UNFAIR OIL

Oil companies' impunity at this time in history makes me angry. Like big tobacco, they should be paying more, not less, for the impact their product is causing. And they shouldn't be reaping huge profits at buyers' expense! The admin is so pro-oil right now. It's a cabal.

Sign petition to end oil companies' unfair profits: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/foe/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=340


Big Oil's Royalty Rip Off Costs Billions
As you fill your tank today at $3.00-and-counting per gallon or contemplate this coming winter’s heating bills, consider this: Big Oil is making even more money than you know. Not just from the obscenely high price of gasoline, but from an obscure but highly lucrative practice called "royalty relief."
Royalties are the fees oil companies pay on the oil and natural gas they extract from publicly-owned lands and offshore areas (at least 25 percent of all oil and gas produced in the U.S. comes from these areas). They typically range from 12 to 16 percent of the revenue the oil companies generate and are used to fund federal programs that support historic preservation, recreation and natural resource conservation; the treasuries of the oil-producing states; and the federal Treasury.
When prices hit an all-time low in 1995, oil and gas companies—seeking to limit their financial exposure—cut back on exploration. In response, Congress passed the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act, which relieved companies of their obligation to pay royalties on offshore drilling leases sold between 1996 and 2000. But the royalty relief was not limitless. It was pegged to specific price thresholds: when oil and gas prices rose above a pre-set amount—$35 a barrel for oil and $4 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas—companies would again pay royalties.
In 1998 and 1999, the Interior Department awarded leases that did not include these price triggers. These leases are now coming due and the cost to taxpayers—and benefit to the oil companies—is staggering. It is estimated that within the next five years, they will yield $65 billion in royalty-free earnings. [1] The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that over the next ten years, taxpayers will lose out on $10 billion in royalty payments. [2]
\nAnd it gets worse. In what is being called a test case, Kerr-McGee is suing the Interior Department under the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act, challenging limits placed on royalty relief pursuant to the law in leases awarded in 1996, 1997 and 2000. Should the company prevail, the GAO estimates that this precedent would cost taxpayers an additional $60 billion over the next 25 years.\nCongressional opposition to this unlimited royalty relief is bi-partisan and growing—no doubt in response to constituent complaints. This May, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the FY 2007 Interior appropriations bill offered by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) that would encourage oil companies to renegotiate past leases and begin paying royalties by preventing them from bidding on future leases if they don’t. The Senate Appropriations Committee followed suit in July, passing a similar amendment offered by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH). At the same time, a key House subcommittee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has held a series of hearings to ascertain why the 1998 and 1999 leases omitted price thresholds in the first place.\nThese efforts appear to be paying off. In recent weeks companies including Shell Oil have indicated a willingness to renegotiate leases and begin paying royalties, and Kerr-McGee announced plans to temporarily back off their lawsuit, seeking mediation instead. \nTake Action:",1]
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And it gets worse. In what is being called a test case, Kerr-McGee is suing the Interior Department under the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act, challenging limits placed on royalty relief pursuant to the law in leases awarded in 1996, 1997 and 2000. Should the company prevail, the GAO estimates that this precedent would cost taxpayers an additional $60 billion over the next 25 years.
Congressional opposition to this unlimited royalty relief is bi-partisan and growing—no doubt in response to constituent complaints. This May, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the FY 2007 Interior appropriations bill offered by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) that would encourage oil companies to renegotiate past leases and begin paying royalties by preventing them from bidding on future leases if they don’t. The Senate Appropriations Committee followed suit in July, passing a similar amendment offered by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH). At the same time, a key House subcommittee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has held a series of hearings to ascertain why the 1998 and 1999 leases omitted price thresholds in the first place.
These efforts appear to be paying off. In recent weeks companies including Shell Oil have indicated a willingness to renegotiate leases and begin paying royalties, and Kerr-McGee announced plans to temporarily back off their lawsuit, seeking mediation instead.
Take Action:
Help end the oil royalty rip-off by signing Friends of the Earth’s petition calling on the oil companies to renegotiate their leases to pay royalties.\n///\nNotes:1. http://www.mms.gov/PDFs/2007Budget/FY2007BudgetJustification.pdf2. http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/29lease.pdf\n \nPermanent link to this article\n\n\n",1]
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Help end the oil royalty rip-off by signing Friends of the Earth’s petition calling on the oil companies to renegotiate their leases to pay royalties.

