NASA Debunking 2012 Doomsday Rumors

NASA wants us all to know the world will not end on 12/21/2012, despite what Coast-To-Coast guests and the movies tell you.

According to this AFP story today:

The doomsday scenario revolves claims that the end of time will come as an obscure Planet X -- or Nibiru -- heads toward or collides into Earth.

The mysterious planet was supposedly discovered by the Sumerians, according to claims by pseudo-scientists, paranormal activity enthusiasts and Internet theorists.

Some websites accuse NASA of concealing the truth on the wayward planet's existence, but the US space agency denounced such stories as an "Internet hoax."

"There is no factual basis for these claims," NASA said in a question-and-answer posting on its website.

If such a collision were real "astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye," it added. "Obviously, it does not exist."

"Credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012," NASA insisted.

See "Ask An Astrobiologist" on the NASA site talking about Nibiru.

And a 2012 FAQ here.

If you've seen the extended preview for the new movie "2012," it has its share of "Holy crap!" moments, with a tidal wave sweeping the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier across Washington D.C. and flattening the White House (there's got to be a grassy knoll/Oswald metaphor in there somewhere), and the signature shot of the dome of St. Peter's basilica crashing down and rolling into the lens as it squishes thousands of Catholics in the square.

Of course, it's okay for the important iconography of Christianity to be seen smashed to bits, Director Roland Emmerich admitted in an interview last week to scifiwire.com:

"Why ... don't [we] have the church fall on people's head?" Emmerich said. He added: "The whole Vatican kind of tips and kind of rolls over the people. It said something, because in the story, some people ... believe in praying and prayer, and they pray in front of the church, and it's probably the wrong thing, what they would do in that situation."

It also features the sculpture of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro crumbling to pieces, "Because I'm against organized religion."

But Emmerich was thinking of something even more explosive: the Kaaba, the cube-shaped building at the heart of Mecca, the focus of prayers and the Islamic pilgrimage called the Hajj; it is one of Islam's holiest sites.

Really?

"Well, I wanted to do that, I have to admit," Emmerich says. "But my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. ... We have to all ... in the Western world ... think about this. You can actually ... let ... Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it's just something which I kind of didn't [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out."

Got it. Christians will turn the other cheek when you insult them and depict their sacred places being destroyed, but those kill-crazy Muslims will shank your insulting Salmon Rushdie atheist butt. Now THAT'S a stand-up guy.

CERN: Sabotage From The Future?

Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland just can't seem to get a break, what with explosions, glitches, breakdowns, and just last week, a scientist arrested for being an Al-Qaeda terrorist. Now, Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto are proposing that the super collider may be sabotaging itself to keep us from finding something we shouldn't.

Is someone traveling back in time from the future to keep scientists from doing something catastrophic?

Read it here: A Particle God Doesn't Want Us To Discover

Some Mayans Claim 2012 Won't Be What It's Cracked Up To Be

The Associated Press, in an article by Mark Stevenson, is reporting that some Mayans are insisting that 2012 will not be the end of the world.

Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.
Or is it?
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.
At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.
"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."
Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.
A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.
But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"
It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades - the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.
One of them is Monument Six.

Read the rest here.

Move Over Mickey: Switzerland's Erich von Däniken Land Has Reopened

Remember Erich von Däniken? If you grew up in the 1970s, you couldn't escape him. His book, Chariots Of The Gods? was a huge hit, alleging alien visitors not only walked the Earth over the millennia, but also left a fossil and artistic record of their presence.

What I have somehow managed to miss over the last few years was the construction of an entire amusement park, based on von Däniken's ideas. According to its website, Mystery Park, located in Interlaken, Switzerland "present(ed) the unexplained, yet real phenomena found in various historical and archeological sites around the globe."

When I say I missed it, it's partially because I never got as far as Switzerland. And partially because it opened in 2003 and closed three years later.

