From Hallucinogenic Fungi of Mexico
by Robert Gordon Wasson

hypertexture=dimitri - audio©redits Translate from English to French English to German English to Italian English to Portuguese English to Spanish

I do not recall which of us, my wife or I, first dared to put into words back in the forties the surmise that our own remote ancestors, perhaps 4000 years ago, worshipped a divine mushroom.

In the fall of 1952 we learned that the 16th century writers, describing the Indian cultures of Mexico, had recorded that certain mushrooms played a divine role in the religion of the natives.

The so-called mushroom stones really represented mushrooms, and that they were the symbol of a religion, like the cross in the Christian religion or the star of Judea or the crescent of the Moslems.

Thus we find a mushroom in the center of the cult with perhaps the longest continuous history in the world.

We have found this cult of the divine mushroom a revelation, in the true meaning of that abused word, though for the Indians it is an everyday feature, albeit a holy mystery, of their lives.

There are no apt words to characterize your state when you are, shall we say, "Bemushroomed."

Whåt wë ñèéd î§ å vøçåßµlãr¥ tø d맩ríþê ªll thë mºdålïtïê§ ðf å dïvïñë ïñéþrïåñt.

Thus we are all divided into two classes: those who have taken the mushroom and are disqualified by our subjective experience and those who have not taken the mushroom and are disqualified by their total ignorance of the subject.

I am profoundly grateful to my Indian friends for having initiated me into the tremendous mystery of the mushroom.

Of alcohol they speak with the same jocular vulgarity that we do. But about mushrooms they prefer not to speak at all, at least when they are in company and especially when strangers, white strangers, are present.

Then, when evening and darkness come and you are alone with a wise old man or woman whose confidence you have won, by the light of a candle held in the hand and talking in a whisper, you may bring up the subject.

They are never exposed in the marketplace but pass from hand to hand by prearrangement.

The Aztecs before the Spanish arrived called them Teonanacatl, God's flesh. I need hardly remind you of a disquieting parallel, the designation of the elements in our Eucharist:

"Take, eat, this is my body ...", and again, "Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of Thy dear son..."

In the language of the Mazatecs the sacred mushrooms are called 'nti si tho. The first word, 'nti, is a particle expressing reverence and endearment. The second element means "that which springs forth."

"The little mushroom comes of itself, no one knows whence, like the wind that comes we know not whence nor why."

For more than four centuries the Indians have kept the divine mushroom close to their hearts, sheltered from desecration by white men, a precious secret.

We know that today there are many curanderos who carry on the cult, each according to his lights, some of them consummate artists, performing the ancient liturgy in remote huts before miniscule congregations.

They are hard to reach, these curanderos.

Do not think that it is a question of money.

Perhaps you will learn the names of a number of reknown curanderos, and your emissaries will even promise to deliver them to you, but then you wait and wait and they never come.

You will brush past them in the marketplace, they will know you, but you will not know them.

The judge in the town hall may be the very man you are seekng: And you may pass the time of day with him, yet never learn that he is your curandero.

After all, would you have it any different? What priest of the Catholic Church will perform mass to satisfy an unbeliever's curiosity?

Religion in primitive society was an awesome reality, "terrible" in the original meaning of the word, pervading all life and culminating in ceremonies that were forbidden to the profane.

Let me point out certain parallels between our Mexican rite and the mystery performed at Eleusis.

At the heart of the mystery of Eleusis lay a secret. In the surviving texts there are numerous references to the secret, but in none is it revealed.

From the writings of the Greeks, from a fresco in Pompeii, we know that the initiate drank a potion.

Then, in the depths of the night, he beheld a great vision, and the next day he was still so awestruck that he felt he would never be the same man as before.

What the initiate experienced was "new, astonishing, inaccessible to rational cognition."

It also seems significant that the Greeks were wont to refer to mushrooms as "the food of the gods," broma theon, and that Porphyrius is quoted as having called them "nurslings of the gods," Theotrophos.

They were not for mortal man to eat, at least not every day. We might be dealing with what was in origin a religious tabu...

I do not suggest that St. John of Patmos ate mushrooms in order to write the book of Revelation.

Yet the succession of images in his vision, so clearly seen but such a phantasmagoria, means for me that he was in the same state as one bemushroomed.

The advantage of the mushroom is that it puts many (if not everyone) within reach of this state without having to suffer the mortifications of Blake and St. John.

It permits you to see, more clearly than our perishing mortal eye can see, vistas beyond the horizons of this life, to travel backwards and forwards in time. To enter other planes of existence, even (as the Indians say) to know God.

All that you see during this night has a prisine quality: the landscape, the edifices, the carvings, the animals - they look as though they had come straight from the Maker's workshop.

This newness of everything - it is as if the world had just dawned - overwhelms you and melts you with its beauty.

All these things you see with an immediacy of vision that leads you to say to yourself, "Now I am seeing for the first time, seeing direct, without the intervention of mortal eyes."

It is clear to me where Plato found his ideas. It was clear to his contemporaries too. Plato had drunk of the potion in the Temple of Eleusis and had spent the night seeing the great vision.

And all the time you are seeing these things, the priestess sings, not loud but with authority.

Your body lies in the darkness, heavy as lead, but your spirit seems to soar and leave the hut, and with the speed of thought to travel where it wishes in time and space, accompanied by the shaman's singing and by the ejaculations of her percussive chant.

What you are seeing and what you are hearing appears as one:

The music assumes harmonious shapes, giving visual form to its harmonies, and what you are seeing takes on the modalities of music - the music of the spheres.

The cigarette with which you occasionally break the tension of the night smells as no other cigarette before had ever smelled. The glass of water is infinitely better than champagne.

In truth, he is the five senses disembodied, all of them keyed to the height of sensitivity and awareness, all of them blending into one another most strangely, until the person, utterly passive, becomes a pure receptor, infinitely delicate, of sensations.

As your body lies there in its sleeping bag, your soul is free, loses all sense of time, alert as it never was before, living an eternity in a night, seeing infinity in a grain of sand.

