Frank McNally | Mar 17

Irish Times - Not only did he introduce Christianity to Ireland in AD 432. If a new study is correct, St Patrick also pioneered another tradition, by becoming the first British celebrity to move here as a tax exile.

Where he differed from writers and rock stars, the Cambridge University research suggests, is that it wasn’t payment of tax he needed to avoid – not primarily. His problem, as a Roman patrician, was being expected to serve as a tax collector, or “decurion”. The role had been prestigious. But by the fifth century, with Roman Britain in decline, it was a thing to be avoided. According to Dr Roy Flechner, of Cambridge’s department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, Patrick’s father only escaped it by becoming a clergyman, exploiting a “bailout” clause of Roman law.

Unfortunately for the future saint, the position was hereditary. And in Patrick’s “troubled era”, writes Flechner, “discharging the obligations of a decurion, especially tax collecting, would not only have been difficult but also very risky”.

But you don't have to believe it...

Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen | Washington DC

MSNBC - Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has seen two classified FBI documents that he says are at odds with the bureau’s public statements that there was no connection between the hijackers and Saudis then living in Sarasota, Fla.

“There are significant inconsistencies between the public statements of the FBI in September and what I read in the classified documents,” Graham said.

Wikileaks has released the emails Anonymous hacked from Stratfor. It will be interesting to see if there is support for the claims on the Wikileaks site. Right now, there's a lot of activity on #gifiles, not a lot of information.

It will take some time to sift through all the information, and I probably won't be doing much of it. I encountered and rejected Stratfor long before the period of the emails. It was clear that they were flying blind on a lot of subjects, and I already see criticism that, unlike responsible journalists, they were willing to base an analysis on single sources. That would account for some of the stuff that convinced me they weren't worth my time.

In a new documentary, former national-security aide Richard Clarke suggests the CIA tried to recruit 9/11 hijackers—then covered it up. Philip Shenon on George Tenet’s denial.

The Daily Beast, by Philip Shenon, August 11

With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks only a month away, former CIA Director George Tenet and two former top aides are fighting back hard against allegations that they engaged in a massive cover-up in 2000 and 2001 to hide intelligence from the White House and the FBI that might have prevented the attacks.

The source of the explosive, unproved allegations is a man who once considered Tenet a close friend: former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who makes the charges against Tenet and the CIA in an interview for a radio documentary timed to the 10th anniversary next month. Portions of the Clarke interview were made available to The Daily Beast by the producers of the documentary.

Philadelphia, PA -- Superman has started a stir with a bold declaration he intends to renounce his U.S. citizenship in a move aimed at giving him more global clout and authority.

The decision is made in a short story in "Action Comics" No. 900. It has caused consternation online among readers who liken the Man of Steel's declaration to go before the United Nations and "inform them I am renouncing my citizenship" to abandoning the ideals of truth, justice and the American way.

DC Comics said Thursday the Kryptonian superhero isn't abandoning his adopted country. It says he's putting a global focus on his never ending battle against evil and trying to keep a world that's not his safe.

Look, with all the shitty news that's out there today...from the economy to Egypt to the woes of the New York Mets ownership...I thought I'd give you and more important, me, a break and post something truly amusing.

Apparently, a Chinese foreign ministry (former) official is claiming that extraterrestrials now live among us.

Um, yea. You read that correctly.

And here is one of those ETs:

Some of the methodology of this study is dodgy, but there are some interesting subnotes that bear further inspection:

One of psychology’s most respected journals has agreed to publish a paper presenting what its author describes as strong evidence for extrasensory perception, the ability to sense future events.

The decision may delight believers in so-called paranormal events, but it is already mortifying scientists. Advance copies of the paper, to be published this year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, have circulated widely among psychological researchers in recent weeks and have generated a mixture of amusement and scorn.

Al Capone committed all sorts of nefarious and dastardly crimes during his reign in Chicago. He was nailed on tax evasion.

Any number of criminals have been arrested and jailed on minor charges from littering to jaywalking, nuisance infractions that are enforced only in the most extreme circumstances, or when they really need to hold someone, but have no real charges to post.

This, however, smacks of illegality:

PARIS — Interpol has placed Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing organization, on a so-called red notice wanted list following allegations of sexual misbehavior by a Swedish prosecutor, according to the police organization’s Web site on Wednesday.

The Register, WSJ - The global airship race plan has been dubbed the World Sky Race, and is intended to be run as seventeen back-to-back legs that would see the competing ships set off from the zero meridian in London before progressing round the world in an easterly direction.

WSJ

The Register thinks that this might not be organized. I think that contemporary airships have not been built for racing. Why would they parti

The Telegraph - "Members" willing to participate in the cannibal "Wari-culture" of the restaurant are asked to fill out a form. It includes questions about medical fitness, Body Mass Index, how often one exercises and even if the donor is pregnant.

