this is one hell of an interesting article

dr allen sounds like one hell of an interesting woman as well. but that's not what this is all about. this is all about fear. our next president is going to be a black man. why people are afraid of that is beyond me. but - THEY ARE. they will stop at NOTHING to make sure barack obama is not elected (in all fairness, these pieces of paranoid steamin' shite did the same to a white man named john kerry too). he WILL be elected though. he MUST be. he is far from perfect. he will make decisions i don't agree with. unlike king george and his entire court, i believe barack obama is a moral and honorable man.

this story is interesting because someone (dr allen) puts on their sherlock holms hat and tries to trace a false, ugly, full of lies, virulent e-mail.

An Attack That Came Out of the Ether

Scholar Looks for First Link in E-Mail Chain About Obama

By Matthew Mosk

Washington Post Staff Writer

PRINCETON, N.J.

The e-mail landed in Danielle Allen's queue one winter morning as she was studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation's most brilliant minds. The missive began: "THIS DEFINITELY WARRANTS LOOKING INTO." Laid out before Allen, a razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist, was what purported to be a biographical sketch of Barack Obama that has become one of the most effective -- and baseless -- Internet attacks of the 2008 presidential season............

........Beckwith said he built a Web site that features hundreds of pages of material intended to undermine Obama. "If 20 percent of what's on my Web site is true, this guy is a clear and present danger," Beckwith said..........

a classic

how to torture a telemarketer (who is trying his best to get your ss#)
(via dark roasted blend)

is she looking to the left

or to the right? click below for the effect


from mixing memory (via bifurcated rivets)

a little detective work

and a GREAT find by undercover black man
we all know the fake obama site he uncovered (used to rile up 'whitey') isn't the only one out there. why are people like mike cornelison so afraid? and just exactly WHAT are they afraid of? i'm not understanding it

Racist political witchcraft
In the Internet Age, anyone can be a political saboteur... a “dirty trickster,” a smear artist, a faceless character assassin... from the comfort of one’s home.

But if you don’t want your true identity discovered, you better be slick about it. Slicker than the asshole who launched a website called Power 2 Obama.

Hanging out last week amongst the rabid Obama-haters at the No Quarter blog, I saw a suspicious comment with a link to Power 2 Obama. So I went and checked it out.

It pretends to be a black-power site – with a red, black and green flag with a fist on it. Power 2 Obama has photos of Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and (until recently) Malcolm X and Huey Newton under the heading “The Cabinet.”........

jon stewart

will you marry me?

is king george's militia

stockpiling weapons for martial law armageddon? sure seems like it

Feds raid Blackwater's armory in firearms probe

Federal agents have raided an armory owned by security contractor Blackwater Worldwide.

The North Carolina-based company said the raid was part of an investigation into a deal that allowed a local sheriff's office to store high-powered assault rifles at the company's armory at its headquarters in Moyock.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell says that investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched Blackwater's armory Tuesday.

She said she did not know whether the weapons in question were seized...........

oh NO he di-ent!

oh YES he did

talk about giant stones. giant PETRIFIED stones
do you believe this?
holy shite
i'm stunned y'all. just stunned

Today in Chutzpah: Rove Rips NYT for Outing CIA Agent!
Posted by Satyam Khanna


On Sunday, the New York Times published an extensive article examining the CIA’s interrogation of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM). The article identified the name of the CIA agent who interrogated KSM, Deuce Martinez.
Yesterday, on The O’Reilly Factor, Karl Rove slammed the New York Times for supposedly leaking the name of a CIA agent. “[T]hey’ve got a very callous view about our nation’s security and interests,” Rove charged:
ROVE: Well, I read their explanation. And basically, it sounded to me like they were saying we put his name out there because we decided we could. And I mean, they didn’t have a good explanation for it.
Rove claimed the United States is put at risk when a CIA agent’s identity is leaked. “Look, they put our country at risk when they reveal the details of a program that saved America from attacks.” Watch it. ......

at least this is halfway good news

(see my comments on the previous posting)

States refusing grants for abstinence education

Program participation down 40 percent in 2 years, with 28 states still in

WASHINGTON - Skeptical states are shoving aside millions of federal dollars for abstinence education, walking away from the program the Bush administration touts for slowing teen sexual activity. Barely half the states are still in, and two more say they are leaving.

