would have been abandoned even if I had never been born. »
The son of the ERM, meanwhile, the euro, looks unbreakable in comparison - by speculators, at least.
But as hedge funds and other speculators pile in to the current crude oil boom, the Hungarian-born investor instead focuses on the wider picture - maintaining his estimated $8.5bn (£4.3bn) fortune, much of which he spends on his philanthropic and political ventures - most notably his Open Society Institute, which has a particular focus on Eastern Europe. However, don’t try to read any of his politics into his trades, he insists.
« As a hedge fund manager, I do not claim to be serving the public interest. I am in the business to make money, » he says. « It’s a difficult point for people to understand and there’s a general attitude when they see people profiting to say that markets are immoral, or making money by speculating is immoral.
« It’s really the job of the authorities to set the rules, and there are times when some people break the rules or engage in improper activities, like the sub-prime mortgages. The impact fell particularly heavily on black and Hispanic minorities.
« It is a scandal, and I think you can blame [former Federal Reserve chairman Alan] Greenspan for not regulating the mortgage industry. But that’s very different from speculating in government bonds or financial instruments, and that’s a difficult point to get across, but I feel very strongly.
« Markets play a very useful role and they are amoral, not immoral. »
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence.
our lifetime’
12:53am BST 27/05/2008
‘This is a period of wealth destruction. The people who make money will be few and far between. There will be a lot more money lost than made. » When George Soros - the phenomenally successful hedge fund manager - says this, you know something is wrong, very wrong. And indeed it is. The 77-year-old billionaire sinks back into the sofa in his Chelsea townhouse and exhales.
He has managed to make money almost consistently for over half a century - from his early days as one of the world’s first major hedge fund traders to his involvement in Black Wednesday as the man who « broke the Bank of England », and in the latter years generating multi-billion-dollar annual profits throughout the 1990s. The conditions today are almost uniquely dismal, however.
« I think this is probably more serious than anything in our lifetime, » he says. In short, his feeling is that the United States and Britain are facing a recession of a scale greater than the early-1990s, greater even than the 1970s.
« I think the dislocations will be greater because you also have the implications of the house price decline, which you didn’t have in the 1970s - so you had stagflation and transfer of purchasing power to the oil producing countries, but here you also have the housing crisis in addition to that. »
# The financial crisis in full
Such apocalypticisms would be less worrying were it
not that Soros was among the few prominent experts who
warned of the dire consequences facing the American
economy years ago, when the housing bubble was still
inflating.
But even cottoning on to the big economic story early on hasn’t meant guaranteed success. He returned from retirement last summer, and no sooner had he started trading than he pulled hundreds of millions of dollars of investment out of the US and the UK. It was enough to help him to a 32pc return last year. But amid the turbulence of 2008, he admits he is barely breaking even.
One of the problems is that leverage, the juice that has driven the hedge fund and finance trade in recent years, has all but dried up; the other is that the impending economic slump will be far-reaching and painful.
In the UK, the economic clouds are particularly dark, he says. « House prices have risen over the years and are further away from sustainable than in practically any other country, in terms of household indebtedness and the relationship of house prices to incomes. » The slump may be more gentle than in the US, he adds, but it will be more drawn out.
« This is going to be compounded by the fact that the financial industry weighs more heavily on the economy than in other countries, because London is the centre of the global financial system, and you have the unfortunate condition that the Bank of England is bound into inflation targeting, and is not in a position to lower interest rates until you have an economic slowdown. »
The nice decade, he says, borrowing a phrase from Bank Governor Mervyn King, is over and now the Bank has struck a « Faustian bargain between economic slowdown and inflation ».
Ah, the Bank of England. There can be few more eventful relationships between one man and a bank than this one. There is no doubt he remains proud of his central role in Black Wednesday, when he helped drive Britain out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, making around a billion dollars in the process. He is reminded of it by the fact that sterling has recently fallen some 20pc against the euro.
« It’s much better than the straitjacket sterling was in when I broke the Bank of England. »
For which, by the way, he is, rightly, unapologetic:
« The ERM would have been abandoned even if I had never been born. »
The son of the ERM, meanwhile, the euro, looks unbreakable in comparison - by speculators, at least.
But as hedge funds and other speculators pile in to the current crude oil boom, the Hungarian-born investor instead focuses on the wider picture - maintaining his estimated $8.5bn (£4.3bn) fortune, much of which he spends on his philanthropic and political ventures - most notably his Open Society Institute, which has a particular focus on Eastern Europe. However, don’t try to read any of his politics into his trades, he insists.
« As a hedge fund manager, I do not claim to be serving the public interest. I am in the business to make money, » he says. « It’s a difficult point for people to understand and there’s a general attitude when they see people profiting to say that markets are immoral, or making money by speculating is immoral.
« It’s really the job of the authorities to set the rules, and there are times when some people break the rules or engage in improper activities, like the sub-prime mortgages. The impact fell particularly heavily on black and Hispanic minorities.
« It is a scandal, and I think you can blame [former Federal Reserve chairman Alan] Greenspan for not regulating the mortgage industry. But that’s very different from speculating in government bonds or financial instruments, and that’s a difficult point to get across, but I feel very strongly.
« Markets play a very useful role and they are amoral, not immoral. »
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence.
summer iran air strikes
Labels:
iran,
middle east,
us
May 28, 2008
Bush ‘plans Iran air strike by August’
By Muhammad Cohen
NEW YORK - The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.
Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.
The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC’s elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds’ stated mission is to spread Iran’s revolution of 1979 throughout the region.
Targets could include IRGC garrisons in southern and southwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq. US officials have repeatedly claimed Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgents. In January 2007, US forces raided the Iranian consulate general in Erbil, Iraq, arresting five staff members, including two Iranian diplomats it held until November. Last September, the US Senate approved a resolution by a vote of 76-22 urging President George W Bush to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization. Following this non-binding « sense of the senate » resolution, the White House declared sanctions against the Quds Force as a terrorist group in October. The Bush administration has also accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, though most intelligence analysts say the program has been abandoned.
An attack on Iraq would fit the Bush administration’s declared policy on Iraq. Administration officials questioned directly about military action against Iran routinely assert that « all options remain on the table ».
Rockin’ and a-reelin’
Senators and the Bush administration denied the resolution and terrorist declaration were preludes to an attack on Iran. However, attacking Iran rarely seems far from some American leaders’ minds. Arizona senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain recast the classic Beach Boys tune Barbara Ann as « Bomb Iran ». Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton promised « total obliteration » for Iran if it attacked Israel.
The US and Iran have a long and troubled history, even without the proposed air strike. US and British intelligence were behind attempts to unseat prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq, who nationalized Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company, and returned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power in 1953. President Jimmy Carter’s pressure on the Shah to improve his dismal human-rights record and loosen political control helped the 1979 Islamic revolution unseat the Shah.