write to stop torture of indigenous human rights workers

Dear friends:
Amnesty International has just released an urgentaction on the situation in Manipur (see below)regarding two Indigenous Human Rights defenders beingheld and tortured in Police Custody.While hundreds of phone calls and faxes went sent withregard to this urgent situation from all over theworld yesterday, international pressure is stillneeded.
A report also states that the interrogators are mainlyconcerned about their participation at the UnitedNations Working Group on IndigenousPeoples (2002 - 2004) and the UN Permanent Forum onIndigenous Issues (2004 - 2006).
Please assist them by sending an urgent appeal for their safety and release to the addresses provided below.
Thank you in advance,
Roberto Mucaro Borrero,
ChairpersonNGO Committee on the UN International Decade of theWorld's Indigenous Peoples

-----------------------------AI Index: ASA 20/020/2006 25 August 2006UA 228/06 Fear for safety/ tortureINDIA Leitangthem Umakanta Meitei (m) aged 35Yengkokpam Langamba Meitei (m) aged 26Human rights defenders Leitangthem Umakanta Meitei andYengkokpam Langamba Meitei have reportedly beentortured in police custody in Manipur province, closeto the border with Myanmar. Their exact place ofdetention is unclear. Amnesty International isconcerned that they could face further torture orill-treatment.Reports received by Amnesty International indicatethat Yengkokpam Langamba Meitei (Public Secretary ofthe Threatened Indigenous People’s Society, Manipur(TIPS), and spokesperson for a Manipur-based coalitionof human rights organizations, known as Apunba Lup,was arrested at his home at 4am on 23 August by policeand military personnel. The arresting officersproduced a memo relating to section 41 of the IndianCode of Criminal Procedure, under which police mayarrest a person without an order from a magistrate andwithout a warrant.Leitangthem Umakanta Meitei (Secretary General ofTIPS) was detained at his home at 4am the followingday. According to Leitangthem Umakanta Meitei’s wife,the police did not produce an arrest warrant when hewas detained. However, when his wife and brother wentto the Imphal City Police Station to visit him, policeshowed them a warrant for his arrest, which stated thetime of his arrest as 9.30am on 24 August.According to reports, both men have appeared before achief judicial magistrate since being detained.Leitangthem Umakanta Meitei has been remanded inpolice custody until 29 August and Yengkokpam LangambaMeitei has been remanded in custody until 1 September.The chief judicial magistrate allegedly failed torecord the men's complaints that they had beentortured and ill-treated before extending the periodof time for which they will be held. A case underSections 38 and 39 of the Unlawful ActivitiesPrevention Act, 1967, relating to charges of being amember and providing support of a terroristorganisation, has been filed against LeitangthemUmakanta Meitei. It remains unclear as to what chargeshave been brought against Yengkokpam Langamba Meitei.RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive asquickly as possible, in English or your own language:- expressing concern at reports that human rightsdefenders Leitangthem Umakanta Meitei and YengkokpamLangamba Meitei have been tortured in police custody;- calling on the authorities to ensure that theirplace of detention is revealed immediately, and togive both men immediate access to their families,lawyers, and any medical attention they may require;- urging the authorities to carry out an independentand impartial investigation into allegations thatLeitangthem Umakanta Meitei and Yengkokpam LangambaMeitei are being subjected to torture while in policecustody, including an examination by independentmedical experts, with the findings made