http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=One-Eyed+Monster Thu, 23 May 2013 08:30:46 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=One-Eyed+Monster Fri, 01 May 2009 18:24:38 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=158_1241215920 smyle The survival of the human race is at stake! Move over Wes Craven! Coming soon, the greatest horror movie of alllllll time! LOL! An adult film crew go up into the hills to film in a remote cabin. While there, an alien energy enters Ron Jeremy's penis, disconnecting itself from the host, and goes on an orgy rampage trying to reproduce. It'll be up to adult film stars, camera men, and a fluffer to stop this huge 9 3/4 inch "monster" from screwing with the world... A unique homage such genre faves as JAWS, THE THING and ALIEN This film has a lock on becoming a horror film classic... or maybe destined to the discount bin at your local video store. LOL! http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=158_1241215920 smyle Horror Movie Trailer for <span class="highlight">ONE-EYED MONSTER</span> - starring Ron Jeremy's... ummm... his a.....errr... penis... LOL! One-Eyed Monster, Ron Jeremy, horror, monster penis Wed, 19 Oct 2011 08:25:02 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d3d_1319026745 agharazi Charles L. Napier (April 12, 1936 - October 5, 2011) was an American actor known for his portrayals of square-jawed tough guys and military style. Classic silver screen ruffian, Charles Napier, passed away on the fifth of this month. Best known for his roles in movies such as The Blues Brothers and Silence of the Lambs,Napier is famous for his world-class commanding presence on film. A bold chiseled jaw line and authoritative voice made him a perfect fit for antagonist roles across Hollywood.Charles Napier acted in One Eyed Monster in 2008. The video clip below shows Napier's monologue as Montz, detailing his past experience with the dick monster. We've spent many years cheering on lead characters in big movies as they fought against Charles Napier, and not a single bravado would have felt as vindicating without him. He will be missed. Cheers http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d3d_1319026745 agharazi Now It's Raining DICK ...Tribute to Charles Napier 1936-2011 Now It's Raining DICK, Charles Napier Tue, 25 Dec 2012 15:17:25 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f1_1356466076 kauan Is it a tempest in a glass of water, as would ask inspector Clouseau? I don't know, may be. French superstar Gerard Depardieu wants to give back his passport ; he is tired of paying so much taxes, up to 85% of his income, tired too of being insulted repeatedly in a country where public insulting has become a full-time job, involving now even the PM, his cabinet and a bunch of petty manipulators of opinion. If you study the case, you will find that the partisans of tax-raising are the worst warmongers too. Nobody is perfect, yet someone has the ability to be totally imperfect! Depardieu is facing a French &quot;new wave&quot; of insults and sarcasms. Since the government's official newspaper, Liberation, has insulted Bernard Arnault, the prestigious manager of LVMH and the richest man in Europe for having fled to Belgium (&quot;scram, you rich jerk!&quot;), nobody is spared by the French autocratic press, financed by public money and the unavoidable Rothschild heir, who enjoys wasting his money in crippled media. So the French star is being labelled a jerk, a lame-duck, a vile servant, even an asshole (in the front-page!) not to say worse... lately a French actor, a rather radical chic one, Philippe Torreton, used again the tribune of Liberation to insult our national Obelix! Yet our last national glory, Brigitte Bardot, has replied violently, as she is used to do: &quot;The unknown Torreton, may keep his thrash, his vulgarity and his jealousy, his rage too to insult those who deserve better than him.&quot; Dear BB: she is finally defending the Gauls, after having spent so much time in defending less valuable mammals! Since he has been elected, Francois Hollande has been perfect, having committed what we call a &quot;sans-faute&quot;; he is flawless, an almost perfect president, for being worse than Sarkozy , Chirac, Mitterrand, whoever has been here lately! He has increased the French war-effort in Syria; raised a lot of new taxes, discouraged private initiative, impoverished the poor and hunting down the rich with hounds of technocrats, clerks and reporters turned into insulting jokers. The number of unemployed is soaring every month, up to more than three millions, and no employer is willing to take risks in a country driven by a somewhat loony rhetoric of equality. The PM Ayrault had even the guts of asking -with a threatening tone- his victims to stay in their country in order to pay more taxes for the increasing number of poor, the always ill-treated immigrants and the victims of a system that has driven him to power! It is like if Hitler had asked Einstein to stay in Germany in order to help Heisenberg build the atomic bomb! Anyway the socialists are already losing all local elections, and the unpopularity of inexperienced and incompetent Hollande is at its high. The French socialist everlasting melodrama is then taking a new course, after the sex-scandal involving DSK; a dimension made of hatred, aggressiveness, bitterness and thrash. Despite ten million articles we don't even know if Hollande's current girl-friend is actually divorced or not! Yet we had no choice indeed: voting again for Sarkozy? Oh, my God... Better fleeing France -or Holland, or the now infamous Euroland - before it is too late... Gerard Depardieu is not alone in his fight against this &quot;green-eyed monster&quot; or bureaucratic machine. He has been helped by the fact that many rich people are leaving France; that many stars like Alain Delon (who even renounced his French nationality a few years ago) and sportsmen (rally ace Sebastian Loeb) already settled in Switzerland or in Belgium; that many showbiz people, including Brigitte Bardot, have advocated for more respect for the image of a man and actor who has incarnated with an inspiring power his decaying country so many times. Of course many little buzzards will still insult him and his supporters. In France, said once French genius Cocteau, equality means beheading the heads that dominate. France is not Russia; unlike Russia she has not digested her failed revolution turned into a petit-bourgeois everlasting republic made of complex of inferiority, rabid humour, jealousy and addiction to civil jobs (80 000 candidates for each concourse of postmen!). One may say that despite these evidences Depardieu is still too rich to be complained. But is the one thousand euros generation happier? A commentator has recently written that France is insupportable, that she is unbearable. He has added an interesting point: many poor Frenchmen are leaving France or want to leave her. Why? If France is such a socialist paradise, why do the poor run away from her? I'll tell why: because the French socialist ideal is made of strenuous mediocrity. Because it is uneasy to stand a lifetime on a dole of one thousand euros or less, especially in brave old Paris where you hardly rent eighteen squared meters for than sum! Young Frenchmen are voting with their feet too because it has become - thanks to Chirac and Sarkozy too - an &quot;insupportable&quot; country, an oasis of ugliness, a concentration camp of politically correct, a horror of cop-control and bureaucracy and a paradise of rising taxes, not to mention a pretension to glary cynicism and repentance! Here we don't either stand any mark of faith or religion, thanks to our lay bias and obsessive anticlericalism, not to mention patriotism, which explains French aggressiveness towards Russian one. There may be not such antipathetic country in the world, except maybe America, which at least spares her wealthy minions and keeps with Hollywood and the Fed printed dollars some of her fading charisma... In March 68 a famous commentator wrote in Le Monde - a newspaper that is the shadow of what it used to be- that France is bored. Not now: thanks to Depardieu we know yet that France is poor but not bored. Her sleep is merely bad. We shall see if she can awake. For the mediocre message of Hollande, &quot;raise the taxes and drop the flag&quot;, is rather frustrating. Source: http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/21-12-2012/123264-Gerard_Depardieu-0/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f1_1356466076 kauan Why Depardieu, the rich and the poor flee France and Hollande Europe EUSSR European Socialist Union France Francoise Hollande Socialism Communism Chirac Sarkozy Gerard Depardieu Brigitte Bardot Asterix Obelix French Belgian Belgium Switzerland Nationality Thu, 24 May 2012 12:13:25 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=36c_1337875906 wolfvisor I'm 100% for true spirituality and 0% for religion. Death to the half-blind, one-eyed, misshapen, pointy-headed monster. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=36c_1337875906 wolfvisor Hear my Prayer - Destroy the Illuminati lord's,prayer,our,father,amen,destroy,Illuminati,hear,spiritual,faith,behold,media,spud4x,wolfvisor Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:16:08 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ac7_1253682784 jumpingforJoy ZACKENBERG RESEARCH STATION, GREENLAND-Claiming it to be one of the most dramatic and visible signs of climate change to date, researchers said Monday that receding polar ice caps have revealed nearly 200 clandestine lairs once buried deep beneath hundreds of feet of Arctic ice. Enlarge Image Melting Ice Cap "We always assumed there would be some secret lairs here and there, but the sheer number now being exposed is indeed troubling," said noted climatologist Anders Lorenzen, who claimed that the Arctic ice caps have shrunk at the alarming rate of 41,000 square miles per year. "In August alone we discovered 44 mad scientist laboratories, three highly classified military compounds, and seven reanimated and very confused cavemen. That's more than twice the number we had found in the previous three decades combined." "This is no longer conjecture," Lorenzen added. "This is a full-blown crisis." According to oceanographers, the Arctic Circle has been devastated by the effects of global warming in recent years, threatening hundreds of men and women who use the frozen tundra as a place to conduct bizarre experiments in human-animal grafting, carry out massive government cover-ups, or simply as a hidden headquarters from which to battle the forces of evil and fight crime. "Last week a giant ice sheet broke off and split my prized underground complex nearly in half," said Dr. Raygun, a self-described psychotic mastermind best known for his diabolical thought-control experiments. "Now millions of dollars in state-of-the-art doomsday devices are gone-all because of the environmental carnage wrought by the human race." "You spend your whole career concocting a brilliant scheme to wipe out all of mankind, and what happens?" Dr. Raygun continued. "They bring about a major global catastrophe completely on their own, those fools!" Enlarge Image Scientist Evil Scientist Dr. Raygun has begun the expensive task of moving his entire mutant staff to their Titan moon base. Scientists predict the problem will only get worse as rising temperatures release methane trapped in Arctic permafrost, perpetuating the warming cycle and threatening the habitats of those who depend on the ice caps for safety from the prying, meddling public. Earlier this week a flying saucer surfaced and is reportedly still pulsating with increasingly intense, unearthly colors. And late last month, a mystical order of Nazi occultists emerged from an underground bunker where they had spent decades communing with the Hyperborean gods and attempting to breed a new Aryan super-species destined to destroy Homo sapiens and rule the earth for untold millennia. The 12 elderly Germans were detained by local law enforcement in Wainwright, AK. According to a Natural Resources Defense Council survey, 78 percent of sinister one-eyed industrialists based in the Arctic have been forced to relocate their powerful underworld shadow governments, with many now secretly orchestrating world affairs from dormant volcanoes on remote islands. Many villains have also been forced to change their entire way of life. Zawallah, the super-intelligent ape whose gold-teleporter crippled the global economy during the 1980s, recently ceased operation of his orbital heat cannon. Others, meanwhile, are genuinely concerned about the effect that increased temperatures may have on the future of humanity. "Gwaahhhhrrr-huaawwwrr-gwaahhhrrrr," cried test subject PR-433809-21, the ghastly result of a human cloning experiment gone horribly awry. "Pwwwuuuagharrgh!" But not all inhabitants of the polar ice caps are upset by global warming. Last month saw the thawing out of a team of British explorers frozen in 1848. Expedition members told reporters they were confident that, if more ice melts, they can finally complete their original mission of discovering a Northwest Passage. For the time being, most researchers have shifted their attention away from the ice caps and toward finding a way to contain the giant reptile monster Bizarricus, who was trapped in an ice floe by Japanese scientists in the 1950s and has now returned to teach the world a lesson about the folly of man. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ac7_1253682784 jumpingforJoy Melting Ice Caps Expose Hundreds Of Secret Arctic Lairs Melting Ice Caps Thu, 04 Oct 2012 03:33:03 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c1a_1349335717 DirtyUncleBerty Interesting read... In 1994, Damien Echols and two of his friends, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, were wrongfully convicted in what prosecutors called a satanic ritual murder of three 8-year-old boys. Echols, the leader of the group, was sentenced to death; Baldwin and Misskelley received life sentences. The trio became known as the West Memphis Three, and their cause was taken up by the likes of Johnny Depp and Eddie Vedder. In August 2011, they were released under a legally awkward plea deal. Echols wrote a book about his experience, Life After Death, which is available on Amazon and which we've excerpted here. * * * I have the shape of a dead man on the wall of my cell. It was left behind by the last occupant. He stood against the wall and traced around himself with a pencil, then shaded it in. It looks like a very faint shadow, and it's barely noticeable until you see it. It took me nearly a week to notice it for the first time, but once you see it you can't un-see it. I find myself lying on my bunk and looking at it several times a day. It just seems to draw the eyes like a magnet. God only knows what possessed him to do such a thing, but I can't bring myself to wash it off. Since they executed him, it's the only trace of him left. He's been in his grave almost five years now, yet his shadow still lingers. He was no one and nothing. All that remains of him is a handful of old rape charges and a man-shaped pencil sketch. Perhaps it's just superstition, but I can't help but feel that erasing it would be like erasing the fact that he ever existed. That may not be such a bad thing, all things considered, but I won't be the one to do it. At one point I entertained thoughts that perhaps the living inmates weren't the only ones trapped on Death Row. After all, if places really are haunted, then wouldn't Death Row be the perfect stomping ground? At some time or another it's crossed the mind of everyone here. Some make jokes about it, like whistling to yourself as you pass the cemetery. Others don't like to speak about it at all, and it can be a touchy subject. Who wants to think about the fact that you're sleeping on the mattress that three or four executed men also claimed as their resting place? Imagine looking into the mirror every day and wondering how many dead men had looked at their own reflections in it. When anything odd happens, some men blame whoever was executed last. Once for a period of several months at Tucker Maximum Security, I had the privilege of having an entire floor of the Death Row barracks to myself. Recent executions had opened up cells on the first two floors, so the guards thought it a good idea to move people from the third floor down to the first and second, to fill the empty slots. They were hoping to be able to get out of walking up to the third floor altogether. The problem was that they were one short, so I was the only one to be left up there with another 17 empty cells. There were a lot of benefits to the situation, so I didn't complain. For one thing, I had a television all to myself. No arguing about what to watch. I also had my own phone, and no longer had to wait for anyone else to get off it. There was no one above me to stomp on the floor and annoy me, and no one next to me. * * * I could sit in meditation for as long as I liked without fear of interruption. I was up high enough in the air that I could look out of my slit of a window and see a field of horses. I used to watch them playing for hours at a time. Even better than the horses was the field itself, especially when it snowed during the winter. Looking at that snowy field and a ring of leafless, grey trees made my heart ache like you can't believe. Nothing makes me wail with heartache and homesickness more than the winter. Sometimes the cold wind feels like it's blowing right through a hole in my chest. It hurts, folks. It hurts like hell and reminds me of how long I've been here. I did have a tiny cellmate for a short time - a little white-haired, blue-eyed kitten. I don't believe she was even old enough to be away from her mother yet, as you could cradle her in the palm of one hand. I've absolutely no idea where she originally came from or where she eventually went, but she was being passed around so the guards wouldn't find her. When it was time for her to be passed on she'd be placed in a stocking cap and sent down the line. The kitty didn't seem to want to do anything but sleep. The problem was that she was much like a fussy baby and wanted to be held as she slept. She would lie on your chest, curled into a small white ball, and sleep forever. The moment you put her down, the tiny blue eyes would pop open and she would begin to give voice to her outrage. Tiny but high-pitched meows could soon be heard from a considerable distance. It was amazing that such a minuscule creature could be heard from so far away. Perhaps it was the fact that the sound was so alien to the environment. No amount of talk would console her. "Shhh! Hush, you little monster, or they shall discover our plot." She paid no heed to my warnings. Her only other fault was that a steady diet of tuna and milk caused her to leave long, brown kitty puddles on the floor. She knew herself to be the queen of Death Row and had no doubt that it was my honour and privilege to clean up after her. Once my tour of duty came to an end she went on to her next residence and I never saw her again. * * * The kitten wasn't the only pet to ever be kept on Death Row. The most common are mice and rats, but I've also seen spiders, a couple snakes, and even a bird. The mice and rats were bred for the purpose of serving as pets. A guy would manage to catch two wild ones, and every time a litter was born he'd give the babies out to whoever wanted one. They grow up with you and won't bite or scratch. The snakes would wander into the yard and suddenly find themselves stuffed into someone's pants and smuggled indoors. The biggest rat I've ever seen in my life was raised by a guy here. It was as big as a Chihuahua, and he even fashioned a collar for it. It was as tame as any household pet and slept in the same bed as the guy who had trained it. His pet rat was not the only thing that made the prisoner seem out of the ordinary. He was nicknamed "Butterfly," even though calling him that made him angry enough to strangle someone. This name spread like wildfire, along with the rumour that had started it. It was said that this gentleman had a giant tattoo of a butterfly on his rear end - one wing tattooed on each cheek - and that by doing a certain dance he could make it appear as if the butterfly were flapping its wings. As revolting as the thought was, it was still fodder for a great deal of humour. The only one not laughing was Butterfly. The bird belonged to a prisoner I knew named Earl. Earl had gotten his pet bird from the yard. Every year when the weather begins to turn warm the birds build nests and lay eggs in the razor wire surrounding the yard. Inevitably, baby birds will tumble out. Earl smuggled one in and kept it in his cell. You would hear it every morning before sunrise, chirp-chirp-chirping like mad. This would be met with a volley of curses from the prisoners it had awakened. Earl was an interesting character. He was about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed about 160 pounds. His hair had turned prematurely grey. Earl never cracked a joke and spoke only if he had something important to say or a question to ask. He never raised his voice or argued with anyone. Earl was on Death Row but had never actually killed anyone. He had escaped from prison with another guy, and the other guy had shot and killed someone. Since Earl had been with him, they were both given the death penalty. I believe he was one of the few people here with enough intelligence to comprehend the full horror of his predicament. When they set an execution date for him he became violently ill and couldn't keep anything in his stomach until they killed him. For some reason Earl haunts me more than anyone else they've killed. Perhaps it's because I knew that, like me, he hadn't taken anyone's life. They led Earl out to the Death House with the guy who had actually done the shooting. They were both executed at the same time. As they took them out I was standing at my cell door to say good-bye. It was four o'clock in the morning. The other guy passed me first, and he was chewing a piece of gum as if he didn't have a care in the world. He nodded in my direction and uttered a nonchalant "Catch you later." I nodded back to him. When Earl came down next there were tears in his eyes. He struggled to keep his voice under control. "Damien," he said, and nodded once. "Earl," I said, and returned the nod. The guards later said he couldn't even finish his last meal, because he was continuously vomiting. Now, years later, I still feel something in my stomach turn over every time I think of him. He left me nearly everything he owned before he was executed - his books, a leather belt, all his drawing pens, and some origami paper. I couldn't keep them, because it bothered me too much. I gave everything away. Source: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/10/i-had-the-best-cell-on-death-row-life-in-the-shadow-of-execution/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c1a_1349335717 DirtyUncleBerty Best Cell On Death Row Best, Cell, On, Death, Row Sat, 29 Sep 2012 13:35:51 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e5c_1348939920 deathgod198255 Luis Alfredo GARAVITO CUBILLOS A.K.A.: "La Bestia" - "El Loco" - "Tribil'in" - "El Cura" - " Bonifacio Morera Lizcano" Classification: Serial killer Characteristics: Rape - Torture - Mutilation Number of victims: 138 - 192 Date of murders: 1992 - 1999 Date of arrest: April 22, 1999 Date of birth: January 25, 1957 Victims profile: Boys aged between 6 and 16 years Method of murder: St abbing with knife and screwdriver Location: Colombia/Ecuador Status: Sentenced to 1.853 years in prison on May 27, 2000 and November 3, 2001 photo gallery Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos , aka "La Bestia" ("The Beast") or "Tribil'in" (American Spanish translation of Disney's "Goofy") (born 25 January 1957 in G'enova, Quind'io, Colombia) is a Colombian rapist and serial killer. In 1999, he admitted to the rape and murder of 140 young boys. The number of his victims, based on the locations of skeletons listed on maps that Garavito drew in prison, could eventually exceed 300. He has been described by local media as "the world's worst serial killer" because of the high number of victims. Once captured, Garavito was subject to the maximum penalty available in Colombia, which was 30 years. However, as he confessed the crimes and helped authorities locate bodies, Colombian law allowed him to apply for special benefits, including a reduction of his sentence to 22 years and possibly an even earlier release for further cooperation and good behavior. In subsequent years, Colombians have increasingly felt that due to Garavito's approaching early release, his sentence is not sufficient punishment for his crimes. Colombian law originally had no way to extend the sentence, as cases of serial killers like Garavito had no legal precedent in the country and thus the legal system could not properly address this case. In late 2006, however, a judicial review of the cases against Garavito in different local jurisdictions found that his sentence could be extended and his release delayed, due to the existence of crimes he did not admit to and for which he was not previously condemned. Upbringing Luis Alfredo Garavito was born on 25 January 1957 in G'enova, Quind'io, Colombia. He is the oldest of seven brothers, and apparently suffered physical and emotional abuse by his father. In his testimony, he described being a victim of sexual abuse when young. Murders Garavito's victims were poor children, peasant children, or street children, between