Major pavilions included:

• Vimanas, which depicted ancient flying machines that supposedly appear in ancient artwork from India, and ancient orbiting space cities. Anciently.
• Maya, which would have been the E-ticket ride to be on when the world comes to an end in 2012.
• Contact, a pavilion that presented the odd "cargo cults" of New Guinea that arose after World War II—isolated tribes of people who saw allied soldiers as aliens who came in bizarre flying machines, and imitated (and perhaps venerated them as gods) after they left.
• Orient, which explored the great pyramid at Giza.
• Megastones, like Stonehenge and other lesser known sites.
• Nazca covered the famed lines in Peru.
• And much more.

After its opening, Mystery Park was called a "cultural Chernobyl" by Antoine Wasserfallen, a member of the Swiss Academy of Science and Technology. Apparently the public agreed. Its original incarnation was a financial catastrophe.

Apparently the property was purchased this year by a new promoter, and it reopened in May 2009. The season ends in November.

Bear in mind, von Däniken once said, “I am not a scientific man, and if I had written a scientific book, it would have been calm and sober and nobody would talk about it.”

Will Travolta leave Scientology?

Reports have been circulating that John Travolta's depression over the January death of his 16 year old son Jett has led to his disenchantment with the Church of Scientology. Scientology does not accept the science behind autism, and members whose children have the disorder are not allowed to treat its symptoms with anything other than the church's programs.

Naturally, a high-visibility, deep-pocketed, celebrity member like Travolta cannot be allowed to walk away from Scientology's clutches without a struggle, especially after 34 years. So, allegedly, the rumors have already been leaked that the church allegedly has blackmail files that reveal the actor to allegedly be a closeted homosexual. Nothing that could be traced to the church, naturally, just you know, rumors. Nothing substantiated, naturally, just the alleged possibility that they might have files that detail this ugly secret. Allegedly.

It's been a gang-up year for Scientology. Two of its top executives dove overboard and went public—Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder, the highest-ranking executives to ever leave the cult, and Amy Scobee, who helped create Scientology's celebrity network that specializes in setting up promotions involving the cult's high-visibility stars like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley and Kirstie Alley. All three gave extensive interviews to the St. Petersburg Times in June. Now Travolta may be slipping away.

Coverage of the Travolta story keeps growing, and an extensive article in The Daily Mail seems to wallow in the homosexual allegation side of the tale. But it also gives a glimpse of just how Scientology has benefitted lavishly from Travolta's wallet:

Travolta is also known to have pumped millions of his own fortune into its new Superpower Centre, being built at Scientology headquarters in Clearwater, Florida.

According to insiders, he has reached the rank of Operating Thetan VII, one rung below the most senior position in the Church, which adheres to the teachings of controversial 1950s science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

The author bizarrely claimed all humans are descended from Thetans, space aliens who were banished to earth 75 million years ago.

At great expense, Travolta turned another of Hubbard's novels, 'Battlefield Earth,' into a disastrous 2000 film.

But to reach such an exalted level within Scientology, Travolta, insiders say, has had to submit himself to years of so-called 'auditing', during which disciples are connected to primitive lie-detectors and subjected to hours of questioning about their innermost secrets.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Hollywood's obsession with the secret sect, talk in the smarter salons of gossip-hungry Tinseltown is now all about what Travolta might have divulged during these sessions.

However, Travolta's personal representative Paul Bloch spoke to People magazine. "There's no change in the relationship between the Church of Scientology and John," says Bloch. "He is a member and it's as it was, now and forever."

Forever's a long time. But it makes one wonder if Scientology's celebrities are required to sign the same kind of billion year contracts the church's Gold Base Sea Org workers have to agree to?

"Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura" Debuts This Fall

THR.com website today is announcing that TruTV (formerly CourtTV) will debut a TV series called "Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura" later this year. Seven episodes (how appropriately symbolic) have been ordered.