What you have seen and heard is cut as with a burin into your memory, never to be effaced.

At last you know what the ineffable is and what ecstasy means.

The mind harks back to the origin of that word. For the Greeks ekstasis meant the flight of the soul from the body. I can find no better word to describe the bemushroomed state.

In common parlance, among the many who have not experienced ecstasy, ecstasy is fun, and I am frequently asked why I do not reach for mushrooms every night.

But ecstasy is not fun. Your very soul is seized and shaken until it tingles.

After all, who will chose to feel undiluted awe, or to float through that door yonder into the divine presence?

The unknowing abuse the word, but we must recapture its full and terrifying sense.

As man emerged from his brutish past, thousands of years ago, there was a stage in the evolution of his awareness when the discovery of a mushroom (or perhaps a higher plant) with miraculous properties was a revelation to him, a veritable detonator to his soul, arousing in him sentiments of awe and reverence, and gentleness and love, to the greatest pitch of which mankind is capable, all those sentiments and virtues that mankind has ever since regarded as the highest attributes of his kind.

It made him see what the perishing mortal eye cannot see. The Greeks were right to hedge about the mystery, this imbibing of the potion, with secrecy and surveillance.

What today is resolved into the effects of a mere drug, a tryptamine or lysergic acid derivative, was for them a prodigious miracle, inspiring in them poetry and philosophy and religion.

Perhaps with all our modern knowledge we do not need the divine mushroom any more. Perhaps we need them more than ever.

Some are shocked that the key to religion might be reduced to a drug.

On the other hand, the drug is as mysterious as it ever was: Like the wind it cometh we know not whence nor why.

If our classical scholars were given the opportunity to attend the rite at Eleusis, to talk with the priestess, they would exchange anything for that chance.

They would approach the precincts, enter the hallowed chamber with the reverence born of the texts venerated by scholars for millennia.

And what would be their frame of mind if they were invited to partake of the potion?

Well, those rites take place now, unbeknownst to the classical scholars, in scattered dwellings, humble, thatched, without windows, far from the beaten track.

If it is the rainy season, perhaps the mystery is accomplished by torrental rains and punctuated by terrifying thunderbolts.

Then, indeed, as you lie there bemushroomed, listening to the music and seeing visions, you know a soul-shattering experience, recalling as you do the belief of some primitive peoples that mushrooms, the sacred mushrooms, are divinely engendered by Jupiter Fulminans, the god of the lightning bolt, in the soft mother earth.

bemushröömed
From Hallucinogenic Fungi of Mexico
by Robert Gordon Wasson

hypertexture=dimitri - audio©redits

 SOURCE: The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension

by Kalanu Buffalo - Save Feral Human Habitat I’m happy to see that ‘environmentalism’ has become trendy, and that there is a growing movement in our society to reduce the impacts of our civilized lifestyle. Yet, those of us who have long considered ourselves ‘environmentalists’ fear that it may be too little too late, and that the movement is becoming co-opted by the very forces that we have been struggling to defeat. The crisis we face now can be traced back to decisions our culture made over 10,000 years ago, and compounded since then by millions of subsequent decisions. This process, whereby we went from a species in equilibrium with it’s environment to one that is currently destroying all life around it, has been greatly accelerated in the last 100 years or so. While this acceleration roughly corresponds with the rise of fossil fuel use, it is not these particular resources, or use thereof, that bear the entire responsibility for our current crisis.

The use and impacts of these energy resources, being such a prominent and immediate threat to life, have been focused upon by the new environmental (green consumer) movement as not only key targets, but in some cases, the only targets.

Many old-school environmentalists define their ideology and activism not just by a desire to reduce our 'carbon footprint', but also by a desire to have an abundance of intact eco-systems and a broad diversity of life on the planet. Hybrid cars and compact fluorescent light bulbs may reduce the amount of carbon we emit into the atmosphere as we go about our busy civilized lives, but unless we begin to take a brutally honest approach to a wide variety of elements of society, the toxic sprawl will continue to drive thousands of critical species (including our own) into extinction.

The problem lies in the centralized, industrial way that we choose to support ourselves as a culture. The most sustainable and ‘eco-friendly’ products of the mass consumer culture still require appalling amounts of water, energy, resources and labour to produce. All of these things need to be transported, and as these industries have been globalized, the distances that these things need to be transported have increased to the absurd and convoluted. The fuel used by the production and transportation is but one impact of the process. An army of heavy equipment, fabricated from steel, copper, zinc, iron and other resources (as well as petroleum products such as lubricants and plastic) are used in the production and transportation of ALL industrialized mass consumer products. In the case of the automobile, the vast majority of the energy and materials used and the waste and pollution created occurs in the production process.

Where do these materials come from? Whose land? Where does the massive waste our consumer society generates go? Whose land? Who builds the earth moving equipment and mining machinery? Who operates them? Who works in the factory that processes the raw materials and assembles the products? Who loads them onto trucks, ships, planes and trains? Who drives these vehicles? What are the working conditions for all these people? What kind of quality of life do they have? A great deal of exploitation is occurring around the world to bring us our ‘sustainable’ products. The cost of retrofitting the world with green technology and fuelling it with energy that costs more to produce than fossil fuel (as all other energy does) certainly doesn’t leave us much with which to pay a living wage to those who toil for our comfort.

These issues, though often referred to as ‘social justice’ issues, factor into the ideology of many environmentalists. Nowhere is an environmental issue not a social justice issue. Every step in the process of bringing mass consumer goods to the homes of the civilized world, impacts the lives of people who work in these industries and whose homes are downriver, downwind or have been destroyed by these industries.

A globalized mass consumer world is not compatible with the ideal of social justice for all. The industrial system requires slavery and exploitation. It requires increasing access to resources, which means displacing people, mainly poor and indigenous people, from their land base.

Mining and blasting processes, which are critical to the production of material for ‘green energy’ infrastructure, are apocalyptic to any ecosystem. The waste generated by these processes poisons rivers, lakes and oceans and in turn poisons the people who rely on these waterways for sustenance and survival.

