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Jeremy Page reports from Moscow
Tramps who found radioactive material and tried to sell it sparked security alert
RUSSIAN security forces have seized two containers full of highly radioactive uranium-238 that were found by tramps at a waste dump in central Russia and taken to a scrapyard to sell. Radiation levels at the dump in Saratov, a town on the River Volga, were 358 times higher than normal, officials said.

Depleted uranium, where uranium-238 is usually found, can be used to make nuclear “dirty bombs”. The find will renew fears that radioactive material at dozens of poorly-guarded sites around Russia might fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

The United States and other countries have been pressing Russia, which has the world’s second biggest nuclear arsenal, to do more to protect its atomic sites since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.

One of the few points on which President Bush and his election challenger, Senator John Kerry, agreed in recent television debates was that the possibility of terrorist groups acquiring nuclear material was the biggest threat to the United States.

“This is obviously a worry,” said a Western diplomat. “There is a huge amount of nuclear material just lying around in Russia. Not only is it a threat to local people, but it is potentially a threat to the world at large.” Nuclear officials in Moscow said yesterday that they could not confirm the report.

The Interfax news agency said that a number of homeless people found three stainless steel containers at the dump and took them to a local dealer in scrap non-ferrous metal. The scrap dealer raised the alarm and alerted emergency services in the town.

Atomic energy experts were called in and were quoted by the news agency as saying that one of the containers was used for the transportation of uranium, and the other two for the storage of depleted uranium- 238, which is an extremely dense and highly toxic material mainly used in ammunition and armour.

A spokesman for the Russian Atomic Energy Agency said: “That type of uranium looks very much like lead, so I would not be surprised if someone had simply mistaken it and dumped it at the scrapyard.”

Highly enriched uranium and plutonium — found in spent nuclear fuel — can be used to manufacture a standard nuclear bomb. Spent fuel, as well as other by-products of uranium enrichment such as uranium-238, can also produce a “dirty bomb” that spreads radioactive material through a non-nuclear explosion.

Ecodefense, the independent Russian environmental group, has claimed that more than 16,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel is kept stored in dozens of Soviet-era nuclear facilities in Russia alone. To keep radioactive material safe, the UN atomic agency has suggested building the world’s first global nuclear waste dump in Russia, where it can be stored.

Meanwhile, a truck carrying radioactive materials was seized yesterday at the far eastern port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the Ria-Novosti news agency reported. Elsewhere, a number of lead containers holding uranium, plutonium and strontium were last week found on a train on its way from Moscow to the southern town of Mineralniye Vody, not far from Chechnya, according to local media reports.

Covering documents mentioned only that the sender was The Ministry of Nuclear Industry and the recipient Ingushetia State University. The radioactive materials were enough to make a“dirty bomb”, specialists from the FSB, the KGB’s successor, were quoted as saying.

A smuggler was last month arrested in Kyrgyzstan after trying to sell weapons-grade plutonium to undercover security officers. The Kyrgyz national, identified by the national security service only by the initial B, kept 60 small lead containers of plutonium-239 in an abandoned sheepfold, state media said at the time. Radiation in the area was several hundred times the legal limit. Russia has consistently denied Western suggestions that the instability of the post-Soviet years had made its nuclear arsenals easy prey. But in May, Moscow and Washington agreed to lock away tonnes of highly enriched uranium (HEU) stored in dozens of poorly guarded research reactors around the world.

Under the plan, Moscow will secure the return of all fresh Russian-origin HEU fuel by the end of 2005 and all spent fuel by 2010 from more than 25 reactors in 17 states.

I realize Russia is a basketcase with a lot of the country in the hands of organized crime organizations, but really!!!!!

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With less than two weeks to go before Election Day, an unprecedented number of lawsuits challenging basic election rules are pending in many of the battleground states. Both sides are in the final stages of training thousands of lawyers who will descend on the polls on Nov. 2 to watch for voter fraud or intimidation.

Nationwide, the Democrats plan to have more than 10,000 lawyers standing by at the polls in battleground states to identify and address voting problems, particularly in the heavily minority precincts that saw a disproportionate number of ballots discarded in 2000. About 2,000 lawyers will be stationed in Florida alone, Democrats say.

Republicans say they will have lawyers covering 30,000 precincts who will be prepared to challenge at the polls the eligibility of voters whose registrations seem suspect. The GOP has assigned its state party organizations to lead the effort.

Gee, what if the minor third political parties don't have scores of lawyers to battle for them. Is this fair? How can they compete in the political arena without an army of lawyers?

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Zarqawi's group declares allegiance to Al-Qaeda

BAGHDAD - The most feared militant group in Iraq, the movement of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared its allegiance to Osama bin Laden on Sunday, saying it had agreed with Al-Qaeda over strategy and the need for unity against 'the enemies of Islam'.

The declaration, which began with a Quranic verse encouraging Muslim unity, said Zarqawi considered Osama 'the best leader for Islam's armies against all infidels and apostates'.

It said the two had been in communication eight months ago and 'viewpoints were exchanged' before the dialogue was interrupted.

'God soon blessed us with a resumption in communication, and the dignified brothers in Al-Qaeda understood the strategy of Tawhid and Jihad,' the statement said.

The statement's authenticity could not be confirmed, but it affirmed the 'allegiance of Tawhid and Jihad's leadership and soldiers to the chief of all fighters, Osama bin Laden'. It said the announcement had been timed for the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan when 'Muslims need more than ever to stick together in the face of the religion's enemies'.

The statement also endorsed Osama's goal to 'expel the infidels from the Arabian peninsula' - a reference to American influence in the leader's native Saudi Arabia, birthplace of the Islamic faith.

The declaration appeared two days after the US government formally declared Tawhid and Jihad a terrorist organisation. The listing imposes several restrictions on the group, including a ban on travel to the United States and a freeze on the group's assets in US banks.

It appeared the announcement was aimed at enabling Zarqawi, who has a background as a common criminal, to profit from Osama's stature among radical Muslims.

The statement appeared on a website often used as a clearinghouse for statements by militant groups, including Tawhid and Jihad. -- AP

In the paragraphs above you might notice that Osama wants to get rid of "all" infidels from the Arabian peninsula. I wonder who gets to decide who are infidels and who aren't. You know, we might as well call a spade a spade. Zarqawi is nothing more than a low life criminal who murders innocents, including children and women.

By the way, on a couple of blogs there was actually a discussion of my use of the phrase "call a spade a spade". I did not invent the phrase but, you gotta admit, it sounds better than "call a heart a heart" or "call a diamond a diamond" or "call a club a club".

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Number of people killed in a three-month Rwandan orgy of hate: 800,000
Number of people killed by Wahhabi-inspired hatred: 1 million +
Number of people killed in European concentration camps: 11 million

Number of people killed by Atomic bombs: 240,000

I visited New York a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Streets in Chinatown and the Village were still guarded by soldiers. The sewers of downtown New York were still clogged with the ashen remains of the dead. The air was still acrid with smoke.