From the website:

The decision to pick up to series "Conspiracy Theory," originally ordered as a pilot last fall, came after a preview of the project received "positive response" at the network's upfront presentation to advertisers, truTV exec vp and general manager Marc Juris said.

In "Conspiracy Theory," former Navy SEAL, wrestler and Minnesota governor Ventura explores the mysteries behind modern-day conspiracies.

40th Anniversary of Moon Landing Resurrects Hoax Theories

On July 20th, 1969, the whole world stared into their television sets and watched blurry, flickering, black and white images as Apollo 11’s lunar excursion module, nicknamed “The Eagle,” descended from orbiting around the Moon and touched down on the Sea of Tranquility. In 1960, deep in the heart of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, President John F. Kennedy had upped the stakes in the “space race” between the two superpowers by proclaiming that the U.S. would land a man on the Moon “before this decade is out.” Apollo 11 had managed to pull it off with just months to spare.

It was truly the technological achievement of the century, and perhaps the greatest milestone in the annals of mankind. And yet, the day after astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left the first human footprints on another world, there were those who didn’t believe it was possible. One woman interviewed by Newsweek proclaimed that she didn’t believe it because she didn’t think her TV set could pick up a transmission from the Moon. A rumor began to spread across the countryside: Maybe the Moon landings had been staged.

Bear in mind that, from a sociologist’s viewpoint, the 1970’s were a time of rampant distrust of the U.S. government because of the Vietnam era, the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and subsequent resignation of President Richard Nixon, along with a general hippie-era dislike of the Establishment. It was unfortunate timing that the greatest technological accomplishment of mankind came along at one of the most cynical periods of history. It's curious to note that, depending on whose poll you look at, somewhere between 70% and 85% of Americans believe that this planet has been visited at some point by extra-terrestrial forms of life, and the overwhelming majority believe that the government has been hiding it from us. Yet, in a poll just this year in Britain, 25% of those questioned don't believe men ever walked on the Moon.

Various claims have been made over the last three decades about ways in which the Moon landings might have been faked, and why. Some of the more common ones include:

· NASA’s first manned test flight of the Apollo space capsule and Saturn-series rocket resulted in a tragic fire that killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. In a test on January 27th, 1967, fire broke out in the oxygen-rich cockpit, and the three men died within 17 seconds. The claim goes that the fire set the program back so badly that the Moon landings had to be completely or partially fabricated in order to make it look like the U.S. had achieved its goal on time.

· Some have claimed that the Van Allen radiation belts that surround the earth were far too deadly to allow Apollo spacecraft to pass through without killing the astronauts inside. Most scientists (including their discoverer Dr. James Van Allen) reject this claim, since radiation poisoning is dependant upon the amount of time a person is exposed, and Apollo astronauts passed through too quickly to have received a dangerous dose.

· Conspiracists claim that the astronauts were launched into low Earth orbit, and that the Moon landing was videotaped in a studio. Then, after the appropriate amount of time, the orbiting Apollo spacecraft splashed down, all on international television.

· According to some conspiracists, Stanley Kubrick, hot on the heels of directing the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which contained the first realistic and convincing special effects depicting spaceflight ever put on film, was brought from England to direct the Apollo 11 telecast. Anyone who knows anything about the famously temperamental and perfectionist director knows what a howler this claim is. Others have claimed that special effects were created by 2001 effects artist Douglas Trumbull in a studio in Huntsville, Alabama, home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

· A variation on the claim is that only some of the six successful Moon landings were faked, while NASA had extra time to work on its faulty technology. Apollo 13’s almost fatal accident was staged in order to refocus a bored public on NASA’s need for greater funding. And Apollo 17, the final mission to the Moon, was the only authentic trip, because it had a civilian crew member who couldn’t be threatened or bought off.

· The 1978 film Capricorn One added fuel to the hoax claims, by telling a fictional story of NASA faking a landing on Mars, while filming the events in a studio – using spacecraft virtually identical to the Apollo missions.

