WARNING: This video contains some strong language and graphic elements. It is intended for a mature audience.
Each day, I see events unfolding around the globe that cause me concern. Yet most of the people I encounter seem to be oblivious, or at best, only peripherally aware of the grave threats facing our nation - and civilization as a whole.
Our enemies are counting on our short attention spans, our over-confidence and our stubborn complacency to keep the blinders on our eyes until it’s too late.
Each day, the future of freedom and democracy in Europe seems bleaker… and the United States is already taking steps down the same path.
1389 Blog has posted this video because it makes many vital points - especially about the failure of the US and other western nations to acknowledge, investigate, and respond to suspicious incidents.
That said, we vehemently disagree with George W’s handling of foreign policy - though not for the same reasons as the liberals disagree with it. We claim - and we have repeatedly provided the facts to back up this claim - that GWB has, all too often, appeased jihadists when he should have stood against them.
Remember all of the discussion in the summer of 2007 about wildfires in California and in Greece? Many people raised questions about whether some of those fires were, in fact, ecoterrorism. There was also some evidence that devices made from cellular phones may have been used to ignite wildland fires. This is plausible enough, considering that remote bombs triggered by cellular phones have been used in other terrorist attacks. But after the fires were extinguished, the story disappeared from the news.
These mysterious remote cell phone bombs have now surfaced - in California.
San Jose and Santa Clara police chiefs announced Wednesday the results of a massive sting operation in their cities. Operation Meltdown, as the joint effort was called, netted investigators hundreds of criminals, tons of stolen copper, dozens of stolen cars and weapons, and in one case, homemade bombs.
A Fremont man was arrested in October as part of Operation Meltdown. He is accused of trying to sell the officers improvised explosive devices capable of being denoted remotely by a cell phone. During a news conference at San Jose Police headquarters Wednesday morning, police showed a video, recorded by hidden camera, of the suspect demonstrating the technology to officers by detonating a bomb for them.
Operation Meltdown was begun in March 2007. Undercover officers from both departments opened a fake metal-recycling business in the city of Santa Clara called Jose Clara Co-Op.
Within days, San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis said, customers started showing up offering to sell what appeared to be stolen copper. Over the course of the next year, the undercover officers purchased 14 tons of copper with a street vale of almost $100,000. Soon after the officers began buying the copper, though, Davis said visitors to the recycling shop started offering to sell other stolen goods. The officers eventually purchased 40 stolen vehicles and 74 firearms, including 21 assault weapons.
Over the life of the operation, Davis said, 273 suspects were investigated, 63 of whom were arrested over the course of the investigation. Another 73 suspects were picked up during a sweep Tuesday. There are still another 70 suspects with outstanding warrants yet to be arrested…
Vehicle theft was also part of the picture, including some mighty fancy rides:
40 stolen vehicles were purchased. The vehicles include a BMW, Porsche Carrera, Nissan 350Z, Audi, Toyota MR2, SUV’s, sedans, motorcycles and a new Ford Edge SUV.
Who is involved?
The article mentioned that “many of the suspects were identified as gang members,” but no suspects were named, nor were the gangs identified.
U.S. officials monitoring terrorist web sites have discovered a call for using forest fires as weapons against “crusader” nations, in what may explain some recent wildfires in places like southern California and Greece.
A terrorist website was discovered recently that carried a posting that called for “Forest Jihad.” The posting was listed on the Internet on Nov. 26 and reported in U.S. intelligence channels last week.
The statement, in Arabic, said that “summer has begun so do not forget the Forest Jihad.”
The writer called on all Muslims in the United States, Europe, Russia and Australia to “start forest fires.”
The posting quoted imprisoned Al Qaida terrorist Abu Musab Al-Suri, as saying “Jihad is an art just like poetry, music, and the fine arts. There are people that draw and there are others that are jihadists. They both act upon inspiration.”
Story by DOMIINIC WABALA Publication Date: 11/16/2007
Police are searching for a consignment of bomb-making materials that disappeared while on transit to Uganda a month ago.
The 30 tons of Ammonium nitrate and 10 cartons of electronic detonators disappeared somewhere between Mombasa and Uganda on or about September 11 and 15.
…
Ammonium nitrate is commonly used in agriculture as a high-nitrogen fertiliser, but has also been used as an oxidising agent in explosives.
The chemical is used as an oxidizing agent to make an explosive mixture when combined with diesel or kerosene.
Similar mixtures have been used for manufacturing bombs used in terrorist attacks such as the Oklahoma City bombing.
Posted: Nov 14, 2007 01:50 AM Updated: Nov 14, 2007 09:11 AM
YAKIMA, Wash - Firefighters responded to seven different suspicious fires in the Yakima Valley late Monday night and early Tuesday morning.
“This is for sure arson,” says Joe Ware, a foreman at Evans Fruit Company in the West Valley, where fruit bins caught fire. That was the first fire reported just before 11:00 Monday night.
Almost an hour later a barn on Prospect Way in Yakima burned to the ground. Fire officials say it was a total loss.
ATLANTA (AP) - A mutated version of a common cold virus has caused 10 deaths in the last 18 months, U.S. health officials said Thursday. Adenoviruses usually cause respiratory infections that aren’t considered lethal. But a new variant has caused at least 140 illnesses in New York, Oregon, Washington and Texas, according to a report issued Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CDC officials don’t consider the mutation to be a cause for alarm for most people, and they’re not recommending any new precautions for the general public.