Some $50 million has been budgeted for this year, and financially strapped states might be expected to want their share. But many have doubts that the program does much, if any good, and they're frustrated by chronic uncertainty that it will even be kept in existence. They also have to chip in state money in order to receive the federal grants........

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

once again, i'll just state MY position here. i'm NOT pro abortion. never was, never will be. what i AM is pro COMPREHENSIVE sex education and pro contraception. oh, and i'm also pro CHOICE. if you don't want to have an abortion, i support your right to NOT have one. if you try to stop me or my sisters from having one IF we want one, (as big maybelle says) YOU BETTER WATCH OUT

anyway, i don't think this story is out of the ordinary at all. i think it happens ALL of the time
Pro-Life Congressional Candidate Drove Ex-GF to Abortion Clinic

Woman details abortion, relationship with "pro-life" congressional candidate

What a charmer. The Oregonian reports that Congressional candidate Mike Erickson fabricates a bunch of bull how he didn't know he gave his girlfriend money for an abortion, how she wasn't his girlfriend, and how he stopped seeing her after the "doctor's appointment" he drove her to. Lies, lies.

What's funniest to me is that if he came clean and said "I made a choice that hurt me and that's why I became pro-life," he'd sound reasonable. But instead he's chosen to act like his ex-girlfriend's experience is untrue when there's documented evidence she had the procedure and that he continued to see her afterwards..................

me at work

note how happy i am to be there! note my peter pan collar! note the correct position of my hands on the typewriter keys grrrls!

(don't really know anything about the photo except i got it from dark roasted blend )

and the proof continues to roll in

incident after incident. i have to wonder to myself WHEN are we going to get mad enough (collectively that is. i pass the point of mad enough long ago)

Exclusive: Bush White House Pushed Grant for Former Staffer

Evangelical Group With the White House Connections Awarded $1.2 Million Grant.

By MURRAY WAAS and ANNA SCHECTER
A former top official in the White House's faith-based office was awarded a lucrative Department of Justice grant under pressure from two senior Bush administration appointees, according to current and former DOJ staff members and a review of internal DOJ documents and emails. .....

.......

The grant was awarded over the strong objections of career DOJ staff who did not believe that Victory Outreach was qualified for the grant and that too great an amount of the funds was going to Cummins' consulting company instead of being spent on services for children.

Cummins' company, Urban Strategies LLC, was slated to get one third of the money for helping the self-described "evangelizing" Victory Outreach use the rest of the funds............

from the consumerist

a story so unbelievable it's hard to imagine. on the other hand we all KNOW it happened
holy shite is what i say.

Pay up, Laurusonis, John Drew Laurusonis, false imprisonment, health insurance...

, Frances Bales, bait and switch, top

Doctor Holds Patient Hostage Until She Pays Her Bill

A doctor named John Drew Laurusonis and two of his assistants in Georgia have been accused of locking a woman in an examination room "when concerns arose about her ability to pay the bill." The three were indicted last week on charges of false imprisonment for the October 4th, 2007 incident.

For several hours, the staff refused to allow her to leave, locking her in for periods of time, [her attorney Joseph] Fried said. They had her log into her bank records from a computer while she was there, he said. "They said, 'Don't you have anyone who loves you who can come and help you? Because you're not leaving until this bill is paid,' " Fried said. "They made her feel like she was a criminal. She was made to feel like she couldn't leave without something bad to happen to her."........

now this i CANNOT believe is true

il starves his peeps. he makes them pretend to love him. they cannot speak one word against him. he must be idolized or the peeps pay the price.

yet i read this? as i said, it CAN'T be true. king george really cannot want this. then again libya is our best bud now and that country is run by a murderous insane stinking piece of shite as well

Report: Bush admin wants N. Korea off terror watch list

By Nick Juliano
Word emerged late Tuesday night that the Bush administration would ask Congress to remove North Korea from a terrorist watch list this week, according to a prominent Washington foreign policy expert.

Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, broke the news on his blog:

Tonight, The Washington Note confirmed that the Bush administration will “ask Congress” to de-list North Korea from America’s “terrorist watch list.” This request will be made on Thursday — if there are no last minute, unexpected interventions.

Rumors have been kicking around that this might be happening, but no administration officials would confirm until today that this was finally decided..........

huh?

how COULD this be? someone is on a government watch list for possible illegal activities and within a year they get awarded a multi million dollar weapons contract? HUH???????????????

Pentagon Contractor Was Suspect

Company Accused of Fraud Had Been Flagged by State Dept.

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer
AEY Inc., the company run by a 22-year-old Miami Beach arms dealer who was indicted last week for conspiring to defraud the government on a $298 million Pentagon contract in 2007, was on a State Department watch list for suspicious international dealings the year before that contract was awarded, according to testimony before Congress yesterday.
Both AEY and its president, Efraim E. Diveroli, were listed because they had been under investigation since July 2005 because of suspicion of "numerous violations of the Arms Export Control Act and contract fraud," according to a report released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform at yesterday's hearing. ......

i've done a few postings

about this already. about us saying to pakistan, 'open wide' then we dump in billions of dollars to their coffers. we don't even care where that money goes. we're not making sure our troops are properly protected. we're not making sure our people who have been subject to natural disasters are adequately housed. we're not making sure our people have adequate health coverage. we're not making sure our children learn PROPER birth control. we're not making sure everyone has equal rights here. we're doing and not doing a LOT of things here where we certainly could use BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. but nope, we're shoving it down the loo

U.S. Funding to Pakistan Plagued With Problems, GAO Report Says

By Robin Wright

Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration has paid Pakistan more than $2 billion without adequate proof that the Pakistani government used the funds for their intended purpose of supporting U.S. counterterrorism efforts, congressional auditors reported yesterday. Their report concluded that more than a third of U.S. funds provided Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were subject to accounting problems, including duplication and possible fraud.

The Pentagon paid about $20 million for army road construction and $15 million to build bunkers in Pakistan, but there is no evidence that the roads or bunkers were ever constructed, the Government Accountability Office reported. Islamabad also billed Washington $200 million for an air defense radar system that may not have met a U.S. condition: that reimbursement cover combat or logistical costs supporting U.S. military operations against terrorism beyond what a country would spend on its own needs...........

so once again we're told

they're lying pieces of steamin' shite. i don't know the law. i AM guessing they broke it (AGAIN) from here to there. a wrist slap perhaps?

Report Sees Illegal Hiring Practices at Justice Department

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON -- Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.

The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.

“Many qualified candidates” were rejected for the department’s honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, “constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”..........

this op ed is not good

it is astoundingly GREAT
(see i've been telling king george to put the crack oil pipe down and back away slowly for a LONG time. now someone else is saying it too

Mr. Bush, Lead or Leave
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Two years ago, President Bush declared that America was “addicted to oil,” and, by gosh, he was going to do something about it. Well, now he has. Now we have the new Bush energy plan: “Get more addicted to oil.”
Actually, it’s more sophisticated than that: Get Saudi Arabia, our chief oil pusher, to up our dosage for a little while and bring down the oil price just enough so the renewable energy alternatives can’t totally take off. Then try to strong arm Congress into lifting the ban on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.”.......

it 'criticizes'