These and other effects are also to be seen in the production, transportation and retailing of the ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ products and infrastructure that is being created and proposed. (A good local example is the development on Spaet [Bear] Mountain, in which the future of the local indigenous cultures, which are in jeopardy in part from diabetes and other health effects of the western diet, relies on access to traditional wild foods. By reducing the land base of these peoples, you reduce their access to healthy food and sabotage their efforts to survive into the future. This can reasonably be called genocide.)

In short, any movement of ideology that does not advocate eliminating our dependence on a globalized industrial way of life can not with any real conscience call itself ‘environmental’, at least not in the sense that the word is used to mean respect and active protection of biodiversity and ecological equilibrium.

Any eco-philosophy that fails to take into account the impact of actions on all life from the smallest micro-organism up to entire human cultures is but a means to feel good about one’s excessive consumption and material addictions.

Those of us in the privileged world have become addicted to the comfort of abundant material wealth. Yet in the majority of the world, thoroughout the majority of history, people thrive, on far less, produced closer to home with less resources, used more efficiently for longer periods of time before being discarded, and discarded in a way that can even contribute to new products.

The true sustainable energy sources in this world are direct solar (to heat food, water, grow food, etc), methane digesting of food waste to produce electricity, heating and cooking fuel, and other technologies that can be built and maintained on a personal or community level.

Further energy reduction is achieved by localizing resource use and reducing the need for most transportation, as well as eliminating many of the products that those of us in the privileged world take for granted.

It’s true that we live in a world where many communities lack the resources for even basic survival, and must rely on imports from other communities, but from this need has arisen a system that is wasteful, inefficient and in most cases unnecessary. If we cannot return to a localized economy than we should be focusing on a future where these impacts occur only where they truly need to, and resources and energy used in the most efficient ways.

Those of us who live in areas with abundant resources could do a much better job of utilizing these resources. Cities could be growing food on rooftops, or in yards that are now only used for ornamental grass and shrubs. Rainwater can be utilized and grey water collected to reduce impact on watersheds and oceans. Food and other waste can be used to produce methane to eliminate the need for hydro-electricity, natural gas and home heating fuel. (And to save land from landfill and avoid flushing it into the ocean where it harms marine life.)

Other waste materials can be used to make new products, and this reduces the impact of extracting, producing and transporting materials and products.

We need to start perceiving the true impacts of using new products. As necessary as each new product may be in our lives, each time we purchase and consume them it is like throwing a live grenade into the communities affected by the production of these products. As necessary as each product may be, it can never be forgotten that we must TAKE LIFE to create it, and in the case of the land and ecosystems from which the raw materials and energy originate, that life may take thousands of years to return, if it returns at all.

Some purchases are unavoidable, but in the case of our culture, most ARE avoidable, thus we have no excuse for such casual taking of life.

‘Sustainable’ products and energy are that which can be harvested and produced close to where we live, with the least possible impact on the natural environment, with attention to quality (so they last), that fill a needed role in our lives, and can be re-used, recycled or discarded in a way that creates the least impact. All other products are destructive and counter-productive to our struggle to survive on a healthy planet.

The green consumer movement is not ‘environmentally friendly’, and the measures being proposed by the new mainstream environmental movement are nowhere near a solution for the crisis we face. If the power to ‘save the environment’ is in the hands of the people, than we need to use those hands to create the world we want, not to hand power over to the corporations and governments to pervert and waste. A centralized industrial world can only create ecological damage, genocide and exploitation. It’s time we began taking the radical alternatives seriously and begin to examine the impacts of every aspect of our lives.

SOURCE: deoxy.axis 

Of course, we all know this is just delayed disclosure and that delay can be measured in years, if not decades. 

Scientists a Step Closer to Steering Hurricanes

By Tim Shipman in Washington

Scientists have made a breakthrough in man's desire to control the forces of nature – unveiling plans to weaken hurricanes and steer them off course, to prevent tragedies such as Hurricane Katrina.

Is the US heading for an environmental 9/11? James Lovelock's plan to pump ocean water to stop climate change The damage done to New Orleans in 2005 has spurred two rival teams of climate experts, in America and Israel, to redouble their efforts to enable people to play God with the weather. Under one scheme, aircraft would drop soot into the near-freezing cloud at the top of a hurricane, causing it to warm up and so reduce wind speeds. Computer simulations of the forces at work in the most violent storms have shown that even small changes can affect their paths – enabling them to be diverted from major cities.   How to halt a hurricane: Click to enlarge But the hurricane modifiers are fighting more than the weather. Lawyers warn that diverting a hurricane from one city to save life and property could result in multi-billion dollar lawsuits from towns that bear the brunt instead. Hurricane Katrina caused about $41 billion in damage to New Orleans. Hurricanes form when air warmed over the ocean rises to meet the cool upper atmosphere. The heat turns to kinetic energy, producing a spiral of wind and rain. The greater the temperature differences between top and bottom, and the narrower the eye of the hurricane, the faster it blows. Moshe Alamaro, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told The Sunday Telegraph of his plans to "paint" the tops of hurricanes black by scattering carbon particles – either soot or black particles from the manufacture of tyres – from aircraft flying above the storms. The particles would absorb heat from the sun, leading to changes in the airflows within the storm. Satellites could also heat the cloud tops by beaming microwaves from space. "If they're done in the right place at the right time they can affect the strength of the hurricane," Mr Alamaro said. The theory has so far been tested only in computer simulation by Mr Alamaro's colleague, Ross Hoffman. Mr Alamaro said: "With small changes to this side or that side of the hurricane we can nudge it and change its track. We're starting with computer simulations, then will hopefully experiment on a small weather system." Last month scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced that they had simulated the effect of sowing clouds with microscopic dust to cool the hurricane's base, also weakening it. The dust would attract water but would form droplets too small to fall as rain. Instead, they would rise and evaporate, cooling hot air at the hurricane base. Space diving to be next extreme sport Acidic oceans threaten marine life 1987 Great Storm: Terrible blow, not a knockout In findings presented at a conference in Trieste, Italy, the team led by Daniel Rosenfeld demonstrated that dust dropped into the lower part of Hurricane Katrina would have reduced wind speeds and diverted its course. The MIT team has now hired a professor of risk management to advise on steps necessary to protect themselves from legal action by communities affected if a hurricane is diverted. It is pressing for changes to US law and for an international treaty to settle possible disputes between neighbouring countries. Mr Alamaro said: "The social and legal issues are daunting. If a hurricane were coming towards Miami with the potential to cause damage and kill people, and we diverted it, another town or village hit by it would sue us. They'll say the hurricane is no longer an act of God, but that we caused it."