There is too much evidence and far too many participants in NASA’s Apollo program to convince the overwhelming majority of people that the Moon landings were anything but authentic. The Apollo missions involved $30 billion in federal dollars, and 400,000 employees with nary a squealer in the bunch. That has not prevented a small cottage industry of authors from crying “hoax.” The 842 pounds of lunar rocks returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts over the course of six missions is not proof to them. Conspiracists claim unmanned NASA missions brought the rocks to back Earth before Apollo 11 ever launched, or they were simply cooked up artificially in a high-temperature kiln.

In spite of piles of photographic and physical evidence, this conspiracy theory hangs on, first promoted by late author Bill Kaysing. He was a librarian at Rocketdyne, an early NASA supplier, and claimed (without proof) that the space agency never had the expertise needed to actually land men on the Moon. He further alleged that the Apollo 1 astronauts (and later the Challenger Space Shuttle crew) were murdered because they were about to reveal the “truth” about NASA. Kaysing claimed that the astronauts were actually in the Nevada desert putting on the “moonwalk show” during the day, and hanging out with strippers and Las Vegas showgirls at night – requiring years of psychological therapy before they could get over the guilt of duping the public.

Amateur filmmaker Bart Sibrel has taken a more confrontational approach to the issue. In 2002, he accosted Buzz Aldrin in front of a Beverly Hills hotel, demanding answers to his questions about the so-called Moon landing “hoax,” calling the astronaut a “coward, a liar and a thief.” Aldrin reacted in a less than Socratic method over the controversy and busted Sibrel right in the kisser. Other Apollo astronauts have characterized Sibrel as a “stalker.”

A new round of Moon landing "hoax" claims have resurfaced in the last few weeks with the announcement by NASA that the original videotapes of downloaded and encoded video transmissions of the Moon walk were recorded over on subsequent missions to save money (!).

The first time men from Earth stepped onto a new world had a profound effect on Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and both men grappled long and hard with their public and private reactions to an event that the whole world was watching. There are two little known items about Aldrin, in particular. Professional atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair had sued NASA for violating church/state separation by allowing government-employed astronauts to read from the Book of Genesis during Apollo 8’s Moon orbiting mission in 1968. So, on his own, Aldrin (a Presbyterian) privately gave himself Communion when Apollo 11’s Eagle landed. Aldrin is also a Freemason, and he carried a special document proclaiming the Moon as being under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Texas of Free and Accepted Masons. Which means the Masons control not just the world, but the Moon!

Adapted from Conspiracy Theories & Secret Societies For Dummies

Was Michael Jackson Done In By The Freemasons?!

Well, I never saw this one coming.

It seems that Jackson's live-in doctor, Dr. Conrad Murray (left), who is at the center of the controversy over drug injections, is alleged to be a Freemason.

According to a Fox News report:

The money was one of the main reasons Murray decided to go on tour with Jackson, says Rev. Floyd Williams, 80, who is Murray's friend and patient. Murray had developed a booming concierge business — he was jetting off to see patients in New York and Washington while building his practice in Las Vegas. Three years ago, Murray joined the Freemasonry (sic), the international fraternal society that dates back to the early 17th century. His friends say this new network galvanized his growing side business.

Note what appears to be a Masonic officer's collar resting on Murray's shoulders. There's no knowledge at this time whether he is a member of a mainstream lodge, a Prince Hall lodge, or one of the literally hundreds of irregular, unrecognized "grand lodges" that are scattered around the country. (The Prince Hall research group, the Phylaxis Society's Commission on 'bogus' Freemasonry lists at least 8 irregular, unrecognized "grand lodges" with Las Vegas addresses). No one knows yet, but I'm certain the world's news organizations are hot on the trail of this.

Welcome to everybody who has Googled "Freemasons killed Michael Jackson!" in search of the Masonic conspiracy. And members of the press, please, buy our books. If everybody else is going to cash in on Jackson's death, we might as well get some of the swag too.