it's soft. it doesn't say he, well they, LIED. they are DIRECTLY responsible for the deaths of 4,1.04 of our men and women. DIRECTLY responsible and it was for NO reason other than to line their pockets with both oil money and the blood of our sons and daughters and sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers. yet, here we sit. nothing gets done. how can we sleep at night knowing those responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes and goddess only knows what else...well they are not only free, they will NEVER be brought to justice
Government Study Criticizes Bush Administration’s Measures of Progress in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ
Beyond the declines in overall violence in Iraq, several crucial measures the Bush administration uses to demonstrate economic, political and security progress are either incorrect or far more mixed than the administration has acknowledged, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.
Over all, the report says, the American plan for a stable Iraq lacks a strategic framework that meshes with the administration’s goals, is falling out of touch with the realities on the ground and contains serious flaws in its operational guidelines.
Newly declassified data in the report on countrywide attacks in May shows that increases in violence during March and April that were touched off by an Iraqi government assault on militias in Basra have given way to a calmer period. Numbers of daily attacks have been comparable to those earlier in the year, representing about a 70 percent decline since June 2007, the data shows.
While those figures confirm the assessments by American military commanders that many of the security improvements that first became apparent last fall are still holding, a number of the figures that have been used to show broader progress in Iraq are either misleading or simply incorrect, the report says.........

we all know the ONLY

thing they actually DO regret is making the comment OUT LOUD

McCain Advisor Claimed a Terrorist Attack Would Be a "Big Advantage" for Republican Campaign

the posting prior to this one

was satire. this one is not. i swear. it's real

Pentagon Agency Monitors Whiskey of Mass Destruction

By Sharon Weinberger
Weapons inspectors may not have found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they are closely watching operations at a Scottish distillery. Bruichladdich Distillery Company, which makes single-malt whiskey and allows Internet users to monitor its distillery via webcam, has found that a Pentagon agency has taken an out-sized interest in its operations. It turns out the Defense Threat Reduction Agency was closely watching its operations. ......

breaking news from believable lies

World Scientists Prepare Giant Enema For McCain

In a move that might save presidential candidate John McCain's life, world scientists have collaborated on the development of an 80-pound enema to relieve the senator's condition.
"The man is so full of shit, there is really no alternative," Dr. Werner Kepler said at the CDC in Atlanta. "Fortunately, he's such a big asshole the giant size of the device is not a problem. You could say it's the perfect fit.".............

about protecting the world from to be safe in iraq. we will never know who our friends are or who our foes are. we are considered terrorists by many (we DID invade THEIR country for NO reason. don't give me the bullshitesaddam. while he was a vile evil murderous monster, there actually ARE worse out there. and we sure as shite are not invading THEIR countries. as a matter of fact, we're best buds with a TON O' MURDERERS.)

we cannot allow one more of our men or women to be killed by, for, or anything else to do with iraq. BRING THEM HOME NOW. we do not want one more death

Officials: Iraqi councilman kills U.S. soldiers

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraqi city council member opened fire on U.S. forces outside Baghdad on Monday, killing two soldiers, U.S. officials said.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a small arms fire attack near Salman Pak early Monday afternoon, the U.S. military said in a statement. Three others soldiers and an interpreter were wounded, the statement said, which added that soldiers killed the gunman.

The attack happened as the soldiers were leaving the Salman Pak Nahia Council building, the military said.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said the incident happened after U.S. soldiers and local officials had attended a ceremony to open a park in al-Madaen, also known as Salman Pak.

After the soldiers entered al-Madaen's city council building, a city council member opened fire on the soldiers with an AK-47, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

The U.S. forces returned fire, killing the city council member, according to two Interior Ministry officials................

there's gotta be a

'special place' in the 'afterlife' for people like ingraham. she's beyond being an effing fool. SHE'S the terrorist. poisoning unsuspecting minds (although if you're watching faux 'news' you're asking for a heapin' helping o' steamin' shite)

Ingraham: Kim Jong Il supports Obama
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster

On Monday, June 23, Fox News personality Laura Ingraham declared that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has been endorsed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

"In our 'friends like these' department, the unsolicited endorsements keep piling up for Obama," she said. "First, it was Hugo Chavez, and then it was the modern day band of merry men Hamas. And let's not forget the Jack Lalanne of totalitarianism, Fidel Castro. Now it's, drum roll, please, the one and only contestant in North Korean Idol, Kim Jong Il, ladies and gentlemen."

