9/11 Stress Increased Risk of Heart Problems

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Stress brought on by the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 led to heart problems for some Americans, even if they had no personal connection to the events, a study found.

In the first study to demonstrate the impact of the attacks on cardiac health, researchers in California said acute stress responses were linked to a 53 percent increased incidence in strokes, high blood pressure and other cardiac ailments.

"Our study is the first to show that even among people who had no personal connection to the victims, those who reported high levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms in the days following the 9/11 attacks were more than twice as likely to report being diagnosed by their doctors with cardiovascular ailments like high blood pressure, heart problems and stroke up to three years later," said Alison Holman, a professor in nursing science and lead researcher for the study.

The study, carried out by Holman and researchers at the University of California, Irvine, is published in the January edition of Archives of General Psychiatry.

The study involved a random sample of almost 2,000 adults from across the country whose health status had been recorded before September 11, 2001.

The majority had watched the attacks on New York City's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington on live television but had no direct exposure to them.

They were interviewed immediately after September 11 and in follow-up surveys until late 2004. Risk factors such as cholesterol levels, diabetes, smoking and weight were taken into account along with stressful events like divorce.hose taking part answered questions about their concerns, such as, "I worry that an act of terrorism will personally affect me or someone in my family."

People reporting such concerns were three to four times more likely to report a doctor-diagnosed heart problem two to three years after the attacks.

Holman said she was initially so surprised at the results that she re-ran the analysis different ways to confirm them before submitting the study for publication.

Holman said she was not in the United States when hijacked airplanes rammed into the Pentagon and the two World Trade Center Towers but she knew immediately she had to study the effects of the attacks on stress and health.

"It was the most major national collective trauma that the United States had had in decades and (I knew) it would represent very important questions for public policy makers and researchers about how the populace handles such stress," Holman said.

Can you say "class action lawsuit?"

WTC7 Truth calling... it's for you.

The NIST-NCST Committee on WTC7 held a public meeting on Dec. 18, 2007 (a conference call!) on the progress of the WTC7 report. The call contains a number of stunning admissions by NIST regarding the WTC7 fires, as well as interesting questions from NIST committee members and powerful statements from three citizen commentators. An unbelievable and under-reported artifact...
Comments by a prominent architect for Truth Richard Gage...

The schedule for the continued cover-up is as follows:

1/08 Complete analysis of initiating event.
3/08 Complete analysis of global building response to initiating event.
4/08 Identify leading collapse hypothesis.
5/08 Complete draft reports for NIST Team review.
6/08 Revised draft reports transmitted for NIST level and NCST Advisory Committee Review.
7/08 Release draft reports for public comment.
8/08 Release final reports on WTC 7 Investigation.

Mark your calendar... but don't hold your breath.

UPDATE: 1.30.08
From: NIST
Subject: Re: WTC7

The deadline of 1/08 "Complete analysis of initiating event is an internal deadline for completing this aspect of the analysis of the collapse of WTC 7 and does not correspond to the release of a report on this work. NIST will release a set of draft final reports fully documenting the results of all the analyses conducted for WTC 7, NIST's findings and conclusions, and any recommendations that might result. As noted in the earlier reply, we anticipate releasing the draft final reports for public comment in July 2008.

Sincerely,
The WTC Investigation Team

9/11 Panel Study Finds That CIA Withheld Tapes

By Mark Mazzetti - The New York Times

Washington - A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and were told by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had "produced or made available for review" everything that had been requested.

A seven-page memorandum prepared by Philip D. Zelikow, the panel's former executive director, concluded that "further investigation is needed" to determine whether the C.I.A.'s withholding of the tapes from the commission violated federal law.

In interviews this week, the two chairmen of the commission, Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, said their reading of the report had convinced them that the agency had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission's inquiry.

Mr. Kean said the panel would provide the memorandum to the federal prosecutors and congressional investigators who are trying to determine whether the destruction of the tapes or withholding them from the courts and the commission was improper.

A C.I.A. spokesman said that the agency had been prepared to give the Sept. 11 commission the interrogation videotapes, but that commission staff members never specifically asked for interrogation videos.

