NYPD teams with U.S. lab to study airborne weapons
NEW YORK - MY FOX NY - April 24, 2013
The New York Police Department is teaming up with a national laboratory to study how chemical weapons could be dispersed through the air into the subway system.
Researchers will track the movement of harmless tracer gases. They will place air ampling devices in specific areas on the street and within the subway system. The gases mimic how a chemical or biological weapon may react if released.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the study will help safeguard the city against attacks.
"The NYPD works for the best but plans for the worst when it comes to potentially catastrophic attacks such as ones employing radiological contaminants or weaponized anthrax," said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, adding that, "This field study with Brookhaven's outstanding expertise will help prepare and safeguard the city's population in the event of an actual attack."
The project with the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory was announced Wednesday. It will be funded through a $3.4 million federal grant.
It is the first of its scale to study airflow in a dense, complex urban environment both below and above ground. Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, along with additional meteorologists and engineers, will support Brookhaven's scientists as they track the movement of harmless tracer gases detected by air sampling devices placed in select locations on the street and in the subway system.
The subway system is the nation's largest with about 5 million riders per day.
"This study will bolster the NYPD's understanding of contaminant dispersion within the subway system as well as between the subway system and the street, thereby improving its ability to better protect both our customers and the city population at large," said MTA Acting Chairman Fernando Ferrer.
The tests will be conducted in July in all five boroughs.
Copyright 2013 MyFoxNY.com / The Associated Press
Brief History of False Flag Operations Disguised As Terrorism
Brief History of False Flag Operations Disguised As Terrorism
Orchestrate And Carried Out By The Parasite Ruling Class, Or The Nefarious Globalist
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “FAIR USE” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Venus Project Foundation is an arts, sciences and educational, non-profit 501(c)(3), public advocacy organization, based in New York City, United States.
Boston False Flag Operation Fully Exposed - Boston Marathon Bombing Was Staged - The World of Synthetic Manufactured Terrorism
BOSTON - Another Inside Job PART 2 - Navy Seal Caught in Boston - HEY BRO...WHERE DID YOUR BACKPACK GO?
Shocking Footage of Martial Law in Boston: Americans Ordered Out Of Homes At Gunpoint By SWAT teams
This is what martial law in the US looks like
17 Unanswered Questions About The Boston Marathon Bombing The Media Is Afraid To Ask
The Motive Behind the Boston False Flag Operation
Shocking Footage of Martial Law in Boston: Americans Ordered Out Of Homes At Gunpoint By SWAT teams
This is what martial law in the US looks like
- By Steve Watson - April 22, 2013
Shocking footage has emerged from Friday’s martial law lockdown in Boston, where police, federal agents, national guard troops and SWAT teams enforced door to door searches of everyone’s home, without any search warrants from any courts, within twenty blocks as the entire city was placed under orders to stay off the streets.
The video, shot by a resident from their own house across the street, shows police barking orders at men and women as they order them at gunpoint to identify themselves, put their hands on their heads, and get out of their own home. They are then ordered to run down the street to be further frisked by police as scores of armed militarized cops look on.
The scenes look like something out of a disaster movie, with the backdrop of suburban America juxtaposed with what is essentially martial law playing out in full daylight.
The story floated in the mainstream media that the door to door searches were conducted with the voluntary consent of the residents of Watertown is clearly false. 9000+ Police locked down an entire city and went in with full force, with armored vehicles and combat gear, all to search for an injured 19 year old kid who turned out to be cowering in someone’s back yard.
While armies of police roamed around people’s homes and private property, Public transportation was shut down, businesses were forced to close, and a no-fly zone was enacted over Boston in an unprecedented show of force.
At this point, as military helicopters buzzed over neighborhoods, the Fourth Amendment had ceased to exist in Boston, which quickly resembled a war zone.
The compliant mainstream media reported on the activity without alarm or question. Katy Waldman of Slate wrote an article claiming that under dire circumstances police can suspend 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable searches:
In exigent circumstances, or emergency situations, police can conduct warrantless searches to protect public safety. This exception to the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause requirement normally addresses situations of “hot pursuit,” in which an escaping suspect is tracked to a private home. But it might also apply to the events unfolding in Boston if further harm or injury might be supposed to occur in the time it takes to secure a warrant.