Any good veggie receipts?

Schiotz said Saturday the court ruled Ms. Åsne Seierstad had used inaccurate information in her accounts of Rais and didn't act in good faith.

So, she wrote best selling bullshit on an Afghan family. Now the other members of the Afghan family can sue her too.

Suez Canal | June 20

PressTV - An armada of more than twelve US and Israeli warships has passed through the Suez Canal toward the Red Sea and is reportedly heading to the Persian Gulf.

Egypt allowed the vessels to pass through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea Friday, UPI reported on Saturday.

Jake Bernstein | New York | June 2

ProPublica - When Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty to running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, he insisted he was the lone perpetrator, asserting that no one – not his family, not his colleagues, not his friends – knew of the fraud.

But an alternate narrative is emerging from the pile of Madoff-related civil suits and court motions that have been filed in the last two years – one in which a small circle of men played knowing, integral roles in the scheme, in some cases benefiting more from it than even Madoff himself.

Actually it was not difficult to miss, because the market hadn't time to drop to a major buy level. That was not your fault, but if you didn't understand to expect the next phase, rising market, that was your fault.

I review here what was disinformed in the media and blogs about the recent market drop. Next time you will be wiser if you ever learn anything.

First news: ECB told that no way they are not going to buy any Greek debt.

MSM mostly ignored this very important piece of information, which made market pros to sell in the stock and currency markets. And if it was not in MSM, it was not in blogs either.

The Public Record, By David DeGraw, April 8

The recent federal court ruling in favor of censorship on the part of internet companies representing the interests of the Business Roundtable — Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner — is a serious threat to the dissemination of critical information vital to the functioning of our democracy. The consolidation of media companies that has occurred in traditional media outlets, such as newspapers, radio and television, has led to the strategic dumbing down of the U.S. population.

Under tight control by the most powerful corporations on the planet, U.S. mainstream media has become an omnipresent propaganda system designed to divide, distract, confuse and create apathy among the U.S. populace. In the process, mainstream corporate controlled media has obscured, isolated and suppressed dissent and understanding of our present ruling class.

NIRAJ WARIKOO | March 31

Detroit Free Press - For Hutaree, Web rumor stoked anger at Obama

A member of the Hutaree militia charged with federal crimes was upset because she thought that President Barack Obama had signed into law this month a bill that would spend $20 billion to help the terrorist group Hamas settle in the U.S.

There was never any such legislation, but Tina Stone believed it was the truth, according to her Facebook account.

"H.B. 1388 Passed.... It's bad news for us all," Tina Kelley, her maiden name, said on her Facebook page on March 19.

She then said in an update:

"I'm peeved,,, when people in this country is getting kicked out of there homes everyday and our government passes a bill to spend more then 20 billion dollars to bring Hamas here and supplies them with food and homes that just wrong."

Gery Bergeron | Chicago | March 28

BuzzFlash.Com -
As a survivor of clergy abuse from the Boston area, it is of no surprise to me that the issue of clergy abuse has resurfaced on the front pages of newspapers across the globe, reaching the leader of the Catholic Church and rearing its ugly head.

It was almost 8 years ago at the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, that I found myself asking one simple question, “What’s next?”

One year ago, after Pope Benedict met with a few survivors here in the United States, I again found myself asking the same question, “What’s next?”

The truth and the facts which caused the resignation of Cardinal Law 8 years ago, are the same truths and facts of today. The documents released a decade ago, are the same documents that the general public are amazed to read today. The only thing different is the time that has past and the names of some of the church leaders.

Maxim, By Simon Worall, February 10

Shortly before six o’clock on the evening of December 19, 2008, a man standing outside his home in Lake Township, Ohio heard the whine of an engine in the sky above him.

Moments later two red lights broke through the low clouds, heading almost directly toward the ground. It was a light aircraft, and for a second, as it descended below the tree line, the man thought it would climb back up. Instead, there was a terrible thud, and the sky turned orange. When the fire crews arrived, they found the burning wreckage of a Piper Saratoga strewn across a vacant lot. The plane had narrowly missed a house, but the explosion was so intense that the home’s plastic siding was on fire. So was the grass. The pilot had been thrown from the plane and died instantly. Body parts and pieces of twisted metal were scattered everywhere. A prayer book lay open on the ground, its pages on fire.