the ages of 6 and 16. Garavito approached them on the street or countryside and offered them gifts or small amounts of money. After gaining their trust, he took the children for a walk and when they got tired, he would take advantage of them. He then raped them, cut their throats, and usually dismembered their corpses. Most corpses showed signs of torture. Garavito was captured on 22 April 1999. He confessed to murdering 140 children. However, he is still under investigation for the murder of 172 children in more than 59 towns in Colombia. Sentencing He was found guilty in 138 of the 172 cases; the others are ongoing. The sentences for these 138 cases add to 1,853 years and 9 days. Because of Colombian law restrictions, however, he cannot be imprisoned for more than 30 years. In addition, because he helped the authorities in finding the bodies, his sentence has been decreased to 22 years. Public response As Garavito served his reduced sentence, many Colombians began to gradually criticize the possibility of his early release, some arguing that he deserved either life in prison or the death penalty, neither of which are applicable in Colombia. In 2006, local TV host Pirry interviewed Garavito, which aired on 11 June of that same year. In this TV special, Pirry mentioned that during the interview, the killer tried to minimize his actions and expressed intent to start a political career in order to help abused children. Pirry also described Garavito's conditions in prison and commented that due to good behavior, Garavito could probably apply for early release within 3 years. After the Pirry interview aired, criticism of Garavito's situation gained increased notoriety in the media and in political circles. A judicial review of the cases against Garavito in different local jurisdictions found that his sentence could potentially be extended and his release delayed, because he would have to answer for unconfessed crimes separately, as they were not covered by his previous judicial process. Wikipedia.org Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos Born Jan 25, 1957, in Genova, Quind'io, Colombia's western coffee-growing region, he was the oldest of seven sons and grew up in an atmosphere of violence: beaten by his father, Manuel Antonio Garavito and repeatedly raped by two male neighbors. Garavito had just five years of schooling and left home at 16, working first as a store clerk, then as a street vendor who sold religious icons and prayer cards. As an adult, Garavito drifted from job to job, drinking heavily and behaving aggressively until he wore out his welcome and moved on to the next town. He attempted suicide at least once and was under psychiatric care for five years, according to police reports. Garavito had confessed to killing at least 140 boys between ages 8 and 16 over a five-year period that ended when he was jailed on April 22, 1999, on an unrelated rape charge of a 12-year-old boy. The police and prosecutors say Garavito has admitted killing children in 54 cities across Colombia as well as in Ecuador. The largest concentration of killings appears to have occurred in his native region, in and around Pereira, a coffee-growing area in the west-central part of the country. The announcement of Garavito's confession has generated disgust, indignation and fear throughout this South American nation of 40 million people. Colombia does not have the death penalty for murder, but the enormity of the crimes of which Garavito is accused has led Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, the chief of the national police, and many others to call for an exception. Garavito, a drifter, would befriend the children and take them on long walks until they tired. Then he would tie them up to trees with nylon rope, slit their throats or behead them, and bury their bodies in shallow graves and investigators presume a large number were sexually abused. He has alleged that all of his crimes were committed when he was drunk and was taken over by a "superior being". "The police have so far found 114 skeletons". Many, if not a majority, of the victims appear to have been street children, from poor families or separated from their parents by poverty or the political violence that has displaced 1.5 million Colombians in little more than a decade. Such children- grimy, hungry, morose and poorly dressed-have become a familiar sight on the street corners of Colombia's large cities and towns, where they beg, sell newspapers or chewing gum, or shine shoes. Investigators were led to Garavito when witnesses and hotel records placed him near many of the murders, and rope found in his home matched the cord used to tie many of the victims' hands, among other clues. The police said the evidence against the brown-haired, green-eyed Garavito, who has a deep scar on his left arm, is so strong that it prompted the confession. Police dug up a mass grave of his alleged victims - 25 boys, in November 1997, in a ravine in the western coffee-growing city of Pereira. That gruesome discovery, initially thought by local authorities to be the work of a satanic cult, prompted authorities to create a nationwide task force that began to encounter similarities between cases across the country. Kids disappear all the time in Colombia, the authorities said it was because there was no one to notice that the children were missing or to inquire about their whereabouts that Garavito was able to kill for so long without being detected. But his confession has brought an avalanche of criticism from poor people, who say the police are indifferent, abusive or corrupt. Garavito passed himself off as "a street vendor, monk, indigent, disabled person or a representative of fictitious foundations for the elderly and children's education, in that way gaining entrance to schools as a speaker". Since the killings began in 1992, Garavito has moved frequently, and spent time in Ecuador, where cops are trying to connect him to other child deaths. Cops said Garavito would undergo extensive psychological examination. Garavito has been sentenced to prison for only two of his crimes. A judge in Tunja, the capital of the central Boyaca province, convicted Garavito for the killing of 14-year-old Silvino Rodriguez, whose headless and tortured body was discovered on the outskirts of the city in June 1996. He also found Garavito guilty of the attempted rape of the 12-year-old boy in the western city of Villavicencio in April 1999, the crime that led to his arrest. The judge sentenced Garavito to the country's maximum prison term of 60 years. But the sentence was reduced to 52 years and six months because of a plea bargain deal under which Garavito agreed not to contest any of the charges against him. Case history Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos (born jan 25, 1957) is the serial killer with one of the highest proven numbers of victims. Between 1992 and 1999, Garavito killed more than 200 children at core ages between 8 and 13 years, with the exception of one boy aged 16 (walking handicap, March 1994). His modus operandi remained relatively stable. During daytime, he lured children of a lower social status out of crowded parts of the city into hidden areas that were over- grown with high plants. Garavito promised either payment for easy work, or drugs, or made other offers. The children were tied up, tortured, raped and killed by at least one cut in the lateral part of the neck, or by decapitation. During the killings, Garavito was drunk. Even after his arrest (for attempted rape) under a wrong identity it was not immediately possible to track his crimes since Garavito had frequently changed his places of stay and his jobs. He also grew different hairdos and used wrong names. During his still ongoing confessions, he now directs the investigators correctly to all crime scenes all over Colombia. In spite of an initial sentence of 2 600 years, it is in fact possible that Garavito will be released from prison within the next 10 to 20 years, after serving a sentence of minimum 25 to maximum 40 years in jail. Our account is based on a ten-day visit in Bogota and Villavicencio in July 2002 that included several meetings with the investigators, Garavito himself and his social worker. Technically, the case is still ongoing since Garavito still confesses to vet unknown crimes. We also met Garavito in a different prison in 2005 for further talks and tests (Armenia). Arrest On April 22, 1999, in bushes close to a street leading out of the town Villavicencio (ca. 400000 inhabitants) in Colombia, a homeless man observed an adult male who tried to abuse a boy. On the same day, taxi drivers observed a man who matched the description given by the boy. The man had no personal I.D. but gave the name and I.D. number of a man who was a politician in a small town. Since at that time no computer or file network and no obligatory registration of the place of residence existed, his data could not be checked. However, being asked where he intended to go, the man told the police that he walked to a town that was 90f away from the direction he had given. It seemed that the man had lost his orientation, and because of the matching personal description given by the body, he was put in prison. Discovery of a serial killer's spree In February 1998, 2 naked corpses of children were discovered lying next to each other outside of the town of Genua, Colombia. The location was set on the slope of a hill as most of the other crime scenes. On the next day, only metres away, a third corpse was found, this time in a state of advanced decomposition. All bodies had been tied at the hands. Numerous blood stains could be detected in the area, as well as a knife. The necks of the bodies and the external genitals were deeply cut or severed. A closer investigation of the bodies revealed bite marks and signs of anal penetration; a bottle of lubricant was found, too. Post mortem interval could not be determined; DNA typing of the collected stains could ne be performed because of costs. Since at that point there were several known serial killers on the loose in Colombia, it was not clear if these were victims of e.g. Pedro Alonso Lopez (around 70 victims; locally known as the "monster/strangler of the Andes"). The crime scenes, and the state of the corpses did however not at all match the crimes of the other serial killers, e.g. Lopez only killed girls. Profiling was not possible due to organizational and funding problems. It was found that the dead boys had been living in a town nearby, were aged 11 and 13,and had been close friends. They came from a socio-economically weak background, and had to work in the streets selling fruit, chewing gum, etc., to add to their family's poor incomes. The investigators noted that: a) one victim's mother commented that her son briefly returned home on the day he disappeared and told her that he would help a man with a cattle transport, and that b) it was odd that all children disappeared around 10 a.m. on different days. The explanation found much later was that Garavito usually either offered the boys juice or cake in a local shop, checked out their character, structure of skin (soft, not too dark), etc., and then asked them either to walk with him, or to help him with carrying something. Garavito adjusted not only his outfits (street vendor, bum, priest, etc.) but also the task that he asked for according to the local situation (carrying a crate of oranges, help him with cattle, harvesting sugarcane, etc.). He also promised drugs to addicted children, and payed stakes for children interested in games. Initially Garavito had simply offered money but since most children found this suspicious, he switched to a mixture of promises and an appropriate, yet slighty raised amount of money (usually an amount worth a little more than one day of children's work - i.e., the children would not tell their parents straight away but use the money as fake income in exchange for a day off). In all cases, he tried to lure the children away immediately so they would not return home beforehand. Close to his home town, at 6 a.m. on the morning after Halloween (considered to be the "Evening of the Children" in Columbia), Garavito also found a victim by offering a child to help him collect sweets that it had lost the night before. Intensified Investigations A four-person unit from the D.A.'s Office of Investigations from the province Armenia now started to look for similar homicides all over Columbia. Hundreds of cases were reported but most of the children had neither been identified nor was there a description of their injuries. Retroactive identification by use of the teeth was frequently impossible, either because the children never had an Xray, or the X-rays were buried after the earthquakes of 1998. Therefore, until today, 27 of the children killed by Garavito are not identified. Facial