The review by Mr. Zelikow does not assert that the commission specifically asked for videotapes, but it quotes from formal requests by the commission to the C.I.A. that sought "documents," "reports" and "information" related to the interrogations.

Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey, said of the agency's decision not to disclose the existence of the videotapes, "I don't know whether that's illegal or not, but it's certainly wrong." Mr. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, said that the C.I.A. "clearly obstructed" the commission's investigation.

DO-OVER!!!

Have some Koolaid with that Ethanol...

WASHINGTON -- Congress by a wide margin approved the first increase in automobile fuel economy in 32 years (what's the big hurry?) on Tuesday, and President Bush has signaled he will accept the mandates on the auto industry. The energy bill, boosting mileage by 40% to 35 miles per gallon, passed the House 314-100 and now goes to the White House, following the Senate's approved last week, said the Associated Press.

In a dramatic shift to spur increased demand for nonfossil fuels, the bill also requires a sixfold increase in ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a boon to farmers (see "Axis of Evil" post below) . And it requires new energy efficiency standards for an array of appliances, lighting and commercial and government buildings. But does NOTHING to promote solar or wind energy production.

"This is a choice between yesterday and tomorrow" on energy policy, declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.), who was closely involved in crafting the legislation. "And we choose YESTERDAY!"

While some dipshit Republican lawmakers criticized the bill for failing to address the need for more domestic oil and natural gas production, 95 GOP lawmakers joined Democrats in support of the bill.

"This legislation is a historic turning point in energy policy," said Majority Follower Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) because it will cut demand for foreign oil and promote nonfossil fuels that will cut greenhouse gases linked to global warming. WTF? How will ethanol, which uses more energy to produce than it creates, cut greenhouse gases?

It increases energy efficiency "from light bulbs to light trucks," said dim bulb Rep. John Dingelberry (D.-Mich.), a longtime protector of the auto industry who was key to a compromise (read: "gutting") on vehicle efficiency increases.

9/11 Was An Inside Job, Says Former President of Italy

from Docudharma.com - Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 12:07:37 PST
In the November 30 issue of Corriere della Sera, Italy's oldest and most widely read newspaper, Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga stated that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies.

"All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe...know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part ... in Iraq [and] Afghanistan."

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who was first elected president of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide election to become president of Italy in 1985, remained President until 1992. More about this former "insider" and whistleblower:

Cossiga's tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment, and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of, and his part in setting up, Operation Gladio.

This was a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and '80s.

Gladio's specialty was to carry out what they termed "false flag" operations-terror attacks that were blamed on their domestic and geopolitical opposition.

Another translation from the Italian article:

From circles around Palazzo Chigi, nerve center of direction of Italian intelligence, it is noted that the non-authenticity of the video is testified from the fact that Osama bin Laden in it 'confessed' that Al Qaeda would have been the author of the attack of the 11 September to the Twin Towers in New York, while all of the democratic circles of America and of Europe, with in the forefront those of the Italian centre-left, now know well that the disastrous attack was planned and realized by the American CIA and Mossad with the help of the Zionist world to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and to persuade the Western powers to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In March 2001, Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated, in sworn testimony, "You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

Cossiga first expressed his doubts about 9-11 in 2001, and is quoted by 9-11 researcher Webster Tarpley saying "The mastermind of the attack must have been a sophisticated mind, provided with ample means not only to recruit fanatic kamikazes, but also highly specialized personnel. I add one thing: it could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and flight security personnel."

Coming from a widely respected former head of state, Cossiga's assertion that the 9-11 attacks were an inside job and that this is common knowledge among global intelligence agencies is illuminating.

It is one more eye-opening confirmation that has not been mentioned by America�s propaganda machine in print or on TV.

Nevertheless, because of his experience and status in the world, Cossiga cannot be discounted as a crackpot.

Debunk This...

Rare footage of flight 93...

"Governor Tom Ridge"??? Hmmm...

StarWars in Iraq - Your Tax Dollars at Work

NOW can we have a New Investigation?!!