public andanyone found responsible for torture brought tojustice;- asking the authorities for details of the chargesfaced by the two men, and urging them to releaseYengkokpam Langamba Meitei immediately unless he is tobe charged with a recognizably criminal offence;- calling for guarantees that the men are beingtreated humanely in detention, and reminding theauthorities of India's commitment to the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights, quoting Article 5:"No oneshall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman ordegrading treatment."APPEALS TO:Mr. Okram Ibobi SinghChief Minister, ManipurGovernment SecretariatImphal 795 001,ManipurIndiaFax: + 91 11 2611 1803Email: cmmani@man.nic.inSalutation: Dear Chief MinisterCOPIES TO:Shivraj PatilMinister of Home AffairsMinistry of Home Affairs104 – 107 North BlockNew Delhi 110 001IndiaFax: + 91 11 2309 2979and to diplomatic representatives of India accreditedto your country.PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with theInternational Secretariat, or your section office, ifsending appeals after 6 October 2006.PLEASE SEND COPIES TO:1. Mr. Manmohan SinghThe Prime Minister of IndiaPrime Minister’s OfficeRoom number 152, South BlockNew DelhiINDIAFax: 91 11 230168572. Mr. Okram Ibobi SinghThe Chief Minister of ManipurChief Minister’s SecretriatBabupara, Imphal, ManipurINDIAFax: 91 385 2221817Email. cmmani@hub.nic.in3. Justice Mr. Y. K. SabharwalThe Chief Justice of IndiaThrough the Office of the Registrar GeneralSupreme Court of India1 Tilak Marg, New DelhiINDIAFax: 91 11 23383792Email: supremecourt@nic.in4. Mr. Justice A. S. AnandChairpersonNational Human Rights Commission of IndiaFaridkot House, Copernicus MargNew Delhi-110001INDIATel: +91 11 23074448Fax: +91 11 2334 0016E-mail: chairnhrc@nic.in5. Mr. L. P. GonmeiCommissioner, Civil SecretariatImphal, ManipurINDIAFax: 91 385 23117936. The ChairpersonManipur State Human Rights CommissionCourts ComplexLamphelpat, Imphal, ManipurINDIAFax: 91 385 410472------------------------------------------Dear Chief Minister:On behalf the NGO Committee on the United NationsInternational Decade of the World’s IndigenousPeoples, we are writing with great concern over thesituation of Leitangthem Umakanta Meitei andYengkokpam Langamba Meitei. They are two human rightsdefenders who according to reliable reports are beingtortured while in Police custody in Manipur province,close to the border with Myanmar.We are calling for a guarantee that these men aretreated humanely in detention, and remind you andother authorities of India’s commitment to theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights, quoting Article5: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,inhuman or degrading treatment."We urge you to carry out an independent investigationinto these allegations with the finds being madepublic. All parties responsible and participating inthese human rights violations should be brought tojustice.Our Committee, which is a Special Committee of theConference of Non-Governmental Organizations inConsultative Status with the United Nations (CONGO)will continue to closely monitor this situation.Please be advised that we have forwarded news of thisincident to the United Nations Permanent Forum onIndigenous Issue as well as to the Office of the HighCommissioner for Human Rights.We thank you for your attention to this serioussituation.Respectfully submitted,Roberto Múcaro Borrero,Chairman,NGO Committee on the UN International Decade of theWorld's Indigenous PeoplesNGO Committee on the United NationsInternational Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoplesc/o UCTP, PO Box 4515, New York, NY 10163Tel: (212) 604-4186 Fax: (775) 640-1358Email: ngo_ip_undecade@yahoo.comWebpage: http://www.ngocongo.org/index.php?what=committees&id=13