(Photo from the Fox website)

NASA Moon Landing Video Rediscovered In Australia

For years, the original videotapes of the first landing on the Moon on July 20th, 1969 have been lost. NASA's only official, surviving recording of the event was a grainy, 16mm telecine film off of a TV monitor. But the elusive 2" videotapes downloaded at the Australian radar station at Parkes Observatory have at last been rediscovered, misfiled and mislaid.

According to the Daily Express:

The television images the world has been used to seeing of the historic moment when Neil Armstrong descended down a ladder onto the moon’s surface in 1969 is grainy, blurry and dark.

The following scenes, in which the astronauts move around the lunar lander, are so murky it is difficult to make out exactly what is going on, causing conspiracy theorists to claim the entire Apollo 11 mission was an elaborate fraud.

However, viewers have only ever seen such poor quality footage because the original analogue tapes containing the pictures beamed direct from the lunar surface were lost almost as soon as they were recorded.

Instead, a poor quality copy made from a 16mm camera pointing at a heavily compressed image on a black and white TV screen has been the only record of the event.

The Sunday Express can now reveal that the missing tapes containing the original high quality images have been found.

If the visual data can be retrieved, Nasa is set to reveal them to the world as a key plank of celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the landings next month.

The tapes show in much more detail than almost anyone has previously seen the surface of the moon beneath the patriotic symbol of the US flag.

Crucially, they could once and for all dispel 40 years of wild conspiracy theories.

India To Put Population Into Database

The Mail Online reports today that India will place all 1.1 billion of their citizens in a national identification database. This will be the second largest such personal database in the world, after China.

According to the article:

The government believes the scheme, which will be finalised over three years, will aid the delivery of vital social services to the poorest people who often lack sufficient identification papers.

It also sees the scheme as a way to tackle increasing amounts of identity fraud and theft and, at a time of increased concern over the threat of militant violence, to boost national security and help police and law officials.

Like Britain's £5billion ID cards plan, due to roll out in 2011/12, India's scheme is not without controversy.

Observers have raised questions including how the cards will actually improve the delivery of services and also concerns that the scheme could be disruptive.

In an interview in The Independent today associate fellow of the Asia programme at Chatham House, Charu Lata Hogg, said: 'It cannot be denied that the system of proving identity in India is complicated and confusing.

'But a system of national ID cards can technically introduce a new route to citizenship.

'This could be used as a security measure by the government which leaves migrant workers, refugees and other stateless people in India in limbo without access to public services, employment and basic welfare.'

Scientology Skewered By St. Petersburg Times

Scientology leader David Miscavige

On Sunday, the St. Petersburg Times began a three-part series detailing old and new allegations against the Church of Scientology, focussing on David Miscavige, the creepy heir to Scientology's founder, science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. What makes the article explosive is that several of Scientology's top officers have walked away and gone public with their stories. Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder, the highest-ranking executives to leave the cult, are speaking out for the first time. Also speaking to the paper are Tom De Vocht who oversaw the church's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater for many years, and Amy Scobee, who helped create Scientology's celebrity network that specializes in setting up promotions involving the cult's high-visibility stars like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley and Kirstie Alley.

The article by Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin at long last fills in the gaps concerning some of the most notorious allegations made against Scirntology, because Rathbun and Rinder were at the top of the management chain of Sea Org, the inner circle that runs the massive international operation. They allege Miscavige's violent attacks against Scientology members and managers, and reveal the strategy used by Scientology to muscle the IRS into reinstating its tax exempt status after cult members, including Hubberd's wife, were convicted of breaking into IRS offices and stealing government documents.

None of their information is especially new. What is new is who is making the statements and allegations.

The article is massive. And there's more to come.

