Suspect Sought in Anchorwoman's Death

UPDATE: Accused killer arrested and charged.

news.aol.com
10/28/08

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Oct. 27) - Police said Monday they have information they hope will lead them to the killer of a television anchorwoman who died days after a brutal attack in her home.

Police said they do not yet know the suspect's identity, and would not say what evidence they have linking the person to the attack on Anne Pressly, 26, who died Saturday. Her mother found her badly beaten on the morning of Oct. 20 when Pressly did not answer her regular wake-up call.

"We do have an individual. The suspect has not been arrested," police spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said.

Reports last week said one of Pressly's credit cards was used Oct. 20 at a service station near downtown Little Rock. Investigators have said she may have been a robbery victim, and that her job did not appear to have had anything to do with the attack. Pressly's purse was missing the morning of the attack.

Davis said police wouldn't comment on evidence obtained so far but added, "We hope that we will be able to make an arrest from the information that we have received."

Chief Stuart Thomas said Monday that his officers had been in contact with the FBI, the state police and the U.S. Marshals Service. He said in a statement that his department has withheld specific information in an effort to keep the investigation focused but that it would release information if it believed it would help detectives or keep the community safe.

Previously, police said there was no sign of forced entry at Pressly's home, a small wood-frame house near the Little Rock Country Club. Davis said officers were returning to the scene as needed in a search for more evidence.

Pressly's employer, KATV, established a reward fund for information. The station said Pressly's family has asked that contributions be made to the fund in lieu of flowers.

Pressly had a small role as a conservative commentator in the new Oliver Stone movie "W."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

http://news.aol.com/article/suspect-sought-in-anchorwomans-death/225819

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling

Chicago Tribune
May 15, 2006

Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation. ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.

Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials.

People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.

Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers. The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded.

A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators. Being a confidential source who disagrees with a presidential administration then decides to oppose it by becoming a whistleblower can take courage when discovery means loss of a job and possible legal consequences. It’s just that kind of courage that this revelation is likely to chill. That could be the administration’s intent here, to make would-be confidential sources think twice before talking with reporters.

It’s no small irony that the only reason we now know about this is because a ABC News’ confidential source told them about it. The Blotter posting raises the question of whether ABC News’ phone calls were swept up as part of the vast National Security Agency database consisting of the phone-call records of millions of Americans which USA Today reported on last week.

It’s impossible for anyone outside of a few inside the government to say. But the fact that ABC News journalists are even seriously wondering about whether the warning is connected to the NSA’s domestic surveillance activities indicates just how anxious many people in Washington have become.

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/05/govt_source_tel.html

A Fountainhead of Conservative "Principles" at Home: Richard Mellon Scaife's Domestic Side

The CIA's Richard Mellon Scaife donates lavishly to "conservative" organizations that promote traditional family values. So it's an obvious deduction that his belief in The Family translates into perfect bliss at home, with moral values motivating the Scaife clan to follow the Biblical paradigm. Let's just take a peek through the mail slot and see what goes on at the value-blessed Scaife love nest, shall we? Shhhh ... no liberal smirking ... they'll hear you ... :

Police say publisher's wife assaulted three
April 08, 2006
By Moustafa Ayad, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The estranged wife of the publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review attacked three of his employees yesterday afternoon in an attempt to take his dog by force, police said.

Police said Ritchie Scaife, 58, assaulted a maid, a secretary and security guard outside of the home of Richard Mellon Scaife on Westminster Place, Shadyside, at about 1:20 p.m. yesterday. Mr. Scaife was not at home at the time of the incident.

Mrs. Scaife told police that she saw Sue Patterson, the maid, walking a yellow labrador named Beau and "lost control." Mrs. Scaife said she became upset because she said the dog had been taken from her residence the day before.

"The dog had just done his business and I was bending over when I heard the squealing of tires and Mrs. Scaife running at me," said Mrs. Patterson, who said she needed a CT Scan and X-rays. "She hit me repeatedly in the head and left scratches on my neck."

Mrs. Patterson said she was planning to file assault charges against Mrs. Scaife. She said attorney Laura Gutnick was representing her and the other victims. Mrs. Gutnick could not be reached last night.

According to police and witness reports, Mrs. Scaife pulled Mrs. Patterson's hair and punched her in the head. Mrs. Patterson called out for help and Dennis Bradshaw, the security guard, went to go pull Mrs. Scaife off of Mrs. Patterson. Police said Mrs. Scaife slapped Mr. Bradshaw's glasses off of his face and broke them.