Odd fact

In severe cases of heavy metal poisoning, people exhibit obvious impairment of cognitive, motor, and language skills. The expression "mad as a hatter" comes from the mercury poisoning prevalent in seventeenth-century France among hat makers who soaked animal hides in a solution of mercuric nitrate to soften the hair.

theologian and expert on false flags phenom publishes 9-11 book

Unquestioned Answers
Nonconspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin takes aim at the official 9-11 story
By Steve Bhaerman
About 10 years ago, I was asked to perform comedy at a conference I quickly dubbed "the Paranoids Conference." Each presenter had a dark tale to tell of abductions, drug running, assassinations and other nefarious horrors too terrible to mention. There were whispers of government agents in our midst, so when it was my turn to perform, I said I was with the CIA. I paused while the audience gasped. "That's the Comedians Institute of America." It got a laugh, but no amount of laughter could counterbalance the toxicity of the atmosphere. I couldn't wait to leave.
Fast forward to a sunny Sunday afternoon early last year when I found myself in Santa Rosa's Church of the Rose to hear Dr. David Ray Griffin, author of a book on the 9-11 attacks called The New Pearl Harbor, as well as The 9-11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. Griffin, a soft-spoken retired professor of theology with sandy, graying hair, proceeded to calmly and quietly dismantle the official 9-11 story. The room was filled to standing with people of all ages, many of whom attended the church. As Griffin made his case for how the official story could never have happened the way they said it did, I looked around me. Everyone was riveted, and yet I could detect no fear, no paranoia in the room.
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People were hearing his message--the essentials of which are that our government likely knew about or had something to do with the 9-11 attacks--and yet there was something about his delivery that was reassuring. I've heard David Ray Griffin twice since then, once at a small gathering of world government advocates, the other time at the prestigious Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Each event had a similar ambiance: a calm, thoughtful, scholarly presentation without the least hint of sensationalism or personal glory.
Whatever one's assumption of what a "conspiracy theorist" is like, David Ray Griffin doesn't fit the mold, perhaps because he's really a nonconspiracy theorist. While he methodically deconstructs the official story, he doesn't spin his own alternative yarn to fill the vacuum. Instead, he allows audience members to draw their own conclusions. As for conspiracy theories, he explains, "the official story is itself a conspiracy theory. As the accepted 'conspiracy theory' goes, a cadre of al Qaida operatives conspired to hijack four jetliners, did so undetected and were able to complete their mission with no interception or even interference from the best-prepared air force on the face of the earth."
Even more unusual, Griffin says, "the crime was solved immediately, and the official story was in place before the day of the attack was over. Within 48 hours, our president stood at the National Cathedral surrounded by Billy Graham, a cardinal, a rabbi and an imam, and used this religious setting to declare a holy war on terror."
If we were to contrast the smoothness of the post-9-11 operation with the aftermath of Katrina, we are left with the question: How can a president so inept in one setting have been so "ept" in another?
False Flags
While Griffin professes no formulated alternative theory of what did happen, he offers a clue in the title of his first book. A New Pearl Harbor refers to a passage in a document called Project for the New American Century--the neocons' blueprint for what they call "pax Americana"--which says that for the American people to accept the overt military mission of creating security through world domination, a "new Pearl Harbor" would be needed. Griffin believes that the 9-11 attacks were just that.
This is a pretty serious--and horrific--assertion to make: that the leaders of our country would see fit to sacrifice some 3,000 civilians so that we could launch a preemptive attack on a perceived enemy. And yet, Griffin is quick to point out, our history is rife with just such incidents, from the "remember the Maine" boosterism preceding the Spanish-American war to the Gulf of Tonkin lie that launched U.S. involvement in Vietnam to the Pearl Harbor attacks themselves. Indeed, recent scholarship on Pearl Harbor suggests that President Roosevelt knew of the attack plan in advance and even purposely provoked the Japanese, because he knew it was the only way we could join the war against Germany. This in itself offers a dicey moral dilemma: Is it justified to sacrifice thousands of lives to save millions of lives?
During the Cold War, two more chilling examples of so-called false flag operations have come to light. (False flag operations are covert situations conducted by governments or other organizations that are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities.) In his recent book, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Dr. Daniele Ganser, a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies, Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, reports that NATO, guided by the CIA, supported terrorist attacks on civilians in various European countries to discredit the left and create fear on the part of the populace.
In Italy, right-wing terrorists, supplied by a secret army (named "Gladio," Latin for "sword"), carried out bomb attacks in public places, blamed them on the Italian left and were thereafter protected from prosecution by the military secret service. As right-wing terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra explains in Ganser's book, "The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security."
In our own country during the early '60s, the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the command of Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer came up with a similar plan to provoke an attack on Cuba. According to NSA myth-buster James Bamford in his 2001 Random House publication Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, the Joint Chiefs called for undercover operation of terror within the United States that included plans for "innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war."
