-Caveat Lector- from; http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Today's Lesson from The Origins of European Thought by R. B. Onians Women are an avowed aim and approved prize of war. It is to save their wives that men fight. When a city is taken, the men are slain, the children are dashed to death or enslaved, and the women violently dragged away to serve as slaves and concubines of their married or unmarried conquerors. The Iliad is built upon a quarrel over such victims. There is no shame or condemnation about it. To the folk in solemn assembly Agamemnon declares that he prefers his captive Chryseis to his wife Clytemnestra, and the venerable Nestor says: 'Let no man hasten to return till each have lain by some Trojan's wife and repaid his strivings and groanings for Helen'. The attitude toward sex is one of frank naturalism. ===== Year 2000 Y2K Helps Gun Sales First, we shoot all the COBOL programmers . . . PALO ALTO, California — Among the many Internet sites outlining ways people should prepare for the year 2000, one called Y2Kchaos.com suggests why those living close to prisons might find it useful to have a gun or two: "... Doors swinging open, alarms shutting down, locks going slack and so forth,'' reads a Q&A section on the site http://www.y2kchaos.com below the question, "What is going to happen to the inmates?'' The discussion goes on to say that malfunctioning locks and alarms might not be as big a problem as prison guards who fail to report to work when they have to fend for themselves in the general mayhem that is unleashed with the New Year: "If the guards don't show up, or are poorly administered... then it doesn't matter what the specific breakdowns might or might not be, inmates are coming out.'' Most people aren't buying it, but a small segment of the population is. Whether their concern be prison inmates set free by a computer glitch, food supplies cut off by a collapse in the transport network, a state of general mayhem or merely some prudent preparation for the unknown, Y2K concerns are causing some gun owners to build up their arsenal — and others to buy firearms for the first time. "They're buying everything: handguns, rifles and shotguns,'' said a salesman in the Matthews, North Carolina, gun shop FirePower, which reports one of the bigger Y2K-related surges in business. The salesman said as many as 40 percent of his clients were buying extra ammunition in advance of 2000. "They don't know what to expect, but no one can give anyone a clear idea that nothing's going to happen,'' says the FirePower salesman. "So they're going by CYA logic: cover your ass.'' BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY In New York City, Patriot Firearms says most of its customers are not worried about the Y2K computer glitch, but some of its own employees are. "It's mostly people who work here,'' says store manager Aaron Kim.'' They're saying, 'You never know...better safe than sorry.''' And Gary Winstead — who on another Y2K survival site, http://www.alpinesurvival.com, recommends people arm themselves with some powerful "survival rifles'' — says he has seen some evidence they are heeding the warning. ''While viewing many gun shows over the years, I have noticed a whole different crowd in the last few months, "Winstead wrote in response to an e-mail query. "There are many more family types, dad and mom shopping for a firearm together. I have also noticed more single women purchasing handguns...Gun shows used to consist almost entirely of middle-aged and older men.'' But for all those who report a Y2K-related surge in sales, there appear to be more whose business has seen little or no impact from concern about the millennium computer bug. They are, however, reporting a different kind of Y2K event that is helping to make 1999 one of their best years in recent memory: gun control. GUN CONTROL Seasoned dealers who have worked through several different political climates know that nothing drives sales as much as the concern that the government is about to restrict gun purchases. In the past, sales have been brisk in years that the federal government passed laws making it harder to buy a gun. And this year, fear of tighter gun controls seems to be providing more of an incentive to stockpile than any fear of a computer glitch. A spot survey of gun stores around the country suggests 1999 has been a very good year for the gun industry, but computer failure seems less of a factor than Columbine. The Columbine High School massacre which caught the world's attention in April, and was followed by a series of shootings around the United States, has got the country talking seriously about gun control. "Whenever there's talk of legislation, people buy a