At that point in the scuffle, Mrs. Patterson lost control of the dog and Mrs. Scaife chased after him. Mrs Scaife was in the front yard of Mr. Scaife's residence trying to grab the dog when Genevieve Still, Mr. Scaife's 77-year-old secretary, spotted the loose dog and attempted to get hold of him.

Police said that Mrs. Scaife pushed Mrs. Still to the ground and then kicked her in the hip. Witnesses to the fracas interceded by trying to calm Mrs. Scaife. All of the victims suffered minor injuries and did not immediately seek medical treatment, police said. After police left, all of the victims went to nearby Shadyside Hospital.

Mrs. Scaife was not arrested. She gave a Downtown address to police as her residence. Police said charges would have to be filed by the victims at the local magistrate's office.

A man who answered the door at the home last night refused to answer questions.

In December, Mrs. Scaife was arrested outside of Mr. Scaife's Shadyside home and charged with defiant trespass after refusing to leave. Mr. Scaife, who was home at the time, called police, saying Mrs. Scaife was pounding on doors and peeking in windows.

First published on April 8, 2006 at 12:00 am

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06098/680567-53.stm
•••••••
Low Road to Splitsville

Right-Wing Publisher's Breakup Is Super-Rich In Tawdry Details
By David Segal
Washington Post
October 22, 2007; C01

PITTSBURGH

Looking for a perfect little weekend vacation this fall? Here's a travel tip you don't hear very often: Head to Pittsburgh. Right away.

Seriously, get in the car and read this story later, because when you're done reading, you'll wish you'd left 10 minutes ago. There are towns with better vistas, sure, and there are getaways with more sunshine. But only Pittsburgh is the scene of the fabulously tawdry and surpassingly vicious spectacle that is the divorce of Richard Mellon Scaife.

Remember him? The cantankerous, reclusive 75-year-old billionaire who's spent a sizable chunk of his inherited fortune bankrolling conservative causes and trying to kneecap Democrats? He's best known for funding efforts to smear then-President Bill Clinton, but more quietly he's given in excess of $300 million to right-leaning activists, watchdogs and think tanks. Atop his list of favorite donees: the family-values-focused Heritage Foundation, which has published papers with titles such as "Restoring a Culture of Marriage."

The culture of his own marriage is apparently past restoring. With the legal fight still in the weigh-in phase, the story of Scaife v. Scaife already includes a dog-snatching, an assault, a night in jail and that divorce court perennial, allegations of adultery.

Oh, and there's the money. Three words, people.

No. Pre. Nup.

Unfathomable but true, when Scaife (rhymes with safe) married his second wife, Margaret "Ritchie" Scaife, in 1991, he neglected to wall off a fortune that Forbes recently valued at $1.3 billion. This, to understate matters, is likely going to cost him, big time. As part of a temporary settlement, 60-year-old Ritchie Scaife is currently cashing an alimony check that at first glance will look like a typo: $725,000 a month. Or about $24,000 a day, seven days a week. As Richard Scaife's exasperated lawyers put it in a filing, "The temporary order produces an amount so large that just the income from it, invested at 5 percent, is greater each year than the salary of the President of the United States."

The numbers are just one of many we-kid-you-not dimensions to this tale. In late 2005, Ritchie Scaife peered through a window at one of her husband's many homes and saw him with one Tammy Sue Vasco, a woman whose colorful criminal history includes an arrest for prostitution. And this tryst was no one-afternoon stand. Ritchie Scaife describes Vasco in court filings as her husband's "mistress."

It gets better. But to fully appreciate this mesmerizing debacle, one must study it up close, for its many strategic blunders and its moments of epic brutality -- like a visit to Gettysburg, minus the gravitas. The good news, weekend travelers, is you can get close enough to most of the landmarks to gawk to your heart's content.

So buy a map and pack a lunch. And keep your hands inside the car.

Fireworks From the Start

We begin in Ligonier, 50 miles east of the city, at the Rolling Rock Club, once part of the Mellon estate, now a social center for the city's small community of super-rich, a place where Dick Cheney has gone game bird-hunting on a few occasions. The Scaifes wed here 16 years ago, with a reception that included a massive display of fireworks. The two had been openly dating for years, while Richard was married to his first wife, the former Frances Gilmore, with whom he had two children, and Ritchie was married to an attorney named Westray Battle, with whom she had a son.