Back then, I wondered what kind of culture could inspire this act of pure hatred. What culture could hold such contempt for human life? What culture could believe that this was a valid expression of their beliefs?

I did some research and learned about the hate that inspired 9/11. We call it terrorism, but most people around the world call it Wahhabism.

Before 9/11, I didn't know much about Wahhabis. I thought Saudi princes were civilized, cosmopolitan types who looked cool in their kaffiyehs and sunglasses. Of course, the only news I cared about then was stocks and tech news. It was 'peacetime'.

According to Former Ambassador to the United Nations, Dore Gold:

Islamic scholars, in particular, have traced the underpinnings of the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to a very specific creed of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, known in the West as Wahhabism...

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Wahhabism revived the Islamic idea of jihad as military expansionism - a concept that had fallen out of favor with traditional Islam. Wahhabism also broke with Islamic tradition by legitimizing jihad against other Muslims. Puritan Wahhabis believe that non-Wahhabis are less than human, and that they derve to be slaughtered. They have held these beliefs for hundreds of years.

The Saudi Royal family, the mullahs, and most of the population are Wahhabis, and as such they all hold these extremist beliefs.

In the name of Wahhabism, its adherents were extraordinarily brutal toward noncombatants, including women and children, delegitimizing them as mushrikun, or polytheists, who did not have any right to live. Most notably, in 1802 Wahhabi armies slaughtered thousands of Shiites in their holy city of Kerbala.

It's traditional for Wahhabi warriors to destroy shrines and graveyards as an expression of contempt.

Such brutality is, in fact, at the core of modern terrorism, for the early Wahhabi warriors acted on - often based on the imprecations of mainstream Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia - is precisely how Osama bin Laden's mass terrorism works.

Wahhabism inspired the Muslim Brotherhood, which in turn inspired various extremist/terrorist groups throughout the Middle East.
I talk a lot on my blog about Wahhabism. In general, I'm not in favor of their pro-slavery version of Islamic law, and their way it has inspired the current genocidal jihad. I've talked about the contempt that Wahhabis have for those who don't share their beliefs, their belief that our lives are without value, the Arab way of War, possible strategies for fighting it and the fact that Wahhabism has inspired the current Islamist war against the world. But I haven't talked about the weapon that they use - hate.

Saying that hate can be a weapon sounds awfully touchy-feely, and no, I'm not going to say 'all we need is love.' In Rwanda, hundreds of thousands of people were murdered by hate. Hate, inspired by traditional European prejudices and the Thousand Year Reich, was responsible for the deaths of millions. History proves that love, peace and understanding do not stop hate-inspired genocidal warfare.

Our Wahhabi allies and their philosophy slaughtered thousands of innocent Americans during a time of peace.

Our Wahhabi allies and their philosophy are killing innocent people every day. Our response to this has been the application of soft diplomacy, the expressed hope that our Wahhabi allies will change and the implied threat that we will retaliate if our they use some sort of scary weapon (nuclear, biochemical, etc..) to slaughter more thousands of Americans.

We ignore the fact that the hate spread by Wahhabism has already claimed the lives of more than a million innocent people.

We (well, some of us) know how an atomic bomb works, but we don't pay enough attention to the Wahhabi weapon. How do they spread hate? How has this been done before?

According to the House Committee on International Relations' Rwanda Report:

In three short, cruel months, between April and July 1994, Rwanda experienced a genocide more efficient than that carried out by the Nazis in the Second World War. The killers were a varied bunch: drunk extremists chanting "Hutu power, Hutu power;" uniformed soldiers and militia men intent on wiping out the Tutsi inyenzi, or "cockroaches;" and ordinary villagers who had never themselves contemplated killing before, but who decided to join the frenzy.

The murderers, and their ebullient abettors, were turned into ghastly marionettes, consumed by a manic wrath. Men and women, young and old, religious and agnostic, became killers. They killed with radios in one hand and machetes in the other. They killed in churches, at traffic lights, in supermarkets, and in homes. They killed after taunting, after savage beating, and, often, after raping.

Saudis have been dehumanizing non-Wahhabis for hundreds of years. They call themselves `human beings', to set themselves apart from the rest of the world's cockroaches. Extremist Muslims around the world (even, strangely enough, extremist Shi'ites) cooperate with and are inspired by Wahhabis.

In Rwanda, the Hutus spread hate by radio, the Saudis spread hate through mosques, universities, political donations, diplomacy.

The Hutus used whatever weapons were at hand, as the Wahhabi-financed mujahideen do.

Diplomacy, love and a belief in human rights did not stop the Rwandan genocide. But it could have been slowed by an application of military force - and by stopping the radio broadcasts at the source.

We don't have to worry about what will happen when the extremists are in charge of Saudi Arabia - they already are. We don't need to worry about what will happen when the extremists get their hands on a WMD. They're already using one, and it's killing people every day.

We need to stop the broadcasts at the source.

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GAO: Legacy systems hamper Army reservists' pay

News Story by Marc L. Songini

AUGUST 25, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - The war in Iraq has helped push antiquated U.S. Army payroll systems past their breaking point and led to widespread problems for reservists, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report issued this month.

So severe are the problems caused by the aging, stand-alone Cobol-based mainframe systems -- and the human intervention needed to move data from one part of the system to another -- that the GAO audit found that 95% of 348 mobilized reserve soldiers had at least one payroll problem. The glitches included both overpayments and underpayments, as well as delayed disbursements. Some troops had numerous payroll problems, and at times it took more than a year to correct some of them.

Both the system itself, called the Defense Joint Military Pay System-Reserve Component (DJMS-RC), and the attendant human processes, are "so error-prone, cumbersome and complex" that the soldiers affected cannot be assured of timely and accurate payment for duty served, according to the GAO study. The result has been a "profound adverse affect on individual soldiers and their families."

For example, soldiers have had to spend time in "remote, hostile environments overseas" filing help requests or correcting errors around items such as their active duty payments, allowances and tax benefits.

One major weakness stems from a lack of integration between the DJMS-RC and related U.S. Army personnel applications. The payment system was also hampered by processing limitations, requiring "significant manual effort" to make up for the shortcomings.

Because of the gaps between the personnel system and the DJMS-RC, the GAO cited one case in which a soldier received an overpayment of $24,000 because a revocation of mobilization status wasn't automatically reported to the payroll system. And because of the DJMS-RC's computational limits, calculating variables such as hardship duty required manual input.

The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), which oversees the DJMS-RC, has acknowledged the system is "aging, unresponsive, fragile and a major impediment to efficient and high-quality customer service," according to the GAO.

A DFAS spokesman said the DJMS-RC's limitations were "exacerbated" by the war in Iraq, as the system primarily handled pay for drilling exercises, and not for the 12- or 18-month deployments now taking place in the Middle East. "Anytime a system requires human intervention you increase the risk," the spokesman said.