Scientology was created in the 1950s by California science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, as the “religious” extension of his self-help method Dianetics. The OT III level (“Operating Thetan”) is part of the Church of Scientology’s “Advanced Technology” teachings. For the first time in the many levels of costly church teachings, once members reach OT III, it is revealed that the universe is 4,000,000,000,000,000 years old (that’s four quadrillion). Astronomers believe it’s a little younger – between 10 and 20 billion, but who’s to say for sure? In the final analysis, the red meat of the advanced spirituality of OTIII is really a space opera.

L. Ron Hubbard said in 1967 that humans have an alien implant in their brains called the R-6 Implant, and that it was “calculated to kill” anyone who attempted to tinker with it. We’ll risk it. OTIII goes on to reveal that humans are inhabited by spiritual life forms known as Thetans, who were brought to Earth by Xenu, ruler of a Galactic Confederacy of 26 star systems. Xenu paralyzed billions of these beings and flew them to Earth (known in this saga by its earlier name, Teegeeack) aboard DC-8 aircraft powered by rocket engines, about 70,000,000 years ago.

Xenu, so the story goes, stacked these beings around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls were scattered around Teegeeack, er, Earth, and were absorbed into the bodies of living people. These “Body Thetans” continue to inhabit humans today, and cause illnesses, as well as mental and emotional instability. The higher levels of Scientology attempt to teach members how to eliminate the effects of the Thetans, or even drive these Thetans out of their bodies. (These descriptions come from former Church members and leaked documents – Scientology spokesmen say these accounts are taken out of context and are meant to ridicule the Church.) Because of the psychological basis of Scientology’s methods, the religion is adamant about its followers refusing psychiatric care from the mainstream medical community.

Depending on which source you read, it costs as low as $30,000 or as high as $360,000 to enter into the higher levels of the religion, and members are forbidden to discuss their progress or the materials they have studied, even with each other. Presumably, only after you’ve lost enough free will, common sense and cash are you ready for the awesome truth about Xenu and the Thetans. The Church regards its scriptures as copyrighted “trade secrets,” threatening prosecution and prison for anyone who dares to publish them – the only religion we’ve ever heard of to do so. If only Jesus had possessed the foresight to copyright the New Testament! The right attorneys could have sued the Protestants back to the Stone Age and avoided all of those Counter-Reformation headaches.

Okay, so what makes all of this a conspiracy? For 25 years, the Internal Revenue Service regarded Scientology’s various operations as a commercial enterprise, and not a church worthy of tax exempt status. So, in the 1970’s Scientology went on the attack against 136 government agencies, foreign embassies, and organizations critical of the church, in what they called Operation Snow White. Using as many as 5,000 church members as agents worldwide, Scientologists went on the warpath, especially against the IRS in order to destroy reports and records critical of the church, and to pressure the Feds into granting the church tax exempt status as a bone fide religion. Scientologists infiltrated the IRS and other agencies, and engaged in theft of government documents, wiretapping and conspiring to create smear campaigns against government employees. While Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard avoided prosecution as an “un-indicted co-conspirator,” his wife Mary Sue didn’t, and did hard jail time for following his orders. Eleven church officials were convicted in U.S. Federal court in 1979, and seven more in Canada in 1996.

So did it work? Well, in 1993 the IRS changed its mind and granted tax-exempt status to the Church of Scientology and its various connected entities, along with castigating foreign countries that didn’t follow suit.

You tell us.
===================================

UPDATE

The rest of the paper's special report can be found here:

http://tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project/#story_anchor

Inside the Mind of the Holocaust Museum Shooter

When conspiracists take their delusions to the ultimate level and act upon their fantasies, the objects of their obsessions often walk unknowingly right into their crosshairs. Such is the case of today's Holocaust Museum incident in Washington DC and the sick mind of 88-year old James W. von Brunn, who pulled his car up to the door of the museum, walked in with a rifle, and proceeded to start shooting. Dead is security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns. More would have been killed without the quick action of two other guards who shot von Brunn in the head.