But the new government under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned the US as « the Great Satan » for its decades of support for the Shah and its reluctant admission into the US of the fallen monarch for cancer treatment. Students occupied the US Embassy in Teheran, holding 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. Eight American commandos died in a failed rescue mission in 1980. The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran during the hostage holding and has yet to restore them. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric often sounds lifted from the Khomeini era.
The source said the White House views the proposed air strike as a limited action to punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq. The source, an ambassador during the administration of president H W Bush, did not provide details on the types of weapons to be used in the attack, nor on the precise stage of planning at this time. It is not known whether the White House has already consulted with allies about the air strike, or if it plans to do so.
Sense in the senate
Details provided by the administration raised alarm bells on Capitol Hill, the source said. After receiving secret briefings on the planned air strike, Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, said they would write a New York Times op-ed piece « within days », the source said last week, to express their opposition. Feinstein is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Senate offices were closed for the US Memorial Day holiday, so Feinstein and Lugar were not available for comment.
Given their obligations to uphold the secrecy of classified information, it is unlikely the senators would reveal the Bush administration’s plan or their knowledge of it. However, going public on the issue, even without specifics, would likely create a public groundswell of criticism that could induce the Bush administration reconsider its plan.
The proposed air strike on Iran would have huge implications for geopolitics and for the ongoing US presidential campaign. The biggest question, of course, is how would Iran respond?
Iran’s options
Iran could flex its muscles in any number of ways. It could step up support for insurgents in Iraq and for its allies throughout the Middle East. Iran aids both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Israel’s Occupied Territories. It is also widely suspected of assisting Taliban rebels in Afghanistan.
Iran could also choose direct confrontation with the US in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, with which Iran shares a long, porous border. Iran has a fighting force of more than 500,000. Iran is also believed to have missiles capable of reaching US allies in the Gulf region.
Iran could also declare a complete or selective oil embargo on US allies. Iran is the second-largest oil exporter in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and fourth-largest overall. About 70% of its oil exports go to Asia. The US has barred oil imports from Iran since 1995 and restricts US companies from investing there.
China is Iran’s biggest customer for oil, and Iran buys weapons from China. Trade between the two countries hit US$20 billion last year and continues to expand. China’s reaction to an attack on Iran is also a troubling unknown for the US.
Three for the money
The Islamic world could also react strongly against a US attack against a third predominantly Muslim nation. Pakistan, which also shares a border with Iran, could face additional pressure from Islamic parties to end its cooperation with the US to fight al-Qaeda and hunt for Osama bin Laden. Turkey, another key ally, could be pushed further off its secular base. American companies, diplomatic installations and other US interests could face retaliation from governments or mobs in Muslim-majority states from Indonesia to Morocco.
A US air strike on Iran would have seismic impact on the presidential race at home, but it’s difficult to determine where the pieces would fall.
At first glance, a military attack against Iran would seem to favor McCain. The Arizona senator says the US is locked in battle across the globe with radical Islamic extremists, and he believes Iran is one of biggest instigators and supporters of the extremist tide. A strike on Iran could rally American voters to back the war effort and vote for McCain.
On the other hand, an air strike on Iran could heighten public disenchantment with Bush administration policy in the Middle East, leading to support for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is.
But an air strike will provoke reactions far beyond US voting booths. That would explain why two veteran senators, one Republican and one Democrat, were reportedly so horrified at the prospect.
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America’s story to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com), a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance and cheap lingerie.
Asia Times Online Ltd.
Bush ‘plans Iran air strike by August’
By Muhammad Cohen
NEW YORK - The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.
Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.
The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC’s elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds’ stated mission is to spread Iran’s revolution of 1979 throughout the region.
Targets could include IRGC garrisons in southern and southwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq. US officials have repeatedly claimed Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgents. In January 2007, US forces raided the Iranian consulate general in Erbil, Iraq, arresting five staff members, including two Iranian diplomats it held until November. Last September, the US Senate approved a resolution by a vote of 76-22 urging President George W Bush to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization. Following this non-binding « sense of the senate » resolution, the White House declared sanctions against the Quds Force as a terrorist group in October. The Bush administration has also accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, though most intelligence analysts say the program has been abandoned.
An attack on Iraq would fit the Bush administration’s declared policy on Iraq. Administration officials questioned directly about military action against Iran routinely assert that « all options remain on the table ».
Rockin’ and a-reelin’
Senators and the Bush administration denied the resolution and terrorist declaration were preludes to an attack on Iran. However, attacking Iran rarely seems far from some American leaders’ minds. Arizona senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain recast the classic Beach Boys tune Barbara Ann as « Bomb Iran ». Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton promised « total obliteration » for Iran if it attacked Israel.
The US and Iran have a long and troubled history, even without the proposed air strike. US and British intelligence were behind attempts to unseat prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq, who nationalized Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company, and returned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power in 1953. President Jimmy Carter’s pressure on the Shah to improve his dismal human-rights record and loosen political control helped the 1979 Islamic revolution unseat the Shah.
But the new government under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned the US as « the Great Satan » for its decades of support for the Shah and its reluctant admission into the US of the fallen monarch for cancer treatment. Students occupied the US Embassy in Teheran, holding 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. Eight American commandos died in a failed rescue mission in 1980. The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran during the hostage holding and has yet to restore them. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric often sounds lifted from the Khomeini era.
The source said the White House views the proposed air strike as a limited action to punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq. The source, an ambassador during the administration of president H W Bush, did not provide details on the types of weapons to be used in the attack, nor on the precise stage of planning at this time. It is not known whether the White House has already consulted with allies about the air strike, or if it plans to do so.
Sense in the senate
Details provided by the administration raised alarm bells on Capitol Hill, the source said. After receiving secret briefings on the planned air strike, Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, said they would write a New York Times op-ed piece « within days », the source said last week, to express their opposition. Feinstein is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Senate offices were closed for the US Memorial Day holiday, so Feinstein and Lugar were not available for comment.
Given their obligations to uphold the secrecy of classified information, it is unlikely the senators would reveal the Bush administration’s plan or their knowledge of it. However, going public on the issue, even without specifics, would likely create a public groundswell of criticism that could induce the Bush administration reconsider its plan.
The proposed air strike on Iran would have huge implications for geopolitics and for the ongoing US presidential campaign. The biggest question, of course, is how would Iran respond?
Iran’s options
Iran could flex its muscles in any number of ways. It could step up support for insurgents in Iraq and for its allies throughout the Middle East. Iran aids both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Israel’s Occupied Territories. It is also widely suspected of assisting Taliban rebels in Afghanistan.
Iran could also choose direct confrontation with the US in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, with which Iran shares a long, porous border. Iran has a fighting force of more than 500,000. Iran is also believed to have missiles capable of reaching US allies in the Gulf region.