This activity, once again, sets a shocking precedent. Police and military are training in these circumstances every single day of the year. They are fully acclimatized to the process, as if it is completely normal. They do not hesitate in carrying out such orders, which are now being implemented whenever the authorities deem a situation to be an emergency.
This is what fully fledged martial law in America looks like.
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.
The Ayatollah in His Labyrinth
The competing forces in Iran's political system are poised to collide in this summer's presidential election.
Religion, or Democracy, Mullahs or Reason, People Must Choose!
- By Dr. Abbas Milani - APRIL 4, 2013
At the heart of Iranian politics there is an irreconcilable tension, rooted in the democratic nature of the 1979 revolution and the undemocratic power structure that emerged afterwards. On the one hand, there is the country's quasi-republican institutions and regular, albeit controlled elections; on the other is the state's guiding concept of god as the sole sovereign, and the Supreme Leader as the unimpeachable manifestation of this divine authority.
The contradictory aspects of Iran's political system are poised to collide in the June presidential election. The testyrelationships between the Supreme Leader and elected presidents has long been the most obvious reminder of the tensions within the Islamic Republic: As Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, the closest ally of Khamenei, announced recently, every president since Khamenei became leader 24 years ago -- Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Khatami, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- has lacked a firm enough belief in his divine mandate. In the coming election, the Supreme Leader has the difficult task of ensuring the election of a pliant president without provoking the rise of uncontrollable domestic discontent.
Three different sources of tension threaten to make this election problematic for the Islamic Republic. First, the widening rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei -- supported by his allies in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the conservative clergy -- is increasingly hard to hide, even manage. A key element of this feud is Ahmadinejad's effort to not only challenge the authority of Khamenei, but to ensure the election of his own hand-picked successor -- Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who at one time held 14 important posts in the government and is also father-in-law to the president's son.
For a long time, it has been the common lore of Iranian politics that Ahmadinejad and Mashaei are planning to do a Dmitry Medvedev-Vladimir Putin duet in Iran, swapping the presidency back and forth between each other. The conservative clergy, including Khamenei himself, have in the past openly objected to Mashaei, accusing him of all manner of malfeasance and disreputable views -- particularly the belief that Shiism's 12th Imam has been directly guiding and managing the affairs of the Ahmadinejad camp. As conservative clerics never tire of claiming, such "contacts" and "guidance" from the 12th Imam are the monopoly of the Supreme Leader -- and a critical source of his claimed legitimacy.
Money will be a key weapon in this struggle for power:According to sources inside the regime, Ahmadinejad has amassed billions of dollars in a slush fund to use in the upcoming election. In an unprecedented act, the government's own intelligence minister -- who Ahmadinejad had fired, but was then reinstalled by the special order of Khamenei -- warned last month that government funds might be used illicitly in favor of one candidate. The government also announced a plan to hire hundreds of thousands of new employees, a move denounced by Ahmadinejad's opponents as an attempt to place his supporters in areas needed to ensure his victory. The hiring spree was subsequently declared null by the Government Accounting Office, which added that governors who hire anyone will be prosecuted.
The vitriol between the Ahmadinejad and Khamenei camps is only getting worse. Some in the regime have accused Ahmadinejad of being in secret negotiations with not just the United States, but with the domestic opposition. High-ranking officials in the regime's security and intelligence apparatus have warned of planned disturbances even larger than those after the 2009 election, where an estimated 3 million people came out in Tehran to protest what they considered Ahmadinejad's rigged reelection. This time, the officials claim, the "troubles" will begin in smaller cities and spread to the capital.
Ahmadinejad has proved his willingness to strike back against his rivals. The president's camp is reported to have many potentially damaging documents and recordings from prominent members of the regime, giving the upcoming election a peculiar air of theatrical and political anticipation. The show has, in fact, already begun: In February, Ahmadinejad played a recording in the Majlis that purported to show the speaker's brother asking for kick-backs.
Considering the increasingly harsh criticism of Ahmadinejad by high-ranking members of the IRGC and the president's continued defiance of Khamenei, there is even a low possibility the president might not be allowed to finish his term. Last month, the Khamenei-controlled state television broadcast a half-hour documentary ostensibly about the impeachment of the Islamic Republic's first president, Abolhassan Banisadr. However, many saw it as a direct warning to Ahmadinejad that a similar faith might await him if he continues on his current path.
