Wikileaks has not revealed the source of the intercepts, but claims that the context in which the data was sent to them a few weeks ago along with other information confirms their validity.

The messages were broadcast “live” online on the wikileaks site and also Twitter between 25th and 26th November, with each message posted at the same time it was originally sent. More details after the jump.

Messages released range from the almost mundane everyday chatter of civilians enquiring about lunch to haunting automatic alarm messages issued to engineers and maintenance companies from servers and systems in the World Trade Center buildings. Although they help to provide an often jarring look at people’s thoughts on that day, the real meat is in what appear to be the more “official” messages, which can be grouped together into coherenet streams from the sender/receiver ID number: :

2001-09-11 12:26:59 Skytel [005206261] B ALPHA vze2j729@verizon.net|I’m At Home With Classified|Ray, I am waiting for the traffic to subside. Then I will take classified to Naval Secu
2001-09-11 12:27:01 Skytel [005206261] B ALPHA rity Station or some other installation. Bryan (36

2001-09-11 14:27:44 Skytel [005206261] B ALPHA vmaq1vmaq4ecmo@hotmail.com|I’m okay|Ray, I wasn’t not at the pentagon this morning as had previously planned to be for the PE JWCA. Any news on the rest of our guys?????????? CAll me at home if you can. If
2001-09-11 14:27:46 Skytel [005206261] B ALPHA not PLEASE email me at my be

2001-09-11 15:42:44 Skytel [005206261] B ALPHA vze2j729@verizon.net|Talked to Sgt Fisher and SSgt Webster|He OK’d me to stand fast until traffic subsides. Then
2001-09-11 15:42:46 Skytel [005206261] B ALPHA I am to try the old Naval Security Station for an SSO or return to HQMC if traffic is open to it. (40

2001-09-11 15:54:59 Skytel [005206261] B ALPHA david.whitney@verizon.net|Ray, Please Call me at home 780-3123, Dave|Also, need to give your muster to Mark Silver. Not sure where he is but = work is 614-4317 (41

2001-09-11 16:49:44 Skytel [005206261] B ALPHA vze2j729@verizon.net|Classified Material|Ray, I turned the classified material over to Sgt Fisher. Mission accomplished. (43

Still other messages suggest either confused Chinese whispers in action or events that were not made public:

2001-09-11 09:52:02 Metrocall {1175659} 1 2400 Frm: MSN Txt: Kavitha Sunand Nair: bomb was diffused at the heliport at pentagon. white house and pentagon being emptied…..

All very interesting stuff. Whether this illustrates perfectly the “fog of war”, or adds grist to the mill for those who do not believe the offical story of events, who knows? As Wikileaks describes the event:

Text pagers are usualy carried by persons operating in an official capacity. Messages in the archive range from Pentagon, FBI, FEMA and New York Police Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults at investment banks inside the World Trade Center.

The archive is a completely objective record of the defining moment of our time. We hope that its entrance into the historical record will lead to a nuanced understanding of how this event led to death, opportunism and war.

Go have a read for yourself  here, and see what you think. As ever, I am remaining respectfully mute on the subject.

Oh, Alex Jones. That decibel-heavy, shouty loud protester of all things New World Order and conspiracy. Many people dig a good conspiracy theory; many people seek the truth where they feel there are lies. But not all charge for their services. And for those that pay for such services, they expect, well, from a self-confessed truthseeker, the truth. Funny that.

So what has the internet’s number one cause of earache done to illicit the ire of may conpiracy theorists and truth seekers around the world? Find out after the jump!

While brash, loud and usually utterly annoying, Jones does seem to go out of his way to chase down truths and misdeeds as aggressively as possible – often with a bullhorn as a tool – with the apparent intent of educating the mindless masses out of their torpor.

From time to time he does seem to come up with some good points. And, of course, as befitting any web host who has a message that despeartely needs to get to the ears of the public at any cost lest they be blinded by government misdirection and sleight of hand this information can be found in handy-dandy purchaseable items such as books and DVDs. A guy’s gotta eat, right?

So over the last few days the buzz has been built up with an announcement from Jones that (and I paraphrase here):

“ZOMGWTFBBQ I HAEV TEH MOAST AMAZEING THING COMING UP THAT IS TEH MOAST ASTOUNDING THING EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVERTINK I HAEV DONE EVAR!!!one!!eleven AND U MUST BE HEAR TO WITNESS IT!!!!one!!”

So, understandably, with Jones’ overbearing reputation for fighting for the common man, people watched infowars.com and waited.

What did they get?