Iran could also declare a complete or selective oil embargo on US allies. Iran is the second-largest oil exporter in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and fourth-largest overall. About 70% of its oil exports go to Asia. The US has barred oil imports from Iran since 1995 and restricts US companies from investing there.
China is Iran’s biggest customer for oil, and Iran buys weapons from China. Trade between the two countries hit US$20 billion last year and continues to expand. China’s reaction to an attack on Iran is also a troubling unknown for the US.
Three for the money
The Islamic world could also react strongly against a US attack against a third predominantly Muslim nation. Pakistan, which also shares a border with Iran, could face additional pressure from Islamic parties to end its cooperation with the US to fight al-Qaeda and hunt for Osama bin Laden. Turkey, another key ally, could be pushed further off its secular base. American companies, diplomatic installations and other US interests could face retaliation from governments or mobs in Muslim-majority states from Indonesia to Morocco.
A US air strike on Iran would have seismic impact on the presidential race at home, but it’s difficult to determine where the pieces would fall.
At first glance, a military attack against Iran would seem to favor McCain. The Arizona senator says the US is locked in battle across the globe with radical Islamic extremists, and he believes Iran is one of biggest instigators and supporters of the extremist tide. A strike on Iran could rally American voters to back the war effort and vote for McCain.
On the other hand, an air strike on Iran could heighten public disenchantment with Bush administration policy in the Middle East, leading to support for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is.
But an air strike will provoke reactions far beyond US voting booths. That would explain why two veteran senators, one Republican and one Democrat, were reportedly so horrified at the prospect.
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America’s story to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com), a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance and cheap lingerie.
Asia Times Online Ltd.
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
survey spots rampant bribery
Labels:
corruption,
international
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7399678.stm
One in four ‘asked to pay bribes’
Almost one in four companies have been approached to pay a bribe to win or retain business in the last two years, a survey has indicated.
The survey of 1,186 executives in 33 countries by Ernst & Young also suggests that 18% had lost business to a competitor prepared to pay a bribe.
Corrupt practises were perceived to be most prevalent in mining, with fewer instances in energy and banking.
Just over a tenth of UK executives said their firm had been asked for a bribe.
This compared with 16% in Germany and 10% in France.
« Recommendations of best practice in anti-bribery compliance will require companies to take a much more comprehensive view of the way bribery and corruption affects their business, » said John Smart, UK head of fraud investigation at Ernst & Young.
Corruption was more widespread outside Europe.
Only 6% of respondents in France and Germany said their organisation had experienced at least one incident of bribery or corruption in the last two years.
In the UK, this was 13% but still below a global average of 24%.
Almost half of those surveyed in the mining sector said that corrupt practices are prevalent, compared with 31% and 30% in the banking and energy industries.
Published: 2008/05/13 23:02:19 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
One in four ‘asked to pay bribes’
Almost one in four companies have been approached to pay a bribe to win or retain business in the last two years, a survey has indicated.
The survey of 1,186 executives in 33 countries by Ernst & Young also suggests that 18% had lost business to a competitor prepared to pay a bribe.
Corrupt practises were perceived to be most prevalent in mining, with fewer instances in energy and banking.
Just over a tenth of UK executives said their firm had been asked for a bribe.
This compared with 16% in Germany and 10% in France.
« Recommendations of best practice in anti-bribery compliance will require companies to take a much more comprehensive view of the way bribery and corruption affects their business, » said John Smart, UK head of fraud investigation at Ernst & Young.
Corruption was more widespread outside Europe.
Only 6% of respondents in France and Germany said their organisation had experienced at least one incident of bribery or corruption in the last two years.
In the UK, this was 13% but still below a global average of 24%.
Almost half of those surveyed in the mining sector said that corrupt practices are prevalent, compared with 31% and 30% in the banking and energy industries.
Published: 2008/05/13 23:02:19 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
Monday, 12 May 2008
cartel de ploutocrates influents
Les étranges directives de la direction de la répression des fraudes
LE MONDE
10.05.08 | 15h12
‘enquête lancée par la direction générale de la consommation, de la concurrence et de la répression des fraudes (DGCCRF) sur une éventuelle entente entre banques dans les crédits immobiliers ne fait pas que des heureux (Le Monde du 27 mars). Les perquisitions menées le 18 mars aux sièges nationaux de quatre grandes banques françaises (Caisses d’épargne, Crédit agricole, Banques populaires et Crédit mutuel) ont profondément déplu aux dirigeants de ces établissements et au patronat bancaire en général.
Le sujet est à ce point sensible que de nouvelles consignes, inédites et surprenantes, viennent d’être données aux enquêteurs de la DGCCRF, par leur direction générale, pour étroitement encadrer leurs investigations futures.
Un courrier électronique, dont Le Monde a eu copie, a ainsi été adressé, le 17 avril, par le patron de la direction nationale des enquêtes (DNECCRF) à l’ensemble des chefs de service en région, pour leur demander de « (faire) remonter les renseignements nécessaires à l’information du cabinet du ministre », « quelques jours avant les opérations de visite et saisies ».
La direction demande aux enquêteurs de « préciser également » s’ils prévoient « lors de l’opération, d’intervenir dans le bureau du principal dirigeant de l’entreprise et, dans l’affirmative, indiquer son nom ».
UNE DIZAINE DE PLAINTES
Ces directives créent un vif émoi à la DGCCRF, à Paris et en région. « La bonne fin des enquêtes est compromise. Dès lors qu’une personne ou une entreprise est avertie d’une perquisition, elle détruit les preuves », commente un responsable qui requiert l’anonymat. D’où vient la consigne, s’interrogent les enquêteurs, de Bercy ? De Matignon ? De l’Elysée ? Veut-on limiter le contrôle de la concurrence ?
De source proche du dossier, l’enquête sur les banques, qui reste en cours, est l’une des plus lourdes qu’ait eue à conduire la DGCCRF. Elle a mobilisé, sur le terrain, 76 enquêteurs de la DGCCRF et 34 officiers de police judiciaire, qui ont procédé à 25 opérations de visite d’agences, de caisses régionales et de sièges nationaux d’établissements ainsi qu’à des saisies de documents.
Ces documents - il s’agit de notes internes, de dossiers de clients, d’échanges de courriels internes ou externes - sont en cours d’analyse. Leur examen devrait permettre de dire s’il y a eu ou non entente entre les banques concernées, pour limiter, voire empêcher, la renégociation d’anciens crédits immobiliers à de meilleurs taux, à l’avantage des emprunteurs.
Une dizaine de plaintes avaient été déposées par des particuliers habitant l’ouest et le centre de la France dans les permanences « consommation » de la DGCCRF. Ceux-ci s’étaient vu refuser d’engager des négociations sur la baisse des taux de prêts, par leur banque ou par une banque concurrente, certains ayant même subi des refus justifiés par la référence à un accord régional. Ces plaintes pouvaient donc laisser présumer de l’existence de pratiques anticoncurrentielles.