reconstruction was performed in few cases at the Institute for Legal Medicine in Bogota. Another series of killings against children aged 8 to 10 in the region Valle in 1995 raised further suspicion. Two of the 4 dead children were cousins, and again, all children came from a weak social background, were described as not very intelligent, and again, they disappeared shortly before noon. Again, the children were found on the slope of a hill with high-growing plants, not far outside of the town. The pattern of children being killed more or less at one spot but on different days is a signature of Garavito. He did not bury the bodies but leave them on the spot. Once he had found a suitable location for the killings, he would use it all over again. The children may have suspected that something was wrong once they arrived but were immediately tied up. Garavito could not stop himself even in dangerous situations. On the early afternoon of june 8, 1996, a boy went missing in the town of Boyaca. He followed Garavito on his (the boy's) own bike so no violence had taken place. The corpse was found 5 days later decapitated with the severed penis stuck inside of the mouth. The mother of the boy had immediately started a search, and found that the boy had last been seen in a local shop with some other boys and a stranger who bought them sweets. The stranger was identified as Garavito who stayed in town. He was questioned by the police but stated that he sure bought the children sweets but then left alone. Approximately 4 days later, Garavito killed a 13-year old boy in the close by town Pereira. Signatures of the killings Apart from the already mentioned behavior, decapitations, or at least their attempt seemed to be typical for Garavito. In many cases, because of the decomposition, the only way to prove this, were notches in the fourth vertebra of the neck. Many of the soft tissue cuts that could be documented were caused by a knive that produced raw lacerations as if the blade was old or notchy. The internal organs were usually left in place; on the abdomen, Garavito did produce multiple stab wounds but no anatomical cuts. The only exception was a 10-year old boy (killed in january 1997) who was found under similar circumstances, but the wounds were produced by a stabbing weapon without a blade (technically: impaling wounds). Dismembering of the corpses only took place in cases where body parts had to be transported out of houses in wich very few killings had taken place. In very few cases, he also put the bodies in bags and sank them together with stones in water. On many crime scenes, empty bottles of the cheapest brand of local schnapps were found. In fact, Garavito had a habit of abusing alcohol, and left the empty bottles just like the corpses openly at the scene of crime. By now, it becomes clear that Garavito subdivided suitable killing places into sectors, and killed one child per sector. In many cases, he very slowly tortured the children who were sometimes tied in way so that they could still walk around over quite a distance but not escape. Anal penetration seems to be a common feature of the cases but it remains unclear if this was a post mortem or peri mortem act. Until today, Garavito draws precise maps out of his memory which show the exact locations of the corpses. Most of the crimes were performed on or around weekends when most children hung around the market places. Garavito tried to lure them away during day time because this raised less suspicion concerning the odd jobs lie offered as well as a possible non-presence at dinner. Before Garavitos confessions, the public still did not generally accept that one killer was responsible for the crimes. Therefore, allthough there was no indication for it at all, the usual suspects like satanists or other secret organizations were accused. Their responsability was unlikely since no two killings took place at the same time. At the same time, the travel pattern of the offender was highly irregular. Another theory pointed towards alleged organ trade. Since mostly stab wounds were found, and since the conditions at the scenes of crime - identified by blood stains protruding from living persons - were highly unsterile, this theory was quickly dismissed. Determination of identity of the killer Garavito had been arrested under the name of a politician. Regular fingerprint identification had not been possible for organizational and technical reasons. In March 1999, after the police checked telephone numbers that had been found in the prisoner's clothing, the investigators discovered that the prisoner's identity was wrong and that he was actually Garavito. By then, Garavtio had long been on the list of suspects. Now, one of the relatives of Garavito handed over a case (box) that Garavtio had given to her. Inside were not only crypic notes but also cut-out passport photographs of many of the deceased children (these were the only trophies that Garavito collected). Also, a calendar with further crypic notes was found. This was later identified as a list of victims according to the dates. Since Garavito does remember all details of his crimes, including the dates, it is not yet understood why he kept track with such a list. On October 28, 1999, after several weeks of confirmatory investigations, Garavito was for the first time exposed to the fact that his identitiy was known and that evidence for his crimes was found. During the first questioning, he confessed to his crimes straight away and asked god and mankind for forgiveness. It became clear that since 1992, Garavito had killed more than 200 boys (today's count: 300), and commited numerous acts with sexual background against the will of others. His popular name became "The Beast" (la bestia). Legal aspects Cooperation of the different agencies is difficult in a very large country that suffers from constant and extreme political problems, massive violence (especially amongst the guerilla and paramilitary units), and organizational problems. Compared to industrialized countries, pedophilia is quite widespread, mostly because children and juveniles need to gain some kind of income (39% of the chddren in Colombia are considered to live in poverty ). This led to the high number of victims but on the other hand could not be prevented. e.g., several times, Garavito also simply left the country and went to Equador. The public prosecutors (district attorneys), together with their own investigation units (not the same as the police) are allowed to investigate throughout the country. In the Garavito case, this was used to commission the local investigative unit of Armenia with investigating all related crimes. This was based on the fact that the prime suspect (Garavito) came from Armenia but also that numerous corpses had been found in this region. It seems that other local investigation units did, however, not share all their information with the Armenian police. Legally, the case against Garavito is not closed because he still confesses to killings. Until 2003, he was technically found guilty 70 times, for 160 separate killings. Since Garavito was considered to be sane (in the sense of being responsible for his acts), he could not be sent to a forensic psychiatric institution for an indefinite time. Therefore he was sentenced to custody in prison. As in the Colombian sentencing system the sentences for every single offence are added up, Garavito was actually sentenced to about 2 600 years in prison. However, this does not mean that Garavito will serve a life time prison sentence. After the reform of the Colombian Penal Code in 2000, a person can neither be sentenced to death nor stay imprisoned for more than 40 years in total (article 37.1 of the Penal Code). Since Garavito is highy cooperative, mitigation, including an earlier release might have to be applied. Garavito did never appear in court. This is due to a regulation that was introduced to the Colombian penal code to simplify cases in which the defendant fully confesses, and in which objective proof for his crimes is present and matches the confession. In such cases, legally binding verdicts can be passed successively and without a formal trial. Also, the public was massively outraged already, and a regular trial was not sought after by any party. Personal impressions Garavito is held separate from other prisoners because it is feared that else he would be killed immediately. He is afraid of getting poisoned, and only takes drinks given to him by few persons. His guards are on very good terms with him which is reflected by the fact that Garavito himself is relaxed and not at all shy towards them. The stereotype of the "intelligent serial killer" is challenged by Garavito in several respects. The high number of victims is on the one hand explained by his indeed clever way to adapt socially and by changes of his clothing (except of his glasses) to local environments. This seems to be natural to him or well trained. To us, he did not make the impression of a person who is playing a rehearsed role. The only thing he never changed, is the frame of his glasses made of red plastic. On the other hand, the high number of victims was also due to the chaotic and violent structures in Colombia. E.g., it will not raise any suspicion to work as a street vendor by just buying a used cart and selling some type of fruit. This way, it is very easy for a Columbian person to blend in, especially around busy market places (as Garavito did). Furthermore, due to the poverty, odd jobs are attractive for children victims. Another observation that might speak against regular intelligence is that Garavito cannot restrict his train of thoughts. He will jump from one topic to the other, and even if he starts a conversation on a topic that he feels is interesting (plane crash, etc.), he will switch to a different topic only seconds, or minutes later. Because of the complete absence of any psychological treatment, he is not used to talk about personal matters, even if it would aid his cause. For example, one of the first things he talked to us about was an article from a popular science magazine that he found very interesting; he had written down notes next to the article. The article was dealing with children abused by their parents. When we asked why this caused his attention, he would absolutely not comment on this issue and switched the topic as if he had not heard the question. This is remarkable because it is the opinion of the police that Garavito was maltreated as a child. In a picture test that we conducted in 2005 (M.B.), he failed to understand or to solve the quiz items. From a criminalistic point of view, it is remarkable that Garavito seemed to be too careful to take any trophies from the victims except of the photographs cut out of their I.D. cards. At the same time, he liked to be photographed. Several pictures show him as a street vendor, inside of apartments where he lived, etc. Travelling for work is quite normal in many economically challenged countries. Therefore, Garavito did not raise suspicion constantly travelling throughout the country. In several cities, he lived together with women who were the same age or older than Garavito and who sometimes had children. in fact, Garavito seemed to be a caring social father since his girl friends never complained about him or stated any form of abuse concerning themselves or their children. They even mentioned that he enjoyed friendly play with his social children. In at least one case, Garavito continuously sent money back to one of his girlfriends during his travels. The investigators believe that Garavito may have lived together with these women on a platonic basis. The second stereotype of a controlling personality seems to be correct for Garavito. He tries to reach his goals by the most appropriate social methods, i.e. now by full co-operation with the police. However, until now, he showed no sign of true remorse. Talking to the police, he stated his sympa- thy for his victims. in one case, he claimed to have felt sorry when a child told him about its abuse back in the family. Nevertheless, Garavito still proceeded to torture the child to death. His comments on the personal safety of others are ambiguous. For example, he very early in our conversation warned against walking alone in the streets (which is in fact extremely dangerous in Colombia). We asked ourselves if Garavito was actually concerned about our safety or if he wanted to find out if we were afraid of the whole situation, or if he wanted to put himself in a position of strengh. It seems that due to his personality, he still cannot control the situation because he does not fully understand the intentions of others. His ongoing confessions might seem to him a way to get out of prison earlier but obviously, the police has their own plans to prevent this. When we visited Garavito, he complained that we did not bring expensive gifts but only symbolic ones (T-shirts, etc.). Instead of telling us, he wrote an informant-style report to the police in which he noted what he remembered from our conversation and what we looked like. Garavito also told us that he wanted to understand the cause of his actions. Since he does not discuss personal matters in depth, we offered him to comment on the crimes of a different serial offender, either J"urgen Bartsch or Father Denke. He was very interested to hear about the cases (he asked specifically about the number of victims) but did not keep track of this conversation. Generally, Garavito gives the impression of an open, friendly person. In our opinion, he did not constantly lie to us but seemed to be tense at times. Without being asked, he told us that he would not continue his killings outside of prison and that he had got everything sorted out in his mind. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e5c_1348939920 deathgod198255 THE WORLDS WORST SERIAL KILLER serial killer,rapist,stabbings,boys,torture,mutilation Tue, 24 May 2011 22:32:27 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cdd_1306290144 CoolQcumber by Greg Bolton The shocking story of a stage mom who injected her 8-year-old daughter with Botox is now revealed to be a complete fabrication. Again, a monster viral sensation turns out to be a hoax and leaves us a tad embarrassed. Did you hear the one about the stage mom who injected her 8-year old daughter with Botox? Or wait, did she? It's depressing on so many levels. It started a week or so ago, when we got wind of a story that Kerry Campbell, a young mother in San Francisco, regularly injected her 8-year-old daughter Britney with Botox to give her an edge in beauty pageants. The story became a monster viral sensation, as Campbell was invited to appear on Good Morning America and Inside Edition to tell her story. A day or so later, Child Protective Services stepped in to investigate; until they had some answers, Campbell was to be denied access to her daughter. On May 17, it seems, the strange story began to unravel, as it was revealed that the woman we had come to know and loathe as Kerry Campbell was actually named Sheena Upton, and that medical reports would prove that she had not, in fact, ever used Botox on Britney. The entire story, Upton now alleges in a sworn affidavit, was an elaborate hoax perpetrated by British tabloid The Sun. She was paid $200 for the original story, but reportedly much, much more for the Good Morning America and Inside Edition appearances. TMZ.com, which had previously gone on record to opine breezily that "Campbell" should face 4.3 billion years in prison for what she'd done to her daughter, simply shifted gears and went into investigative mode, splashing story after story on its home page about how it was "ripping holes" in Upton's story. This is a "story," by the way, in every sense of the word: invented by one "news" outlet, then propagated, disease-like, not only by the bottom-feeding TMZ, but by more "reputable" information outlets like Good Morning America, too. Never mind that none of it's true, and none of it matters. For TMZ, the game is now to string out this non-event for as long as possible, continually turning garbage into gold. If the Sun is corrupt for having invented the story, at least it had the imagination to create something - and evidently, it's something for which the public had considerable appetite. TMZ, by contrast, is the journalistic and cultural equivalent of a dung beetle - tirelessly polishing turds because it really doesn't know what else to do. So what, then, have we learned from the sad story of Sheena Upton? Well, we've learned that the Sun, a publication which is still technically a source of news rather than entertainment, invents stories; that Good Morning America probably pays for people to appear on its show (although it hides behind a story that it actually only pays "licensing fees" for the use of photos, wink wink); that in the rush for exclusives, virtually no news organization found it necessary to check the facts of this story at even the most basic level, preferring instead to pontificate about what a horrible person "Kerry Campbell" was, even as they spent far too much of their time transforming her from a damaged loser into a famous damaged loser. We also learned that a woman who would publicly lie for $200 (plus subsequent undisclosed "licensing fees," wink wink) is considered a fit enough mother to retain custody of her child, even if a mother who would inject that same child with Botox to give her an edge in beauty pageants is not. Of course, it's only been a couple of years since we were all conned into following the "Balloon Boy" story as if, while fascinating in a freakish way, the story was actually somehow important. So what we've really learned from this latest hoax is that we're still the same bunch of rubbernecking, freakshow-addicted, moon-eyed suckers we've always been. What we've really learned, then, is that we never seem to learn. Like I said, it's depressing. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cdd_1306290144 CoolQcumber Botox Mom Story A Hoax! Botox,Mom,Hoax,Kerry_Campbell,Sheena_Upton,Loser,Fail,Parent,The_Sun,Tabloid Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:25:09 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d5f_1251591482 bellava The nine-year-old boy was quite taken with the blonde girl he spotted across the wire fence that separated their bungalows. He had not seen her before and thought she was pretty, even if she was an inch taller than him. She told him she was living there and her name was Jaycee. Moments later a tall, forbidding man appeared, grabbed the girl by her arm and bundled her away. Later that day the man started building a 6ft fence around his back garden and Patrick McQuaid, now 27, never saw the girl again. "I was young, and didn't think anything of it," he recalled last week. "Kids came and went all the time. But she sure was pretty." Related Links * Kidnap girl worked in abductors' business * Faces of evil: if looks could kill McQuaid reckons that brief encounter happened in July 1991, a memorably hot and dusty summer in the small town of Antioch, east of San Francisco, northern California. If his memory is correct, this would have been about a month after Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped at a bus stop near her home in Lake Tahoe, 170 miles away. According to charges filed in court on Friday, it would also have been around the time the 11-year-old girl was first raped by Phillip Garrido, a 6ft 4in sex offender. It was, through no fault of the boy, the first of many missed opportunities to rescue the girl. As it turned out Jaycee faced another 18 years of captivity, a prisoner in a hidden compound of huts and tents where she gave birth to two children, now aged 11 and 15. Jaycee's ordeal came to a sudden and still mysterious end last week when Garrido, now 58, walked into a police station with Jaycee and, in effect, surrendered her back to her real life - and incredulous family. Now 29, still blonde but a little taller than she was as a child, Jaycee was instantly recognisable to her mother Terry and her half-sister Shayna, who was one year old when they last played together. "She smelled the same, isn't that weird?" said a relative, who added that the reunited family had been both crying and laughing ever since, and were unable to stop hugging each other. They are now planning a late summer holiday at Disneyland. California police have been honest about blunders in trying to solve this grotesque "cold case" which, with a little more imagination, might have been solved years ago. In November 2006 Erika Pratt, a neighbour in Walnut Avenue, Antioch, heard the sound of hammering as Garrido erected yet another shed in his back garden. Garrido had talked to her in the street, speaking animatedly about "God's voices", which were helping him deal with past anger issues and sex. This had made her feel so "queasy" that she phoned the police and urged them to check on the compound. She told them he might be a "religious psychotic with a sex addiction". On Friday Warren Rupf, the local sheriff, confessed Pratt might have been right. "A deputy responded to the call and spoke to the home owner in the front of his house. He did not feel he had reason to enter, and so did not realise there was a hidden compound with children living in it behind the house," he said. "I do not blame him; I blame myself. We are beating ourselves up over this." Rupf's department was far from alone in missing the clues. Garrido was a registered sex offender who met his parole officer every month over many years. The officer visited Garrido at home, checking that his satellite-linked ankle bracelet, which monitored his movements, was working properly. But, again, he never looked into the back garden and its burgeoning tent city, which was visible on such unsophisticated detection devices as Google Earth. Last year Garrido was twice visited at home by police. The first time he was questioned about accusations that he swindled $18,000 (lb11,000) out of an elderly neighbour, which he said was a donation to his "Church of God's Desire". Then, in July last year, his three-bedroomed house was searched by police from a "multi-agency task force". However, as it was a routine search, randomly ordered under the state's paroled sexual offenders act, they were not looking for anything specific. "There were zero signs of kids living there," said Sergeant Diane Aguinaga of the Antioch police last week. "Only him, his wife and his mom." They did not notice the electrical wires that ran from the house, though a fence door concealed by a blue tarpaulin and into a 140ft by 90ft "backyard within a backyard" beyond. "Barriers had been built to obstruct viewing from the outside and prevent the victims contacting the outside world," said another investigator. "There were tents and showers and a chicken shed where the three girls lived. There is a soundproofed 10ft square structure, which the homeowner called his church. "That's where we think he may have raped the victim and where, without any medical aid, she gave birth to his two children. The first time when she was 14. This is the area where this girl was trapped, for 18 years. Where this child raised her kids alone. He is one evil bastard." NEARLY 800,000 juveniles are reported missing in the United States each year. About 750,000 turn up hours days or weeks later - the rest vanish. Some choose to cut themselves off from family and friends, are stricken by drug habits or want to adopt a new sexual identity. Others are murdered or die from natural causes and are buried in potter's fields. A handful are sold into the global slave trade. Few have a story as dramatic as Jaycee Lee Dugard's. On the morning of June 10, 1991, wearing a pink top and matching trousers, she was walking down the street towards a bus stop when American urban paranoia exploded into nightmarish reality. The timing of the crime was easily established. Every day Jaycee waited until the clock on the microwave oven in the family kitchen turned to 8.05am and then said her good-byes before setting off for the school bus stop, which was within sight of her home. This time the familiarity of the scene was shattered by a car, which did a screeching U-turn in front of the girl. "I was watching out for her from my garage 200 yards away when I saw a grey sedan pull up besides her on the street and a man reach out and snatch her up in a moment," recalled Carl Probyn, her stepfather, last week. "It was all over so fast." He jumped on to his bicycle and gave chase, able to see that the driver was an Asian-looking woman with long dark hair, but unable to see either his stepdaughter or the man who was holding her. The car vanished seconds later. The little middle-class town of South Lake Tahoe was traumatised. Locals were encouraged to wear pink ribbons to keep Jaycee at the forefront of people's minds - a tactic borrowed years later by the parents of Madeleine McCann and their yellow ribbon campaign. Vigils and marches were held. The FBI and local police interviewed nearly 5,400 people, including dozens of sex offenders, and pursued more than 4,000 leads, but all to no avail. The answer, it appears, was 170 miles away in Antioch, and the clues were in the police records of Phillip Greg Garrido. Last week his father, Manuel Garrido, 88, choked as he recalled the boy who went so terribly wrong. "He was a very gentle and sweet child, very popular with a lot of friends. They loved his jokes. He played guitar, and liked the Beatles," he said. "But then, at high school, he started getting into drugs and his personality changed. After he found LSD, he was gone. He started going crazy, and I lost him. I miss the boy, but the man, not so