lot of guns,'' says Timothy Conder, a financial analyst at A.G. Edwards, who tracks Southport, Connecticut-based gun maker Sturm, Ruger & Co. Comprehensive nationwide data on gun sales is hard to come by because of the fragmented nature of the industry, which is comprised of many family-run stores and local gun shows. Data made available by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is not current, and the National Rifle Association declined to comment on any recent surge in gun sales. "It's probably likely that a certain segment of the population is (stockpiling guns), but it's not a trend we've seen on any grand scale,'' says Jack Gibben, spokesman for the President's Council on Y2K Conversion. However, A.G. Edwards' Conder says that Sturm Ruger, which makes a variety of guns for hunting and law enforcement purposes and, as a publicly traded company is required to report its results, has seen a 23 percent increase in its year-to-date sales. Recent price increases at Sturm, Ruger, as well as the company's 50th anniversary this year, are given credit for part of that rise, but Conder says fear of stricter gun controls is also a factor. The owner of one gun shop in rural Michigan says he has noticed the same trend. Despite seeing a 15 percent to 20 percent increase in sales this year, he says he has had "very, very few'' customers worried about computer failure and resulting chaos in the new millennium. Nor is he encouraging the Y2K survivalist crowd. "My impression of those people is that they need to get a life,'' said the merchant, who asked not to be identified by name. "I'm well versed in computers, and my son is out in Silicon Valley making a bajillion dollars in computers.'' Not all retailers share his sentiments, especially those on the Internet. Many online retailers have positioned their stores as places not just to get hunting equipment but survival supplies as well. Omega Man Enterprises (http://www.omegamanenterprises.com) boasts "shocking low prices on more than 4,000 items such as: Y2K supplies, survival equipment, military surplus, night vision, camping gear, nitrogen packed survival foods, body armour'' and more. Miami-based Inter-American Security Products, which sells bullet-proof vests, pepper spray and stun guns, uses this sales pitch on its Web site (http://www.interamer.com): "Get ready for Y2K now and help avoid the recent year's tragedies! Protect yourself and your loved ones!!'' And SKS Parts (http://www.sksparts.com) which calls itself the source for "hard-to-find parts,'' including AK47 automatic rifles, posts this erroneous warning on its Web site: ''Confiscation of guns begins in California on January 1, 2000 —- buy a gun LEGALLY! Before it's too late!'' Fox News, November 1, 1999 Waco The Waco Network Kicking government butt. FORT COLLINS, Colo. - The images are a peculiarly American vision of hell: An apocalypse on the Texas prairie swallows a ramshackle building and more than 80 occupants as an army of federal lawmen circles in tanks and helicopters. The pictures have consumed Mike McNulty and his colleagues, driving their six-year quest to prove dark theories of government wrongdoing in the Branch Davidian standoff near Waco. "It doesn't matter how many times you see it," said Mr. McNulty, an insurance broker-turned-filmmaker and Waco researcher. "It grabs you in the gut. It makes you want to do something. You know there are children in there, and you just want to make it better for them." Mr. McNulty is among the most visible of an obsessed band of lawyers, businessmen, ex-soldiers, retired scientists and former federal workers who track and trade information about the Davidian siege. Some see the 1993 incident as a case study of federal power gone mad. Others are driven by what they call implausible government explanations. Still others can't accept that authorities did not save the 17 children who died when the Davidians' compound burned on April 19, 1993. Their zeal has spawned lawsuits, films, Internet sites and scientific studies. They have hectored lawmakers, journalists and anyone else who will listen. Information they have unearthed is the foundation of a federal lawsuit alleging that government negligence and wrongdoing caused the Waco tragedy, charges that government lawyers vehemently deny. "Because of the government's stonewalling, we've been forced to rely on this loose-knit coalition," said Mike Caddell of Houston, the Davidians' lead lawyer. "Without their getting information that the government kept from us, we wouldn't have a case," he said. Their work recently helped return national attention to Waco. Mr. McNulty's examination of government evidence in Texas led to the August revelation that FBI agents fired