Friends were not surprised that Ritchie, with her elegant cheekbones and lilting Southern accent, had turned the head of one of the country's richest men, currently No. 380 in the Forbes 400. She is known within high society as a woman who is fierce and formidable when she has a goal in mind, and in the '80s, her top priority was marrying Richard Scaife, say acquaintances.

Now, to the site of postnuptial domestic bliss, such as it was.

Head west on Route 30 to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and follow the signs to Pittsburgh. Once in the city, notice that "Mellon" is slapped on just about everything -- buildings, libraries, banks, streets, and on and on. That would be Andrew Mellon, the uncle of Richard Scaife's mother, a financial wiz who built a Gilded Age fortune through banking and oil. Income from the trusts of that estate yields roughly $45 million a year for Scaife, according to a filing by his wife. That's a gross disposable income of nearly $4 million a month, apparently just for having been born. As the lawyer of his soon-to-be-ex-wife noted, "These massive streams of income are attributable to no employment, business enterprise or other effort -- intellectual, physical, creative or ministerial -- past or present."

During the years they dated, Richard and Ritchie had lived a block and a half apart, in a moneyed section of town called Shadyside. Once the two were united in holy matrimony, for reasons perhaps only they know, the arrangement didn't change. She lived on a cul-de-sac called Pitcairn Place. He lived two blocks away, on Westminster Place, in a huge red-brick Georgian-style home, with a multi-car garage and an American flag on the front door.

Dickie, as he's known to his handful of friends, acquired a mean streak at an early age, according to his now-deceased sister, Cordelia Scaife. (She once told The Washington Post that she and her brother hadn't spoken for 25 years.) His trouble with alcohol started when he was at prep school, and he later was tossed out of Yale when he rolled a keg of beer down a flight of stairs and broke the legs of a fellow student. His father, a below-average businessman, died a year after Richard graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. His mother was "just a gutter drunk," as Cordelia put it.

Scaife owns a handful of newspapers and newsweeklies, including the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, a conservative answer to the Post-Gazette. When he isn't tending to this modest publishing empire, he's underwriting what Hillary Clinton once called "a vast right-wing conspiracy." His highest-profile expenditure is the $2.3 million he gave the American Spectator magazine in the mid-'90s, to try to unearth prurient and embarrassing details about Bill Clinton's years as governor of Arkansas. (The magazine came up virtually empty-handed.)

Though he jousts, indirectly, with public figures, Scaife seems to detest attention. He almost never speaks to the media, and on one of the few occasions he did, it was to tell a reporter, who'd sandbagged him on the street, that she was ugly and that her mother was ugly, too.

But Scaife is said to be extremely kind to his staff, which includes security, a chef, housekeepers, and a pilot for his DC-9. His lawyer did not return calls requesting comment for this story.

As for Ritchie Scaife, she was considered by her peers to be ostentatious and a touch too loud, say two acquaintances. Publicly, she was credited with helping to humanize her husband. It was she who reportedly helped him get sober after years of alcoholism, and she who persuaded him to channel some of his philanthropic largess to tsunami relief. (Richard Scaife has long given to charitable causes, but conservative politics is his passion.) Ritchie was involved with his business, too, serving on the board of her husband's publishing company. Through her lawyer, she declined to comment for this article.

At some point in late 2005, Ritchie started having suspicions about her husband and hired a private investigator named Keith Scannell, a specialist in high-end surveillance for insurance companies. In December of that year, Scannell followed Richard Scaife to nearby North Huntingdon, home of Doug's Motel, a place where the TVs are bolted to the furniture and rooms can be rented in three-hour increments, for $28. (It's now under new management and renamed the Huntingdon Inn. Head east on Route 8, then east on Route 30.) There, according to Scannell, Scaife spent a few hours with Tammy Sue Vasco.

Why a billionaire would shack up at Doug's Motel, of all places, is a mystery. Ditto his choice of companions. Vasco is a tall, blond 43-year-old mother who in 1993 was busted in a sting operation after showing up at a Sheraton hotel and offering to have sex with an undercover cop for $225, the Post-Gazette reported.