SOURCE: The Telegraph (UK) 

Our grasslands are in dire need of restoration and wild bison are the anwer.  A bison's hoof shape tills the soil in a natural fashion; they are adapted to this ecosystem.  Cattle are not and their hoof shape was fashioned over millenia of wetlands dwelling.  Their flat hoof shape pounds the soil down into what Edward Abbey called "cow burnt."  Still, to this day, we keep these monoliths on a reservation called Yellowstone National Park. 

Here are a couple of relevant videos: one  two 

As well, here is the latest from the Buffalo Field Campaign:

* Citizen Blockade Closes Horse Butte Trap for 15 Hours!
On Monday morning, Horse Butte patrols arrived to see an amazing sight. When they approached the area of the Horse Butte bison trap, they saw a 40-foot bipod holding bison advocate, Nathan Drake, up on a platform inside the trap. Suspended from his platform was a large banner that read: "I called, I wrote, and no response.... This is my response." It was a beautiful sight, and by taking this direct action, Nate rendered the trap inoperable for 15 hours. He was even visited by a young buffalo, who broke through the police tape surrounding the trap site. Around 4pm that afternoon, agents arrived to discover their buffalo trap was closed. Unfortunately, within about two hours, he was cruelly removed by deputized Department of Livestock inspectors, Gallatin National Forest law enforcement officers, and a Gallatin County Sheriff. He was charged with three misdemeanors: trespassing, resisting arrest, and obstructing a peace officer. He was released on $5,000 bail, an enormous amount for such an action.

Nathan Drake is among our heros. As others have before him, he felt strongly enough to put his life and freedom on the line for the buffalo. And he also did this for each and every one of us who have raised our voices time and again in protest, going through the channels of democracy, without being heard.

Here is Nate's statement, his story about why he did it, and what happened while he was up there.
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/media/press0708/pressreleases0708/statement022808.html

Footage of Nate's occupation of the trap, and subsequent removal can be viewed on our home page: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org.

WE LOVE YOU AND THANK YOU, NATE!!!!
------------------------------
* Update from the Field
Dear Buffalo Friends,
It is always so difficult to begin these updates by telling you more buffalo have been killed, despite all of our collective efforts to stop the slaughter. Even despite the direct action taken by Nathan Drake. But we won't let this dampen our fire. Instead, we will turn the heat up on the decision-makers responsible, holding them accountable for these atrocious actions, and demand the slaughter to stop. We will do this until they have no choice but to hear us and take appropriate actions that set the buffalo free. We can't thank you all enough for being a voice for the last wild buffalo and for continuing to fight for their freedom.

Keep it up: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/politicians.html

Since February 11, Yellowstone National Park and the Montana Department of Livestock have slaughtered 505 of America's last wild buffalo. Yellowstone Park Rangers have captured 607 wild buffalo in the Stephens Creek bison trap, located inside Yellowstone National Park.

The day after Nate was removed from the bipod, the Department of Livestock showed spite. They captured 30 buffalo in the Horse Butte trap, then transported them to the Duck Creek bison trap, and Wednesday morning they transported them all to slaughter. You can see video footage of an interview at Horse Butte with local buffalo advocate, Ann Stovall, during Nate's occupation, as well as footage of the DOL's capture here http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org.

All of the captured buffalo are being shipped to slaughter without even being tested for exposure to brucellosis, the supposed reason for the mismanagement scheme. But all the science and logic points directly to this *not* being about brucellosis at all, but about the grass and who gets to eat it. The cattle industry is trying to maintain control over grasslands, so taking beef off of your menu is another way you can help the buffalo. Don't give these killers your money!

Hunting has slowed down a bit since we last wrote, though three buffalo were taken by Nez Perce treaty hunters in Gardiner this week. Today, an interesting thing happened. The Nez Perce killed two buffalo on the West side of the Yellowstone River, outside the state's hunt zone. They took the buffalo in an area called Beattie Gulch, National Forest land that dissects the border of Yellowstone Park and Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) land. While they were field dressing the buffalo, they saw 114 buffalo being hazed into the Stephens Creek bison trap by Park Rangers. They were very upset to see this happening, and we are hopeful that their witnessing this incident will encourage them to help us stop the government and cattle industry from such insane actions. BFC patrols documented the incident and got some good interviews with the Nez Perce hunters which we will have available on the web site by the weekend.

It's a very difficult time for all of us witnessing this buffalo death, but most importantly, it is difficult for the buffalo. We suffer with the buffalo, to be sure, and many volunteers are having a hard time processing all of this. But the buffalo teach us how to be a strong family, and so we are able to help each other through the dark times, so that we can carry on to help the buffalo. They are strong survivors, as is evidenced by the fact that they have existed since prehistoric times. In the face of it all, they persist, resist, and endure.

Some of you will recall about three years ago, a Lakota medicine man came and did a very sacred ceremony with us for the buffalo. He let us know then that things would get worse before they get better. We have been told the same by other Native American Buffalo Culture voices as well. And we are certainly seeing it happen. But things WILL get better. This will not go on forever. And as Rosalie Little Thunder recently said, the pendulum can only swing so far before it swings back in the other direction.