Ingraham's program displayed a graphic of Kim Jong Il's face under the title, "(Obama Supporter)," with a number of bullet points and a "fun fact" about the dictator.......

geeks

and graffiti

from royal pingdom
(shout out to dark roasted blend)

he (king george)

and his buds ARE NOT citizens above suspicion. they are war criminals. they should be charged, tried and brought to justice IMMEDIATELY. we cannot and must not let them continue. how we can go on with our heads in the sand is beyond me. i just don't know how and why we allow them to continue
(shout out to at largely)

CRIMINALS ABOVE THE LAW:
Torturegate: Truth, But No Consequences
by Chris Floyd
This has been one of the most extraordinary weeks in modern American history. The many isolated streams of evidence about the Bush Administration's torture system – and the direct responsibility of the Administration's highest officials for this vast crime – have now converged into a mighty flood: undeniable, unignorable, pouring through the halls of Congress and media newsrooms, lashing at the walls of the White House itself. In the course of the past few days, a series of events has laid bare the stinking sepsis at the heart of the Bush Regime for all to see.

It began last Sunday with the launch of a remarkable series by McClatchy Newspapers, detailing the torture, brutality, injustice and murder that has riddled the Bush gulag from top to bottom. Then came fiery Senate hearings, in which long-somnolent legislators finally bestirred themselves to confront and denounce some of the torture system's architects, including Dick Cheney pointman William Haynes III, who was left reeling, shuffling, dissembling – and bracing for perjury charges after his blatantly mendacious testimony.

Companion hearings in the House produced stunning confirmation of mass murder in the Bush gulag – a bare minimum of 27 killings, among the 108 known cases of death among Terror War captives. This evidence came from rock-solid Establishment figure Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell. (Of course, as many captives have been and are being held in "secret prisons," and an untold number of others have been hidden from the Red Cross, there is no way of knowing at this point how many prisoners have actually died or been murdered – or even how many prisoners there are in the gulag.)............

rest in peace george

this is VERY NSFW



not too much out there yet Comedian George Carlin dies in L.A.

here's something a bit more substantive: George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71
............In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material. ......................

it's spreading something all right

i'm just not sure it's democracy.

and how the hell much are we paying for this bullshite anyway? well this article says 350 million. i suspect it's WAY more. how much could 350 million have helped those effected by katrina? those effected by the flooding in our heartland right now? how much could it help with SAFE SEX education?

by the way, 60 minutes did a story on this yesterday as well

U.S. Network Falters in Mideast Mission

By Craig Whitlock

Washington Post Foreign Service

CAIRO First of two articles

The Egyptian bureau of al-Hurra, an Arabic-language television network financed by the U.S. government, boasts a spectacular view of the Nile River and the capital's bustling streets. But inside, all is quiet.

The bureau's satellite link was unplugged with little explanation a few weeks ago by a local company, making it impossible to broadcast live. Since then, staffers have had to use a studio controlled by the Egyptian secret police, who have warned guests not to say anything controversial on the air.

Al-Hurra -- "The Free One" in Arabic -- is the centerpiece of a U.S. government campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East. Taxpayers have spent $350 million on the project.......

U.S.-Funded Arab TV's Credibility Crisis

60 Minutes/ProPublica Joint Investigation Finds Anti-Israel Rhetoric On U.S.-Funded Al Hurra TV

(CBS) America has been struggling with its image in the Middle East for decades but, after Iraq, Arab opinion plummeted. The Bush administration felt it had to act fast to explain America to the Arab world. So it began spending about $100 million a year on a U.S. government news channel in Arabic. It's called "Al Hurra," meaning "The Free One."

As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, Al Hurra's symbol is a herd of unbridled horses, and for American taxpayers it's been a wild ride.

60 Minutes has been looking into Al Hurra in a project with ProPublica, a new, non-profit news organization dedicated to investigative journalism. With so much at stake at Al Hurra, we were surprised to find what it's putting on the air. Some of it has supported terrorism and denied the Holocaust; insiders say Al Hurra has been undermined by loose financial and editorial controls, while its executives try to manage 24-hour news in a language most of them don't understand.
.................

see this picture?

what's it supposed to portray? models? dancers? strippers? NOPE michelle obama

Please wait, your request is processed...