December 8, 2007 by Nicholas Levis
Writing in TIME magazine, former CIA agent and occasional "conspiracy theory" debunker, Robert Baer, concedes that 9/11 skeptics seem all the more credible after the CIA admits destruction of key evidence. Full-time debunker Gerald Posner also sees a cover-up.

The most important document in the official mythology of September 11th, The 9/11 Commission Report, is based largely on the reported statements of three prisoners: Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Abu Zubaydah. The Report describes these men as high-ranking members of Al Qaeda; US authorities announced the captures of the three at different points in 2002 and 2003. According to the CIA and US military, they have been held ever since at "undisclosed locations," and have had contacts only with a handful of interrogators. No US agency has ever produced any of them in a public proceeding.

Khalid Sheikh Mohamed was originally reported as killed during an attempt to capture him in Pakistan in September 2002. He apparently survived, for he was reported as captured in March 2003. Until 2004, it was considered a security breach for a US government source even to mention his name (although it had been public since 2002).

The 9/11 Commission asked to see Mohamed and other prisoners, and was denied. The only evidence of his existence provided to the Commission was in the form of printed English-language transcripts of interrogations supposedly held at the Guantanamo prison. Videotapes were said not to exist. But although the Commission portrays Mohamed, in particular, as the originator and mastermind of the September 11th plot, it made no fuss about its denial of access to him. The Report simply cites him and the others uncritically as primary sources, without expressing a shred of doubt that the transcripts constitute the mens' words, that the words are genuine and unedited, or that the prisoners really are who the CIA says they are. This is despite the fact that Ernest May, one of the architects of the Report, admitted in a May 2005 memoir that the Commission never had full confidence that the words were truly theirs.

We learned this week that CIA videotapes of at least some of these supposed interrogations -- the tapes which were previously said not to have existed -- are now said to have been destroyed in 2005. The CIA has copped to destroying the Abu Zubaydah tapes, but has yet to name the prisoner(s) in the other destroyed tapes. (That one of them was Mohamed is a good bet.)

The CIA claims -- bizarrely -- that this was done to protect the identities of the interrogators (as though blurring them out would be beyond the agency's 19th-century video technology). The corporate media have promptly floated the idea that the motive was to cover up the use of torture, possibly waterboarding. But as the "evidence" from which the official 9/11 fable lives disappears further into a black box, naturally any breathing skeptic must wonder to what extent the tapes, or even the prisoners, existed in the first place. And if the tapes existed, was the motive behind their destruction to hide torture, or to hide evidence? Even a defender of the official story like former CIA agent Robert Baer knows this latest story only adds to the stink.

Gerald Posner, meanwhile, finds occasion to repeat the story told to him, of how Zubaydah was supposedly duped by the CIA into naming three Saudi princes and a Pakistani general as accomplices to the terror network. All four of these personages subsequently turned up dead, the three princes in fact killed in separate incidents within a single week.

From the NIST* Report...

Probable Collapse Sequence for WTC 1:
Collapse Initiation
• The inward bowing of the South wall induced column instability, which progressed rapidly horizontally across the entire South face.

• The South wall unloaded and tried to redistribute the loads via the hat truss to the thermally weakened core and via the spandrels to the adjacent East and West walls.

• The entire section of the building above the impact zone began tilting as a rigid block (all four faces; not only the bowed and buckled South face) to the South (at least about 8º) as column instability progressed rapidly from the South wall along the adjacent East and West walls.

• The change in potential energy due to downward movement of building mass above the buckled columns exceeded the strain energy that could be absorbed by the structure. Global collapse then ensued.

PROBABLE???

prob·a·ble adj.
1. Likely to happen or to be true. As in: "The woman in the photo above, probably did not have to die."

2. Likely but uncertain; plausible.

And can anyone explain what "global collapse" means besides "cover-up"?

*Not In Scientific Terms.

The Mid West - Ground Zero for US Global Warming!

The Northern Hemisphere is the warmest this year since record-keeping started 127 years ago, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

Temperatures for January through October averaged 1.3 degrees above the norm. If the trend continues, the year could break the record for the warmest set in 2005.