Roam Free,
~Stephany
------------------------------
* BFC's Responds to Lousy "Deal" Proposed for Bison on CUT Land
Yesterday, Buffalo Field Campaign released a letter to the Church Universal and Triumphant and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks on a proposed 30-year lease to allow some captured, tested bison to be on Church lands from December 1 to April 15 west of the Yellowstone River from Beattie Gulch, on the Park's northern border, to Yankee Jim Canyon.

Buffalo Field Campaign has long advocated that wild bison migrating along the Yellowstone River in the Gardiner Basin be allowed to range on public lands under U.S. Forest Service authority, and lands acquired and conserved under the taxpayer funded $13,000,000 Royal Teton Ranch land deal agreed to in 1999 with the Church Universal and Triumphant.

There is a valid concern that what the public has already paid for with taxpayer money appropriated by the U.S. Congress - with no benefit to wild bison despite its promise to provide a "safe haven for the bison" - will be paid for again by the public through a multi-million dollar 30-year lease to remove cattle from Church Universal and Triumphant lands west of the Yellowstone River.

Buffalo Field Campaign encourages you to contact decision makers to let them know how you feel about the lack of accountability and the broken promises made in the taxpayer funded Royal Teton Ranch land deal.

Senator Max Baucus was instrumental in securing funding to acquire and conserve wildlife habitat on the Royal Teton Ranch in the Gardiner Basin, critical winter range for migrating bison. As long as Church cattle remain, the National Park Service will capture bison for slaughter inside Yellowstone National Park at Stephens Creek. So far this winter 631 bison have been captured and 475 slaughtered by the National Park Service.

Representative Nick J. Rahall, II and Representative Maurice Hinchey requested the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate and report on the Interagency Bison Management Plan, which covers the Royal Teton Ranch land deal.

The GAO's report is due to be released soon, and the findings will play an important role in formulating Congressional legislation to help protect America's last wild bison herd and its native habitat in Yellowstone.

BFC will soon have a web link up (http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/legal/rtr.html) sharing our letter and additional information you can use to inform yourself and contact your member of Congress. Stay tuned and check back over the weekend. Darrell Geist, BFC habitat coordinator------------------------------
* Thank You Idaho State University!
A special thanks to the staff, facility and students of the Sho-Ban High School for welcoming Mike Mease to visit and make a presentation about the Yellowstone buffalo. Also that night he spoke at Idaho State University sponsored by Portneuf Valley Audubon Society, Sierra Club and Student Volunteers for the Environment. An extra special thanks to David Mead and Mr. Cosgrove.
------------------------------
* Photo of the Week
Nathan Drake occupies and shuts down the Horse Butte bison trap for 15 hours. Outside the trap is DOL agent Shane Grube, wondering what to do about this little wrench in their buffalo killing plans.
http://gallery.buffalofieldcampaign.org/v/photo_of_the_week/HorseButteTrapClosed.jpg.html
------------------------------

Format: wmv
Duration: 2:59

Much of this material is older but still fascinating: 

Project+ECHELON,Pepper+Spray,NoMore+noise+disinformation
MediaFilter.org,autono.net,CovertAction,Quarterly,SHADOW
,filter,WarZone,Balkans,Arkzin,WorldWar3illustrated,COIN
TELPRO,PsychologicalWar,PrivatePrisons,GeorgeBush,CIA,FB
I,NRO,NAFTA,WTO,Rwanda,genocide,#&WarnDrugs,SarajevoPip
eline,GloboCopWatch,PrivateWelfare,NSA,BalkanMediaandPol
icyMonitor,ZaMirNet,PrivatePolice,DhorubaBinWahad,action
Zin                                                  war
s,M         Tactical Media is not new...it           HAD
OW,         is not something that we                 ted
&CO         invented....only named...                h,C
IA,         it's been around for centuries,          jev
oPi         from bringing christianity to the        edi
aan         illiterate masses--                      had
,ac         beautiful stained glass                  ?=P
ris         pictorials of the crucifixion            aut
ono         and resurrection of Jesus--              gra
mZT         to the CIA's comic books on              &st
tab         sabotage, provocation, and               rZo
ne,         assasination (popular in                 t=2
0/M         Nicaragua during the Contra's            n+d
riv         reign of terror in the 1980's)...        ter
s&s         to Milosevic's carefully engineered      His
tor         media-order:                             /B?
=tr         where no favorite toys paraded           ola
%2C         and no whistles were blown....           ati
on&         (some "tactical media" has been          om/
WW/         known to be more effective...)           abl
es/                                                  =40
/WW         Tactical Media is not only               /B?
     Zin         something that Media Activists           Div     
/IS         engage in...it's Advertising--           r&r
el=         the Corporate Psychological Warfare      war
Day         of Perception Management...              t=0
FBI         PR WAR...Video News Releases             Kur
IS/         run as news by the hungry,               =Kr
esi         delerious "media providers"...           r+r
epo         provided FREE by Hill&Knowlton,          hio
&re         Burson-Marsteller or Ketchum...          Yui
bio         pay Reuters $600 and your                sta
NAZ         news is on the wire...                   nth
rat         access is not guaranteed,                NAZ
ang         it's BOUGHT...                           =AM
&re         Your perception is managed               TTT
bla         with your tax dollars.....               esp
+Zu         The War in the Gulf--                    /ta
rev         packaged especially for you              ele
htt         by SAIC...Operation Just                 CIA
che         'Cause (we didn't mean to kill           rin
sia         thousands of Panamanians just            199
pan         so we could confiscate Manny             Pri
ogi         Noriega's toy frog collection...)        log
agr         Somalia...OOPS!  One chopper down!       rty
Kre         Cut!                                     =bi
+Pa         ...to DISNEY redesigning 42nd Street...  INT
Sar         ...The East Village as THEME PARK...     evo
Bos         come see how the homeless once lived     rd+
BI&         in their quaint tent-city...re-created   W/I
/WW         just for you...                          NSA
reu         for half the price of admission...       IMF
S/?         to the musical RENT...                   AID
f+O         the struggle commodified...              UN$
l=3         real lives neutralized...                =7&
ena                                                  sin
la%         The tactic of media is invisible.        fre
Cop         invisible in plain sight...              dia
raq         the tactic of media is to make           fre
Kee         the invisible visible...                 ive
/gu                                                  all
de-p./WW/IS/?=angola%27s+war-p./WW/IS/?=biological+warfa
reuide?=/WW/IS/?=Militias+Military/WW/IS/?qt=Black+Panth
er+Party/WW/IS/?=black+revolutionariesp./WW/IS/?=bosnian
+war+historyp./WW/IS/?=Bosnia%2C+civil+warhttp://guide-p
/WW/IS/BOSNIA/WW/IS/?=bosnia+elections+1990Kosovo/guide-
./WW/IS/?=chemicalsde-p./WW/IS/?=chemical+warfareitles?=
chemical+warheads+in+the+persian+gulf+war/guide-p.info.c
om/WW/IS/?=chemical+war:FISA+secret+court?=COINTELPROide
-p./WWIS/?=covert+activityCIA,FBI,WarZone,Balkans,Arkzin
,GloboCopWatch,Public+Relations,PrivatePrisons,Rwanda,ge
nocide,War0nDrugs,SarajevoPipeline,GloboCopWatch,autono.
net,Project+ECHELON,Burma+slavery,Peru,Cassini+Plutonium
Economic+Warfare.Free.The.Media!ReclaimThe.Net!Media.WAR
Urban+Warfare=WAR+on+TERROR?Corporate+Fascism!Media.War|