MSNBC Pulls "Inappropriate" Michelle Obama "Hardball" Ad Depicting Silhouetted Female Dancers (VIDEO)

(note, video is at the link above)

cool

The Largest Human-Made Art on Earth

Take the huge dry lake bed. Choose a stick. Make the largest sand drawing on Earth.

Next on the list could be - aliens see it, make contact. Well, even without aliens, this art is more than mind-boggling in its scale. It's planet-altering.

Jim Denevan made the world's largest freehand drawing a few weeks ago on a dry lake in Nevada. How big is it? Three mile across, which took 100 miles of walking to draw the pattern:
(via dark roasted blend)

please read this

torture not only effects those that GET tortured, it effects those that DO the torturing as well. who does the torturing? our sons and daughters do. our moms and dads do. our next door neighbors do. you and i do

Am I a Torturer?

By Justine Sharrock
The prisons in Iraq stink. Ask any guard or interrogator and they'll tell you it's a smell they'll never forget: sweat, fear, and rot. On the base where Ben Allbright served from May to September 2003, a small outfit named Tiger in western Iraq, water was especially scarce; Ben would rig a hose to a water bottle in a feeble attempt to shower. He and the other Army reservists tried mopping the floors, but the cheap solvents only added a chemical note to the stench. During the day, when the temperature was in the triple digits, the smell fermented.

It got even hotter in the Conex container, the kind you see on top of 18-wheelers, where Ben kept his prisoners. Not uncommonly the thermometer inside read 135, even 145 degrees. The Conex box was the first stop for all prisoners brought to the base, most of them Iraqis swept up during mass raids. Ben kept them blindfolded, their hands bound behind their backs with plastic zip ties, without food or sleep, for up to 48 hours at a time. He made them stand in awkward positions, so that they could not rest their heads against the wall. Sometimes he blared loud music, such as Ozzy or AC/DC, blew air horns, banged on the container, or shouted. "Whatever it took to make sure they'd stay awake," he explains........

there IS a difference

between FORCED marriage and arranged marriage. quite a big one. (i happen to work in an industry that has a LOT of people from india in it. india born as well as those born here of indian descent. as a culture, everyone, those new to this country and those born here seem to accept ARRANGED marriages. that is fine with me as long as everyone consents. to be FORCED to marry someone, well that's a whole OTHER story. and yes the story below is NOT about people of indian descent. i'm just pointing out the difference between FORCED and arranged). i'm not saying this is a pakistani happening only. warren jeffs ring a bell with anyone?

A British Diplomat's Mission Of Rescue

Forced Marriages in Pakistan Prevented

By Mary Jordan

Washington Post Foreign Service
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Helen Rawlins climbed into her Toyota Land Cruiser at 7:30 in the morning, off to rescue another woman.

The British diplomat settled into the back seat as she whizzed by the baking bustle of the Pakistani countryside: the women in colorful head scarves sitting in three-wheeled rickshaws, donkey carts piled high with mangoes, and elaborately painted buses where women sit apart from men.

Rawlins knew a tense confrontation awaited. Lately, she had been making a trip such as this once a week -- to help British women of Pakistani descent lured to this country and forced, sometimes at gunpoint, into marriage.................

we all know corporate spying goes on

this goes beyond the pale though. spying on a high school student in a science fair? people who were concerned about care the elderly were receiving? people who were concerned the food we were eating wasn't approved for human consumption?
i guess j. edgar is alive and well

Corporate Espionage Detailed in Documents

Defunct Md. Agency Targeted Activists

By Jenna Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writer

They scavenged through trash and tailed people for hours. They used undercover operatives to infiltrate private meetings. The targets were not agents of foreign powers but advocacy groups that had been critical of corporations.

In the 1990s, a Maryland-based private detective agency composed of former CIA agents and law enforcement officers spied on such activist groups as Greenpeace, the firm's records show.

The agency, Beckett Brown International, had an operative at meetings of a group in Rockville that accused a nursing home of substandard care. In Louisiana, it kept tabs on environmental activists after a chemical spill. In Washington, it spied on food safety activists who had found taco shells made with genetically modified corn not approved for human consumption..............