pyrotechnic tear-gas canisters on the day the compound burned. The news followed years of denials that anything that might spark fires had been used that day. It prompted new congressional inquiries and the appointment of independent counsel John Danforth. The network has persisted despite efforts of government officials to marginalize it as a collection of as kooks, gun nuts and conspiracy theorists led by a low-rent Oliver Stone, Mr. McNulty. Many in the informal network will be with Mr. McNulty in Washington on Wednesday to fire their latest broadside: a documentary called Waco: A New Revelation. Mr. McNulty and the Colorado company producing the film, MGA Entertainment, have invited the national news media, legislators and government leaders to the premiere. "There are things here that demand an explanation, and there are people who need to be held accountable," said Mr. McNulty, 53, who conducts his sleuthing from a home office littered with files, equipment and blackened artifacts from the Davidian site. "You can dismiss us, but you can't dismiss the evidence we've found. "We're not right-wing militia crazies. We're regular citizens who feel passionately that something is wrong with what happened at Waco," he said. "We've gotten a lot farther than anyone ever thought we would." Mr. McNulty said he was drawn to the Davidian case by its parallels to a lesser-known American bloodbath: the 1837 massacre of 17 Mormons at Haun's Mill, Mo., after a governor ordered them killed or expelled from the state. Mr. McNulty said the government-sanctioned religious massacre he learned about as a Mormon convert made him doubt federal contentions that Davidian leader David Koresh was a con man leading a flock of criminal cultists. As a father of five and grandfather of three, Mr. McNulty said, he was particularly upset that so many children died. The standoff began when agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided the Davidians' rural compound in search of illegal weapons. A gunfight broke out, and four ATF agents died. The FBI then came in. On April 19, its agents tried to force surrender with a tank and tear-gas assault. Six hours into the assault, the compound burst into flames. Investigators ruled that Davidians set the blaze. FBI officials maintain that their agents did not fire a shot and did nothing to contribute to the disaster. Mr. McNulty began trolling for evidence within months of the siege, and one of his major acquisitions was a copy of a video recorded by an airborne FBI infrared camera during the final hours of the standoff. He eventually recruited retired Defense Department infrared expert Edward Allard, who concluded that white blips of light captured on tape were government gunfire. That conclusion became the foundation for a 1997 film based on Mr. McNulty's research: Waco: The Rules of Engagement. The film alleged that government agents started the first gunfight with the sect and later shot again to keep the Davidians in their burning compound. Government officials dismissed the movie as one-sided and riddled with errors and inaccuracies. But it was nominated for an Oscar and recently won an Emmy for investigative reporting. By the time the movie premiered in 1997, Mr. McNulty was tapping still more sources of Waco information. He was hired as an investigator by lawyers defending Timothy McVeigh, the man sentenced to die for bombing the Oklahoma City federal building on the second anniversary of the Waco fire. From the lawyers, he gained access to previously undisclosed FBI reports and other information on Waco, the event that prompted Mr. McVeigh's attack. Mr. McNulty regularly swapped information with other researchers, including an Arizona lawyer with a penchant for filing lawsuits under the federal Freedom of Information Act. A 48-year-old who laughingly describes himself as a "gun nut," David Hardy said his legal work on firearms issues prompted his recruitment to the Waco cause by a colorful private investigator named Gordon Novell. Mr. Novell is best known for being labeled a "CIA operative" by the late New Orleans prosecutor Jim Garrison amid his investigation of the Kennedy assassination. Mr. Novell became involved in the Davidian case early on and still works for former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers in the Davidians' lawsuit. "He got me halfway interested, and I got the notion that this was something that might be worth a book," said Mr. Hardy, a former Interior Department lawyer. Mr. Hardy began filing requests and lawsuits to prod information from the ATF and FBI, sharing his acquisitions with the network. Among his discoveries: documentation that the Army's secret Delta Force dispatched soldiers to Waco with