Acknowledging the limitations, the U.S. Defense Department has launched a special training program for support personnel, and is rolling out an improved payroll system based on PeopleSoft Enterprise, which will begin to go live in spring 2005.

Once in place, the application will collapse together the pay processes for both reservists and active Army personnel and end the need for manual work-arounds, while improving stability and eliminating many of the problems identified by the GAO, said the spokesman.

That system will later become part of a larger Defense Integrated Military Human Resources Systems (DIMHRS), which was first announced in August 2001 and is also built on PeopleSoft (see story). Eventually, the human resources and payroll applications will function as a single integrated system, although progress on the DIMHRS implementation has been slow (see story).

The following is from an earlier story.

Pentagon moves on massive HR system -- slowly

News Story by Marc L. Songini

OCTOBER 06, 2003 (COMPUTERWORLD) - More than two years after it chose PeopleSoft Inc.'s software for a massive human resources system, the U.S. Department of Defense is finally ready to start development work on the $320 million-plus project. But it will take another four years to complete the rollout, military officials said.

The project, which is about 12 months behind schedule, will create a single system for HR and payroll operations across all branches of the armed forces, incorporating data on more than 3 million military personnel worldwide. The DOD paid PeopleSoft $48 million for an enterprise software license in August 2001, and last week it named Northrop Grumman Corp. as the prime contractor on the implementation under a nine-year, $281 million contract.

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I wonder why.

By the way, the cult has its own list of judges and Oregon state employees that the cult has targeted.

From: "A Voice for Children"
Date: Tue Aug 3, 2004 3:36 pm
Subject: ONE HUGE RACKETEERING OPERATION SELLING CHIDLREN AND SERVICES Re: Check out http://www.kitsapgov.com/juv/casa/Newsletters/2002Newsletters/1casa

It is one huge racketeering operation. They ALL work together, on computers and in private as well as meeting together.... they are usually on the payclock while attending these meetings too ! Yes, we PROVED racketeering and got a guilty verdict in l998 on the Marion County network of pedophile judges and agents....

In Marion County they had admitted that they all work for the state in court - the head of the CASA said "CASA WORKS FOR THE JUDGE" and the attorney head of the CRB said "THE CRB IS HERE TO ENFORCE THE SERVICES AGREEMENTS FOR THE AGENCY".....

These people need to be tracked down in their neighborhoods, big signs with their pictures and protests, mark the curbs where they live, anything and everything we can lawfully do to "label" them in the towns where they are.... they must be exposed, harassed everywhere real humans meet them ... people saying real LOUD THERE GOES PEDOPHILE JUDGE PAUL LIPSCOMB , PEDOPHILE JUDGE TERRY LEGGERT, OR PEDOPHILE JUDGE JOSEPH OCHOA, OR PEDOPHILE CASEWORKER LARRY LAWSON, on and on and on.....

They are vultures making their paychecks from STEALING children.... they have to be seen as the criminals they are.....

There is ONE rule for them - was there a crime? evidence of a crime? In 99% of child seizing NO ONE IS CHARGED WITH A CRIME !!! THAT is the point we all have to hit on, and in the meantime, go into court WITHOUT attorneys who work for them NOT you ..... ALL the people in that courtroom except you are getting a paycheck to destroy you and your children - they want permanent victims....

keep exposing them - take crowds of people into the courtroom when anyone goes to court .... EXPOSE all the fraud IN THE COURTROOM ..... talking about it anywhere else is fine but does not effectively change anything until it is ON THE RECORD where they know they have to dispute it... that is our lawful TOOL.....

pamela gaston

The white supremacists have a better intelligence network than many of the local cop shops.

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Some principals have principles. Some don't. And this reminds me of my brilliant solution for dealing with the pressing "fleas on jackasses" problem. Whenever I have a jackass who comes down with fleas, I just flush the jackass down the toilet and buy another one.

Of course, the people who run the local sewage treatment plant don't like the idea, but remember, many stupid ideas, like communism and fascism, started out as stupid ideas and then became more stupid. What the people at the local sewage treatment plant are worried about is that pretty soon everybody in the neighborhood is going to be flushing their jackasses down the toilet.

But you know what I say.

Oh no......... I just realized I had those damn fleas on those damn jackasses trained to perform in a flea circus.

AAAAaaaarrrrgggggghhhhhh.........I just flushed my fortune down the toilet.

*********
Today's interview is with Professor Molotov of Portland State University, that amazing amalgam of illustrious urbanity.

The professor has been kind enough to make me a cocktail while I interview him. Let's start with the interview. For the sake of simplicity the Sleaze Report will be SR and the Professor will be PROF.

SR: Well, professor, thanks for the cocktail.

PROF: No problem. Hahahahahaha. In just five minutes there'll be one less imbecilic, imperialistic swine on the planet. Hahahahaha.

SR: Yes, well, professor, I'd like to ask you a few questions about yourself before we get into discussing your area of expertise.

PROF: (Looking at his watch) Hahahahaha, just three more minutes and one less imbecilic, imperialistic swine on the planet. Hahahahaha.

SR: Yes, well, professor, tell us a little about yourself.

PROF: I like the blondes with the big bazooms, you know what I mean?

SR: Yes, well, professor, that's not exactly the topic I had in mind.

PROF: (Looking at his watch again) Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And now, you go POOF.

The professor got up out of his chair and came over to me and peered real closely at me. He seemed perplexed.

PROF: Hmmm, you should have gone poof. You don't have any Irish blood in you, do you?

SR: A little. Why?

PROF: I KNEW IT. MY MOLOTOV COCKTAILS DON'T WORK ON IRISH SCUM!!! The interview is OVER!!! YOU UNDERSTAND???!!! If I can't even get rid of one imbecilic, imperialistic swine I might as well go back to class and check out the blondes with the big bazooms.

Then the professor walked away in a huff.

Polls and other nonsense

I like reading polls. The last poll I read went like this: P-O-L-L. I couldn't quite figure out what it meant so I called up some reporters and got their opinions and their consensus was, "Y'know, we can't figure it out either. When we get the press release explaining it all then we'll send you an email telling you what P-O-L-L means."

------------------------

I was watching the news the other night when a spokesperson for the government said for me to be especially vigilant because "terrorist threats" were everywhere. Well, I know my government would NEVER, EVER lie to me, so I decided to be especially vigilant while I was doing my once-every-year vacuuming. While I was doing my vacuuming I was watching an even different news program with another government spokesperson (man, those government spokespersons seem to be everywhere) when, BAM, out from under the sofa flew a "terrorist threat" and it almost bit me on the nose. It then started flying around so I picked up the vacuum cleaner and tried to suck that old "terrorist threat" into the bag. While I was doing all that I was also screaming at the top of my lungs, "HELP, HELP, THERE'S A TERRORIST THREAT FLYING AROUND AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

Just then one of the people that had been hanging around the swimming pool rushed in and asked me what was wrong.