Social Register material she is not, but Vasco and Scaife seemed to have a relationship that went beyond the purely professional. The two usually met each other twice a week, for months, at the motel, says an employee of the motel. Scaife would show up in a chauffeured car, dressed in a suit, wearing cuff links, always bearing flowers. Vasco would be waiting in same room every time, Room 5 on the ground floor, facing the parking lot, said the employee. Mr. Dick, as he was known at the motel, would stay for two hours or so, then get back in the car, which had been waiting, and leave.

"He actually seemed infatuated with Tammy," says the Doug's Motel employee, who did not want to be identified because of the powerful parties in the case. "She'd talk about trips that he took her on, to California, New York City. And it was great for her. It changed her life."

Despite a long history of financial disputes and a variety of liens, Vasco currently lives in a three-bedroom house that an attorney named Patrick Derrico bought outright for $50,000 a few years ago. Her name is currently on the deed. Derrico, who practices in Washington, Pa., would not discuss the deal, or Vasco.

She has also traded up from the Jeep she once drove. She's now behind the wheel of a dark green Toyota Sequoia, a large SUV that goes for about $40,000. Attempts to reach her for comment through her father, who lives in West Virginia, and through Derrico were not successful. She did not reply to a message hand-delivered to her home.

A few days after Scannell reported the Doug's Motel rendezvous to Ritchie Scaife, she noticed Vasco's Jeep in the driveway of his mansion at Westminster Place. Gaping through a window, according to court papers filed by her lawyers, she spotted Vasco. Then the trouble started.

Private investigator Scannell, commenting on what became a much-discussed local news story, put it this way: "Mrs. Scaife acted as any loving wife would upon finding out just days earlier that her husband had a confirmed meeting, for several hours, at a $40 motel with a woman previously arrested for prostitution."

Police would later say that Ritchie Scaife began pounding on doors and windows and refused to leave, which is why she was promptly arrested for "defiant trespass." She was handcuffed and driven downtown to the Allegheny County Jail -- near the Liberty Bridge, at 950 Second Ave. -- where a woman accustomed to traveling with a personal hairdresser spent the night in what her lawyers later called a "grim" holding cell.

The trespassing charge was eventually dismissed, but as Ritchie Scaife's lawyer stated in a divorce filing, "The marriage was over!"

Baring Fangs

Both sides lawyered up, and the war over the Scaifes' considerable assets began. Ritchie started at a bit of a disadvantage: Few of her belongings were actually in her possession. In 2002, Richard had told his wife that as a birthday gift he would renovate her home, which required her to temporarily relocate virtually everything she owned. When the legal proceedings began in early 2006, Ritchie's home was still uninhabitable, and she lived around the corner from Pitcairn Place, at the home of William Pietragallo, her lawyer, and Pietragallo's wife, a friend of Ritchie's for many years.

For Pietragallo and his colleagues, one of the first orders of business was persuading Richard to cough up his wife's goods. Which took some doing. A lawsuit was filed, with Ritchie's lawyers accusing Richard of behavior "designed to harass and annoy Wife" and "to create obfuscation, chaos and uncertainty as to the existence, location, condition and ownership of the vast amounts of personal property owned by the parties."

The key word here is "vast." One of the most astounding stacks of papers in the pile that is the Scaife divorce is the inventory of Ritchie's stuff, compiled by her lawyers. The list runs for more than 80 pages, like an episode of "Antiques Roadshow" that will not end. Meat platters, sardine forks, melon forks, a circa-1804 Dutch teapot, a painting by Magritte, Victorian cream pitchers, bread trays, candlesticks, a sterling silver nutmeg grater, flatware service . . . you get the picture. Much of it was stored at Vallamont, the weekend house Richard Scaife owns near the Rolling Rock Club.

"Defendant has and continues to unlawfully hold in his possession six pairs of asparagus tongs manufactured by Mappin & Webb, Birmingham, 1926 weighing 10 ounces total," reads one of dozens of paragraphs. "The last-known location for these items was at 'Vallamont,' 132 Pheasant Circle, Ligonier, Pa. 15658. The estimated cost for these items is $1,800."

Eventually, Scaife returned this massive collection, with Ritchie's lawyers accusing him of "dumping" the stuff on her without a proper heads-up. Scaife's lawyers countered that the transfer was handled with respect and care.

The real fight, though, was not over the Shreve & Co. finger bowls. It was over the dog. Specifically, a yellow Labrador retriever named Beauregard, who Ritchie has told friends is a direct descendant of a pooch belonging to a king of England. Until March 2006, the animal was in Ritchie's hands, living with her and the Pietragallos. Then one day, Beauregard was scooped out of the Pietragallos' back yard and whisked around the corner, to Richard's house on Westminster.