Les banques, toutefois, contestent qu’il y ait eu entente et assurent qu’elles coopéreront à l’enquête de l’administration. Le président du Crédit mutuel, Etienne Pflimlin, parle d’une « manipulation » et d’une « histoire parfaitement bidon », « en tout cas en ce qui concerne le Crédit mutuel ».
En 2000, six grandes banques avaient été condamnées par le Conseil de la concurrence à une amende record (173,7 millions d’euros), pour avoir conclu un pacte de non-agression sur les crédits immobiliers.
« Tout ce qui touche les banques est très sensible, témoigne un haut fonctionnaire. Les banquiers ont le sentiment d’appartenir à une place financière et d’avoir, à ce titre, des intérêts communs à défendre. En 2000, ils expliquaient de bonne foi qu’en ne baissant pas leurs taux, ils avaient protégé la place de Paris d’une bulle immobilière. »
Anne Michel
Article paru dans l’édition du 11.05.08
Sunday, 11 May 2008
hail hoffman by "the economist"
Labels:
drugs,
switzerland,
us
.
May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Albert Hofmann, chemist, died on April 29th, aged 102
HIS first experience was “rather agreeable”. As he worked in the Sandoz research laboratory in Basel in Switzerland on April 16th 1943, isolating and synthesising the unstable alkaloids of the ergot fungus, Albert Hofmann began to feel a slight lightheadedness. He could not think why. His lab was shared with two other chemists; frugality and company had taught him careful habits. And this was a man whose doctoral thesis had revolved around the gastrointestinal juices of the vineyard snail.
Perhaps, he supposed, he had inhaled the fumes of the solvent he was using. In any event, he took himself home and lay down on the sofa. There the world exploded, dissolving into a kaleidoscope of colours, shapes, spirals and light. It seemed to have something to do with lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD-25, the substance he had been working on. He had synthesised it five years before, but had found it “uninteresting” and stopped. Now, like some prince in faery, he had got the stuff on his fingertips, rubbed it into his eyes and seen the secrets of the universe.
The next Monday, ever the good scientist, he deliberately took 0.25 milligrams of LSD diluted with 10cc of water. It tasted of nothing. But by 5 o’clock the lab was distorting, and his limbs were stiffening. The last words he managed to scrawl in his lab journal were “desire to laugh”. That desire soon left him. As he cycled home with a companion, perhaps the most famous bike ride in history, he had no idea he was moving. But in his house the furniture was ghoulishly mutating and spinning, and the neighbour who brought him milk as an antidote was “a witch with a coloured mask”. He realised now that LSD was the devil he couldn’t shake off, though in his senseless body he screamed and writhed on the sofa, certain that he was dying.
After six hours it left him. The last hour was wonderful again, with images “opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in coloured fountains.” Each sound made colours. His doctor found nothing physically wrong with him, except for extremely dilated pupils. The substance evidently left the body quickly, and caused no hangover. But the mind it flung apart, reassembled and profoundly changed, leaving him the next morning as fresh as a newborn child.
Over the next decades, Mr Hofmann took an awful lot of LSD. He ingested it listening to Mozart and looking at red roses. He learned not to take it when tired, or with amphetamines (a very bad trip). As head of the natural products division at Sandoz, he revelled in its potential for psychiatry. Though he also developed derivatives of ergot that helped circulation and respiration, and had a drawerful of useful pharmaceuticals to his name, it was LSD that filled him with “the joy of fatherhood”. And the sense it had given him, of union with nature and of the spiritual basis of all creation, convinced him that he had found a sacrament for the modern age: the antidote to the ennui caused by consumerism, industrialisation and the vanishing of the divine from human life.
Yellow and purple and green
It proved disastrous for him that Timothy Leary at Harvard had the same idea. When the professor told his students in the 1960s that LSD was the route to the divine, the true self and (not least) great sex, use of the drug became an epidemic. People ingested it, in impure forms, from sugar cubes and blotting paper. They blamed it for accidents, murders and wild attempts to fly. The media flowered in psychedelic shades of orange, purple, yellow and green, and in the melting shapes and dizzying circles of a world gone almost mad. Mr Hofmann in 1971 met Leary in the snack bar at Lausanne station; he found him a charmer, but because of his carelessness LSD had by then been banned in most countries, and production and research had been stopped. They never resumed.
Mr Hofmann turned his chemist’s attention to other things: the Mexican magic mushroom, whose active compounds he synthesised into little white pills, and the LSD-like properties of the seeds of the blue morning-glory flower. He continued his self-experiments with both of them—noting that on his mushroom trip his very German doctor became an Aztec priest who seemed about to slice his chest open with an obsidian knife. He loved his work, but still mourned the disappearance of his “problem child”. LSD, treated with respect, could have powerfully instructed men and women in the glories of the spiritual dimension of life. But they had abused it, so it had given them terrors instead.
Without it, however, Mr Hofmann knew it was still possible to get to the same place. As a child, wandering in May on a forest path above Baden in a year he had forgotten, he had suddenly been filled with such a sense of the radiance and oneness of creation that he thought the vision would last for ever. “Miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality” had ambushed him elsewhere, too: the wind in a field of yellow chrysanthemums, leaves in the sunlit garden after a shower of rain. When he had drunk LSD in solution on that fateful April afternoon he had recovered those insights, but had not surpassed them. His advice to would-be trippers, therefore, was simple. “Go to the meadow, go to the garden, go to the woods. Open your eyes!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Albert Hofmann, chemist, died on April 29th, aged 102
HIS first experience was “rather agreeable”. As he worked in the Sandoz research laboratory in Basel in Switzerland on April 16th 1943, isolating and synthesising the unstable alkaloids of the ergot fungus, Albert Hofmann began to feel a slight lightheadedness. He could not think why. His lab was shared with two other chemists; frugality and company had taught him careful habits. And this was a man whose doctoral thesis had revolved around the gastrointestinal juices of the vineyard snail.
Perhaps, he supposed, he had inhaled the fumes of the solvent he was using. In any event, he took himself home and lay down on the sofa. There the world exploded, dissolving into a kaleidoscope of colours, shapes, spirals and light. It seemed to have something to do with lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD-25, the substance he had been working on. He had synthesised it five years before, but had found it “uninteresting” and stopped. Now, like some prince in faery, he had got the stuff on his fingertips, rubbed it into his eyes and seen the secrets of the universe.
The next Monday, ever the good scientist, he deliberately took 0.25 milligrams of LSD diluted with 10cc of water. It tasted of nothing. But by 5 o’clock the lab was distorting, and his limbs were stiffening. The last words he managed to scrawl in his lab journal were “desire to laugh”. That desire soon left him. As he cycled home with a companion, perhaps the most famous bike ride in history, he had no idea he was moving. But in his house the furniture was ghoulishly mutating and spinning, and the neighbour who brought him milk as an antidote was “a witch with a coloured mask”. He realised now that LSD was the devil he couldn’t shake off, though in his senseless body he screamed and writhed on the sofa, certain that he was dying.