SOURCE: Media Filter

Al Qaeda Does Not Exist and Never Has

Al Qaeda are the U.S. Gov't's Greatest Ally

Bush and bin Laden's Shared Political Goals Are Enough To Freak Out Anybody

Does al-Qaeda exist?

Israel 'faked al-Qaeda presence'

This ought to be a good test. In the past, posting this meme to various forums has drawn hacks, cracks, and character attacks.

(Quote: HAARP is so much weaker than these naturally occurring processes that it is incapable of producing the type of optical display observed during an aurora. However, weak and repeatable optical emissions have been observed using HAARP (and reported in the scientific literature) using very sensitive cameras. -Haarp.alaska.edu)

Heater-induced artificial airglow observations from a recent campaign at the HAARP facility

Author: Gerken,E.

Publication: 34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, The Second World Space Congress, held 10-19 October, 2002 in Houston, TX, USA

An artificial airglow campaign was conducted from January 31 to February 19, 2002 at the High Frequency Active Auroral Program (HAARP) in Gakona AK.

[An] artificial airglow was observed on thirteen nights during the campaign. The campaign was a collaborative effort with participating instruments from a number of institutions. Three cameras were located at the HAARP facility: an all-sky imager, a 60 degree field of view camera, and a telescopic imager.

Two cameras were located off-site for side view imaging- one at Poker Flat Research Station, and the other alternating between Nenana AK and HIPAS. An SEE receiver was operated in Gakona and the Kodiak SuperDARN radar was run in a dedicated mode for part of the campaign.

In addition data was gathered throughout the campaign by the HAARP diagnostic instruments including a riometer, magnetometer, digisonde, ELF receiver, and TEC tomographic system. (image at right example of HAARP riometer data)

Several preliminary results have emerged from observations during the campaign.

Bright 630nm (several hundred Rayleighs) and 557.7nm (over 50R) airglow were observed simultaneously during F-layer heating.

A dramatic enhancement in airglow brightness was observed when the HAARP heater beam was aimed along the magnetic field lines (15 degrees from vertical).

ALSO SEE: Straight from the Source: The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program 

GUEST COMMENTARY: GEORGE WUERTHNER'S "ON THE RANGE"

Yellowstone Bison Slaughter a Sham

By George Wuerthner , 2-13-08

Once again the state of Montana, along with Yellowstone National Park, are killing bison migrating out of Yellowstone National Park. The slaughter of Yellowstone’s bison is represented as a disease contamination program, but it is really a sham. If disease control were the issue, we wouldn’t be killing bison. The more you know about the brucellosis-bison issue, the angrier you get.

For instance, news reports always note that so many bison “tested positive” for brucellosis. Most people assume that this means that the bison in question have brucellosis. In reality field-testing only demonstrates that the bison in question have antibodies to brucellosis. They have been exposed to the disease—perhaps even in the womb, but it doesn’t mean they can readily transmit the disease. I would test positive for polio because I was “exposed” to polio virus as a youngster—but I cannot transmit polio to anyone.

Secondly, transmission of brucellosis is difficult and seldom—if ever—happens, with wild free roaming animals. The usual pathway for transmission is for a cow bison to abort an infected fetus. Then a domestic animal like a cow has to come along and lick the fluid before the brucellosis bacteria dies—which under wild conditions is fairly quickly since the bacteria is not able to survive outside of the body. The domestic animal would also have to beat a scavenger like coyote, raven or other animal to the aborted fetus before the scavengers consume it.

Additionally, nearly all bison abortions—and abortion in wild bison is an extremely rare event—occurs in the late winter. In most of the habitat used by bison at this time of year, cattle are not present. They are back at the home ranch being fed hay. That is why simply keeping cattle and bison separated is a fairly easy solution to conflicts—if a solution were something that the Ag boys were interested in creating.

Third, because it is through abortion of a fetus, bison calves, and bison bulls cannot transmit the disease even if they have it, yet calves and bulls are regularly killed. If fear of brucellosis transmission were really driving this program, there would be no reason to kill these animals.

Fourth, far more elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem carry brucellosis than bison. A high percentage of elk in Wyoming carry brucellosis because of the feed grounds that the Wyoming Game and Fish maintains. The unnatural concentration of elk favors brucellosis transmission. Yet the US Dept. of Agriculture does not require the state to close the feed grounds that would go a long ways towards reducing brucellosis occurrence in the ecosystem. Additionally, they don’t slaughter elk—at least not yet. Why? Because hunters and perhaps, more importantly, some outfitters would come unglued if the same policy of non-tolerance of elk outside of our parks were implemented.