I pointed to the "terrorist threat" and screamed, "SEE, SEE, THERE'S A "TERRORIST THREAT" AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

She replied in disgust, "That's a mosquito, you idiot. And besides, we're all going to die anyway."

I thought for a moment, "Gee, we're all going to die anyway? Because of the mosquito?"

"NOT BECAUSE OF THE MOSQUITO, YOU IDIOT....JUST BECAUSE....BECAUSE.... DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" she screamed at me.

I said, "Well, if we're all going to die anyway, why am I vacuuming?" She looked at me in dumbfounded amazement, said she needed a drink, and then left.
----------------------------

I decided to some socially redeeming research into the start of the tradition for males to sit in front of a TV and scratch their bellies and drink beer and belch. Then I discovered that TV was the culprit. I also learned there was a "conspiracy" of various scientists and men and all sorts of people who were unfamiliar with the conspiracy to portray males as objects of derision and pity because we sit in front of TV's and do strange things. Well, all I can say to that is, "While you're up, can you get me a beer?"

The other day some people and I were sitting around discussing the brilliant economic theories being taught at Wellesley College, that ol' bastion of bewildering bafflement. And for those who might be mightily horrified that there MIGHT NOT BE ECONOMICS AFTER WELLESLEY COLLEGE, no need to get overly stressed, there is ECONOMICS AFTER WELLESLEY. That college is so brilliant, how do they come up with all that brilliant stuff?

Anyway, during the discussion I remarked, "Man, if I only had a flea for everytime my dog scratched, then I could start a flea farm." One of my advisors said, "No, you mean a flea CIRCUS."

I didn't quite hear exactly what he said because I was listening to music by King Crimson. I said, "Circus? Is the circus coming to town? If it is I'm going because I like to see that guy that comes out dressed like he's dead, and then he screams at the audience,'Hey, everybody, shut up. Understand? Shut up. SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!!!'"

"No," he replied in a low, menacing voice akin to a whisper. "I meant that it is NOT called a "flea farm", it is called a "flea circus."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked.

He suddenly seemed to get upset and he screamed, "You mindless, miserable morass of muddling moronity, I WAS TALKING ABOUT WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT FLEA FARMS AND FLEAS."

I said, "Man, that's in the past. You need to quit dwelling in the past. Besides, the circus is coming to town."

He became so enraged that he took the hot salmon off the barbecue, swung the salmon in a threatening manner and shouted, "That's it. I've had it and I'm not taking it anymore. If ANYBODY says anything about fleas and dogs I'll smack 'em with this fish." At that moment he dropped the hot salmon, grabbed his hand with the other hand, and screamed, "Damn, damn, that fish is hot!!!, ARRRRGGGGHHH!" Then he backed up and accidently fell into the swimming pool. Somebody asked, "What's wrong with that dude?"

I replied, "I'm not sure. Something about fleas and dogs, and then he grabbed the fish and decided to go swimming."

Is this reality?

There are urban legends, damn urban legends, and then mindless propaganda. Uh oh, one of my computer advisors is looking over my shoulder. She's opening her mouth as though to say something. Oh no, she has begun speaking. What great wisdom will I learn from her?

"Did you know your monitor is turned off?" she asked me.

"Off???!! You mean, like not turned on?" I responded.

She said, "I didn't really want to say anything because you're working so hard accomplishing so little... but even I sometimes get PISSED OFF THAT YOU'RE SCREWING AROUND WITH YOUR COMPUTER AND YOU'RE TOO STUPID TO TURN ON THE MONITOR."

I thought to myself, "Man, with an attitude like that no wonder God invented Valium."

I looked at her and said, "Ok, ok....if you're going to get upset I'll just flick this switch here on the surge protector and everything will be cool." Oh no, oh no, I flicked the wrong switch. ALL THE ELECTRICITY WENT OUT!!!!

"OH NO!!!!!!", I screamed. "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE." So I ran to the neighbor's house, got a beer, and watched the rest of the game on the huge, really huge, REALLY...REALLY...REALLY huge picture screen he stole from one of his movie theatres.

My maternal grandmother came over from Czechoslovakia to escape Hitler's reign of terror. You see, Hitler was not only annoyed at the Jews for some reason, but he also thought gypsies (my grandmother, by an accident of birth, was a gypsy) were expendable. She taught me the old gypsies' magic. So, for a hefty fee, I can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the universe.

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Nothing To Fear But Nothing Itself

'Course, That's Something

October 10, 2004

The remnants of the national character ferment like a jar of mayonnaise in August, bubble, bubble, bubble. Let’s hear it for bacteria. It is good to see that at least something is working. Better a robust rot than a pallid decline, I say.

Symptoms of moral putrefaction seem normal to us because we have nothing but symptoms. Does a toad notice warts? Still, some stand out. A friend involved in municipal government in a medium-sized city in California tells me that 63% of the city’s employees take anti-depressants. Yeah. Official secret figure.

Two-thirds? My god. Either life is depressing or the United States is squirreling out big-time. Is the number a national average? Two of three Americans can’t get through the day without rejiggering their neurotransmitters? We are mostly chemical train wrecks?

It may in fact be a national average. Maybe we aren’t designed to spend half our lives in isolated bedroom cities and the other half in rooms full of sound-absorbent cubicles, like inmates in a cross-word puzzle. I dunno. But something ain’t right.

A few jack-leg observations. Over half of the single women over thirty-five that I knew in Washington took Zoloft, Prozac, Welbutrin, Paxil, Xanax, or lithium. My daughters, then in high school, told me of depressed girlfriends of seventeen gobbling psychoactive pellets, or in an out of drunk tanks and drug rehab.

This is nuts. It would be so nice to live in a comparatively normal place. Weimar Berlin, maybe.

Therapy. If I hear that word again, I’m going to kill something. I’d rather have plague, but it isn’t a choice. (There should be a check box on insurance forms. “You may elect either (a) Plague, or (b) Therapy.”) This witchcraft mind-mindery is out of control. It’s everywhere, like boredom, like air, a church for people running on empty, for the unhappy peering into the inner vacuum.

And it’s pretty much compulsory. Around Washington, when some poor kid was miserable because her parents, or more likely parent, weren’t bothering to raise her, the guidance counselor always urged…therapy. The therapist always suggested…drugs. It wasn’t easy to say no. Expulsion might follow. The girls ended up on nut-adjustors. The boys said the hell with it, dropped out, and smoked dope.

Now that’s a recipe for a successful economy.

I have sat in on therapy. It is something to see. For starters, the whole routine is a vaguely sadomasochistic power trip. The Therapist is the domme, the patient a humble supplicant who must bare her soul, confess her psychic sins, embarrass herself, and obey. (A few New Age males go in for this stuff. It is overwhelmingly a woman’s racket.)

Therapy reminds me of nothing so much as a castrated religious order. There is the same proselytizing, the same zeal. Therapists see only two classes of people, those who are in therapy and those who ought to be. (“Are you saved?”) They exhibit the smug assurance of those who have seen the light, and have Truth in a half-Nelson. The difference is that, whereas religions usually say that you are responsible for your bad behavior and you ought to stop it, therapy tells you that you are never responsible for anything. No. It was your childhood. Or some chemical imbalance. The Church of Avoided Guilt.

