The University of Oklahoma is in Norman, where I reside. In the fall of 2001, I was talking to an OU library employee who told me that she was present when an FBI agent was interviewing her colleague. The agent was interested in the fact that the OU library computer terminal had been used for an online purchase of an airline ticket for a 9/11 hijacker who was on the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania.

She also told me that he had not been a hijacker.
He was a white American male...

The US Air Force's Global Hawk became the first pilotless aeroplane to be given permission to fly routinely in civilian airspace on Thursday.

The US Federal Aviation Administration issued the USAF and Northrop Grumman, who make the jet plane, a certificate of authorisation (COA) allowing the RQ-4 Global Hawk to enter national airspace with almost as much ease as a piloted plane.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, during a news conference, said Hambali, also known as Riduan Isamuddin, was now being held in a secret location and is undergoing an interrogation process by alliance countries.

EP: “Hambali is well known for his involvement and position in Jemaah Islamiyah. He is somebody who has participated in the formation in the group, been instrumental in sending fighters from the region to Afghanistan. Has provided logistical support within the region both to Al Qaeda people and on the other hand has launched operations on behalf of Jemaah Islamiyah."........

EP: "So from this perspective, he is somebody with a lot of connections both within the region and outside of the region. He has been instrumental in implementing an operationalising a lot of attacks. We know about the Bali bombing attack. We also know about his involvement in the Plan Bojinka which was the prototype for September 11. He also provided logistical support and acted as a host for two of the September 11 hijackers in Malaysia in January 2000. So he is somebody who both has operational knowledge. He has strategic capability, he can plan attacks. And he also has the connection and the resources to do so”....

"Hambali, a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war, is al-Qaeda’s pointman who has plotted the most ambitious terrorist attack on the US and its allies.
These included last year’s Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York and the Pentagon and the foiled plot codenamed Bojinka.
Hambali met Yousef and Khan in Afghanistan where they fought with the mujahedeen to drive out Soviet occupation troops and the Soviet-installed communist government."

[NOTE: This report coming on 8/19/03 from REPost, an investigative journalist with extensive travels and background in Thai and Burmese/Myannmar politics and military configurations, and is exclusive to SiaNews.com.]

I'll continue to report on Burma and Suu Kyi from time to time as you wish, but right now the girl is going nowhere in a slammer on the outskirts of Rangoon. Her unarrested minions contemplate Club Med. As you probably know, a Thai multi-starred General recently said (then denied he said) that a Burmese multi-starred General said she was getting her walking papers on August 22-24. Contrarily, some ASICJ convener from Oz [Australia] claims that Than Shwe wants to prosecute Suu Kyi for treason; the street is absolutely rife with rumorous little brown people. But, this is an entirely logical response for a man in Than Shwe's position.

If Suu Kyi gets out again, his ass is toast (now that she's signed with a Hollywood agent.) Regretably for this mild-mannered Burmese family man, except for an occasionable rubber hose, he can't touch a hair on her photogenic head. There is little other news.

Well, except for Red troops swiftly packing into their southern borderland for a little mahjong. But, if you want to see some real action in Burma: wait till they >>>pull the plug on Unocal.<<<

Than Shwe is going to go for broke. He wants the friggin XXX. You gotta hand it to the guy, he does have style. Then again he always wanted to be an actor.

. . . ABCNEWS.com has obtained a draft of the Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act of 2003, or VICTORY Act, which could be introduced to Congress this fall, and which appears to have been prepared by the office of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The measure would give law enforcement increased subpoena powers and more leeway over wire-tap evidence and on classifying some drug offenses as terrorism.
[...]
Hatch spokeswoman Margarita Tapia declined to comment directly on the draft, which begins "Mr. Hatch … introduced the following bill," and is dated for the first session of the 108th Congress beginning next month. Tapia noted, "We are examining legislative options but we have not submitted anything for consideration."

Other members of the Senate judicial committee also declined to comment on the draft.

And a spokesman for the Justice Department, which came under fire from several members of Congress when drafts of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act — "Patriot II" — appeared earlier this year, said the agency was not involved in the Victory Act.

"It's not ours," a Justice Department official said. . .

A BARRISTER claims his application to become a judge has been turned down because he is not a freemason.

Roger Everest says he was told 30 years ago that he would never get on in the legal profession after turning down an invitation to join the Dinas Llandaff lodge of the Freemasons in Cardiff.
[...]
"I call on the Labour Government to appoint an eminent and impartial privy councillor to investigate the many miscarriages of justice in South Wales . . . to publish a register naming judges who have ever been masons. Judges should be appointed on their merit as lawyers, independent of their standing among masons."
[...]
United Grand Lodge said, "The Home Office did not pursue the idea of registers because of the incorporation of human rights legislation into UK law. Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights forbids discrimination against minorities." . . .

The brother of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana said he was deliberately murdered for discovering mass graves of U.S. troops killed in Iraqi resistance attacks.

"The U.S. troops killed my brother in cold blood," Nazmi Dana told IslamOnline.net in exclusive statements.

"The U.S. occupation troops shot dead my brother on purpose, although he was wearing his press badge, which was also emblazoned on the car he was driving," he said. . .

I now have a number of credible reports from people within the area of the blackout. These reports indicate that car radios went out just prior to, or as, the blackout started. Also, I have reports of people in three different states---Ohio, Michigan, and New Jersey---hearing sounds like thunder about the time the blackout began. One person in Ohio discovered two interesting things just after the outage descended: a digital clock in the house which had a fairly new battery suddenly displayed a series of non-numerical symbols instead of the time; and the fuse box was too hot to touch.

In light of these reports---and the failure of the mainstream press to take notice of them---we now have to inquire into the failure of many cell phones in the affected areas. This has casually been explained as a “jamming” caused by too many people making calls at once.

One witness in Toronto states that as she and many other people stood outside during the initial evening hours of the blackout, planes were heard flying overhead and the effects of chemical spraying were felt---stinging eyes, etc.

The fact that electronic devices not connected to the power grid went down or behaved strangely points to an event that took place outside the grid and affected it.
[...]
. . . the most compelling explanation for the blackout is a directed and intentional electromagnetic pulse originating from outside the power grid. There is no other way to describe such a pulse than as a weapon. . .

I'm listening live now to WLW 700 AM out of Cincinnati. A caller from Homeland Security (presumably in NYC) says that all computers were shut down 3 hours prior to the blackout. He said that he was afraid his voice would be recognized so he just made his comments to the call screener.

Public announcements are now being made that we will all have to pay much more for electricity to rebuild out "third-world" power infrastructure. (Spencer Abraham on a Sunday morning show.) There is nothing wrong with our power infrastructure. It doesn't need to be rebuilt or nationalized or regionalized. Local people with local control will resolve any and all problems.

This whole thing is a conspiracy. I say unplug the power in the White House, all executive buildings, Congress and the UN. Let the good Congressmen and bureaucrats sweat it out.

Just say NO to regional/national control and start emailing your members of Congress now.