There is plenty of cattle-free bison habitat outside of Yellowstone. The Upper Gallatin River drainage in the Teepee Creek and Daily Creek areas has no livestock. Much of the Dome Mountain and Eagle Creek basin near Gardiner are livestock free, as are other lands in the region. And of course I would advocate that other public lands be open to bison by removal of livestock or the understanding that any rancher grazing these public lands must accept the low risks involved. In Wyoming, ranchers regularly graze their cattle on allotments with bison—demonstrating once again that brucellosis transmission is a rare, if non-existent risk that most ranchers are willing to accept.

The slaughter program is driven by antiquated federal policy. Originally the desire to eradicate brucellosis was done under the guise of public health. Brucellosis can also occur in humans—where it causes fever like conditions, swelling of the joints, and in rare cases even death. Back in the 1930s when the brucellosis control program was implemented, many people were exposed to brucellosis either because they lived around livestock and had contact with infected animals or they drank unpasteurized milk. Today the disease is very rare and about the only people who get the disease are veterinarians and others who work around infected animals.

So the original purpose—a public health issue—no longer applies. So why does the US government continue to spend money on brucellosis eradication? Well, one by-product of the brucellosis control program is that it saved ranchers money. Brucellosis can cause abortion of a fetus in infected cows. To save ranchers the loss of some calves and potential profit, Ag interests successfully persuaded the government to continue its brucellosis eradication program—at a cost of billions to taxpayers—with all the benefits now largely going to the livestock industry.

One incentive that the Department of Agriculture implemented to get states to crack down on brucellosis was to threaten the loss of brucellosis-free status. Why is this important? Well, again it’s money. A state without brucellosis-free status must test and certify that any cattle moved out of state are free of the disease. This adds a slight bit to costs and more paperwork for producers. Also in brucellosis-free states, livestock producers may not be required to inoculate their livestock against the disease—again saving some expense.

However, there is no rational reason producers across an entire state should be penalized because one or two herds of livestock become infected. The Department of Agriculture has the authority to quarantine individual herds. But the threat of state-wide loss of brucellosis-free status continues because Ag interests want to control wildlife. Their zero tolerance policy is both unrealistic and harmful to the free movement of wildlife. Why should bison be denied access to public lands in Montana, or any other state? We don’t impose zero tolerance on any other native wildlife just for moving into a state.

I think there are several reasons for the continued slaughter. One is the long term goal of Ag interests to gain control over wildlife—to wrest it away from state Fish and Game agencies and the public. Short of doing that, they want to control the wildlife agenda of state wildlife agencies—which in many western states they already do.

Beyond that, I suspect some livestock producers fear the widespread movement of wild bison on to other public lands. Bison are a direct competitor with cattle. If more bison are grazing Forest Service or BLM lands, there will be less forage left for domestic livestock. They also fear that wildlife advocates such as myself will start to question why we shouldn’t have bison grazing our public lands instead of someone’s privately owned livestock. Their fears are justified. I ask exactly that question.

In short livestock producers fear that if they let the genie of wild bison grazing on all public lands out of the bottle, they will never get it back inside, and in the end that can only hurt the ability of ranchers to graze public lands.

It’s time to let wild bison roam our public lands. Our parks should not be prisons, maintained by a fence of bullets or traps. There is no good reason why wild bison cannot co-exist This shameful destruction of wildlife to appease an irrational and increasingly irrelevant industry must end.

SOURCE: New West

Also see: Cowboy Mentality Dominates Bison Slaughter

Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 15:14:35 -0500 (CDT)
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
From: "All the News That Doesn't Fit" <nytr@blythe-systems.com> (by way of NY Transfer News <nyt@viola.tamara-b.org>)
Subject: [NYTr] Guinness 2008: MOVE Bombing Now Called a "Mass Suicide"?!?
Message-Id: <200710092014.l99KEZX5065550@pencil.math.missouri.edu>

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[The Philadelphia cops' bombing of the MOVE home leveled a whole city
block. Now it's called a "mass suicide" and MOVE is called a "cult."
Guess the Iraqis will be the next "mass suicide" -- all 1 million-plus
of them. What is WRONG with the Guinness Book of World Records? -NYTr]

FreeMumia via  Joan Malerich - Oct 9, 2007
http://www.freemumia.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MumiaNYC

[This is quite amazing.  The police murdered babies when they attacked
the MOVE house.  Now they want to say that this was mass "suicide."
So, I guess that anyone who defends his/her home now should understand
that he/she will be classified as suicidal for refusing to leave a home
that the militarized police is attacking.

For those not familiar with the Move group and the imprisoned Move 9, I
have pasted a summary below Ramona Africa's message. -JM]

ONA MOVE Everybody!

This is Ramona and there is an issue that MOVE needs your help in
addressing. The 2008 Guinness Book of World Records lists MOVE under 
"Mass Suicides" based on the May 1985 bombing and MURDER of MOVE people.

They also list us with "cults" - and list the source of this
misinformation as "The Cult Information Centre."  We are not a cult, we
ARE an organization and certainly did not commit suicide. This is a
malevolent and very dangerous lie. It's a deliberate tactic of this
system to defame and misrepresent this organization so that when
officials wrong us, treat us unjustly and even murder us, a lot of
people will accept and dismiss it because of how we have been
characterized by this system. We have discovered that both the Guinness
Book of World Records and The Cult Information Centre are based in
London.