much." In 1976 Garrido had been sentenced to 50 years in jail after he kidnapped and raped a 25-year-old woman in Reno, 20 miles across the Nevada border from Tahoe. Officers said last week that the industrial unit in which he committed the crime was set up as a "sex palace", with pornography and sex toys scattered around. The detective who led the investigation, Dan DeMaranville, 74, said Garrido came across as intelligent and educated during interviews. "I asked him after he confessed why he did it, and he said it was the only way he could get sexual satisfaction," DeMaranville said. "He gave the impression he was remorseful. But I don't know whether it was a put-on or not." Garrido was held in a tough federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, but released 11 years later on parole after he claimed to have "found God". He travelled back to California with his new bride, a Philippines-born woman called Nancy. It is unclear how Garrido met her while in prison but Nancy, 54, stands accused alongside him of taking part in years of brutal and sexual acts against Jaycee. They each face 29 identical charges including rape and kidnapping. Television therapists are already analysing the couple's relationship, some comparing them to the serial killers Fred and Rose West, though there is no evidence they reached such sadistic and murderous depths. Others are more sympathetic, saying Nancy Garrido may, like Jaycee, be a victim of Stockholm syndrome - mesmerised into sympathising and even identifying with a charismatic monster. Police said they recovered a "family jumble" of computers, without internet access, toys and food dishes for cats and dogs in the compound - and an old Ford that matched the description of the car in which Jaycee vanished. A series of pictures released last night give some clues to the life lived by Jaycee and her daughters in the garden camp-site. Her living quarters appear to have been a three-man tent, patched up with tape, in which some of her clothes, a predominantly grey selection of cardigans and blouses, hung limply over a clothes rail. On her sheet-less mattress lay a jumble of children's wear and a monkey puppet. Some shelves and a wardrobe hint at the permanence of the arrangement. There are also indications of what might be an obsessive interest of Jaycee or one of her children. A makeshift bookshelf in the tent contained nearly 20 books, most of which had titles relating to cats, including Do Cats Think? and The Cat Who Went to Paris. Underneath the shelf is 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle: its topic - cats. Elsewhere children's playthings - here a packet of crayons, there a couple of Furby cuddly toys - are distributed, along with computer paraphernalia, such as joysticks, mouses and software. Clearly somebody had tried to make the quarters homely. A bunch of flowers in a makeshift vase made from a disused soft drink bottle sits on a ramshackle bedside table in the tent. Cruelly, there is also a discarded book that hints that at least somebody was concerned with the welfare of the family. Self-Esteem: a Family Affair, by Jean Illsley Clarke deals with bringing up children and ways of giving them confidence. One of its chapters is entitled: What's a Nice Family Like Us Doing in a Place Like This? The neighbours apparently did not think that there was a "nice family" living next door. Yet they did little to intervene, even though Garrido was known locally as "Creepy Phil". Many have reported suspicions they harboured about Jaycee's girls - named by one neighbour as Starlite and Angel - who were allowed to play at the front of the house, but were home schooled. In a deeply conservative town, where many children are taught at home for religious reasons, appearances fooled many. Others did not want to get involved. Deepal Karunaratne, a Sri Lankan-born estate agent who employed Garrido to print his flyers and business cards, said he believed "Phil and Nancy" when they introduced him to their blonde blue-eyed "daughter", Jaycee. "Only he said she was called Allissa, and one of her daughters was called Scarlett," he told The Sunday Times last week. "Jaycee was part of the family business, running the printing press in the back yard. I would see her in work overalls, covered with ink, negotiated with her when she could not complete my order. She was always polite and professional. Or wearing jeans and a blouse standing outside the house with Nancy, who did all the bookkeeping." He added that he and Jaycee exchanged regular phone calls and e-mails. "He would not let me see the press or the backyard: he said it was a trade secret. I was aware there were two little girls there, although I did not know they were living in tents. They went out to movies and to eat, nothing exceptional or strange," he said. His testimony is backed up by Ben Daughdrill, who last year met a woman who was introduced as Allissa when he went to Garrido's house to pick up some business cards. "She was the design person; she did the art work; she was the genius," said Daughdrill, who also communicated by phone and e-mail with Jaycee. Why didn't she try to escape? Reports yesterday suggested that Jaycee's spirit was broken by the years of incarceration and that she had reached a point of accepting her fate. She has told her parents that her children did not know Garrido had abducted her and her stepfather said that she regarded their relationship as "like a marriage". Both Karunaratne and Daughdrill are now haunted by what was uncovered last week. For Karunaratne, two recollections are particularly telling and troubling. "Over the last three years he grew more intense about his religion. He said that God was speaking to him through this machine, and asked me to listen through headphones and sign a form saying I'd heard the voices too. "I heard nothing but did it, to be polite. But he seemed to grow more crazy every time I saw him. He said he was being attacked by angels. He was melting down." The second cold finger running down the estate agent's spine is Garrido's account of a day recently when he took Jaycee and the girls on a "mission" to a nearby town called Pittsburg. "He told me he had set up a stall to hand out his tracts, and all the family was helping him. His car broke down on the way home, and he phoned me up for a lift back. I told him to take the bus." This trip may prove horribly significant. On Friday Pittsburg police provided a local judge with enough evidence to obtain a warrant to search the house at Walnut Avenue. They are seeking evidence in connection with the murder of up to 10 young women whose bodies were dumped at an "industrial park" in Pittsburg during the late 1990s when Garrido was working there. It raises a nightmarish question: was Garrido taking Jaycee and the children he fathered back to the scene of a series of grotesque serial killings? LAST week Garrido's plans to build a Church of God's Desire, outlined on his rambling blog, Voices Revealed, collapsed in the dust. On Monday he visited the San Francisco offices of the FBI, leaving a "manifesto" saying that schizophrenia was not an illness but a conduit of God being repressed by evil doctors. Why was he calling attention to himself with the law? Later that day he went to the nearby campus of the University of California, Berkeley, with the two children to inquire about hosting an event called "God's desire". He spoke to Lisa Campbell, a special events manager for the university and former police investigator, who was struck by his "peculiar" manner. She asked him to come back the next day. When he returned she made sure she had a campus police officer with her. Allison Jacobs, 35, a former nurse, is so tough that she challenged her future husband to arm wrestle before she would date him. She noticed that the girls, who were wearing drab dresses, seemed to avoid meeting his eye. "The older one was treating him as if he was a god, but they both looked like brainwashed zombies," she said. They answered questions as if by rote. Unlike the sheriff's deputy, Jacobs ran Garrido's name through a computer and found his sexual history. She called his parole officer and told him about her concern about Garrido's daughters. "The parole officer says, 'He doesn't have any daughters', and my stomach just sank," said Jacobs. "I said he had two daughters with him that day. They had his blue eyes." On Wednesday the parole officer summoned him to a local police station. Much to the officer's amazement Garrido turned up with a 5ft 3in woman and two blonde blue-eyed children in shabby clothes. The charade crumbled as Garrido was moved to another room and Allissa revealed her lost identity, stuttering as she said she had not spoken her own name out loud for 15 years. She asked to speak to her mother: when she got through, her mother thought it was a prank call, and then burst into tears. Garrido was arrested but did not stay quiet. A few hours later he phoned a local television station and told a reporter that the "truth" was inside the document he had left with the FBI, and when it was all known it would be revealed as a "heart-warming" story. "I tell you here's the story of what took place at this house and you're going to be absolutely impressed. It's a disgusting thing by me that took place at the beginning, but I turned my life around," he said. At least for Jaycee and her mother Terry, the first chapter of this long night is finally coming to a close. Terry must deal with the discombobulating experience of discovering that she is a grandmother by the child whom she last saw as an 11-year-old. The abduction destroyed her marriage to Carl Probyn, who for many years was regarded as a suspect. He did not attend the mother and daughter reunion at a local motel, but is overjoyed at the news. "Terry says Jaycee looks almost as she did, although she is feeling terribly guilty for bonding with her captor," he said. "But we know she had to do that to survive, especially as this man had her children in the back. They are 11 and 15 and could not escape by themselves - it's the only life they have ever known." Terry and Carl never gave up. They distributed 1.3m leaflets and every Christmas got together again to take time off work and search the town street by street. The urgency did not fade. There was a march by 400 supporters 10 years after she vanished. In 2002 police searched the home of a defrocked Roman Catholic priest but found nothing. Local schoolchildren are still shown Jaycee's missing posters, as a warning about "stranger danger". The girl left her mark on the city. "Jaycee was a sweetie," said her fifth grade teacher, Sue Bush. "It scared the kids, and it scared them badly. "We tied a pink ribbon to her chair and kept her desk the way she left it. The class wrote letters to Jaycee and made posters. They needed to talk about it," said her teacher. They also planted a memorial garden with a plaque in her honour. One friend, Angie Glatfelter, has a string of ladybird tattoos on her ankle, with a new one added every five years that Jaycee has been missing. "Jaycee just loved ladybugs," she said. Does she still? The world waits to hear from the girl who spent her teenage years and twenties hidden away in a secret garden. Life after the ordeal - Natascha Kampusch, 21, inset, astonishingly opted for a career in the media after escaping her captor in 2006 following eight years spent in his house near Vienna. She briefly hosted a television talk show. All the while she was receiving counselling and would rarely go out in public without being escorted by an expert social worker. Despite her apparent successful recovery, she recently stated how she felt she was unable to integrate in society. "In my cellar, I was perfect, self-contained and complete. Today I feel like people have taken away my ability to be myself," she said. - Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, was kept prisoner in the cellar of her family home by her father Josef for 24 years, and gave birth to seven of his children. After their release in 2008 she and her six surviving children, then aged five to 19, received new identities and moved to a remote Austrian village. Elisabeth is said to have entered a new relationship with one of the bodyguards assigned to her by the authorities. Her children are now going to school and attempting to start a new life in freedom. - Elizabeth Smart, who in June 2002 was snatched from her bed in Salt Lake City by an insane "prophet" and held for nine months, has recovered enough to attend university. She said that she would advise Jaycee Lee Dugard to start "enjoying ordinary things again, one at a time" and taking a long family holiday. "I have shown that you can come back from this. You must not allow this man to steal the rest of your life, which starts right now." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d5f_1251591482 bellava Pictures; Inside Jaycee Lee Dugard's backyard prison pictures Inside Jaycee Lee Dugard's home backyard Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:32:52 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0dd_1222529572 jsczerby That is Barack Obama and his cousin Raila Odinga. Odinga and Obama are from the same Kenyan Luo tribe. Odinga supporters are the people that are burning Christians alive, trapped inside churches! Most of Odinga's fanatical followers are radical Islamists who have pushed for Islamic Sharia Law, total banning of other religions and closing of co-ed schools, night clubs and 'public dressing style considered immoral'. Odinga was educated in Former Soviet controlled East Germany and maintains a strong loyalty to the vision of his 'Educators' and has allied with Islamist in order to gain their political support. In 2006 Obama took a trip to Kenya and voiced his support for his fellow tribesman and political ally, Odinga. Obama also directly attacked the sitting Kenyan leadership (Kibaki) calling them 'corrupt' (Kenya is one of the most stable places in Africa). Odinga is the man that ran on the socialist democrat ticket in Kenya and lost to sitting president Kibaki. It's not getting reported in the media that the looting and burning of businesses in Kisumu was targeted to both Kikuyus and Kenyan Indians. The economy of Kenya is controlled by these two groups because they are Entrepreneurial. But Kenyan Indians rarely get involved in Kenyan politics, they do not vote by choice, yet the Luos in Kisumu do not like them, that's why their stores were getting burnt too. A Tribe of 540,000 Kikuyu, rivals of the Luo for Power, all but vanishes from Kenyan City ethnically cleansed and massacred by Odinga's butchers. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gQprfiiJTXP7rSL3Qvr4lcG3Tt... Yet Obama interrupted his New Hampshire campaigning to speak by phone with Odinga, his cousin. He did not speak with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. Odinga has now made a deal for support with Muslim fundamentalists. A photograph copy of a Memorandum of Understanding, dated and signed on August 29, 2007, between Raila Odinga and Shiekh Abdullah Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya. http://eakenya.org/newsevents/article.htm?id=8 Here is a summary on the agreement which was signed: It pledges the support of Kenyan Moslems for Raila's election. In return, as President of Kenya, Raila agrees to 14 actions, listed a) through n) on page two. * Within 6 months re-write the Constitution of Kenya to recognize Shariah as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions. * Within one year facilitate the establishment of a Shariah court in every Kenyan divisional headquarters. * "Popularize Islam, the only true religion by ordering every primary school in Kenya in the regions to conduct daily Madrassa classes." "Impose a total ban on open-air gospel crusades by worshippers of the cross..." "Outlaw gospel programs... on KBC, the National Broadcaster." "Impose a total ban on the public consumption of alcoholic beverages..." "Impose an immediate ban on women's public dressing styles that are considered immoral and offensive to the Muslim faith..." http://eakenya.org/newsevents/article.htm?id=8 Raila Odinga has, in his own words, a "close personal friendship" with Barrack Hussein Obama. When Obama went to Kenya in August of 2006, he was hosted by Raila and spoke in praise of him at rallies in Nairobi. Obama's bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenya government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila's "stooge." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=149_1199587542 In the recent elections in Kenya, violence broke out as Raila lost the elections: This past weekend, women and children and entire families were burned alive as a crowd of Kenyans torched a church where they had gathered to protect themselves. The cause of the violence was Odinga's inflammatory comments about the election: When Raila Odinga lost the presidential election last week (12/27) to Mwai Kibaki, he claimed the vote was rigged, whereupon his tribal followers went on murderous rampages such as in the town of Eldoret, where on New Years Day dozens of people were burned to death in a church set on fire. Throughout Kenya, hundreds of people have been politically murdered in the last few days. At first a million man march was planned but Obama put in some frantic 11th hour calls to his cousin to call that off, since it would reflect badly on his campaign at home, (he is locked in a battle with Hillary and it was the day of the N.H. primary), to have the media filled with images of angry Blacks rioting over a disputed election result. Odinga agreed to hold off, but now he is getting impatient. The agreement is probably to try to give Obama enough time to get his own candidacy flowing smoothly among Democrats before unleashing the violence. But Odinga can only hold off for so long, since he faces likely criminal charges over the organized slaughter of Kikuyu by his (and Obama's) Luo tribesmen. It was established by references to an article in Time Magazine that Obama has a 'very close friendship' with Odinga. There are links in Wikipedia which show that Odinga has initiated coups in the past, been accused of corruption and is an all-round troublemaker. What's worse, it became clear that Odinga's supporters were killing and burning property on a rampage across Kenya to support Odinga's bid to take over Kubaki's presidency. However, now further, more shocking details have come out: There appears to be growing evidence that the violence in Kenya was organized in advance, perhaps with Obama's knowledge. Bishop Cornelius Korir of Eldoret confirms the killings were organized and planned. It is believed Odinga and his ODM Pentagon members had planned it all, long before elections, and especially William Ruto the MP for Eldoret North (the burning of women and children in a church). He is tearing through the country using murder and rape as his weapons of choice. Justice Minister Martha Karua tsaid Odinga's group (Orange Democratic Movement has planned to carry out systematic ethnic cleansing. This is a dangerous man in what has up until now been a pretty stable country on an unstable continent. His 'opposition party' is opposed to democracy and free elections. Refusing to accept the result of the national election, Odinga will break the country, beat, "cleanse" rape until this depraved savage gets the power. Raila Odinga rejected a presidential invitation for talks. The left wing media has been played by brilliantly by Odinga - this is part of his strategy. Obama's older brother still lives in Kenya. Abongo "Roy" Obama is a Luo activist and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must "liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture." He urges his younger brother, Barack Hussein Obama to embrace his 'African' heritage. The way Barack Obama describes his oldest half-brother in his book, Abongo (Roy) Obama inherited their father's hard-drinking ways but straightened his life out by embracing Islam and his African heritage. Abongo Obama began using his Luo tribal first name and had sworn off pork, smoking and drinking by the time of his younger brother's 1992 wedding. "Abongo's new lifestyle has left him lean and clear-eyed, and at the wedding, he looked so dignified in his black African gown with white trim and matching cap that some of our guests mistook him for my father," Obama wrote in Dreams From My Father. Barrack Obama wrote about his brother. "But the magic of his laughter remains....." As for his Cousin Odinga: Obama's tacit support for this ruthless leader of the insurgent rebellion in Kenya is shaping up to be the 800 lb gorilla in the Obama '08 campaign. In the latest development in the deepening ties between Obama's pal Odinga (ODM party) and the Islamists. "Obama's "cousin" the ruthless violent Raila Odinga now nominates the radical Sheikh he signed MOU with as a Member of Parliament (MP) ODM has presented six names to the Electoral Commission of Kenya for nomination as MPs. This will in effect raise their numbers in the House to 105. The proposed nominees include Sheikh Ahmed Dor, the cleric who spearheaded the MoU between ODM presidential candidate Raila Odinga and some Muslim leaders." The Media presents Odinga and his supporters in such a way that they look like angels even as they kill people. Obama's Pal uses "Rape as a Weapon" More brutal and gory details of the man Obama unequivocally supports. Obama is so busted. This is more than bad judgment, this is scary. Odinga's has nefarious Arab ties and his hand in the ongoing violence that has all of Kenya in its barbaric clutches. Inconceivable horror. Gang rapings, murders and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Obama has backed Odinga unequivocally going so far as telling big media (out of TIME Magazine's Joe Klein here), Obama has had near-daily conversations with the U.S. Ambassador in Kenya or with opposition leader Raila Odinga. Obama BACKS THIS MONSTER ODINGA UNEQUIVOCALLY? How on earth does he justify this? All this points to a very different Obama than the Obama we see and hear in the media. Rather than being the new JFK he is the smiling face of the terror that is now sweeping Kenya. Are these the DREAMS FROM HIS FATHER that he has in store for America? http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0dd_1222529572 jsczerby Family heritage Barry, I mean Barrack, can be proud of Obama, kenya, odinga Fri, 09 May 2008 21:05:20 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=417_1210381520 PutzwithNutz By Michael T Klare Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world's other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe. Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel of crude oil roared past US$110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the US will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation's economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making. That the fall of the Berlin Wall spelled the erasure of the Soviet Union's superpower status was obvious to international observers at the time. After all, the USSR visibly ceased to exercise dominion over an empire (and an associated military-industrial complex) encompassing nearly half of Europe and much of Central Asia. The relationship between rising oil prices and the obliteration of America's superpower status is, however, hardly as self-evident. So let's consider the connection. Dry hole superpower The fact is, America's wealth and power has long rested on the abundance of cheap petroleum. The United States was, for a long time, the world's leading producer of oil, supplying its own needs while generating a healthy surplus for export. Oil was the basis for the rise of the first giant multinational corporations in the US, notably John D Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company (now reconstituted as Exxon Mobil, the world's wealthiest publicly traded corporation). Abundant, exceedingly affordable petroleum was also responsible for the emergence of the American automotive and trucking industries, the flourishing of the domestic airline industry, the development of the petrochemical and plastics industries, the suburbanization of America, and the mechanization of its agriculture. Without cheap and abundant oil, the United States would never have experienced the historic economic expansion of the post-World War II era. No less important was the role of abundant petroleum in fueling the global reach of US military power. For all the talk of America's growing reliance on computers, advanced sensors, and stealth technology to prevail in warfare, it has been oil above all that gave the US military its capacity to "project power" onto distant battlefields like Iraq and Afghanistan. Every Humvee, tank, helicopter, and jet fighter requires its daily ration of petroleum, without which America's technology-driven military would be forced to abandon the battlefield. No surprise, then, that the US Department of Defense is the world's single-biggest consumer of petroleum, using more of it every day than the entire nation of Sweden. From the end of World War II through the height of the Cold War, the US claim to superpower status rested on a vast sea of oil. As long as most of our oil came from domestic sources and the price remained reasonably low, the American economy thrived and the annual cost of deploying vast armies abroad was relatively manageable. But that sea has been shrinking since the 1950s. Domestic oil production reached a peak in 1970 and has been in decline ever since - with a growing dependency on imported oil as the result. When it came to reliance on imports, the United States crossed the 50% threshold in 1998 and