They were presented with a transcript of an interview granted to Charlie Sheen by President Barack Obama, in which Sheen harangues and cajoles the POTUS about 9/11 and the lies surrounding it. Think of it as a 21st Century version of David Frost grilling Nixon about Watergate. Quite impressive. The Pres. himself comes off as a bit of a jerk, ducking the issue and patting Sheen on the head like an annoying puppy.

Quite groundbreaking you think? A testament to Jones’ common man spirit and journalistic ability?

Well, actually, no. Not in the slightest. A testament to Jones’ ability to shill, deceive and misrepresent, in the name of site traffic, most likely. See, about an hour and a half after the interview transcript was posted, it was pulled. Then reposted with a slight addition: right at the bottom, after you have read the whole thing and believed every word, is the tiniest of disclaimers: 

Author’s Note: What you have just read didn’t actually happen… yet.

This is an open letter to the President requesting a new investigation.

Charlie Sheen.

So, in essence, what you have now just wasted 10 minutes reading is utter and complete bullshit. Fan-fiction from a Z-list celeb that no-one alive actually gives a fuck about, and of no greater value than someone posting on in the Skunkworks forum on AboveTopSecret.com saying that they are a Zeta Reticulan here to warn us of impending doom.

What this faux interview does  – apart from open Jones up to the possibility of libel lawsuits from the Whitehouse – is reinforce, to the common man, that a) all conpiracy theorists are nutjobs; b) Jones is an ass of the highest order and is simply fawning like a schoolgirl because he knows a faded celeb; and c) this was the most underwhelming piece of faux-journalism in the history of bullshit.

Whatever credibility Jones may have had before is now shot to pieces. He is no more than your typical tinofoiler, except he probably has a nice car and house thanks to you buying his material. And a bullhorn.

If any of his work ever was valid or correct before, well, that’s gone now.

Jones is purported to have stated that the reason for the lie was a psy-ops tactic to get the mainstream media to pick up the story and get the important questions about 9/11 raised into the public consciousness. Unfortunately, presenting the article as genuine with a big hoo-haa and then only confessing an hour and a half later in a tiny tiny postscript (so missable that even most of the commenters on the article missed it) that it is a work of fiction invalidates the entire thing, effectively calls those who believed it fools, and more egregiously risks the dismissal of all of the points that Sheen raises in his faux-grilling. “This is all a matter of public record, reported through mainstream media, painstakingly fact checked and verified” he states. Well, unfortunately, because the interview is a lie, this statement rings hollow – nothing in the article can therefore be trusted, and most people will investigate no further.

As one reader comments at the end of the article: 

“Wait a minute. All that hype for an imaginary interview with Obama? About 9-11? About Sheen going on the Alex Jones show presenting evidence WE ALREADY KNOW? I’m a believer but I DON”T like being sucked into a “News at 11″ teaser.”

Oh, Alex. Time to shut the fuck up and go get a job, I guess, What a cockbollock.

In case you require proof, here is the original posting of the interview sans disclaimer, that most people assumed was the real deal, thankfully saved by a canny member at ATS. 

Jones gets an honorary “Retard Of The Week” tag on this article for being such a dick.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I am not a disinfo agent in the employ of some shadowy government enclave. I’m far too hopeless for such shenanigans like that.

UPDATE: a half-assed missive has been posted on Jones’ sister site, prisonplanet.com, addressing the issue. It includes:

“Separately, a few other blogs were up in arms about Sheen’s letter being a “hoax” because the disclaimer clarifying that the meeting with Obama was a stylized fictional account and not a real event did not get added to the bottom of the article until a little later due to technical snafus and a bombardment of traffic that shut down servers and locked out Infowars and Prison Planet webmasters. With the Infowars version having been copied across from Prison Planet, both original versions did not contain the disclaimer until the error was brought to our attention and promptly fixed as soon as we could gain access to servers that kept crashing, as many readers noted at the time. We added the disclaimer as soon as possible as well as other information that should have been included at the bottom of the original article regarding Sheen’s appearance on the show. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused and are trying to move our servers in house to prevent this routine occurrence from happening again.”