After six hours it left him. The last hour was wonderful again, with images “opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in coloured fountains.” Each sound made colours. His doctor found nothing physically wrong with him, except for extremely dilated pupils. The substance evidently left the body quickly, and caused no hangover. But the mind it flung apart, reassembled and profoundly changed, leaving him the next morning as fresh as a newborn child.
Over the next decades, Mr Hofmann took an awful lot of LSD. He ingested it listening to Mozart and looking at red roses. He learned not to take it when tired, or with amphetamines (a very bad trip). As head of the natural products division at Sandoz, he revelled in its potential for psychiatry. Though he also developed derivatives of ergot that helped circulation and respiration, and had a drawerful of useful pharmaceuticals to his name, it was LSD that filled him with “the joy of fatherhood”. And the sense it had given him, of union with nature and of the spiritual basis of all creation, convinced him that he had found a sacrament for the modern age: the antidote to the ennui caused by consumerism, industrialisation and the vanishing of the divine from human life.
Yellow and purple and green
It proved disastrous for him that Timothy Leary at Harvard had the same idea. When the professor told his students in the 1960s that LSD was the route to the divine, the true self and (not least) great sex, use of the drug became an epidemic. People ingested it, in impure forms, from sugar cubes and blotting paper. They blamed it for accidents, murders and wild attempts to fly. The media flowered in psychedelic shades of orange, purple, yellow and green, and in the melting shapes and dizzying circles of a world gone almost mad. Mr Hofmann in 1971 met Leary in the snack bar at Lausanne station; he found him a charmer, but because of his carelessness LSD had by then been banned in most countries, and production and research had been stopped. They never resumed.
Mr Hofmann turned his chemist’s attention to other things: the Mexican magic mushroom, whose active compounds he synthesised into little white pills, and the LSD-like properties of the seeds of the blue morning-glory flower. He continued his self-experiments with both of them—noting that on his mushroom trip his very German doctor became an Aztec priest who seemed about to slice his chest open with an obsidian knife. He loved his work, but still mourned the disappearance of his “problem child”. LSD, treated with respect, could have powerfully instructed men and women in the glories of the spiritual dimension of life. But they had abused it, so it had given them terrors instead.
Without it, however, Mr Hofmann knew it was still possible to get to the same place. As a child, wandering in May on a forest path above Baden in a year he had forgotten, he had suddenly been filled with such a sense of the radiance and oneness of creation that he thought the vision would last for ever. “Miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality” had ambushed him elsewhere, too: the wind in a field of yellow chrysanthemums, leaves in the sunlit garden after a shower of rain. When he had drunk LSD in solution on that fateful April afternoon he had recovered those insights, but had not surpassed them. His advice to would-be trippers, therefore, was simple. “Go to the meadow, go to the garden, go to the woods. Open your eyes!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crystal to blotter [lsd] The information in this thread was generously provided by Chinacat72  "I will discuss LSD crystal and what happens with it. This info is from my experiences a long time ago.I can safely offer it because I have retired from this line of work and stay far away from it. First I will briefly discuss the people or family as there called so you can get an appreciation for what they do and have done. The family is motivated to spread LSD because we believe that LSD is a key givin to us from above. LSD was givin to man from god to help him see the error of his ways. Why do you think it was discovered during the most horrible time in history. It is the antidote for the atomic bomb. It`s doesn`t matter if you beleive this or not ,because what i`m trying to express is how deeply important the family feels about the sacred value of LSD. Those who are at the upper level`s of the family will gladly sacrifice there lifes and freedom to do this work. OK now down to the crystal. I have little knowlege about LSD manufacture so i`m going to talk about the final product the crystal. On tour crystal came in brown glass bottles with 1-10 grams in them. The bottles were sealed and contained CO2 and crystal. You can`t just buy crystal from family. First you have to be taught how to lay it ,which i`ll cover in a little bit. Also you have to do a thumbprint(eat it) there are no exeptions to this rule.The reason is to make sure your Karma is clean enough to handle this sacred work. TYPES OF CRYSTAL Needlepoint -very pure(95%) white powerdery crystal,was available in small amount`s. The best of the best White Fluff -Very pure(95%) white light flakes of crystal. Still around and the most sought after. very pure Silver -Good and clean(85-90%)-light greyish crystal. Was an unbelievable amount of this around in the late eighty`s and early nineties. Very good stuff. My first thumbprint was this kind. If you ate acid in the 80-90`s you probably sampled some silver. Amber -Decent(70%?) This crystal varied from a light amber color to an almost dark brown color.Was always available.One batch called quadricept amber was the color of light honey and was very good.Lot`s a people worked with this crystal but I always would use silver instead since it was better and the same price. Lavender -(60-70%?) light purple to almost black colored crystal. Like amber it varied batch to batch. TJ (tornado juice) - purity unknown. I seen this shit in about four different colors and it always scared me. No experiance with it. Champagne -(50-60%) black crystal, nasty stuff IMHO. I worked with it once and swore to never touch it again. OK so you got some crystal and need to get it on blotter. It`s a pretty amazing feeling holding a jar in your hands that has 10 grams of crystal in it. That`s 100,000 doses in the palm of your hand. For dealing with laying we`ll say we got 1 gram. Acid is always layed 1 gram=10 tenpacks. A tenpack is tensheets. 1gram=10,000doses. If your laying needlpoint your doses will be 95mcg, because your crystal is 95% pure. If your laying amber your shit will be 70mcg, because it`s 70% pure. got it Now you get a glass pyrex pan to dip your tenpacks in. Your crystal is dissovled into 110ml. of everclear per gram.The purer crystals dissolve instantly with a little stirring. The not so pure take a little shaking. Champange is damn near impossible to get to dissolve evenly. Paper-for white blotter standard watercolor paper#14 or equivalent is used. It`s critical you get the right paper. If you don`t it won`t absorb right and you`ll fuck it all up.Print`s are made up ahead of time and perferated. OK so you got your crystal dissolved and your paper cut and ready. There are 2 schools when it comes to putting it on the paper. First dump the solution in the pan and dip each tenpack into it then lift it up and let any excess solution run off into the pan. Second method is to put the tenpack into the pan and squirt the solution on it with a baby syringe(the ones they give little kids medicine with). I Have done both and prefer dipping them just because its quicker .Then the tenpacks are layed out to dry which doesn`t take long since alcohol evaporates quickly. If you did it right there will be very little residue left in the bottom of the pan.This redidue is extremely potent and is either soaked up with a piece of paper(called mop up) or made into potent liquid(called wash). Whatever you choose this is saved for your personal use. While your doing all this you get very,very high. As soon as you open the jar of crystal it intoxicates the air. Most people were rubber gloves when doing this some don`t. Just don`t have any plans afterwards. There might be slightly different methods used when laying, but this is how the dead family does it. After the tenpacks are dryed there distibuted and eaten up. Since the end of the Grateful Dead the massive distribution network that used to get rid of so much acid has been broken up badly. Never fear Acid is still out there" Last edited by waylitjim; 01-31-06 at 13:00. | |