President John F. Kennedy nixed the plan immediately, and it was never put into action. But it did have the approval of top military brass, and with the right president--or the wrong one--it could very well have come about.
In the aftermath of 9-11, Griffin initially dismissed any speculation that the attacks could have been an inside job. "I subscribed to the 'blow-back' theory," Griffin says. "After generations of exploitation and interference by Western powers, these people had such fury that they had to lash out any way they could."
At the time, Griffin, who was close to retirement from his position at Claremont School of Theology, was working on a book on global democracy. In the wake of 9-11, he decided that he needed a special chapter on U.S. imperialism. He worked on that chapter for over a year before he came to the view that 9-11 was an inside job. "As much as I knew about prior false flag operations, as much as I knew or thought I knew about the nefariousness of the current regime, my first take was not even the Bush administration could or would do such a thing."
Three Different Stories
It wasn't until a colleague sent Griffin an e-mail with Paul Thompson's timeline--an exact, minute-by-minute accounting of the events of Sept. 11 based entirely on mainstream media accounts--that he changed his mind. "The most glaring anomaly," Griffin now says, "was that none of the hijacked planes were intercepted, even though all of them would have been, had standard procedure been followed."
According to Gen. Ralph Eberhart, head of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), from the time the FAA senses something is wrong, it takes about a minute to contact NORAD, after which NORAD, Eberhart says, can scramble fighter jets "within a matter of minutes to anywhere in the United States." So what happened on that morning?
The government has given three conflicting answers to this question.
Since a full 32 minutes elapsed between the time the first hijacked airliner was detected and the time it crashed into the World Trade Center, it initially appeared that "stand down" orders must have been issued to suspend standard procedures. Indeed, the first reports from both NORAD and Gen. Richard Myers, the acting chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated that no jets were scrambled until after the Pentagon was hit at 9:38am.
By Sept. 13, however, the original story had morphed into an explanation that "the planes were scrambled but arrived too late." The delays were blamed on the FAA, said to have been slow in notifying NORAD. If that were the case, Griffin points out, it was strange indeed that no FAA personnel were fired or even cited for the breakdown in procedures and the resulting disaster. (Griffin notes, moreover, that the FAA flawlessly handled--on the same day--the unprecedented task of grounding thousands of domestic flights.)
Meanwhile, Griffin reports, transportation secretary Norman Mineta testified that at 9:20am--about 18 minutes before the Pentagon was hit, allegedly by Flight 77--he went down to the shelter conference room under the White House. According to Mineta, a young man walked in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out," and later, "The plane is 30 miles out." When the young man reported, "The plane is 10 miles out," he also asked the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?"
"Of course the orders still stand," Cheney is alleged to have replied. "Have you heard anything to the contrary?"
When Mineta was asked by the 9-11 Commission how long after he arrived the conversation occurred, Mineta said, "Probably about five or six minutes," which would have placed it around 9:25 or 9:26am. However, in the final version of the story, The 9/11 Commission Report maintained that no one in our government knew about the approaching aircraft until 9:36am, too late to shoot it down. How did the Commission deal with this apparent contradiction? Like just about every other piece of testimony that conflicted with the official story, Griffin avers, they ignored it.
"With regard to the question 'Do the orders still stand?'" Griffin says, "Mineta seemed to assume those orders were to shoot the plane down. But really, the young man's question makes sense only if the orders were to do something unexpected--that is, not to shoot the plane down."
So what did happen? Whodunnit?
Again, Griffin prefers to focus on the circumstantial framework for examining the evidence. "You have a suspect who changes his story three times. Does this make him more or less suspicious?"
Collective Evil
Of course, the top echelon of leaders in this country aren't exactly your usual run-of-the-lineup perps--which, according to Griffin, is why those who've pointed fingers at the emperor's bare buttocks in this case have been marginalized like a bunch of tinfoil-headed kooks. No argument about this. I've asked a number of savvy authors and commentators why they haven't taken on the unanswered questions and unquestioned answers around 9-11. Their answers have been pretty much the same: It's just too big a stretch for most Americans to believe their own government could have had anything to do with it. However, in an exceedingly underreported Zogby poll done just last month, 42 percent of adults polled believe the U. S. government and the 9-11 Commission "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence" that contradicts the official explanation of the attacks.
Perhaps what these reluctant commentators really meant is that they would be committing career suicide by questioning the official story. So why and how is David Ray Griffin different? And why is he spending his retirement traveling around the country writing and talking about something that conventional wisdom insists people don't want to hear?
Perhaps it has something to do with Griffin's background in "process theology." Process theology is specifically designed to answer such post-Holocaust questions as, how could a loving God have allowed such a thing to happen? Griffin has written or co-authored a dozen books and articles on the subject, and roughly the answer is this: We, as creations of the Creator, have free will to choose how and what we create in this life. This very often results in what we call "evil." On the other hand, our greatest power as human beings is to bring that loving God to earth by creating good instead.