That’s no moon apology. Nor is it a believable excuse. Firstly, we are expected to believe that after over apparently many, many hours of perparation for the whole week’s events, someone misses out a line of text? Then we are expected to believe that the demand on the sites causes overload so that the updated article could not be corrected. I don’t think so. Research has revealed the hosting for both sites is outsourced and of a nature that is specifically designed to avoid such scenarios for high-traffic sites. Plus, it would have taken all of a few seconds to add the line, re-upload the page file and voila! no one is the wiser, and this cold have been done the moment the original upload went live. You show me someone who writes and article, puts it on the web and he doesn’t read through it? Even the most modest of writers reads through the published piece to make sure it all came out ok (and to get a little tickle to the ego – don’t deny it). Lastly, it does not explain why someone so dedicated to freedom of speech would cull negative comments on forums (as has been reported by many posters) and why comments are now turned off on all articles on Prisonplanet. He wants free speech for all, but not when you might be critical, obviously.

And one last nail in the coffin – if this had been my mistake, you know what I would have done? Included an apology or explanaton there and then, maybe even with the disclaimer that was added. But no, we get a very subtle and seemingly reluctant apology the next day, amidst self-congratulatory boasting.

I call foul. My gut feeling is still wilful deception to raise traffic and hits – not to break the story. 

End. 

Why, gentle reader,  this is Conservative MP Anthony Steen. Now, we don’t often take direct political sides here in dogsounds Towers, mostly because we lack the ability to defend our points in arguments because we suck at debate. But this guy, we are happy to say, is the kind of Tory scumbag that would make me never, ever, ever want to vote for that party. When I heard his tale earlier today, it drove me into a blind rage. Find out why he is the #1 arrogant, self-important and totally-out-of -touch-with-the-public clusterfuck in British politics right now. In my opinion.

Dear, sweet readers outside the UK may not be aware that right now Parliament is in turmoil with the revelation of what exactly MP’s are claiming as valid expenses.  Many MP’s have been forced to resign or retire, many will find a sudden total lack of support from their constituents, and there is even talk that there is pressure to call a General Election. Public trust in the establishment and been totally flushed down the toilet. Why?

Well, right now, as the average person in the UK struggles to keep (or find) a job, struggles to pay their mortgage, struggles to get a mortgage, struggles to maintain their debts, all under the cloud of  record levels of debt and reposession, it has been revealed that MPs are claiming for the most outrageous things on official expenses.

Whilst you worry that your mortgage is in arrears and your family will soon be homeless, MP’s are using taxpayer money to buy things like TV’s, decorate their second homes, repair leaking pipes under their tennis courts, and build little islands in the middle of their duck ponds. And, worst of all, some MPs have been caught claiming mortgage payments on expenses – even though the mortgage had already been paid off. And the people who are struggling to survive financially – you and me – are paying for it.

Well, the shit hit the fan, the public went hoopla-apeshit about it, and party leaders left, right and centre are warning their members that anyone found guilty of this who does not pay the money back will be removed from the party, and party politics.

Now there is a slight flaw – they have not broken the law. The things they have claimed for are allowed within the expense framework guidelines. However, this is no free pass to be sure as though they may be within the guildelines, they are well out of order to the average man in the street, especially in the current economic climate. 

So, some are sacked, some sheepishly pay back. Some moan and complain about being forced to stand down. Guess what, fuckers? If had an extension built on my house and claimed it on my emloyer’s expenses, you know, they would pretty much fire my ass within five minutes.

And then this dickshit, Anthony “I represent the people, my arse” Steen, comes out of the woodwork. Big fuck-off house, lots of land. He has spent over £87,000 on his house, including getting a forestry expert to inspect trees on the land. And he whinges like a fucking little brat that the public are compaining about it, saying people are just jealous because of his big house.

Guess what, moron?  That’s more wrong than a kiddy-fiddler in a childrens’ playground. We couldn’t give a flying fuck about your big house. What we do give a fuck about is that you are spending our fucking money on it. OUR money. You bought the fucking house, pay for it your fucking self. It’s not a perk of the job. You made the choice. Some MP’s live at the other end of the country and have a small flat in London to enable them to not have to commute all across the country every day – that’s fair enough. The public can accept that.

But you? You couldn’t be more out of fucking touch if you tried. Shut the fuck up, stand down, get the fuck out of my country’s political system. You are nothing but a bloated, obfuscating, self-absorbed and irrelevant leech. You may as well take money out of people’s hands directly. 

Anyone this absolutely fucking clueless about ordinary people has no right to represent them.  

Apparently he later apologised for his comments, stating he was “deeply upset”. Fuck off. Try imagining a family with young children who are having their house reposessed because they are now out of work and cannot afford the mortgage, and face a council house waiting list that grows ever longer because local councils cannot afford to build new housing stock. They are “upset”. You, on the other hand, are just an utter twat.

If you want to hear his pathetic, clueless comments, listen here.

And the icing on the cake? He says “what right does the public have to interfere with his private life?”