| |     |
 02-08-05, 21:09 | #4 (permalink) |
| Guest  Posts: n/a | "LSD is still around though it seems that a majority of the labs are inactive at the moment. This is normal as they don`t produce all the time. Most like the silver family only produce about every 5 years. Though they usually produce enough to last that long. When the Grateful Dead toured massive amount`s of LSD were distributed around the country. On a typical east coast tour 100-150grams could easily be sold. Thats a million to a million and a half doses. This flooded these citys and the lsd trickled down to every nook and cranny of america. By the time it was dry again another tour would roll through the region and resupply it. Plus we would meet people on tour from certain area`s of the country and keep them supplied with the help of the good ole USPS. Sadly when the dead stopped touring this network went into shambles. People fell out of touch and with no shows ,there wasn`t the marketplace for distibution.In turn parts of the country arn`t getting saturated anymore. LSD isn`t moved and sold like the cartel`s move coke and such. It`s handled by a brotherhood of people who truly believe there doing the work of god(or whatever name you call creation). We believe that LSD crystal has to be handled by the right people who are totally committed to the movement. When we moved crystal there was always the feeling that we were protected by a higher power. I can`t tell you how many times i have had crystal or acid on me or my brothers and have been in situation`s where we should have gotten busted and something always protected us. So many times that coincidence is not an option. Why do i think we were protected. Because the family does it for mankind not money. We viewed LSD as the only hope for the radical change in conciousness that would save us. So in effect we viewed are work as the work of God. You know why they never busted a family lab? Because we would never betray LSD. Just as Jesus was nailed to the cross we were willing to spend the rest of our lives in jail or die to protect what we viewed as the salvation of are species. Sound`s a little dramatic doesn`t it, but i`m trying to give you an understanding of the faith in LSD that the family has. By the way the Kansas bust was not a family lab incase anybody is wondering. The point i`m trying to make is the family believes LSD has to move through the right hands. This is why you can`t go down to the corner and get a gram of crystal. sorry to ramble. As some of the cooks retire i rest assure you that they pass there recipes and secret`s down to those chosen to continue to fight the good fight. I don`t think it will ever be as readily available all over the country as it once was due to the break up of the distribution cycle of tour. I could be wrong and hope i am. Alot of old family have moved on and including myself retired, feeling we served our time. The family does hear your cry`s for more acid and they don`t plan on giving up on mankind. Now's a good time for labs to be inactive. the current government administration is viewed as a bad storm that needs to pass as jerry sang "all good things in all good time" Keep the faith"  |
| | |
| 02-08-05, 21:24 | #5 (permalink) | ||
| Guest Posts: n/a | Information provided by chinacat72 Quote:
Many hour`s are spent in hotel rooms watching them work. They make sure you know every detail. Also they make sure that you know the importance of being honest and laying your product correctly. Every hit you lay has the potential to change somebody`s life and bring them into the light. It`s taught like an apprenticeship. My first thumbprint was silver. Before my print i thought i was pretty experienced with acid. I had been puddled many times with strong liquid. I wasn`t near as experienced as i thought as i walked into the room and everybody had a huge grin on there face, and i saw what i was about to take. Thumbprint`s arn`t weighed out on a scale. It`s more of "that`s a nice little chunk ,that should do" Your talking several sheet`s or more when you do a print. Fluff and needlpoint are damn pure and i don`t imagine bears was any purer. I have heard of batches of needlepoint being as high as 98% White fluff is gorgous crystal. We would eat this crystal like crazy. When i first met the main guy in charge of this crystal he was snorting it!!!! After i did a fluff print i never did any other kind except needlepoint. When you eat crystal you definatly can tell the differences between them. Purity does matter at that level." Quote:
Psychologically it could be very negative if the wrong person does it. That`s why we didn`t just walk around the parking lot handing out thumbprint`s. As far as high doses go, it totally opens you up. For about a week afterwards your first print you need some babysitting. Hell you`ve just been reborn! After awhile it`s less tramatic. As for after effects. I am middle aged and healthy. I have 3 bright healthy children. And i`m just getting my bachelor`s degree with a 3.5GPA I do feel high very often though, but i don`t mind. The man that gave me my first print still does crystal once in awhile and he`s in his mid sixties." Last edited by waylitjim; 01-31-06 at 12:48. | ||
| | |
| 02-08-05, 21:28 | #6 (permalink) |
| Aloysius Snuffleupagus  Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 2,281   | Many thanks for all the hospitality extended to me during my time spent w/the Dead. Alot of faith was shattered when the heroin disease struck bad on the last two tours. But hey, did you see them last night? Man, didn't I meet you in Buffalo? __________________ YOU can render your home uninhabitable pending further evaluation by FEMA & face charges of risking a catastrophe & more! Ask my girlfriend how. |
 | |
| 02-08-05, 21:34 | #8 (permalink) | ||
| Guest Posts: n/a | Quote:
If I was buying Amber or Lavender I would want to see it first. They have a tendancy every once in awhile to skimp on the last part of manufacture. The rinse and recrysitazation at the end is crucial in determing purity. If this isn't done enough your product is less pure.Some of you may have heard Owsley say he lost 20% of his product making sure its pure. Thats because he rised it a ton of times. Thats why his shit was said to be better than Sandoz. Amber and Lavender if they don't due this good there crystal looks more dirty. Also the purer you make your crystal the less it weighs and it's sold by weight." Quote:
As for crystal it's stored in brown glass vial's that are filled with CO2 and sealed." Last edited by waylitjim; 01-31-06 at 12:54. | ||
| | |
| 02-08-05, 21:51 | #9 (permalink) | ||
| Guest Posts: n/a | Quote:
As for hanging with Jerry myself , no. I got backstage several times, but that doesn't mean anything. There's backstage and then there is the bands backstage ,thats off limits. I would much rather be in the crowd. The closest I ever got to Jerry was ten feet as he walked by me and a bunch of other people. I just smiled. I had nothing to say. He had a lot of pressure with all the people who clung to him and thought he was a god. It was really hard for him to deal with and one of the reasons he turned to smack IMHO. I had nothing to say to him ,Except mabye "Play St. Stephen!"  Quote:
Print's are usually made in mass amounts and then sold to the different familys. So one kind of print can actually have several different kinds of crystal on them. This happened years ago with the Jesus Christ prints. The first ones were made of very pure white fluff and they were dipped to contain a little over 100mcg. People went nuts over them and the were the talk of the summer. Then the lavender family got hold of the same print and put there dirty ass crystal on them and they were about half the strength as the original white fluff batch. People should know the truth about LSD. The internet is the perfect medium to transfer this knowlege. Just enough info can be given to paint a general picture of how things work, without giving specifics that would endanger this important work. I am in the perfect position to do so. I am long enough removed from the active scene to offer information without endangering anyone including myself. My friends that still live in the old world are very supportive. Now it seams lifetimes ago. I was just a tool in a very large tool box. The family was around long before I came around. Luckily it was in a time when a lot of the older folks were around to help with the scene. For me LSD is a gift and tool given to man from the heavens. I truly believe it is here to point us back towards the light. These values are the same with almost all the family. After you get a glimpse of eternity you can't help ,but want to share it with others who need it." Last edited by waylitjim; 01-31-06 at 12:56. | ||
| | |
| 02-08-05, 21:55 | #10 (permalink) |
| Guest Posts: n/a | There is a bit of white going around...its nice...they said it was white...I checked it out...very smooth with none of the speediness/creakiness of the lav/amber...makes me happy... the last time I saw quantity it was stretched...probably 12 out of a g...not good...i couldn't believe it...plus the prices... they're going down tho...there's quite a bit more since the fall started... |
| | |
| 02-08-05, 22:27 | #11 (permalink) | |
| Guest Posts: n/a | Quote:
I would also like to note that when all 3 were busted they were all threatend with huge sentences. They kept there mouth shut and served very little time in comparison to how much they could have served. Pickard was family many years ago. He has been busted for manufacturing 3 times. On his second bust he ran his mouth to the feds about other drug activity within the scene resulting in several people getting prison time. After that he was shunned and nobody in the family would work for him. That is why he had to work with such shady people in Kansas. Had he been working with family he wouldn't be going to serve a lifetime prison sentence, he wouldn't have been busted at all. On his second bust instead of biting the bullet and keeping his mouth shut like Sand, Scully, and Owsely, he chose to make a deal. Many years later now he is going to prison for life because he was betrayed in the same way. I do hope that Pickard can get out of prison before his life ends. He has a new kid that was just born and a new wife. He has done a great service to man by making LSD. I would hope that after a few years he can get released and live his remaining years with his new family. I doubt he will be so lucky though. Many of us who have been graced by LSD owe a great debt to these 3 pioneer chemists and the ones that still remain active and unknown today." Last edited by waylitjim; 01-31-06 at 12:56. | |
| | |
| 02-08-05, 23:49 | #14 (permalink) |
| Guest Posts: n/a | correct pb...and check out owsleys art...he's in AU now... the Steal your Face buckles are the 'cool' thing amongst certain people....http://www.thebear.org/ buckles are like 600 bronze 1200 silver and 10gs gold.... (Message edited by thafunkyone on February 09, 2005) |
| | |
| 02-09-05, 09:22 | #19 (permalink) |
| Guest Posts: n/a | ARG!! I havent seen LSD in years!!! I got good hookups in every department except heroin and LSD; not that I use all these hookups, I just know where to find it. I have never seen real LSD in my life. Someone bring some down to me! Need to get one of my organic chem buddies to get crackin' on this... |
| | |
| 02-09-05, 10:54 | #20 (permalink) |
| Guest Posts: n/a | Just gotta look around shredder...someones gotta have it...I ran into an old friend who hooked me up with the goodness. It's still pretty much the same older kids that get it...IMO. Kids I've known 12 years...go to some shows... LSD is the key. I forgot how it was to start tripping and not get nausious and throw up. I also forgot how long LSD lasts...I'm used to gettin like an hour outta mushrooms for a peak...with LSD your in for the long haul... |
| | |
| 02-09-05, 15:57 | #22 (permalink) |
| Guest Posts: n/a | Quoting Chinacat72 "In the days of old tour wasn't just a time to flood the country with LSD, but also about making connections. For those of us on the road full time we needed an income when we got back to the bay area. Meeting kind people on tour was always nice, but it also provided an chance to spread the juice when we wern't traveling. When the Dead toured 4 times a year you would meet all sorts of folks from every nook and crany of the US. Some of these people were chosen to provide for there community. This is a huge link in the distribution chain. And its also in very, very bad shape. When Jerry died there was a lot of folks who quit touring. As people moved around connections were severed. In the old days if you lost track of people you knew you would see them at the next tour. Now thats not an option because there is no tour. People have fell out of touch. People have moved on. So as the years have moved on the existing links have been stretched thinner and thinner." |
| | |
| 02-09-05, 17:55 | #24 (permalink) | ||
| Guest Posts: n/a | Quote:
On a positive note, the psychedelic movement will continue. Things change and may seem dark ,but we must continue. The psychedelic experience and man have been together for thousands of years. It survived christianity,it can survive anything. It goes underground now and then, but is there for those dedicated enough to seek it out. If you feel strongly about the benefits of psychedelics then do something positive about it. You can't expect the old generation to carry the torch forever. A new wave of dedicated folks needs to rise up and continue this work. Can you think of a more important thing to do? Quote:
Not to worry though, because there are many ways we can all help. First is to become educated and responsible when it comes to psychedelics. Know the facts and when debating sceptics be mature and informed. Most people have very poor info about LSD. Rumors and bullshit plague its myth. The more people we have telling the truth the better. Turn people on. You'll never make a closer friend than one you turned on. After you get to know the effects of psychedelics you can tell that certain people would benefit from them. Talk to them if they're willing. Don't be pushy, but offer them info. Then if they want offer them the chance. The more truthful info they have the better off they'll be. I am a firm believer that psychedelics can be shown to be useful in mental health. I am in the middle of a 9 year academic voyage to get the proper credentials to help if the chance arises. If we can prove through science and medicine that LSD is benifitial then we make a great step forward. Not only will it help expell the nasty rumors around them, but give people the chance touch the healing energy that LSD can open up. Studies are under way in the US right now. There for conditions like OCD. Even though most of us don't have OCD this study is important. It establishes the safety of psychedelics. This opens the doors for further studies that cover other areas. Before the scheduling of LSD there was a lot of research being done. Alot of it was very promising. LSD and other psychedelics were placed in the schedule one category and access to them was cut off even to legit researchers. This was a total political move that had nothing to do with the saftey or benefits of LSD. It was about trying to get control of a generation that didn't want to be under control. Theres many researchers in the world very interested in psychedelic research. These are very bright M.D.'s, PhD's and scientists. The more help on this front the better. This is were I will spend my remaining years for the movement. Supply- There is always a need for psychedelics. If your totally dedicated and willing to risk your freedom to better this planet through providing psychedelics then all the info you need is available at your finger tips. I can think of nothing more important for the survival of our species and those we live with then for us all to have access to the psychedelic experience." Last edited by waylitjim; 01-31-06 at 12:58. | ||