To those who assert "God is dead," process theology says no, Griffin reasons. The loving God is alive in our thoughts and words and deeds. God doesn't intervene to set things right unilaterally. Rather, that spirit--through us--embodies divine love. In other words, the world changes--if we change it. Divine power, he says, is "persuasive, not controlling."
While Griffin's faith may be deep, it certainly isn't narrow. He recently edited a book called Deep Religious Pluralism.
"I've written two books on the problem of evil, so I've been dealing with the topic for a long time," Griffin says. "Frankly, as soon as I saw the evidence that 9-11 was an inside job, I wasn't surprised. I had studied the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust, the Japanese butchery of the Chinese in Manchuria, our use of nuclear weapons in Japan in spite of their imminent surrender. I've seen the depth of evil in collective situations. It's an old, old story, and this is just the latest chapter. Once the nation-state announces it is threatened, everything else gets pushed to the back burner. That's what we're seeing now."
Griffin's intention just over three years ago was to write an article for Harper's on what he then believed to be "foreknowledge and thwarted intelligence." But the more evidence he saw that the attacks were likely orchestrated by our own government, the more he felt a book was needed. Since none of the American investigators had been able to get a book published at that time, Griffin figured that as a published author he had a better chance.
But it was far from automatic. Richard Falk, a Princeton professor of international law and practice, had personally recommended Griffin's book to several publishers. Every one of them turned it down. "Not for us," said one rejection tersely. At dinner one night, Falk suggested Interlink Books, a tiny publisher that had published a recent book of his. Interlink took the book, but only because of a quirky coincidence. The editor was dubious. But knowing Griffin was a theologian, she asked her father, a minister, if he'd ever heard of the guy. "David Ray Griffin?" said her father. "I have all of his books!"
And so, in 2004, the book got published. But you'd never learn this from mainstream magazines and newspapers, which have yet to publish a review of The New Pearl Harbor, which has sold over 100,000 copies. Nor will you see him on mainstream TV, which has yet to invite him to appear.
Griffin seems unperturbed by this, and points out that each week and each month the alternative account of 9-11 gains wider credence. Is he afraid? Does he feel in danger? "Well," he jokes, "there are two possibilities. Either they leave me alone, or they take me out. If they leave me alone, I get to enjoy my old age and write my systematic theology. If they take me out, my 9-11 books go right to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. So it's a win-win situation."
More seriously, he points to his Christian faith (Disciples of Christ is his own background), and says that Christian history is full of examples of the faithful who stuck their necks out for the truth. "If we who believe in everlasting life fear death," he says, "what does that say about our faith?"
Myth-Informed?
Other than standing for his faith, what does Griffin hope to accomplish by exposing the 9-11 story as a lie? As an advocate for a worldwide democratic order, he sees this story as an example of "governmental lawlessness" so egregious that its exposure could call into question the continuation of the present system with its "anarchical competition between nation states." First, however, people must be willing to think the unthinkable, and to be willing to look at the evidence that it is our own nation that has become the evil empire.
This is a formidable barrier to cross. Ever since the notion of the "Big Lie" was first put forth to describe the tactics of the Third Reich, it has become a clich� that the bigger the lie, the harder it is for people to see the truth. This is especially so when the official version takes on the status of what theologian Griffin calls "sacred myth."
"The 'truth' of the official 9-11 story," explains Griffin, "must be taken on faith. It is not a matter of debate or even discussion. Anyone who brings up anything that contradicts the official story is either ignored or denounced as a conspiracy nut.
"However," he continues, "when the official account of 9-11 is stripped of its halo and treated simply as a theory rather than an unquestionable dogma, it cannot be defended as the best theory to account for the relevant facts. When challenges to it are not treated as blasphemy, it can easily be seen to not correspond with reality."
And so David Ray Griffin continues to make presentations, do interviews and get his version of the truth to "break the soundless barrier." With Falk, John B. Cobb Jr. and Catherine Keller, Griffin co-authored the just-published anthology The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God: A Political, Economic, Religious Statement. His own contribution portrays the 9-11 attacks as orchestrated to promote the American empire. Publishing in July is his newest book, Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action.
His hope? That enough Americans wake up and call for a re-investigation, and that those who know more will feel safe enough to come forward. But first, he says, we Americans must muster the will and courage to face the situation squarely in the face.
As a postscript to my interview with David Ray Griffin, I am reminded of a March 30 article by journalist Doug Thompson published on OpEdNews.com. In it, Thompson recalls a 1981 encounter with the late John Connally, the former governor of Texas who was wounded in the Kennedy assassination. In an unguarded moment, Thompson asked Connally, "Do you think Lee Harvey Oswald fired the gun that killed Kennedy?"
"Absolutely not," Connally said. "I do not, for one second, believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission."
"So why not speak out?" Thompson asked.
"I will never speak out publicly about what I believe," Connally replied, "because I love this country and we needed closure at the time."
Now here we are more than 40 years after that devastating perpetration and we have to wonder, how well did "closure" serve us? As we see daily the fruits of self-serving secrecy and unchecked power, it might be time for some disclosure instead.
Send a letter to the editor about this story.