The crash would have remained a private tragedy confined to the pages of the local press and the hearts of the pilot’s widow and four children, but within days the blogosphere was abuzz with rumors and conspiracy theories: The plane, it was said, had been sabotaged and the pilot murdered to cover up the GOP’s alleged theft of the Ohio vote in the 2004 presidential election. At the center of this plot was the Saratoga’s pilot, a prodigiously gifted IT expert named Michael Connell, whose altar boy charm and technical brilliance had made him the computer whiz of choice for the Republican Party. Left-wing Web sites openly referred to Connell as “Bush’s vote rigger” and claimed that his fingerprints were on all the most controversial elections in recent history. There were dark whispers of electronic pulses or sniper fire being used to bring down the plane—a black ops attack designed to keep him from testifying against his former cronies. Right-wing bloggers and talk show hosts derided such claims as the twisted delusions of liberal nut jobs and tinfoil hatters. The mainstream press sat on its hands.

Sarah Boseley | January 6

Guardian Online - Thousands of elderly people are being forced to have tubes fitted so they can be artificially fed if they want to be admitted to a care home, a major report warns today.

There is no evidence that tube feeding prolongs life, and it deprives patients of the pleasure and social contact involved in normal eating and drinking, says a Royal College of Physicians working group which recommends that artificial nutrition should only be used as a last resort.

The report found that many care homes across the country are making it a condition of residence that people, often in the advanced stages of dementia, have a tube fitted into their abdomen.

Mohammed Al Shafey | London | November 23

Asharq Al-Awsat -

Iman Bin Laden, the daughter of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, has sought refuge in the Saudi Embassy in Iran after succeeding in escaping Iranian guards watching over her. Iman disclosed in a telephone call to her brother Abdullah who lives in Syria that she and five of her brothers and sisters have been detained by the Iranian authorities since the US invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 2001.

The 29 year old Omar Bin Laden told Asharq Al-Awsat that his sister Iman, five of his brothers and sisters, and his stepmother (Umm-Hamzah) are currently held by the Iranian authorities and appealed to the government in Tehran to release them. Omar, who lives in Qatar, said in a telephone call and an email received by Asharq Al-Awsat" that the Bin Laden family of his first wife Najwa, a Syrian living in Damascus, did not know that her daughter Iman and her other brothers and sisters had been alive all these past years until she contacted her family one month ago. Originally posted 12/26

Update: "Bin Laden daughter should be free to quit Iran: Saudi Arabia"

As an Agonist contributor I have had an opportunity to add many of the different tags available under the Topics column. I noticed one recently that I've never used: Unproven Stories. What's an Unproven Story?

Sasquatch came to mind. This is the tall, hairy human-like creature that is said to roam the woods of the Northwest United States. Sasquatch is the American yeti, probably invented when someone wondered why the Himalayas should have a monopoly on abominable snowmen.

Sasquatch used to be quite popular up to ten years ago, and you could always count on a one hour special on the History Channel or maybe Animal Planet, asking the rhetorical question: Is Sasquatch Real? Well, of course he was real, since they always showed this fifteen second footage of Sasquatch walking rather agilely through the Northwest forest. Then one day we learned that this footage was fake: the man who created it left a confession in his last will and testament.

Srinivas Laxman | Mumbai | September 23

Times of India - Did India’s maiden Moon mission Chandrayaan-1 find water on the lunar surface before the project was aborted? There were indications on Tuesday that it had. An announcement about a ‘‘major discovery’’ made by Chandrayaan-I is expected on Thursday, and the buzz is that this could be about water on the Moon.

If true, credit for this much-awaited discovery, however, could go to Nasa’s Moon Minerology Mapper (M3), one of the payloads on board Chandrayaan. The Rs 386-crore craft was launched on October 22 last year and terminated on August 30 following a communication failure. One of the mission’s main goals was to sniff for water.

For now, neither Isro nor Nasa is speaking about the discovery.

An announcement is expected at a media interaction scheduled for Thursday at the Nasa headquarters in Washington DC.
 

Indian critics have compared this to trying to make lemonade out of a lemon (Chandrayaan was an embarrassing failure for India)

Peter Wallsten | Washington | September 14

LAT - Amid a rebirth of conservative activism that could help Republicans win elections next year, some party insiders now fear that extreme rhetoric and conspiracy theories coming from the angry reaches of the conservative base are undermining the GOP's broader credibility and casting it as the party of the paranoid.

Such insiders point to theories running rampant on the Internet, such as the idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is thus ineligible to be president, or that he is a communist, or that his allies want to set up Nazi-like detention camps for political opponents. Those theories, the insiders say, have stoked the GOP base and have created a "purist" climate in which a figure such as Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) is lionized for his "You lie!" outburst last week when Obama addressed Congress.

Rich Bowden | July 28

The Tech Herald - The Russian navy is the latest to join the bandwagon of world official agencies anxious to declassify its encounters with Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

According to Svobodnaya Pressa news website, records of unexplained encounters by submarines and ships of the Russian navy have been revealed to the public for the very first time.

** France opens secret UFO files covering 50 years
** Is there anybody out there? How the men from the ministry hid the hunt for UFOs
** MoD: Files released on UFO sightings