now has passed 65%. Though few fully realized it, this represented a significant erosion of sovereign independence even before the price of a barrel of crude soared above $110. By now, we are transferring such staggering sums yearly to foreign oil producers, who are using it to gobble up valuable American assets, that, whether we know it or not, we have essentially abandoned our claim to superpowerdom. According to the latest data from the US Department of Energy, the United States is importing 12-14 million barrels of oil per day. At a current price of about $115 per barrel, that's $1.5 billion per day, or $548 billion per year. This represents the single largest contribution to America's balance-of-payments deficit, and is a leading cause for the dollar's ongoing drop in value. If oil prices rise any higher - in response, perhaps, to a new crisis in the Middle East (as might be occasioned by US air strikes on Iran) - our annual import bill could quickly approach three-quarters of a trillion dollars or more per year. While our economy is being depleted of these funds, at a moment when credit is scarce and economic growth has screeched to a halt, the oil regimes on which we depend for our daily fix are depositing their mountains of accumulating petrodollars in "sovereign wealth funds" (SWFs) - state-controlled investment accounts that buy up prized foreign assets in order to secure non-oil-dependent sources of wealth. At present, these funds are already believed to hold in excess of several trillion dollars; the richest, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), alone holds $875 billion. The ADIA first made headlines in November 2007 when it acquired a $7.5 billion stake in Citigroup, America's largest bank holding company. The fund has also made substantial investments in Advanced Micro Systems, a major chip maker, and the Carlyle Group, the private equity giant. Another big SWF, the Kuwait Investment Authority, also acquired a multibillion-dollar stake in Citigroup, along with a $6.6 billion chunk of Merrill Lynch. And these are but the first of a series of major SWF moves that will be aimed at acquiring stakes in top American banks and corporations. The managers of these funds naturally insist that they have no intention of using their ownership of prime American properties to influence US policy. In time, however, a transfer of economic power of this magnitude cannot help but translate into a transfer of political power as well. Indeed, this prospect has already stirred deep misgivings in Congress. "In the short run, that they are investing here is good," Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) recently observed. "But in the long run it is unsustainable. Our power and authority is eroding because of the amounts we are sending abroad for energy ..." No summer tax holiday for the Pentagon Foreign ownership of key nodes of our economy is only one sign of fading American superpower status. Oil's impact on the military is another. Every day, the average GI in Iraq uses approximately 27 gallons of petroleum-based fuels. With some 160,000 American troops in Iraq, that amounts to 4.37 million gallons in daily oil usage, including gasoline for vans and light vehicles, diesel for trucks and armored vehicles, and aviation fuel for helicopters, drones, and fixed-wing aircraft. With US forces paying, as of late April, an average of $3.23 per gallon for these fuels, the Pentagon is already spending approximately $14 million per day on oil ($98 million per week, $5.1 billion per year) to stay in Iraq. Meanwhile, our Iraqi allies, who are expected to receive a windfall of $70 billion this year from the rising price of their oil exports, charge their citizens $1.36 per gallon for gasoline. When questioned about why Iraqis are paying almost a third less for oil than American forces in their country, senior Iraqi government officials scoff at any suggestion of impropriety. "America has hardly even begun to repay its debt to Iraq," said Abdul Basit, the head of Iraq's Supreme Board of Audit, an independent body that oversees Iraqi governmental expenditures. "This is an immoral request because we didn't ask them to come to Iraq, and before they came in 2003 we didn't have all these needs." Needless to say, this is not exactly the way grateful clients are supposed to address superpower patrons. "It's totally unacceptable to me that we are spending tens of billions of dollars on rebuilding Iraq while they are putting tens of billions of dollars in banks around the world from oil revenues," said Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan), chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "It doesn't compute as far as I'm concerned." Certainly, however, our allies in the region, especially the Sunni kingdoms of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that presumably look to Washington to stabilize Iraq and curb the growing power of Shi'ite Iran, are willing to help the Pentagon out by supplying US troops with free or deeply-discounted petroleum. No such luck. Except for some partially subsidized oil supplied by Kuwait, all oil-producing US allies in the region charge us the market rate for petroleum. Take that as a striking reflection of how little credence even countries whose ruling elites have traditionally looked to the US for protection now attach to our supposed superpower status. Think of this as a strikingly clear-eyed assessment of American power. As far as they're concerned, we're now just another of those hopeless oil addicts driving a monster gas-guzzler up to the pump - and they're perfectly happy to collect our cash which they can then use to cherry-pick our prime assets. So expect no summer tax holidays for the Pentagon, not in the Middle East, anyway. Worse yet, the US military will need even more oil for the future wars on which the Pentagon is now doing the planning. In this way, the US experience in Iraq has especially worrisome implications. Under the military "transformation" initiated by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2001, the future US war machine will rely less on "boots on the ground" and ever more on technology. But technology entails an ever-greater requirement for oil, as the newer weapons sought by Rumsfeld (and now Secretary of Defense Robert Gates) all consume many times more fuel than those they will replace. To put this in perspective: The average GI in Iraq now uses about seven times as much oil per day as GIs did in the first Gulf War less than two decades ago. And every sign indicates that the same ratio of increase will apply to coming conflicts; that the daily cost of fighting will skyrocket; and that the Pentagon's capacity to shoulder multiple foreign military burdens will unravel. Thus are superpowers undone. Russia's gusher If anything demonstrates the critical role of oil in determining the fate of superpowers in the current milieu, it is the spectacular reemergence of Russia as a Great Power on the basis of its superior energy balance. Once derided as the humiliated, enfeebled loser in the US-Soviet rivalry, Russia is again a force to be reckoned with in world affairs. It possesses the fastest-growing economy among the G-8 group of major industrial powers, is the world's second leading producer of oil (after Saudi Arabia), and is its top producer of natural gas. Because it produces far more energy than it consumes, Russia exports a substantial portion of its oil and gas to neighboring countries, making it the only Great Power not dependent on other states for its energy needs. As Russia has become an energy-exporting state, it has moved from the list of has-beens to the front rank of major players. When President Bush first occupied the White House, in February 2001, one of his highest priorities was to downgrade US ties with Russia and annul the various arms-control agreements that had been forged between the two countries by his predecessors, agreements that explicitly conferred equal status on the US and the USSR. As an indication of how contemptuously the Bush team viewed Russia at that time, Condoleezza Rice, while still an adviser to the Bush presidential campaign, wrote, in the January/February 2000 issue of the influential Foreign Affairs, "US policy ... must recognize that American security is threatened less by Russia's strength than by its weakness and incoherence." Under such circumstances, she continued, there was no need to preserve obsolete relics of the dual superpower past such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; rather, the focus of US efforts should be on preventing the further erosion of Russian nuclear safeguards and the potential escape of nuclear materials. In line with this outlook, President Bush believed that he could convert an impoverished and compliant Russia into a major source of oil and natural gas for the United States - with American energy companies running the show. This was the evident aim of the US-Russian "energy dialogue" announced by Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in May 2002. But if Bush thought Russia was prepared to turn into a northern version of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or Venezuela prior to the arrival of Hugo Chavez, he was to be sorely disappointed. Putin never permitted American firms to acquire substantial energy assets in Russia. Instead, he presided over a major recentralization of state control when it came to the country's most valuable oil and gas reserves, putting most of them in the hands of Gazprom, the state-controlled natural gas behemoth. Once in control of these assets, moreover, Putin has used his renascent energy power to exert influence over states that were once part of the former Soviet Union, as well as those in Western Europe that rely on Russian oil and gas for a substantial share of their energy needs. In the most extreme case, Moscow turned off the flow of natural gas to Ukraine on January 1, 2006, in the midst of an especially cold winter, in what was said to be a dispute over pricing but was widely viewed as punishment for Ukraine's political drift westwards. (The gas was turned back on four days later when Ukraine agreed to pay a higher price and offered other concessions.) Gazprom has threatened similar action in disputes with Armenia, Belarus, and Georgia - in each case forcing those former Soviet SSRs to back down. When it comes to the US-Russian relationship, just how much the balance of power has shifted was evident at the NATO summit at Bucharest in early April. There, President Bush asked that Georgia and Ukraine both be approved for eventual membership in the alliance, only to find top US allies (and Russian energy users) France and Germany blocking the measure out of concern of straining ties with Russia. "It was a remarkable rejection of American policy in an alliance normally dominated by Washington," Steven Erlanger and Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times reported, "and it sent a confusing signal to Russia, one that some countries considered close to appeasement of Moscow." For Russian officials, however, the restoration of their country's great power status is not the product of deceit or bullying, but a natural consequence of being the world's leading energy provider. No one is more aware of this than Dmitri Medvedev, the former chairman of Gazprom and new Russian president. "The attitude toward Russia in the world is different now," he declared on December 11, 2007. "We are not being lectured like schoolchildren; we are respected and we are deferred to. Russia has reclaimed its proper place in the world community. Russia has become a different country, stronger and more prosperous." The reverse, of course, can be said about the United States. As a result of our addiction to increasingly costly imported oil, we have become a different country, weaker and less prosperous. Whether we know it or not, the energy Berlin Wall has already fallen and the United States is an ex-superpower-in-the-making. Michael Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and author of the just-released Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books). A documentary film based on his previous book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation and can be ordered at bloodandoilmovie.com. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=417_1210381520 PutzwithNutz An oil-addicted ex-superpower ex-superpower,United States Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:34:35 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=31e_1202114075 ornament Smart CCTV monitors the masses from one PC By Nick Booth: Friday, 01 February 2008, 11:55 AM NO DOUBT IT meant well, but Hitachi has created a monster that could wipe out whatever http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=31e_1202114075 ornament Hitachi enables Orwellian nightmare News