the approval of the secretary of defense. Government officials say the military only observed and gave technical assistance. "You get to the point where you don't know quite what the goal is anymore," said Mr. Hardy, who is still filing lawsuits but has never finished his book. "I want to find out anything I can." A federal judge in Tucson recently awarded Mr. Hardy $32,000 in attorney's fees, one of the largest awards in a lawsuit over access to federal records. The release of Mr. McNulty's first film drew others to the network, including Californian Maurice Cox, a retired mathematician and imagery analyst with 31 years in government spy satellite projects. Mr. Cox said he began researching Waco after Justice Department officials said that flashes on the FBI infrared video used in Mr. McNulty's first film were sunlight reflections. Mr. Cox had dealt with the FBI when his lab evaluated film in its custody from the 1970 National Guard shootings at Kent State University. The FBI's lack of cooperation and implausible conclusions about that film's contents planted a distrust that was reawakened by the Waco film, he said. Mr. Cox said he spent more than $7,000 on a study that concluded that the Waco flashes were not natural but had characteristics of gunfire. He sent the study to lawyers for both the government and the Davidians. The federal judge in the current Davidian case cited both his work and Mr. Allard's infrared analysis in his July order refusing to dismiss the wrongful-death lawsuit against the government. Before beginning work on his first film, Mr. McNulty moved his family from California to Fort Collins. There he met aspiring local film director Jason Van Vleet and his father, Rick. A rock guitarist-turned-financial adviser who drives a Jaguar and travels with a miniature brown poodle named Kramer, Rick Van Vleet said he was riveted by 1995 congressional hearings on Waco and stirred by Mr. McNulty's first film. The Van Vleets and Mr. McNulty began discussing how a new film might force new disclosures. Father and son had just started MGA Entertainment to create family-oriented home videos and agreed to use it to make a new Waco film, with Jason as director. Mr. McNulty then enlisted FBI whistle-blower Fredric Whitehurst. The chemist's complaints about shoddy and improper practices at the FBI lab led to an overhaul of the bureau's forensics operations. After alleging that he had been targeted for retaliation, he left the FBI with a $1.5 million settlement. Mr. Whitehurst agreed to narrate the film. He also went to Texas to collect chemical residue samples when Mr. McNulty recently gained access to government Davidian evidence. They are the only outsiders allowed to study the evidence extensively since the standoff. "How did I feel when we were going into the evidence locker? This was crazy!" said Dr. Whitehurst. "But this is not an ordinary crime, and the Department of Justice is incapable of seriously reviewing it." Other allies have offered still more snippets. Steven Barry, a retired Green Beret who started an underground Special Forces magazine to voice ire over Waco and other perceived government sins, offered research and contacts. He is featured in the film pushing theories about military gunfire and use of explosives against the Davidians. A Michigan pathologist recruited by a fellow abortion opponent went to Texas to re-autopsy a Davidian who died on the last day of the siege. The pathologist reported that key body parts were inexplicably mutilated or missing, including part of the skull that an earlier government autopsy identified as the site of a fatal gunshot wound. Mr. McNulty also coaxed interviews from the now-retired Texas Ranger captain who headed the original Davidian criminal investigation, former FBI employees and Alice Sessions, wife of the FBI's director during the Davidian siege. All are in the new Waco documentary. With the film completed, Mr. McNulty is continuing his research. He and his colleagues say they think their work is being monitored by governmental foes. As for their theories and conclusions, even allies say they are sometimes farfetched. "They go beyond what we think really happened," said Mr. Caddell, the lead lawyer in the Davidian lawsuit. "Now that we've finally survived motions to dismiss our lawsuit, we're using more traditional means of discovery, and we're getting information that they never saw, never got. "We're replacing the information that we got from them with, in some cases, better information," he said. "But there's no question that they've provided us information and evidence that we would never have gotten any other way." Dallas Morning News, October 31, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