The cult wants to get everybody. Repeatedly therapists assert that ninety-five percent of people suffer from “codependency,” and must go into counseling. See? We are all in a state of sin. The humiliation of baring one’s inmost thoughts to a condescending estrogenated Hitleress is a mix of self-flagellation and the rite of confession. It is the religious impulse de-Godded.

You can’t hide. Where I live, in Mexico near Guadalajara, the Ojo del Lago is the gringo fishwrapper for bored Americans who shelter in gated communities because they don’t like Mexico. It specializes in low-IQ political correctness that seems to have been written by a high-school class in Creative Writing. Oh good.

In it I discover the following by Ilse Hoffman, the very voice of therapeuticity: “A large percentage of the human population has some kind of mental disorder: major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, obsessive compulsive disorder or panic disorders….” Yes. We are all crazy. We can’t make it without drugs, support groups, and drumming circles. . It isn’t just Ilse. The women’s programs on the radio in Guad peddle the same recipes. See a counselor. Go early and often.

Ilse wants to propagate the faith—and expand the market. Never forget that salvation goes for $125 an hour. The church of pointless introspection shares the financial disinterestedness of a televangelist pitching for Aunt Nelly’s social security check.

Self-help books are a boom market. (“The Horror of Vague Dissatisfaction on Dull Afternoons, A Survivor’s Guide.”) Uncle Sucker passes out other people’s money in the form of grants. The courts, wanting to appear to do something without stuffing more people into jail space that doesn’t exist, sentence criminals to “counseling.” This mildly annoys the criminal, gets the judge off the hook, and—the crucial point—puts public money in the counselor’s pocket.

Compulsory therapy isn’t limited to junkies who just want to score in peace. Get a DWI ticket and, depending on the jurisdiction, you are likely to have to attend a dozen or two sessions of alcohol therapy at $35 a pop. These accomplish nothing, except presumably that you come out wanting a drink. The alleged drunks invariably think that the therapeutress is an idiot. However, it does put lots of money in therapeutic pockets.

And—the seminal discovery of therapy—insurance will cough up the green if the purported malady is medicalized and published in the DSM-4. Consequently everything is now a diagnosable disorder. Borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, can’t-get-a-date disorder, disorder, datorder, dotherorder. (I would like to suggest the addition of barely-got-a-personality disorder. Then therapists could treat each other.)

All of this ties subtly into an American strength, vindictiveness applied in the name of virtue. Examples abound. Read the laws against smoking and you will see that they make sense only as means of humiliating smokers. Therapy’s contribution to predatory goodness is the drugging of schoolboys who refuse to become passive psychic transvestites. To understate, the psychotrades are not branches of conservative rationalism. Feminism is getting even.

We buy into this stuff. Which is probably to say that we deserve it. There must be an awful lot of emptiness out there.

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From: CAIR mailto:cair@cair-net.org
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 9:52 AM
To: islam-infonet@cair.biglist.com
Subject: ISLAM-INFONET: Poll: 1-in-4 Americans Holds Anti-Muslim Views

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

POLL: 1-IN-4 AMERICANS HOLDS ANTI-MUSLIM VIEWS
Negative images of Muslims far more prevalent than positive ones

(WASHINGTON, DC - 10/4/2004) - According to a poll released today by a prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group, 1-in-4 Americans believes a number of anti-Muslim stereotypes and negative images of Muslims are 16 times more prevalent than positive ones.

SEE: http://www.cair-net.org/downloads/pollresults.ppt

The poll, sponsored by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and conducted by an independent research firm, was designed to understand what Americans think about Muslims, identify variables associated with anti-Muslim prejudice and to seek out ways in which to combat the Islamophobic prejudice that often leads to discrimination or even hate crimes.

FOR EXAMPLE, SEE: "Twin Cities' Muslims Detail Vandalism Attacks"
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5013716.html
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=70097

Poll results include:

* More than one-fourth of survey respondents agreed with stereotypes such as "Muslims teach their children to hate" and "Muslims value life less than other people."
* When asked what comes to mind when they hear "Muslim," 32 percent of respondents made negative comments. Only two percent had a positive response.
* Those with the most negative attitudes toward Islam and Muslims tend to be less-educated white males who are politically conservative.
* General knowledge of Islam is low but the presence of Muslim friends and colleagues drives more enlightened attitudes.
* African-Americans hold more favorable attitudes about Muslims than do whites.
* While half of respondents believed that American Muslims are
"cooperating" in the war on terror, 50 percent did not believe that they are actively "condemning" terrorist acts.
* Most Americans believe that the terrorists are misusing the teachings of Islam.
* About half of Americans hold one or more favorable attitudes about Muslims, such as "Muslims have family-oriented values" and "Muslims have contributed to civilization."
* Those who believe they are knowledgeable about Islam tend to have more positive attitudes.

"As a nation that values tolerance and equality, we need to recognize the growing anti-Muslim prejudice in our society and join together as Americans to combat this divisive phenomenon," said CAIR Board Chairman Omar Ahmad.
"It is clear from the results of this survey that we have our work cut out for us in terms of educating other Americans about Islam and providing opportunities for positive interactions with the Muslim community."

Ahmad said that CAIR will be encouraging local Muslim communities across the United States to hold open houses for people of other faiths during Ramadan, the Islamic fast that begins in mid-October.

Survey results were based on 1000 telephone interviews conducted by California-based Genesis Research Associates
(http://www.genesisresearch.net ) between June 23 and July 2, 2004. Interviewers spoke with a gender-balanced random sample of respondents across the continental United States. Margin of error for the poll (with 95 percent confidence) is +/-3.1 percent. CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 29 regional offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada.

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After the liberation De Gaulle's government held on to internees from many countries in officially closed centres to hide collaboration

Jon Henley in Paris
Monday October 4, 2004
The Guardian

The government of Charles de Gaulle held hundreds of foreigners, including at least three Britons, in an internment camp near Toulouse for up to four years after the second world war, according to secret documents.

The papers, part of a cache of 12,000 photocopied illegally by an Austrian-born Jew, reveal the extent to which French officials collaborated with their fleeing Nazi occupiers even as their country was being liberated. They also show that, when the war was over, France went to extraordinary lengths to hide as much evidence of that collaboration as possible.

The documents are in a mass of registers, telegrams and manifests which Kurt Werner Schaechter, an 84-year-old retired businessman, copied from the Toulouse office of France's national archives in 1991. They are uniquely precious: under a 1979 law most of France's wartime archives are sealed for between 60 and 150 years after they were written.

"This is an untold story of the dark side of France's liberation 60 years ago," Mr Schaechter, a former musical instruments salesman, said at his home in Alfortville, a Paris suburb. "French functionaries were involved in a national scandal that continued until 1949: the despicable treatment of allied and neutral civilians interned during the war."