This brazen canine abduction was not covered up. Quite the opposite. It was celebrated with a banner on wooden stakes posted on Richard's front lawn: "Welcome home, Beauregard," it read.

It's safe to assume that despite his lineage, Beauregard is unable to read. The point, it seems, was to needle Ritchie.

And it did.

On the afternoon of April 6, 2006, Ritchie stopped her car when she spotted a housekeeper of Richard's walking Beauregard in the neighborhood. Game on. The cops later said that Ritchie punched 51-year-old Sue Patterson, then tried to grab the dog. A secretary of Richard's, 77-year-old Genevieve Still, saw Ritchie and Patterson on the ground, with Ritchie on top, pulling Patterson's hair. When she tried to intervene, Still wound up with "a swift kick to the lower back," she told police. Then a security guard named Dennis Bradshaw got in on the action and took a slap to the head, which reportedly broke his glasses.

Ritchie did not win this one-on-three suburban cage match, nor did she manage to grab Beauregard. She did, however, get arrested, again, this time for assault. All three of Richard Scaife's employees went to the hospital, where they were treated for scratches and bruises, then released, the Post-Gazette reported. A judge eventually dismissed the assault case, though personal-injury lawsuits by the employees are still pending.

Beauregard, by the way, still lives with Richard.

The lawsuits did little, it seems, to sate Ritchie's appetite for confrontation. In September of last year, she drove to Vasco's home, located in nearby Port Vue, perhaps to get a better look at her husband's paramour. Ritchie allegedly started shouting obscenities. Many obscenities, and she caused some kind of ruckus. Enough to provoke Vasco's 20-ish daughter, Winnifred, to file a criminal harassment complaint with a local magistrate, accusing Ritchie of what might be described as carrying on.

That charge was also eventually dismissed.

A Media Magnate & Magnet

The fight for the dog is matched in intensity only by the fight for the money. The filings in this case have unveiled a scrumptious buffet of new information about Richard Scaife's riches -- where they've come from and where they've gone. Until a few weeks ago, these documents were under seal, by consent of both parties. Then the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette discovered that someone in Allegheny County's prothonotary's office had mistakenly, and briefly, posted filings in the case on a part of its Web site that is publicly accessible.

Now we know that Scaife is beneficiary of nine different trusts, including one called the "1935 Trust," with an approximate value of $210 million, and another called "The Revocable Trust," valued at $655 million. Altogether, these gushers are worth about $1.4 billion.

We learned, too, that the Tribune-Review has been a gurgling sinkhole from Day One; Scaife's lawyers say their client has pumped as much as $312 million into it over the years. And he's going to have to keep on pumping. The Tribune-Review's CEO has predicted an annual shortfall of $20 million for years to come.

These figures matter in the divorce because Scaife is arguing that the funds he forwards to the Tribune-Review should be deducted from his aggregate income, putting his annual haul closer to $17 million a year, a long way from the $45 million a year cited by Ritchie's lawyers. If true, that would of course reduce the monthly alimony check he could owe his wife once there's a permanent settlement.

Not surprisingly, Ritchie Scaife's attorneys have a different view. They say that Richard Scaife operates the Tribune-Review with so little concern for profit and loss that it's more a hobby than a business.

Viable corporation or sugar daddy's divertissement -- either way, you can take a gander at the Pittsburgh office of the Tribune-Review. It's on the third floor of the building that was once the factory where the Clark candy bar was made, near the fields where the Pirates and Steelers play. (Over the Fort Duquesne Bridge, to 503 Martindale St.)

So, plenty to see, and truth be told, plenty of time to see it. A final settlement could easily be a year away, and the meanness, for all we know, has just begun. Which is why the Scaife Divorce Tour of Pittsburgh could be the ultimate family vacation. If it doesn't bring your family together -- in mutual horror, in a group hug that says "we don't have it that bad" -- nothing will.

Drive safely!

Staff researcher Rena Kirsch contributed to this story.

Reality shows and soap operas filmed at Hitler's request, Part One

TV journalists uncover shocking truth: Fascist Germany planned to launch a range of TV shows

Pavel Sadkov — 21.10.2008
www.kp.ru/daily

What would have happened if Fascist Germany wasn't destroyed? Scholars have various opinions on this issue — some suggest the dropping of atomic bombs and others the invention of ridiculous weapons or spaceships. On Tuesday, the TV channel Rossiya will share a sensational new theory with its viewers. The creators of the documentary film "The Magical Eye of the Third Reich" believe Hitler's Germany was one step away from launching an entire TV industry. KP has spoken with the film's authors, who in turn agreed to share the most compelling fragments of the film with our readers.