Amazingly, the same madman walked into the Federal Reserve with a shotgun in 1983, determined to "arrest" the Jews who he was convinced control world banking. That incident landed him in federal prison for 6 1/2 years.

Von Brunn is a good, old-fashined race hater and Holocaust denier. The judge who sentenced him? A Jew. The jury who found him guilty? Jews and Negroes. In the mind of a messianic whack job who's convinced of his own conspiracy theories, no jury should have convicted him, because he was saving the white race.

While it's still online, take a peek into the mind of someone who sees conspiracies everywhere. His website is here, at holywesternempire.org It advertises his book, "Kill The Best Gentiles," descripbed as

A new, hard-hitting exposé of the JEW CONSPIRACY to destroy the White gene-pool by James W. von Brunn.

Here are 350pp of FACTS condensing libraries of information about the Talmud, Democracy, Marx, Genetics, Money, Aryans, Negroes, Khazars, The Holy Bible, Treason, Mass-media, Mendelism, Race, the “Holocaust” and a host of suppressed “bigoted” subjects, all supported by quotations from many of history’s greatest personages. Learn who is responsible for the millions of Aryan crosses covering the world’s battlefields. Why our sons and daughters died bravely but in vain. Learn why the “browning of America will alter everything in society from politics and education to industry, values and culture.” (TIME 4-9-90).

Learn who has committed treason - and must be brought to justice! This carefully documented treatise exposes the JEWS and explains what you must do to protect your White family...

In his bio, he describes himself: "During WWII he served as PT-Boat captain, Lt. USNR, receiving a Commendation and four battle stars. For twenty years he was an advertising executive and film-producer in New York City. He is a member of Mensa, the high-IQ society."

Proving that even a genius can be a certifiable madman.

Pat Robertson's Own Secret Society

Evangelical icon and media mogul Marion Gordon “Pat” Robertson has made millions of dollars over the years with his Christian Broadcasting Network, his many books, and even his own weight loss plan. His program, the 700 Club, presents a strong conservative Christian message twice a day to millions of fans around the world. Robertson was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister in the 1960s, but voluntarily dropped his credentials in 1987 when he ran, unsuccessfully, for the Republican Party presidential nomination. He is the founder of the Christian Coalition and his views heavily concentrate on eschatology. Robertson is especially interested in the important role he believes will be played by the Jews in Israel during the End of Days, and is a strong supporter of Israeli military policy. This is in sharp contrast to the majority of conspiracists who believe the Jews are a force for evil in the world.

What makes all of this interesting is that Robertson wrote a book in 1991 called The New World Order. In it, he dragged out the usual parade of Masonic/Illuminati/Jewish world government accusations, and “borrowed” extensively from discredited sources like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was a curious set of accusations to make against a people he seems to regard as integral to the Christian Apocalypse. But what was more perplexing were his attacks against Freemasons, particularly since his own father, Senator Absalom Willis Robertson, was a Virginia Freemason. He was raised in Buena Vista Lodge No. 186, joined Rockbridge Royal Arch Chapter No. 44, and served as a District Deputy Grand Master (according to a letter the Senator personally wrote to the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction in 1941).

None of these pesky details kept The New World Order from being the #1 best selling religious book of 1991. Somewhat unbelievably, the Zionist Organization of America awarded him in 2002 as an unwavering friend of Israel.

Clearly they hadn’t read his book.

Robertson doesn’t have any quandaries about being a member of a secret society himself – the secretive Council for National Policy (CNP) is an invitation-only, closed door group that meets three times a year at undisclosed locations to discuss ways to influence U.S. government policy. In 2003, CNP executive director Steve Baldwin boasted to ABC News that "we control everything in the world."

Patterned after the more infamous Council on Foreign Relations and founded in 1981 by Left Behind author Tim Lahaye, its membership list is not available to the public. Providing the original funding for the group were Nelson Baker Hunt (billionaire son of billionaire oilman and John Birch Society promoter H.L. Hunt), businessman and one-time murder suspect T. Cullen Davis, and millionaire William Cies, all from Texas.