By far the most awkward of his recently unearthed documents are those that appear to show that Noé camp, 25 miles south of Toulouse, continued to function secretly for several years after the war. Noé was one of 300 camps set up after 1939 to hold Jews, communists and other "anti-French" militants, Gypsies, common criminals and enemy aliens.

But what happened to those, many elderly and infirm, who stayed? Some are marked "transferred". Others were moved in 1947 to Pithiviers or Rivesaltes camps, both officially closed. Some are marked: "Agreed with Mr Casse - to be lost". And what that means, no one knows.

What little respect I had for Charles De Gaulle and France has completely dissipated. I guess Charles De Gaulle was all image and no substance. His role as a freedom fighter was also way overblown. Let's face it. De Gaulle and his resistance fighters were no match for the Gestapo...but De Gaulle and his pathetic wannabes had good press relations. Now we know Charles De Gaulle was the creation of public relations.

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By Shawn Zeller

Peter Darling charmed smugglers to bust a Chicago drug ring that used babies as cover.

It was in May 1999 that the call came in from British Customs and Excise to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Chicago. Agents had picked up a woman from Chicago with six kilograms of liquefied cocaine disguised as baby formula. She said the baby she was traveling with wasn't her own.

The case fell on the desk of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Senior Special Agent Peter Darling. A records search revealed that the baby had traveled frequently with a number of women. "It seemed very odd," Darling recalls. The parents claimed that the baby had been kidnapped, but Darling wasn't buying it.

It wasn't a sexy case, the kind that lends itself to photo opportunities with huge piles of drugs and money. But Darling's tenacious investigating revealed a widespread conspiracy devised by a Chicago gang to use infants as cover to smuggle drugs from Panama to the United States and Europe. Heading up "Operation Kids for Cover," he found that 22 infants were used as decoys on 45 trips. Eleven were rented from their parents.

Darling, along with fellow agent Billy Warren, conducted scores of interviews in Chicago's down-and-out South Side. "Every courier would put us onto another two couriers and another baby," Darling recalls. "The conspiracy just grew and grew." It took more than two years of investigating to reach the first trials.

Elissa Brown, special agent in charge of ICE's Chicago office, calls it "good old-fashioned criminal investigation work." But what impresses her most is how Darling, a white man with a thick Boston accent, convinced poor black Chicagoans to open up. "He treated them with such respect," she says. In the end, she recalls, many of the women who'd exploited their children regretted their actions. They thanked Darling, crediting him with rescuing them from a downward spiral and their children from abuse and neglect. "You just don't see that," says Brown.

The investigation has resulted in 49 convictions. The leader of the conspiracy was sentenced to life in prison in 2003. Darling praises prosecutor Scott Levine for keeping his eye on the case: "He wanted to get every single courier involved in this thing."

Darling says he simply used common sense to make it happen. "I knew this was not my neighborhood and these people have to live here every day. . . . I said, 'I understand you are in a tough position and made some mistakes.' "

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The verdict of the county court was predictable. Caught driving without a license or proof of insurance. Sherry Scotka received a $350 fine from the Ken" County, Texas, court for each offense. But Scotka, during the stultifying summer of 1993, was anything but predictable. Acting as her own lawyer, she appealed the county court's decision, requesting that the Texas Appeals Court transfer her case to the "Common Law Court of the United States of America." Her argument? That as a "sovereign citizen" she was outside the jurisdiction of Texas law or Texas courts.

The appeals court did not look upon her request with favor, noting that she could not even show that the "Common Law Court of the United States of America" existed.[2] This was not the first time that the Court of Appeals had faced this sort of peculiar argument. From the Texas hill country had come a rash of such claims in the past several years, all from strangely similar cases: traffic violations, foreclosures, frivolous suits. Brought to court, the defendants, usually operating pro se-that is, defending themselves-would demand that the case in question be removed to the "Common Law Court for the Republic of Texas." Finally, in 1992, the Appeals Court noted officially that there was no such thing. "We hold," said the court, "that the Common Law Court for the Republic of Texas, if it ever existed, has ceased to exist since February 16, 1846 "-in other words, when Texas state government was organized. It was then that the defendant changed the transfer reference in her pleading to the "Common Law Court of the United States of America," although interestingly the address on the legal documents remained the same.4transfer reference in her pleading to the "Common Law Court of the United States of America," although interestingly the address on the legal documents remained the same.[3] What the Texas appeals court was just beginning to perceive were the beginnings of a movement created by recalcitrant self-proclaimed "sovereign citizens" determined to wrest control of their lives back from all forms of government or authority. Appearing first in isolated spots in Texas and Florida, the notion of "common law courts" soon spread to Kansas and other farm states, then quickly across the nation. The "common law court movement," as it has somewhat clumsily come to be called, now exists in some form in every state in the country. In some states, activity is minimal; in others common law courts are a serious nuisance; in some, they are a plague on the judicial system.

Although featured on television shows like "20/20," common law courts did not really breach the public consciousness until the spring of 1996, when FBI agents surrounded a frigid eastern Montana farm to wait out two dozen recalcitrant tax protesters that locals dubbed "freemen." In reality, however, common law adherents had been active for years in different areas across the country. Frustrated county clerks knew of the strange filings made in their offices; puzzled policemen encountered confrontational motorists pulled over for homemade license plates; irritated lawyers discovered that bogus liens had been placed on their property by court opponents. But there was little public awareness or understanding of the movement. The media reported that Oklahoma City bombing suspect Terry Nichols had declared himself a "sovereign citizen," but treated it as a random, bizarre act by a right-wing extremist, not as an action by someone consciously part of an ideological movement.

Few people knew then that these activities were not just isolated phenomena. Fewer still, even today, understand that they are not just part of some movement, but that this movement has a much longer and more active history than most people ever suspected. The "common law court," so called, can be traced back nearly two decades as a form of right-wing social protest, with roots stretching back still farther. What common law court activists do and say today often seems strange and incomprehensible to the average person, but their deeds and words possess a coherent internal logic and are part of a very conscious overall ideology.

The Posse Comitatus

The common law courts and sovereign citizens are the direct ideological descendants of the Posse Comitatus; any attempt to understand the common law courts must start with the this group. The Posse, though, is not necessarily an easy entity to understand. On one level, the Posse was a right-wing extremist organization with a more or less definable beginning. In 1969 a retired dry cleaner named Henry "Mike" Beach (a former member of the 1930s pro-Nazi group, the Silver Shirts) formed a group called the Sheriffs Posse Comitatus. In California, William Potter Gale started a similar organization, the United States Christian Posse Association, around the same time. From these beginnings, branches formed in other areas of the country, numbering around 80 or so by the mid-1970s. The farm crisis of the early 1980s, for reasons that will be explained below, caused membership to rise greatly, particularly in the plains states.