LIVE execution on April 28, 1945

The documentary filmmakers dug up the protocol of an interrogation of SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Schultzmayer regarding the execution of Eva Braun’s relative — Hans Georg Otto Hermann Fegelein. He had tried to escape from Berlin with his pregnant wife to save her and her child.

In the transcript, Schultzmayer tells the investigator shocking news. A "Tibetan" or "man scarlet," who was among those who had "arrived from Lhasa and didn't wear swastikas," had watched the execution of Hitler's ally while standing nearby behind a patch of trees. And he wasn't only watching.

The first live broadcast is considered Hitler's speech at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

"The 'Tibetan,'" said Schultzmayer, "pointed a strange, small, elongated object towards what was transpiring." The SS officer proceeded to explain to the investigator that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had personally warned him about the Tibetan’s presence and ordered him to "stay out of the way."

"Himmler wanted the execution to be viewed somewhere else, as well," Schultzmeyer said.

April 27, 1941

Later in film, the authors reveal a letter from the daughter of German politician and Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels, Helga, to her cousin Rudolph Hesse: "Henrich! If father only saw what you filmed during the fight! No, we need to film something else — funny, for example. What you can't film with the big 'iconoscope,' you can film unnoticed with your 'pipe with an eye...' It would be great if Sakhib gave me a similar gift. Then we could film at the same time and exchange our thoughts."

What is Helga referring to? What was this mysterious "pipe with an eye" that could film events unnoticed and help people to communicate at the same time? Is she referring to the "strange, small, elongated apparatus" that the "Tibetan" used to film the execution of Eva Braun's uncle? What exactly are they referring to? A modern mobile phone with a camera? And who is this Sakhib who gave such remarkably strange presents to the children of the rulers of the Third Reich?

In Himmler's so-called visitation diary, eight meetings are noted between the Reichsführer-SS and the director of Tibetan expeditions Ernest Sheffer, as well as four meetings with envoys from Lhasa, who were immediately put to work at Himmler's Forschungs und Lehrgemeinschaft das Ahnenerbe e.V. ("Research and Teaching Community of Ancestral Heritage"). It was there, in Tibet, that German nationalists from secret societies hoped to receive ancient knowledge that was meant to show Germany its sacral path. Was this ancient knowledge a key to mastering modern-day TV?

Midday at work

Officially, the technology allowing TV studios to broadcast live saw the light of day in 1935. A year later, in 1936, serious feats were made despite the unwieldy TV station system of the day. Live all-national broadcasts were made from stadiums, meetings and parades where Adolf Hitler spoke.

It's generally thought that the first live TV signals were broadcasted from Hitler's speech at the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games. However, the first person to be broadcasted live was actually a far less significant government official named Olgard Hadamovsky.

At the time, TV technology was about the same worldwide. The following types of announcements would appear in the daily papers: "Watch! Watch! A living person will be broadcasted on the 56.6 airwave!" It looked like this — an image, such as a person — on a small TV screen. The individual would be sitting in front of the TV transmitter, turn his head from the right to the left, and then from the left to the right... Then another person would appear on screen and put on his glasses.

But even then, propaganda master Goebbels saw greater potential in the technology. He began sending radio waves at the same time the TV signals were broadcasted.

According to Nazi Germany’s state ideals, German women weren't supposed to work. The true Aryian woman was meant to stay home and raise her kids. For this audience, Goebbels' wife Magda suggested building special rooms adjacent to new laundry mats where 30 women or more would gather around the TV to watch broadcasts, talk among themselves and discuss what they saw. Magda turned to her husband at the Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Ministry for funds to realize the project. Goebbels promised to allocate the money if the committee agreed to thoroughly investigate the facilities.

Goebbels: "The advantage of a visual image over the audible broadcast is the audible becomes a visual image with the help of an individual’s imagination, which can't be kept under control. Regardless, each will always see his own." Thus, it's worthwhile to "immediately show everyone what should be seen, so everyone sees the same thing."

In 1945, tens of boxes containing reels of TV programs were found in the Third Reich's Chancellery. After reviewing the footage, it became clear that the German engineers were literally one step away from mastering modern-day technology.