I’d say pretty much every right, as long as we are fucking paying for it.

Sadly, Anthony, I am afraid you don’t qualify for dogsounds’ Retard Of The Week award. You get dogsounds’s rarely-outed Retard For Fucking Ever award.

Ignorant fucking moron.

Hopefully.

Facebook reades click here for the film.

President Barack Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress are considering sweeping legislation that will provide new benefits for many Americans. The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.

“Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society,” said California Senator Barbara Boxer – Democrat. “We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability (POI) to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they have some idea of what they are doing.”

In a Capitol Hill press conference, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi – Democrat, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – Democrat – pointed to the success of the U.S. Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest U.S. employer of Persons of Inability.

Private-sector industries with good records of non-discrimination against the Inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), and home improvement warehouse stores (65%). At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has an excellent record of hiring Persons of Inability (63%).

Under AWNAA, more than 25 million mid-level positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.

Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given so as to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of Persons of Inability into middle-management positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium-sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.

Finally, the AWNAA contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the non-abled, banning, for example, discriminatory interview questions such as, “Do you have any skills or experience that relate to this job?”

“As a Non-abled person, I can’t be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them,”said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint , Michigan , due to her inability to remember rightey tightey, lefty loosey.”This new law should be real good for people like me,” Gertz added. With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat-IL), “As a Senator with no abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her inadequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation and a good salary for doing so.”

The word “idiot” pretty much sums up every convoluted facet of this man, the lowest-rated President in American political history. But surely he made some kind of positive contribution? Find out after the jump.

Whilst an era of new hope manifests itself following the arrival of newbie Barack Hussein Obama, satirists and impressionists the world over mourn the passing of the Administration Of The Shrub.

To celebrate his one and only positive asset – his contributions to satirical comedy – here are a few of his classic Bushisms. Marvel how such an imbecile managed to get elected to the most powerful job in the World. And how dumb people had to be to vote for him.

‘The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.’

‘If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.’

‘One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is ‘to be prepared’.’

‘I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.’

‘The future will be better tomorrow.’

‘We’re going to have the best educated American people in the world.’

‘I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made.’

‘We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe . We are a part of Europe ‘

‘Public speaking is very easy.’

‘A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.’

‘I have opinions of my own — strong opinions — but I don’t always agree with them.’

‘We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.’

‘For NASA, space is still a high priority.’

‘Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.’

‘It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.’

(Facebook readers

Richard Nixon: 37th President of the United States. Searingly intelligent, shy, aloof. Led by not only a desire for power but, all in, a desire to stabilize the world theater in a time of war, and utlimately the only American President to ever resign office.

David Frost: young British journalist, satirist and television presence, alumnus of the Footlights Club alongside performers such as Peter Cook, host of ground-breaking programme That Was The Week That Was and instantly recogniseable voice on British television from the 1960′s to the present day.

Two people from utterly different worlds. What happened when they came together to thrash out the truth in 1977? Find out after the jump.

Richard Nixon was elected President in 1969, and was embroiled straight away into a mess of civil unrest and worldwide tension. The Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and tensions with China all made for a rocky Presidency at best. Nixon always stated that his greatest desire on coming to power was to try to ease these tensions, to do good and bring peace to a troubled world. Under his auspices the Vietnam war drew to an end, the national draft was ceased, and better relationships began to form between the U.S. and both Russia and China.  Nixon’s term started to see a thawing of the Cold War, although a true end would not come till much, much later.

Nixon was also driven to the power of the office. Many have described him as sharp and intelligent, detached, and with an odd, almost out-of-place air. Some have likened his personality to that of someone “occasionally appearing compassionate but, in reality, merely doing what is necessary to appear compassionate, but all without actually having a lack of compassion.” In his early political years, he was often seen as focussed only on moving up the hallways of power with no true concern for the minutiae. Many of his early political allies have expressed that, whilst they would not have chosen to befriend such an awkward and aloof-seeming man in everyday life, they certainly knew that unlike ayone else he knew how to get stuff done, and was a powerful ally.