The second source of tension revolves around whether reformists will be allowed to participate in the election -- and even if they will want to. If they do participate, the question will be who they are allowed to field as a candidate. Khamenei recently met with a delegation of three reformist leaders, and 18 reformist groups subsequently asked for another meeting with the supreme leader -- indicating at the same time their view that the only viable candidate who can help navigate Iran through this period is Mohammad Khatami. Some reformists have also named Rafsanjani as a possible compromise savior.
Many in the reformist camp have hinted that freeing reformist leaders Mir-HosseinMousavi, ZahraRahnavard, and MehdiKarroubi -- who has been under house arrest for their role in the 2009 protests -- is a precondition of their participation in the election. Clearly Khamenei and the IRGC have to make a cost-benefit analysis: Does the domestic discontent, the increasingly dire economic situation, and their international isolation pose enough of a threat to justify bringing Khatami or Rafsanjani -- two men they have vilified in the past four years -- back into the fold? Or would such a tactical retreat only bring them embarrassment and signal their weakness?
Khamenei and his allies could, of course, allow a nominally reformist candidate -- one with little name recognition or charisma -- to run. Such tokenism might help fulfill the regime's stated goal of engineering a large voter turnout: the head of the National Police said that according to their surveys, a minimum of 60 percent of voters -- but more likely around 70 percent -- will participate in the upcoming elections. The fact that local council elections are slated to take place at the same time as presidential election is also intended to increase voter turnout.
There is clearly discord in the current regime over how to proceed. Two of the most important IRGC commanders have recently been replaced -- one was in charge of the IRGC's university, and the other was in charge of one of the IRGC's most important economic conglomerates, a firm called Khatam al-Anbia that is engaged in everything from building roads to defense to oil and gas pipeline construction. Moreover some of the more radical elements of the IRGC continue to insist that reformists of all hue are "tools" of American, British and Israeli designs to defeat the Islamic regime.
The third source of tension in this unfolding saga is the behavior of the candidates clearly favored by Khamenei and his allies. This troika calls itself the 2+1 Coalition, and is made up of Ali Akbar Velayati, for many years Iran's foreign minister and now a senior advisor on foreign relations to Khamenei; Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaff, the mayor of Tehran and former commander of the IRGC's air force; and Gholam Ali Hadad Adel, Khamenei's son's father-in-law. Each of the three has carved out a niche for himself: Velayati markets himself as the experienced, pragmatic foreign policy hand, Ghalibaff is a capable manager of the economy, and Hadad Adel's claim to fame is his proximity to the leader. There are a disproportionate number of "fathers-in-law" in critical positions of authority in Iran -- a subject that might one day deserve a study of its own.
The coalition appears poised to present a united front in the coming election.Velayati recently announced that the group will soon announce their candidate for the presidency, and said that they are already in the process of forming a cabinet - which, he added, will surely include the two other members of the coalition.
While the troika has positioned itself as closest to the Supreme Leader and most subservient to his wishes, there are at least two other announced candidates who consider themselves part of the same "Principalist" camp: The longtime IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaei and the colorless former Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who was embarrassingly fired from his job while he was negotiating in Africa. There is almost no chance that either will emerge as a serious candidate in the months ahead.
There is one more important factor to consider: The outcome of the upcoming election is related not just to normal domestic feuds, division of spoils, and concerns about the level of discontent in society, but also to the regime's international policies. The nuclear negotiations and sanctions are forcing the regime to make tough choices-- to either go down the path of some accommodation regarding its nuclear program, or further entrench its defiant posture.
Some of the reformists have indicated that the burden of proof of the peaceful nature of the country's nuclear program now rests with Iran, due to its past mismanaged policies and reckless statements. Thus, they favor more intrusive and comprehensive inspections. But even advocates of the status quo seem poised to accept more limited stockpiles of 20 percent enriched uranium and more flexibility in allowing inspections, in return for an end to sanctions. The latter group, led by Khamenei, is really insisting that whatever the nature of a possible agreement, the Islamic regime must be allowed to declare victory.
No matter the outcome of the coming election, Khamenei and the IRGC will still hold the key levers of power in Tehran. But who will be allowed to participate -- and who will be allowed to win -- will be a crucial sign in understanding the labyrinth of power in Iran, as the regime prepares to tackle its mounting domestic and international problems.