Several boxes even had the label: "For cable."

Soviet journalists and military translators were amazed at another unexpected discovery. The Third Reich, which was long thought to have focused its energy on military technologies, had given birth to an entirely new international industry — news, sports, crime, music and educational TV.

http://www.kp.ru/daily/24184/393064/

The 'Family Guy's' Nazi McCain Pin

Fox asks of it's own program:

"Did 'Family Guy' Go Too Far With Nazi 'McCain' Pin?"
October 20, 2008

The animated sitcom 'Family Guy' is no stranger to controversy, but on Sunday night the show went into uncharted territory as it seemed to weigh in on the presidential race by likening the McCain/Palin ticket to the Nazi party in World War II.

In the episode, two of the characters, Stewie (a talking baby) and Brian (a talking dog) are transported to Poland during the Nazi invasion of World War II. In one scene, the characters beat up and steal the uniforms of two Nazi officers. Stewie looks down at his Nazi uniform and notices a McCain/Palin campaign button attached to its lapel, remarking “Huh, that’s weird."

The McCain campaign did not have an immediate comment. A rep for the show defended the episode, telling Foxnews.com: "From its inception, 'Family Guy' has used provocative concepts and biting satire as the foundation of its humor. The show is an 'equal oportunity offender.'"

The show's creator, Seth MacFarlane, is an ardent supporter of Barack Obama. MacFarlane has given thousands to the Democratic presidential nominee and the Democratic Party, and even spoke at an Obama rally in Ohio earlier this month.

In the past, MacFarlane has gotten into hot water for his skewering of several subjects, including actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise.

Comedian Carol Burnett also unsuccessfully sued the program for its depiction of her cleaning-woman character.

The Fox sitcom was cancelled in 2002 after failing to find an audience, but has improved significantly in the ratings since being brought back to the network in 2005. The show centers on a dysfunctional family living in the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,441301,00.html

"Obama Is a Secret Muslim Plotting With an Evil Billionaire"

www.motherjones.com
10/17/08

... Human Events, a [CIA propaganda fount and] leading conservative magazine, sent out a promotional email the other day for an anti-Obama book co-written by Floyd Brown, a conservative activist infamous for having cooked up the Willie Horton ad during the 1988 presidential election. The email notes that there are "many Islamofascists who are sworn to the destruction of America" who are "actively campaigning for Obama" and that Muslims would demand and receive "special rights" from a President Obama. The email asks, "Being a Black Muslim doesn't disqualify [Obama] from running for President, so why won't he be honest about it?" In other words, yep, he's a covert Muslim. But beyond circulating this canard, the email claims that George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire financier who has supported Democratic and liberal causes, is "planning to sack the US economy, make himself billions richer, and put Obama in the White House marching to his mad tune." Message: A black Muslim in league with an evil Jewish billionaire--you do the math. ...

Right-wing bloggers have promoted a British news story reporting that an African-American poet and friend of Obama's grandfather in Hawaii--when Obama was being raised by his grandparents--wrote pornography and engaged in sex with a 13-year-old girl. (Stop everything: Obama, when he was a teenager, received advice on how to be a black man from a pervert!) And one right-wing blogger has been pushing the conspiracy theory that it was Bill Ayers who actually wrote Obama's book Dreams From My Father. ...

If Obama wins, this is the tenor of the conservative opposition he will face right out of the box: sensationalized, racialized, apocalyptic, and crazy.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/10/10370_rightwing_final_attack_obama_muslim_ayers.html

Will the Nobel Prize be given for Slandering Chavez?

Nil Nikandrov
www.tiwy.com

Writers Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) and Carlos Fuentes (Mexico) in their political essays pay constant attention to the president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez Frias.

One may say that Llosa long ago already became a factor of political life of Venezuela. Hardly had Hugo Chavez started to fulfil his obligations as the warning voice of Llosa accused him of demagogy, dictatorial manners and claims for messianism. Since then, the writer speaks on every problem issue, always on the side of opposition and certainly against Chavez and his dictatorship. Sometimes Llosa is not that categorical and uses the term «semi-dictatorship» and call Chavez an «apprentice of a dictator», meaning Fidel Castro as master.