| | |
| 02-10-05, 15:38 | #25 (permalink) |
| Guest Posts: n/a | To give some closure to this thread, a beautiful prayer: -by innerbeing "Let us pray for the Brotherhood, for their infinite compassion, and for their understanding of the sufferings of us unawakened individuals. May they realize that there are many who could benefit from their understanding here and now. We could only hope that they will recognize the need amongst us and they will respond out of their compassionate grace to help us in these dark times. We must generate the loving consciousness that has been lost in this decade.....we must develop loving-kindness for all of our brothers and sisters, and we must share these qualities with everyone at all times. The time has come, my dear Brothers, for a reawakening of the values, of which you hold so dear, let us continue what you have started. We wait with patience for your response....and we shall continue to wait for as long as it takes. Peace be with you all." |
| | |
| 04-25-05, 19:20 | #29 (permalink) |
| Mycophiliac  Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 16 |  storing blotter? i looked around and couldn't find anything. what would be a good way to store blotter? would say keeping it in a cigarette pack wrapped in the celophane from the outside be adequate for long storage? yes i know, i'm unworthy. xoxo polly |
| | |
| 04-25-05, 19:39 | #30 (permalink) |
| Mycophiliac  Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 30 | LSD breaks down when exposed to oxygen and light. keep it in a totally dark container (35 mm film container) in the fridge. From LSD, "My Problem Child" - Albert Hoffman http://www.psychedelic-library.org/child5.htm Only in completely oxygen-free ampules protected from light is LSD absolutely stable. Such ampules, containing 100 µg (= 0.1 mg) LSD-tartrate (tartaric acid salt of LSD) in 1 cc of aqueous solution, were produced for biological research and medicinal use by the Sandoz firm. LSD in tablets prepared with additives that inhibit oxidation, while not absolutely stable, at least keeps for a longer time. But LSD preparations often found on the black market—LSD that has been applied in solution onto sugar cubes or blotting paper—decompose in the course of weeks or a few months. __________________ i am |
| | |
| 04-26-05, 15:39 | #39 (permalink) |
| Mycophiliac  Join Date: Sep 1971 Posts: 31  | puddles.....nothing like driving up the coast in a rented caddy while puddled....i felt like i was sitting in a couch but the scenery kept changing...mmmmm memories. I still have a couple blotters in the freezer from 1997, hope they are still good.....last holloween I ate 1 paper hit a friend had been saving from around the same time and it was still just as good. if in the freezer make sure moisture does'nt get in the container. __________________ "aaaaayyyy let get dis madafucker started enrique iz in da house" |
| | |
| 10-13-05, 00:00 | #40 (permalink) |
| Mycophiliac  Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 74 | Very informative LSD thread. Never learned so much about this wonder drug until now. I finally realized how many diluted doses I've consumed compared do pure ones when LSD flooded my town. The families were very picky indeed who they dealed with. I hope the saga starts again soon. Last time I've seen pure doses go around was about 5 years ago, ever since it's been desert dry. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Peace. __________________ "You are what you eat" |
| | |
| 10-13-05, 12:46 | #42 (permalink) |
| Cisco Certified Stoner  Join Date: Mar 1972 Posts: 561 |  been maybe 4-5 years since it was saturated around here. it comes around every once in awhile but not like i'd want it to. back in the day it was easy to get liquid silver for $150/vial...that shit would knock you off your feet |
| | |
| 10-13-05, 16:55 | #45 (permalink) |
| Mycotopiate  Join Date: Mar 1972 Posts: 1,061 | Good liquid in distilled H2O is around my area in small quantities. First acid I've seen since the Kansas bust. BTW I hear that most cid is in alcohol and only the purer stuff is in H2O? Is this true? I have NEVER seen liquid that was anything other than distilled H2O and I've seen piles of vials over the years. I have watched it turn from clear to brown after long term storage but with no noticeable ill effect from it. |
| | |
| 12-17-05, 23:07 | #47 (permalink) |
| Shit Lover  Join Date: Jun 1972 Posts: 984 | Chincat has recently had a heart attack. He has recovered quite well. Check out the threads at the shroomery to get an update. This piece of history he has written is very valuable. It opened my knowledge about the whole LSD experience and what it really meant. All that was ever taught to us as children of the sixties was gov't lies. Being brought up in a small town isolates us from the real world and the truth never comes until later years. Thank god there are people like Chincat72 to teach us all the true ways of love and peace........ __________________ Up to my elbows in SHIT |
| | |
| 12-20-05, 23:10 | #48 (permalink) |
| Mycotopiate Trading allowed  Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 492 | I've always wanted to do a thumbprint . . . like some want to go to the moon  but I'm pretty sure it'll never happen  I may be wrong cuz I've only eaten a ten strip (all I could afford to eat at once even when I was slingin it many years ago) but it seems that there would be some kind of plateau where the actual effects don't get more intense but only last longer - is this right? Does eating a sheet make you trip much harder than a 10 strip or merely longer? Is the body load worse on super high doses? I mean is it really worth it if I get a few sheets worth of acid to eat em all or maybe just one or a half sheet and spread the rest over many trips? I'm more interested in the intensity of the effects than the length of the trip, although shroomtrips almost piss me off sometimes they are so short, like a tease almost. But if you eat enough . . . time stretches some  I dream of the day I can buy me a few thousand hits, enough to last me and my friends the rest of my life. __________________ do unto others as you would have them do unto you |
| | |
| 12-21-05, 05:18 | #49 (permalink) |
| Guest Posts: n/a | Eating a sheet is way more intense than eating a ten strip... I mean WAY more intense!!! I suppose there is some saturation point, but it's gotta be over a couple sheets... Basically, when you eat an extremely large amount, you can lose consciousness of what you are doing, and after hours and hours, as long as people keep you from harming yourself or getting in trouble, you will start to come around... Then you are trippin very strong but you have started to get your wits, in which case you have an intense trip that lasts for a long time.. With a thumbprint, it takes a good couple/few days before you even feel kinda like you are gonna be normal again.... It's much more fun to eat 10-20 hits and trip balls than to be thumbprinted... |
| | |
| 12-21-05, 05:27 | #50 (permalink) | |
| Guest Posts: n/a | Quote:
| |
| | |
| Tags |
| blotter, crystal, lsd |
« LSD | Blotter Art »
 Similar Threads | ||||
| Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
| Blotter Art | strangeland | Misc. Entheogens | 29 | 02-03-06 10:22 |
| MAPS Auctions Blotter Art/Glassware | Sweetness | Resist & Rebel | 1 | 03-18-05 23:23 |
| Rue Crystal Extraction | farmerfran | Botanicals Cactus & Misc. Entheogens & Psychedelics | 6 | 03-12-05 20:41 |
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 19:41.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_eukg_2.gif)