From the start, the Posse caused problems for local, state and federal authorities. As early as 1974, Thomas Stockheimer, head of the Posse in Wisconsin, was convicted on charges of assaulting an Internal Revenue Service agent. Indeed, the normally placid state of Wisconsin became a hotbed of Posse activity, due to leaders Stockheimer, James Wickstrom and Donald Minniecheskie. In northeastern Wisconsin, Wickstrom-who styled himself the "national director of counterinsurgency" of the Posse and liked to conduct paramilitary training-established the "Constitutional Township of Tigerton Dells," a "township" that consisted of a compound of trailers on a farm lot. From there Wickstrom waged a war against local authorities that resulted, in the mid-1980s, in the eventual destruction of the "township" and Wickstrom's arrest (one of many). In other states as well, most notably Kansas, Posse members repeatedly clashed-with resulting deaths and injuries-with local authorities.

It was, however, Gordon Kahl of North Dakota who achieved the most notoriety and became the Posse's first real martyr. Kahl was a virulent racist and tax protester who traveled to farm protest meetings across the country's midsection to win converts to the Posse cause. In 1983 four U.S. marshals and two local law enforcement officers set up a roadblock to arrest Kahl for violating the terms of his probation. A shootout ensued which resulted in the death of two of the marshals and the wounding of two others. Also wounded was Kahl's twenty-year-old son. When Kahl fled the state, a nationwide manhunt-and nationwide publicity-began. Months later, Kahl was tracked down in Arkansas, where he died during another gunfight in which a county sheriff was killed.

Eventually, though, the Posse declined as an effective organization, largely through loss of leadership. Faced with repeated imprisonment, some leaders such as James Wickstrom scaled back their activities. Other leaders, such as Henry Beach and William Potter Gale, died of natural deaths, the latter while appealing a conviction for threatening IRS agents. Still others, like Kahl, died violently. The result was that by the late 1980s the Posse was floundering. Always locally based, pockets of the Posse continued to survive here and there, but it was no longer a force.

As an organized right-wing group, the Posse did not really survive. But the Posse had never been simply an organization-indeed, it was hardly ever well organized. The Posse Comitatus was much more durable as an ideology. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of people who never formally belonged to any Posse group nevertheless subscribed to Posse ideology. The belief system survived even as the group faded.

The Posse ideology and the justifications that results from it are complex, but stripped of racist overtones, there are three main tenets to Posse ideology that are crucial to understanding how the Posse mindset works. In order of increasing importance, these tenets are 1) the importance of local control, 2) the need to avoid legal and financial authority, and 3) justifications derived from the revelation of "hidden history." The Importance of Local Control

The importance of local control to adherents of Posse ideology was the simplest and most visible feature of their philosophy. Indeed, the term "posse comitatus" itself is a Latin phrase that means "power of the county." Accordingly, Posse teachings argued that the county government was the highest authority of government in the country, a belief sometimes misreported as the county being the only form of legitimate authority. Actually, the Posse recognized the other levels of government, but contended that federal or state officials had to bow before the power of the county sheriff.

Avoiding Legal Authority

Because of the emphasis given by Posse members to the county sheriff, many journalists well into the 1980s persisted in calling the Posse Comitatus a "law-and-order" group. But nothing was further from the truth. The Posse's motivation was essentially the exact opposite of law and order. The Posse wanted to be free of all obligations to laws its members didn't like, and to be free of financial obligations as well. Its entire ideology was specifically designed to achieve this. For instance, their emphasis on the importance of the county sheriff was not intended to support greater "law and order." The Posse argued that it was the sheriffs responsibility "to protect the people of his County from unlawful acts on the part of anyone, including officials of government... whether these be judges of courts or Federal or State Agents of any kind whatsoever."

In other words, the local sheriff’s duty was to shield the citizenry from the interference of federal, state and local government. If the sheriff neglected this duty, the people had "the lawful right under natural law to act in the name of the Sheriff to protect local jurisdiction." They could arrest people and hold them "for trial by a citizen jury empanelled by the Sheriff from citizens of the local jurisdiction, instead of by the Courts as is the current procedure in most Counties and which has no basis under law, any act of any legislature or directives issued by the judiciary or Executive notwithstanding."

Especially important to the Posse was that sheriffs not be used to enforce court rulings: "The unlawful use of County Sheriffs as LACKEYS of the Courts should be discontinued at once…The Sheriff is accountable and responsible only to the citizens who are the inhabitants of his County." Indeed, the Posse offered a thinly-veiled threat to sheriffs and others who did not accommodate the will of local citizens: "In some instances of record the law provides for the following prosecution of officials of government who commit criminal acts or who violate their Oath of Office: He shall be removed by the Posse to the most populated intersection of streets in the township and at high noon be hung by the neck, the body remaining until sundown as an example to those who would subvert the law." Many Posse members proudly wore a pin shaped as a hangman's noose as a symbol of their membership.

Some sheriffs actually fall for this nonsense. One is ex-sheriff Richard Mack.

God and country - How the militia movement undermines separation

By David Neiwert

Richard Mack knows how to work a crowd. Standing before the smallish audiences that turn out to hear him speak, usually numbering about 100, the soft-spoken sheriff talks at length about "the monster of government intervention," and how forming citizen militias will protect them from it. He keeps their interest by sprinkling his talks with one-liners he knows are guaranteed to get a response.

"Hitler was more moral than Bill Clinton," he says. "He didn't have as many girlfriends." Laughter and loud applause....

Richard Mack is sheriff of Graham County, Arizona. He's also a hero in the right wing "patriot" movement that is gaining ground in America's rural areas, and even seeping into urban and suburban settings, like the tony Bellevue, Washington setting where Mack spoke in 1995 and 1996.

When Mack — a devotee of the late Mormon "Constitutionalist" W. Cleon Skousen — decided to sue the federal government over the enforcement provisions of the 1994 Brady Act, a gun-control measure, he became a cause celebre for people who believe such laws are part of a covert conspiracy to subvert America. The National Rifle Association, whose officials play to this crowd when they claim the Second Amendment is intended to provide for armed resistance against the government,2 named Mack the Law Enforcement Officer of the Year for 1995 in honor of his efforts.

On the patriot podium-thumping circuit, Mack is a big draw. He touches a lot of the hot buttons that draw people into the patriot movement — gun rights, abortion, education — all focused on hatred of the federal government and its leaders. The strong response he gets when he decries church-state separation underscores a core component of the worldview held by the nation's growing contingent of the "patriot" right.

The patriots, meeting and organizing throughout the nation in small groups, exchanging conspiracy theories and belief systems, represent a broad swath of views, ranging from the relatively moderate Mack to the far more extreme Freemen in eastern Montana. They are bound together in a desire to destroy the power of the U.S. federal government, which they believe is attempting to impose a tyrannical "new world order."

At the heart of the movement leaders' agenda, though, is the system they hope will replace the current government: a Christian theocracy.

Then there is former sheriff Jack Utterback, who was arrested for his "sovereign citizen" looniness. The following was written by a "sovereign citizen". The "Special Grand Jury" described below is in reality nothing but a "common law court".