Vargas Llosa used to predict rapid downfall of the Venezuelan leader more than once and was constantly mistaken. However, his errors in prediction have not confused him. Addressing the Venezuelans, he didactically stated: «Now you can see what mistake has been made to put Chavez on the throne, as it will be very difficult to get rid of totalitarian regime». With these commonplace maxims Llosa speaks as a chairman of the International fund for freedom (Fundacion Internacional para la Libertad) (with headquarters in Madrid), but his glory of a writer gives them a special propaganda response.

Once Llosa tried to sit in the presidential chair of Republic of Peru himself, but he lost the elections and was so grieved that gave up his Peruvian citizenship and became a Spaniard. One can think that his constant attacks on Chavez are provoked by hidden jealousy: this «ordinary lieutenant colonel» used to pass through the trials of national elections and won them with confidence, whereas he, Mario Vargas Llosa, famous all over the world writer, «the Peruvian No.1» of modern times, went on the rocks in the country, which he glorified by his pen.

Actively making his «image» of fighter for freedom and democracy in Latin America, warning the peoples of the continent from «expansion of the Bolivarian revolution by means of petrodollars of Chavez, Llosa pursues one more goal, personal. He, for a long time and without success has a claim for a Nobel prize in literature, and in his 70 odd years strives to get it as a worthy completion of his literary career. The conservative nature of the Nobel prizes committee is well known, hence and a lengthy «turn to the right» of the writer, who used to be considered if not a «leftist» but, at least, a fellow traveller.

There is no use to analyse the quality of the literary product of Llosa of recent years, although it is worth to remind that he was accused of plagiarism. In his novel «The Feast of the Goat» («La fiesta del chivo») dedicated to the dictator of the Dominican Republic Trujillo, they found certain «appropriated» fragments from somebody other's works. Advocates of Llosa managed to «clear» from the accusations, but, naturally, they had to forget for some time about the Nobel prize. And now, when again he managed to get points by «exposing creativity on the Chavez topic» there appeared a new obstacle on the road to the prize — this time in the person of another writer, - Mexican Carlos Fuentes. He also regularly criticises Chavez and «in the name of protection of democratic ideals» and in order to appear in international press more often.

The reason is still the same: active demonstration of conservatism, accusation of populism, castrism and communism — are strategically vital for struggling for the prize. Prudent Fuentes succeeded in getting additional points having written a rapturous preface to the book about the antipode of Chavez — Venezuelan oligarch Cisneros (P. Bachelet, «Gustavo Cisneros, World Business Man» /Gustavo Cisneros. Un empresario global/). Glorification of oligarchs, heroes of neo-liberal super-business — is a Deed with a Capital Letter. Neo-liberal policy brought Latin America an impoverishment, degradation of social programs, aggravation of contradictions, plunder and absorption of weak national economies by transnational companies.

Admirers of Fuentes got angry and bombarded him with letters: how could you do this? One of them, clearly not a chavist, wrote: «Mister Carlos Fuentes, you'd better deal with your own favourite Mexico, which, unfortunately, is situated too close to the United States. Their government condemned our people to poverty and suffering, and, as a result, to illiteracy, loss of historical memory and obedience. Of course, you live very well. You are not obliged to follow the Christian commandment — love your neighbour (Venezuelan or Mexican people) as yourself. Tomorrow you may desire to convince us that Bush or Blair deserve the Nobel peace prize, senor Gustavo Cisneros — the prize in the field of economics, and you, I don't argue, in the field of literature. But do not forget that among other laureates of the prize there go your predecessors - Jorge Amado, Cesar Vallejo, Julio Cortazar and all those who died but did not sell, pawn their honour and their art in order to become imitators of businessmen».

To the credit of the Nobel prizes Committee, its members until late ignored the prize-winner ambitions of Llosa and Fuentes. Evidently, flinging mud at politicians, that do not fit into the scale of bourgeois values (and this is not only Chavez, but other «populists» as well - husband and wife Kirchner, Evo Morales, Correa) does not always guarantee rapid dividends.

By the way, there was a period in the activity of Chavez on the presidential post, when, after an attempted coup in April 2002, he did all his best to establish the constructive dialogue with opposition, put out the seemingly unsolvable inner conflicts, prevent the country from slipping down into the civil war. At that time there used to sound proposals to nominate Chavez for the Nobel peace prize. I wish they had nominated and given. At least to give a lesson of morality and ethics to writers that wage a new «cold war» on the continent.

(An extract from the book about Hugo Chavez, under preparation)

http://www.tiwy.com/news.phtml?id=119