Beautiful Nature Photography

I meant to share this resource from my travels:
www.StevenFeyPhotography.com

"New Monument"

My uncle Gary sent me this this morning:

Dear Friends and Relatives:
I have the distinguished honor of being on the committee to raise $5,000,000 for a monument of George W. Bush. We originally wanted to put him on Mt. Rushmore until we discovered there was not enough room for two more faces.

We then decided to erect a statue of George in the Washington, D. C. Hall Of Fame. We were in a quandary as to where the statue should be placed.
It was not proper to place it beside the statue of George Washington, who never told a lie, or beside Richard Nixon, who never told the truth, since George Bush could never tell the difference.

We finally decided to place it beside Christopher Columbus, the greatest Republican of them all. He left not knowing where he was going, and when he got there he did not know where he was. He returned not knowing where he had been, and did it all on someone else's money.

Thank you,

George W. Bush Monument Committee

P. S. The Committee has raised $1.35 so far.

story is the fulcrum

article on possibilities for social changewhich highlights the importance of story...
The following is a paragraph of particular note: "We humans live by stories. The key to making a choice for EarthCommunity is recognizing that the foundation of Empire's power doesnot lie in its instruments of physical violence. It lies in Empire'sability to control the stories by which we define ourselves and ourpossibilities in order to perpetuate the myths on which thelegitimacy of the dominator relations of Empire depend. To change thehuman future, we must change our defining stories."
-http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1463(The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community ~ By David Korten /Yes! Magazine, Summer 2006 Issue)

eclectic collection of interesting videos

From a colleague; the relevant site is: http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/index.cfm

Subject: [WorkingStories] Fantastic (and varied) examples of Storytelling (TED '06)There is a yearly conference I've always wanted to attend (alas, but neverhave.) called TED (Technology Education Design). It's described as,".an event like no other. It brings together more than 1000thought-leaders, movers, and shakers in Monterey, CA every year, for fourdays of learning, laughter, and inspiration."It's hosted by Richard Saul Wurman, who coined the term "InformationArchitecture" and has a passion for making things clear(er) and moreunderstandable. He's written several books (including some travel guides)that are among my most favorites on my bookshelf (Google him - it'll beworth it).This year, (thanks to some help from BMW, it appears) they've managed toshare video/audio of some of the presentations. Most are less than 20 mins.All are amazing.The beauty of the event is that wildly different topics/people/talents aremixed up and shared, so you are consistently surprised by how compelling,educational, touching a subject could be in an area you never thought you'dderive value from. The common theme in how that is accomplished is not onlyin the knowledge, expertise, and passion that the presenters possess, but in(yes. you guessed it) the stories they tell.I highly encourage you to take the time/bandwidth/disk space to stream ordownload these. you won't be disappointed.http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/index.cfm(personal highlights (so far - I haven't watched them all.yet):-Rick Warren (of "The Purpose Driven Life" fame) compared and contrastedwith Dan Dennett-Julia Sweeney's story of Mormon Missionaries visiting her-Majora Carter's inspirational (and emotional) story of action andcommitment-Tony Robbins' tale of an event the evening before 9/11-Al Gore's humorous opening_____________________________________________Jon RevelosDirector: Story-based LearningTata Interactive SystemsAtlanta, GA USAOffice: 678-574-4123Mobile: 404-550-8144Fax: 678-574-0572www.tatainteractive.com <http://www.tatainteractivesystems.com/>

Bush Grants Self Permission To Grant More Power To Self

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/51140