We have their addresses, which I will include at the end of this email,
but we would like to get an email address for both these people and
start some actions against them. Any of you that can help with this,
please let us know. If you have any ideas about some good ways to
confront these people, please us know. We don't intend to let them
defame us like this, it's wrong and it's dangerous. I look forward to
getting some information and feedback from you all. In the meantime,
take care and stay strong--Ramona

Guinness World Records Limited
184-192 Drummond Street
3rd Floor
London NW1 3HP
United Kingdom

CULT INFORMATION CENTRE
BCM CULTS
LONDON
WC1N 3XX U.K.
Tel: 0870 777 3800
===================================================

http://www.nightslantern.ca/prison/move9.htm

*the move nine*

many move members were killed; nine were falsely accused, convicted for
the murder of a police person, sentenced to from thirty to a hundred
years; merle africa died in prison in 1998; surviving and currently
serving out this sentence are michael davis africa, charles simms
africa, edward goodman africa, william philips africa, delbert orr
africa, janet holloway africa, janine philips africa, debbie simms
africa.

historical note - this group is/was based on the teachings of john
africa, believing in life, protection of the environment from corporate
misuse, caring for people, caring for animals, birds, fish, all living
creatures; his teachings are pro-nature and anti-racist; the group
usually provides a community resource centre in the philadelphia area,
counseling prisoners, addicts, alcoholics, the poor, child raising,
interrupted by police attacks and brutality; in the seventies police
abuse focused on move members who were pregnant women, forcing
miscarriages, beatings by police in the victims' home, alleged murder
by police of one of the children, and culminated in the deaths of six
women and five children in the police bombing of move's address at
osage avenue in 1985, a police attack which may have killed the
movement's founder; a previous police free for all assault on the the
move dwelling in 1978 resulted in the wounding of police and fire
personnel and the death of a policeman by a single possibly errant
bullet; nine move members on premises in the 1978 assault were charged
in the death and are noted above; move men members have spent as much
as six years in solitary confinement through religious refusal to cut
their hair; women have spent as much as three years in solitary
confinement for not giving blood; while several of the mothers were in
prison their children were killed in the police bombing and assault of
1985; the history of move reveals such extreme local law enforcement
persecution of this group, without any protection by the federal
government, under adversarial courts, that its purposes have appeared
to be (for thirty years) 1. creating an example to terrrorize other
civilian groups, 2. physical destruction of this group. 3.
psychological destruction of the group and its philosphy.

some sources: /earth liberation prisonners/ at
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk/prisoners/sof.htm; "25 years on the
move: john africa's organization" at
http://www.angelfire.com/ga/dregeye/move.html; /john africa's move
organization/ "statement regarding harassment by the news media" at
http://www.onamove.org/articles/newsmedia.php

return to political prisoners page
<http://www.nightslantern.ca/prison/prisoners.htm>
return to gerald and maas community page
<http://www.nightslantern.ca/community.htm>

by j.b.gerald w. drawings by j.maas
gerald and maas night's lantern
                                 *
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I'd like to remind folks that libelous slander, in the United States, only exists in cases in which an issuer's claims are not true. In the U.K. that is not true and we are not in the U.K. That said, here is the latest, small chapter in the psy-op known as the Mike Ruppert Entourage.

Lori Price of CLG (Citizens for a Legitimate Government) runs a 9/11 listserv at Riseup.net. It was on, at one time, one of Mike Ruppert's mailing lists. By and large, folks tuned in to find out the latest on the 9/11 investigation and, at the time, most of the good ones were expected to come from Mike. I felt the same way.

Readers at Memes.org are, for the most part, keenly aware of the Mitre-Ptech connections to 9/11 and the fight some of this research's proponents have gone through to bring it to light but in case you are new to this story, click here. Once you are somewhat familiar with the material, the following will make vastly more sense.

I recall the day when I first submitted said memes to a list Mike was on and it is the one at Yahoo known as CIA-Drugs. I had already had a bad bout with Mike (not the moderator) when he claimed that the usage of methamphetamines by intelligence agencies to practice behavior modification was off topic for a list whose purpose was to unearth the connection between the uses and sales of drugs and the activities of intelligence agencies.

Yeah, I know it's crazy.

As to the Mitre and Ptech connections to 9/11 he said they were so ridiculous that he didn't even need to look at them. That's right: they were so ludicrous, that they didn't even warrant the kind of examination that determines ludicrousness in the first place. That's called a rabbit hole, friends.

Some moons later, at the list moderated by Lori Price, I submitted the evidence again. Mike was on the list but I was not looking for his approval anymore. I already knew what I needed to know about Mike Ruppert. No, I was attempting to put this information between serious reserachers, some of whom were obviously drawn to any list with him on it. As well, I thought, maybe he would reconsider and tackle the information or maybe he would be forced to by the tide of other researchers and public demand.

That was not to happen. I was told to stop making libelous statements about Mike and though, believe you me, they were on my mind, at this time I had never made any accusations against Mike Ruppert. This is a typical rabbit hole invitation. It put me immediately in the position of having to explain myself instead of Mike having to explain why he was attempting to squash my researcher, which is the situation I was hoping to facilitate. Of course, as I have said, I had not at this point issued any accusations against Mike but obviously he knew they were coming and so did Lori.

After Lori told the list that I was attempting to hack the list (during the period that I, miraculously, didn't have access to the list and was, therefore, unable to respond to the accusations, let alone know that they existed) I contacted Riseup admin, the host of my email address and the mailing list Lori and Mike headed. Lori had told the list that the matter was being investigated with the Riseup Collective but the collective told me that Lori had never even contacted them.

Many more moons passed and Mike was discredited. His publication, From the Wilderness, was eventually forced to cover the story and they did their own spin that left out any Israeli involvement (Christopher Bollyn's research on the same left out the Saudi connections). Saudi and Israeli space outfits work very closely together and this is one thing systematically obscured by both "journalists." Can you say controlled opposition?

Recently , Bollyn claimed to have incredible new leads but he was not going to send out the information because he didn't have the funding. This is not Life Magazine; it's the internet! I blogged relentlessly and widely, for years, from the position of homelessness so don't gimme no crap! If Bollyn is legitimate, he will not hold the truth hostage for more donations. Disgusting!

Well, here it is now in 2008 and Price continues to be a large scale presence on the world wide web. She seems to be putting out good information so I though, ya know, maybe she's legit.

I decided to ask her for her take on Ruppert now. After years, and after having had Lori on mailing lists of mine prior to even ever communicating with Mike, I though maybe she fought dirty but maybe she just didn't realize whose side she was on. Maybe she deserved a chance, after al