“The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting,” reads one of the cardinal rules of the CNP, according to a long article on the website of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (not that I don't think THOSE guys go too far either).

On the one hand, liberals in the media seem to be shrieking "Yipe! A Christian!" over this group. On the other hand, guests may attend meetings only with the unanimous approval of the organization’s executive committee. Members are told not to refer to the group by name in e-mail messages. Anyone who breaks the rules can be expelled. Guest speakers almost never release the text of their speeches at CNP meetings. In fact, virtually everyone questioned in the aforementioned ABC piece refused to comment on the group, or even acknowledge its existence.

So what is Pat Robertson trying to hide?

Belizean Grove

Secret societies aren't just the realm of old boys anymore. An article on Politico today reveals that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a member of Belizean Grove, an elite and little-known women’s group.

From the article:

Founded nearly 10 years ago as the female answer to the Bohemian Grove — a secretive all-male club whose members have included former U.S. presidents and top business leaders — the Belizean Grove has about 125 members, including Army generals, Wall Street executives and former ambassadors.

Sotomayor’s membership in the New York-based group became public Thursday afternoon in a questionnaire submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Since then, the group has been deluged with press calls, said its founder, Susan Stautberg, who explained that “we like to be under the radar screen.”

The group — which on its website describes itself as “a constellation of influential women who are key decision makers in the profit, nonprofit and social sectors; who build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships in order to both take charge of their own destinies and help others to do the same” — hosts periodic meetings around New York, as well as an annual off-the-record three-day retreat in Central or South America at which its members attend cocktail parties with U.S. diplomats and host-country officials and participate in panel discussions on public policy and business affairs.

One wonders how closely the Belizeans ape their male counterparts—burning of a symbolic effigy of the outside world and its cares, non-stop drinking, public urination, drag shows, planning world domination...

Time will tell if this group is little more than a post-graduate college prank, a Gen-Y version of the Red Hat Society, or a good excuse for a warm weather winter junket to the Caribbean. Or if it really does become a ladies' version of the Bohemian Grove.

So Much For that Multi-Million $$ Secret Bunker

Joe Biden's big fat mouth, as seen from space.
Joe Biden mouthed off at the annual Gridiron Club Dinner yesterday, while surrounded by reporters, and disclosed the location of the top secret Vice-Presidential bunker used by Dick Cheney. He thus rendered its expensive and secret construction, designed to save his own life during an attack on Washington, the next best thing to worthless. Now everybody knows it's under the Naval Observatory in northern Washington DC, where the Vice President's residence is located.

According to Fox News, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift couldn't resist flapping her gums when she heard the story:

Biden "said a young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment."

Clift continued: "The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn't be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall."

In December 2002, neighbors complained of loud construction work being done at the Naval Observatory, which has been used as a residence by vice presidents since 1974.

The upset neighbors were sent a letter by the observatory's superintendent, calling the work "sensitive in nature" and "classified" and that it was urgent it be completed "on a highly accelerated schedule."

Not that this is a huge surprise, as anyone who tried to look at satellite photos of the Naval Observatory on Google between 2002 and 2006 knows it appeared as little more than a photographic smudge until the worksite got relandscaped. But it would have been nice to know that Biden had learned to shut his cake hole on national security issues. Secrecy over secure government installations isn't just a game. He needs to be reminded that loose lips can be blown clean off by a truck bomb parked at the driveway checkpoint these days. And with the North Koreans and Iranians working on their own ICBMs in their respective basements, the Russians aren't the only ones that can make use of his yukking it up with cheap cracks about the previous administration that wind up telling the world where to target their bunker busters.

Now that the cat's out of the bag, I guess it will become a worthless tourist stop, much like the now un-secret Congressional bunker at The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.