“It’s an uncommon infection,” said Dr. Larry Anderson, a CDC epidemiologist.
The illness made headlines in Texas earlier this year, when a so- called boot camp flu sickened hundreds at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. The most serious cases were blamed on the emerging virus and one 19-year-old trainee died…
US military officials are working on a vaccine for the mutant adenovirus that will be given to US troops.
Here’s the official CDC MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report):
A significant number of these fires appear to have been deliberately set.
Obviously, in drought conditions, where plenty of dry fuel abounds, anybody who thoughtlessly discards a cigarette butt can start a wildfire. Lightning, or spontaneous combustion from rotting debris, can do the same.
Nobody on the 1389 Blog team cares about being politically correct. We bring you all of the news that we can find, and we are not afraid to point out the obvious conclusions about what it means!
Fox News, just as Glenn Beck previously, picked up on an observation that the rest of the mainstream media largely ignored: brush left in place under environmental groups’ pressure fueled much of the fires in southern California.
Be on the lookout for a 40-foot yellow school bus, marked with Merryville Schools, Unit #586 and Fleet #N63989. It was stolen from Merryville Schools, 1370 Baseline Road in Roseville, California.
If you have any information about the bus, please call Roseville police at (916)774-5000.
Stolen school buses can be misused in all sorts of ways too ugly to contemplate. See:
Fire officials in Orange County said today the Santiago Canyon Fire is an arson and offered a $50,000 reward to find the arsonist.
Officials said the massive fire, which has caused an estimated $10 million in damage, had three separate points of origin. Two were on one side of the road and the third was on the other.
“Whoever did this knew what they were doing,” said Kris Concepcion, a fire authority battalion chief, who noted the blazes traveled three miles in just the first 20 minutes on Sunday.
Authorities are reporting five deaths in the blazes so far.
The National Terror Alert Response Center report said, “We are NOT implying that the California fires are an act of terrorism; however, the threat of pyro-terrorist attacks pose a significant risk to the U.S. and the fires in California and Greece earlier this year should be a wake-up call.”
An American Muslim in Charlotte, North Carolina, named Samir Khan, chimes in on the great is Allah punishing the infidels in California debate:
Most Muslims in America shy from discussing the natural disasters that occur to America especially in light of Allah’s anger. They get this strange idea somehow that Allah’s wrath and anger has nothing to do with the great natural disasters…..
1389 wants to know: Has the FBI gotten around to asking Samir Khan and his associates just how much they know about who set those fires in California?
The answer? Yes, but only up to a point. Drought provides the dry fuel for widespread fires, but it doesn’t provide the trigger that ignites the actual flames. Of course, there’s always room for research to improve the state of the art in firefighting, and for organizational improvements to deploy firefighting resources as efficiently as possible. But none of that explains what ignited the fires in the first place!
In densely populated areas, more homes and other buildings are exposed to destruction by fire. It is also more difficult to evacuate threatened areas, to protect existing structures, to create firebreaks, and to do controlled burns to remove the dry fuel that allows wildland fires to go out of control.
With bushfire season fast approaching, a contingent of Australian and New Zealand firefighters have recently returned from North America, where they took lessons from their counterparts in managing extreme bushfires.
The Department of Sustainability and Environment’s Richard Teychenne was a member of the group who journeyed from Canada, down the west coast of the USA and into Mississippi, in the south.
“The tour went for about 32 days, we travelled about 60,000 kilometres, took about 16 flights, three bus trips and ended up back at home about a week and a half ago,” Richard told ABC Gippsland’s Gerard Callinan this morning.
. . .
He said issues of population also hampered American firefighters’ ability to conduct fuel-reduction burns in fire-prone areas.
“With a population of over 300 million, compared to Australia’s population over 20 million, the issues that they are facing is how can they actually do fuel reduction burning?”
“In LA they haven’t done burning in two years,” Richard said.
Fox News, just as Glenn Beck previously, picked up on an observation that the rest of the mainstream media largely ignored: brush left in place under environmental groups’ pressure fueled much of the fires in southern California.
According to the article, this particular individual has admitted to starting the Agua Dulce fire, which consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes.
There were numerous separate fires in California; no one is suggesting that all of them were ignited in the same way. One possibility is copycat crime, which is likely whenever high-profile lawbreaking has been reported or even suspected.
In addition, when weather conditions facilitate the rapid spread of fire, it’s all too easy for someone to lose control of a small bonfire or debris fire that was never intended to spread. One carelessly tossed cigarette butt or match can be enough to start a major fire.
HOT SPRINGS, S.D. (AP) - It was the most intense fire ever recorded in the Black Hills National Forest, but nearly all homes coated with a slimy gel were saved while dozens of houses nearby burned to the ground.
The gel was a super-absorbent polymer that can hold many times its weight in water and clings well to vertical surfaces and glass. It is mixed with water and then can be sprayed on homes with a truck-mounted hose or a backpack apparatus, or dropped from a plane.
The substance is relatively new to firefighting, having been developed about a decade ago, and is not widely used. But some firefighters who have tried it are impressed, saying it offers longer-lasting protection than the foam retardants that have been around for many years.