From: Roger Weidner: http://www.rogerweidner.net

Pamela Gaston: http://www.avoiceforchildren.com

FORMER MARION COUNTY SHERIFF UTTERBACK AND WIFE ARRESTED IN COURT FOR CHALLENGING COURT JURISDICTION

Prineville, Crook County, Oregon - On Tuesday, March 2, 2004 Former Marion County Sheriff Jack Utterback and his wife Dixie appeared in the Crook County Courtroom of Judge DANIEL AHERN. The Utterbacks had been ordered to appear to stand trial for numerous zoning code violations. The ordeal the Utterbacks have endured at the hands of an arrogant and abusive county was described by the Utterbacks when they appeared February 24, 2004 before a Special Grand jury was reconvened by former attorney and public prosecutor Roger Weidner to investigate the wide spread corruption in the Oregon court system. The sworn testimony of corruption and abuse given by Weidner, and other victims of state abuse and systemic fraud, including the testimony of the Utterbacks and others at that hearing appeared on avoiceforchildren.com and rogerweidner.net under GRAND JURY HEARS FEDERAL COURT TESTIMONY. (See Link at end of article)

After the February 24 hearing, Jack Utterback, his wife Dixie and Roger Weidner and Jamie Jackson went to Oregon Chief Justice Wallace Carsons office in the Oregon Supreme Court Building to meet with him again about the severe corruption problem in the Oregon court system. Jack Utterback told those with him that he had gone to gradeschool with Judge Carson and knew him when he was Marion County Sheriff and Carson was in private law practice. Judge Carsons assistant politely told Utterback that Judge Carson was "tied up" and could not meet with him.

Two days later on February 27, 2004 Pamela and Will Gaston and Roger Weidner appeared before the Oregon Law Commission, whose members included Judge Carson and Atty. Gen. Hardy Meyers, and presented them all with the story appearing on this website about the Grand Jury in the federal hearing.

Before the March 2, 2004 hearing in Prinevile, on March 1, 2004 at 5pm, Utterback, Weidner and Will Gaston were, after repeated request, able to meet outside the Prineville Police Department with Under Sheriff Jim Hensley. Weidner explained to Hensley that he was a former public prosecutor who has been fighting the corruption in the Oregon court system for years. Weidner told Hensley that the judges openly admit that their courts are not constitutional courts of "due process". Weidner told Hensley that he and thousands of other outraged citizens are determined to restore constitutional government to the citizens of Oregon. Hensley was pleasant and understanding as Weidner explained the current court corruption problem to him, namely that people were, and still are, having their children, land and other property shamelessly stripped from them by corrupt judges in "sham" often "star chamber" type proceedings devoid of even a semblance of constitutionally guaranteed "due process" of law. Hensley listened respectfully as Weidner explained to him the nature of the problem and that the citizens will not and cannot allowed the corruption to continue.

The Utterbacks entered the courtroom with 7 supporters including Weidner, Gaston, Patricia Wishon, Jason Wheeler, Tony Martin and Wishon's sister and husband. Weidner told everyone to remain standing until the judge came in so there would be no voluntary public acknowledgement when Judge Ahern entered the room. While standing Weidner obtained the name of Dep. DA RAMEY and court guards Sgt RUSS WRIGHT and Under Sheriff HENSLEY. Judge Ahern entered the room and only Ramey moved when Ahern entered the court. Ahern in a stern orderly way read the Utterback case number into the record. Dixie and Jack stepped forward and she informed Ahern that Jack was hard of hearing and she would be speaking.

Dixie Utterback then at the prompting of Weidner read into the record the information in the Special Appearance she had filed with the court. Utterback read Supreme Court caselaw in that document that states if the jurisdiction is challenged all proceedings must cease until jurisdiction is established. This is the most basic right of a freeborn people to insure that constitutioanl judicial due process is being adhered to. Utterback said it was not a lawful court if the jurisdiction could not be stated. She and Jack then said they were leaving the court.

Immediately Ahern, his mode and deameanor shifting noticeably to being openly confrontational said in a cold threatening manner "if you leave you will be arrested for contempt". Weidner said: "if you arrest one of us you will have to arrest all of us". Ahern said he was only going to arrest the Utterback's.

Dixie, defiantly with rightous indignation said "they arrested my Lord for standing up to evil, so they can arrest me too for I am standing against this evil". She was arrested by Dep. Hensley as she walked through the door. Weidner told Ahern that he has repeatedly talked to Judge Carson about the corruption problem and was told by Carson, during a December 12, 2003 meeting, to "keep up the good work". He also told Ahern that the citizens are demanding a restoration of constitutional government. Weidner told Ahern that he and others across the state are prepared to take whatever steps necessary to see that the judges observe their oath of office and conduct fair and impartial hearings where the citizens constitutional rights are observed by the judges. Ahern did not respond to what Weidner said to him. Instead Ahern sat with a blank look on his face.

Jack Utterback, still standing inside the courtroom said he did not want to be arrested. Dixie said "Come on, Jack". Will Gaston said "I rise under the authority of Amicus Curiae" and approached the bench unimpeded. Gaston handed judge Ahern a pamphlet called "Vultures" containing the research in Oregon about a court system in which judges do not have lawful oaths or jurisdiction. Gaston said "I am filing this into the record of this hearing". (Vultures pamphlet link at end of article)

Jack Utterback left with Gaston and Jack was immediately arrested by Dep. Wright and another officer as he left the courtroom. Courtwatcher Wishon, while she stood watching, openly condemned the deputies for their "police state tactics". As Jack and Dixie were being arrested, 4 other deputies were found hiding by Gaston and Weidner behind a door leading upstairs.

Weidner and Patricia Wishon and Jason Wheeler followed the four deputies as they led the Utterbacks from the Courthouse to the Prineville City Jail. We encourage people to contact the judge at the Crook County Courthouse about the release of Dixie and Jack Utterback. This is outrageous contempt for the people that judges are so corrupt that they arrest people for asking if they are in a constitutional court.

Weidner is filing a Habeas Writ into the Oregon Supreme Court in the morning to enforce their release. Now Utterbacks will have a jury trial in which the only relevant issue is the still unanswered question of lawful jurisdiction. The court bears the burden of proof that the actions of the state are according to judicial due process of law.

Roger Weidner: http://www.rogerweidner.net

Pamela Gaston: http://www.avoiceforchildren.com

Related Articles: Grand Jury Sworn in federal hearing

http://www.oregonfamilyrights.com/Weidner

Des Griffin, Pamela and Will Gaston, Lucille McReady, Patricia Wishon and son among sworn grand jury members. http://www.oregonfamilyrights.com/Weidner/news.htm

Special Grand Jury Hears Weidner's Federal Case

The "Vultures" pamphlet - Research on Judicial Oath, Lawful Jurisdiction by Milt Mitchek : http://www.avoiceforchildren.com/documents/false_oaths/vultures.htm