Nixon’s Presidency ended disastrously in 1974 when he became the first President of the United States to resign from office, ahead of a highly probable impeachment hearing – jumping beore he was pushed. The cards had started to fall with a break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters, based in the Watergate Office Complex in Washington D.C. in 1972. The “burglars” were apprehended on scene, and from then it started to become apparent that this was no ordinary burglary. This was in fact an attempt to snoop what the Democrats were up to, their campaign strategies, and to see what dirt they had on the Republican re-election committee’s campaign. What transpired was the exposure of a raft of illegal activities carried out with the knowledge and authorization of a number of Nixon’s Whitehouse staff: tax fraud, blackmail, political fraud, wiretapping, political espionage and sabotage, as well as the creation of a slush fund to pay for not only these illicit activities but also to cover hush money costs for those involved. Key to these illegal activities’ exposure were investigations by the CIA, FBI, Senate and House committes and, famously, the Washington Post, where journalists Woodward and Bernstein uncovered many of the connections that linked the burglary to the Whitehouse, thanks in part to a trail of breadcrumbs placed for them by a mysterious informant from somewhere within the administration known to them only as Deep Throat. Woodward and Bernstein’s story is told in the outstanding film All The President’s Men.

Finally, after being forced to release what many saw as damning audio recordings of conversations within the Oval Office, and with an impeachment hearing highly likely, Nixon resigned his Presidency on 9th August 1974. Though Whitehouse staff were eventually jailed for their part in the conspiracy, Nixon himself  was never charged or tried, and to his death protested that he never knowingly or consciously carrried out any illegal or corrupt acts. He never pointed the finger of blame directly, but also never denied that he had “failed his friends, failed his country, and failed the people of the United States of America”, stating that  “this is a burden I will have to carry for the rest of my life”.

Nixon only ever publicly spoke of the Watergate affair once. In an amazing journalistic coup, David Frost, a British jounalist, managed to secure a set of exclusive interviews with the former President in 1977, secured over the wants of the American news networks by a guarantee of six hours of broadcast time – far more than others were offering. Although always uncomfortable speaking in public and very shy, this appealed to Nixon’ s ego and he accepted.

The interviews covered a wide range of topics – China, foreign policy, Vietnam, and much more. But the most impressive and memorable was the interview that dealt with the hot potato subject: Watergate. Filmed over two sessions, we see Nixon counter-point Frosts’ impeccable research. There was no bias, no hiding away from the hard questions. And an immovable condition that safeguarded the integrity of the interviews was that Nixon would see no questions in advance, and would not be allowed to see the recorded material at all until they aired on PBS, when everyone would see them. The full set of interviews would prove to be one of the most powerful and important political interviews of the 20th Century.

I was lucky enough to see all the interviews a couple of years ago when they were aired on TV, but now sadly it seems only the Watergate interview is available online. Watergate started the drip-feed of distrust in government that racks America – and much of the rest of the world – today. And although it showed that the tools created by government – the CIA, the FBI, the political establishment itself – can destroy as much as aid and abet corruption, it also proved that it is possible for those in power to not be on the up and up to start with.

Before you go to see Frost/Nixon, the madly successful Broadway play starring Michael Sheen and Frank Langella which has been released as a movie (out January 23rd here in the UK), watch the source material below. You have never, and most likely will never again see such a powerful interview with such a powerful figure, laid bare for public examination. And the strange thing is, when I watch all the interviews, I don’t come away seeing Nixon as a corrupt politician. I come away with a sense that he was a shy, uncomfortable and out-of-place man, driven by a desire to to great good, but so out of touch with those around him that he strayed here and there until everything went horribly wrong.

But we will never know the truth for sure.

[EDIT 07/09/2010: seems the Google video of the inteview has been pulled. I'm not keen to post ten youtube links, and I refuse to send my readers to unscrupulous Russian sites of no pedigree. Until I can vodpod an alternative, I guess you'll have to scour the intertubes. Sorry.]

Facebook readers click here for the full video.

You might wonder why I am posting this. Being a Brit and all. Well, it seems to me that no matter who “wins”, the effect will be felt across many nations, not just in the U.S.

Here’s the first round of the 2008 Presidential Debates. Who do you favor? Who comes off best? In this round, Obama seems to be stuck on the defensive, attacking with the legacy of the current administration, and McCain seems to skirt around these issues and won’t quit harping on about veterans. Both seem a little lacklustre, with McCain leveraging Obama’s inexperience as much as possible, and Obama leveraging McCain’s experience as something to hold against him. 

Interesting stuff, but not much of a monkey-shit-fight that we always hope for. Full video after the jump (Facebook readers – you’ll have to click here to see the video). 

It would seem not – least of all Republican Marcy Kaptur, who is refusing to vote for the proposed bail-out plan of $700 billion to right the allegedly-crippled US economy, citing that indebting the public taxpayer whilst ingoring the alleged crimes of those on Wall Street whose greed and corruption have caused the problem in the first place is just plain wrong.

Seems like a fair point to me…full video after the jump (Facebook readers – you’ll have to click here for the full video).