There is no argument about what HAARP is; there is just an argument about what it does. HAARP is an array of antennas that transmit high frequency energy into the ionosphere. Is this a sort of harmless R&D boondoggle connected in some obscure way to a Missile Defense System, or is it, as some say, a giant Death Ray capable of destroying the world, which was used for the first time at Tunguska in Siberia in 1908 that was the creation of the genius Nikola Tesla?

Nikola Tesla, born in what is now Croatia in 1856 was one of the most brilliant and most strange men who ever lived. If you turned to a page in your encyclopedia to the definition of the term "Mad Scientist" you would probably see a large picture of Tesla there. He is regarded as probably the greatest electrical engineer of all time, a true pioneer who invented the concept of alternating current, modern robotics, radar, remote controlled attack vehicles, most forms of wireless communications, and the loudspeaker. There is some controversy about whether he or Marconi was the true inventor of the radio. In 1943 the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla's patent, in effect recognizing Tesla as the actual inventor of the radio.

However, in spite of all his inventions, Tesla was a dreadful businessman. After the dissolution of unsuccessful partnerships with J.P. Morgan and Thomas Edison, Tesla was basically broke. He decided to dream up a new invention which he thought might restore his finances and lead to military contracts: the Death Ray. 

To this day no one is sure what the Death Ray actually consisted of. After Tesla's death in 1943 the FBI raided Tesla's home and seized his entire laboratory and papers. Some of the material was eventually released to Tesla's heirs, but it is unknown how much still remains classified. It is thought that the Death Ray was some sort of particle accelerator. It was apparently capable of focusing an output of energy into a thin beam so concentrated it would not scatter,even over huge distances.

The Tunguska Event, which some say was caused by Tesla's Death Ray, was one of the most fascinating and inexplicable events of modern times. The mainstream theories, which are that it was caused by a comet or asteroid, do not hold water. The Tunguska Event was a massive explosion that occurred near the Tunguska River in Siberia on June 30, 1908. The energy of the blast was estimated to be between 10 and 20 megatons of TNT, which would mean that the Tunguska Event explosion would have been 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

Unfortunately because of the remoteness of the area and the state of anarchy which existed in Russia because of WWI, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Civil War, serious scientific study of the Tunguska Event did not even begin until the 1930's. In spite of all the best efforts of many scientific expeditions no crater from an asteroid has ever been discovered. There was also a paucity of eyewitness accounts as so many of the local inhabitants had died in a mysterious epidemic which bears a striking similarity to what we now understand post Nagasaki and Hiroshima to have been radiation sickness. There is also the inexplicable pattern in the destruction of the heavy forests of the area, which has only ever been duplicated in atomic bomb test sites. The trees at "ground zero", at the epicenter of the explosion, remained bolt upright and the remaining trees fell in a tell-tale butterfly pattern. It is obvious that the Tunguska Event, with its lack of asteroid crater, massive die-off of Tungus natives, and butterfly pattern destruction of local forests, was in point of fact something similar to an atomic explosion.

Tesla's own explanation of the Tunguska event is that he was attempting to send a signal to the Arctic expedition of Admiral Peary. On the evening of June 30, he and a laboratory assistant aimed the Death Ray off the top of the Wardenclyffe Laboratory, which had been built for him by J.P. Morgan and which he would soon lose to bankruptcy. Previous communications with Peary had warned him to expect "a signal" on June 30. Peary later reported back that he and his crew had seen nothing. When Tesla heard of the Tunguska Event, he claimed that his Death Ray had overshot the Arctic expedition and landed on Tunguska, which was on a direct line southeast of the Peary expedition. Tesla claimed relief that no one in Tunguska had died from the Death Ray. Unfortunately at the time no one connected the die-off of natives to the Ray. It was thought to be some strange mutation of smallpox.

Tesla sank lower and lower into some strange form of mental illness. He claimed to be able to speak to people from the planet Venus, communicated through ESP with cats and pigeons(supposedly) and lived a completely celibate life. His communications to the US government and Woodrow Wilson during WWI offering them the Death Ray, which he claimed would lead to world peace as no one would ever use such a weapon which meant that it was defensive in nature, were ignored.

It seems obvious that the Tunguska Event is sort of like 9-11; the official explanations do not make sense. Obviously the story of a comet or asteroid is absurd; what kind of asteroid or comet leaves no crater and causes radiation sickness? It's like the 9-11 official story; a bunch of guys armed with boxcutters did this and all the people who saw strange things that day and the fact that there were all these secondary explosions and war games going on are just to be ignored.

The HAARP project is something so top-secret that even I couldn't find out what it was; It seems obvious that even though Tesla was ignored in life the obscene eagerness of the US government to grab his papers and steal his ideas after his death meant that they knew that for those papers to fall into the hands of anyone else might threaten US hegemony. I know one thing: HAARP certainly doesn't make me feel any safer, being in the hands of individuals like Bush and Cheney.

Addendum:It has been discovered that the military contractors behind HAARP are BAE, a British firm which has been accused, among other things, of laundering bribes from the Saudi royal family and is supposedly intimately connected to Dick Cheney and also the Carlyle Group.

So the latest head to roll in the perpetual doping scandals that have dogged sports in the past few years is that of Marion Jones. She has to give back all monies and honors earned as she was found to be a user of various performance-enhancing drugs. I personally knew that Marion Jones was a user of banned substances- would you like to know how I knew? By looking at her. 

I have been an amateur bodybuilder for the past sixteen years and I know all about the various drugs that are around and the strange way they make people look. I will say something more. I would say that at least 99% of all professional athletes take performance enhancing drugs. They no longer have any choice in the matter. If an athlete decided that he was not going to take any drugs, he would soon find himself cut from the team. He simply couldn't compete. No natural athlete can compete with one who is taking steroids, HGH, insulin, and the dear lord knows what else.

I will now talk briefly about the various drugs and some of the side effects they have so that the next time you see your favorite athlete you will be able to figure out what he is "on" and to what degree. One important thing is vascularity. This is when the veins and tendons all stand out to an alarming degree; in other words you feel that you are looking at a map of all the veins and tendons in the athletes' body. Generally this is produced by a combination of a steroid such as Winstrol with an athsma drug called Clenbuterol. The body fat becomes abnormally low, the muscles increase in size, and the Clenbuterol does the rest. In bodybuilding circles this is known as being "cut right down to the bone" In the case of a female, the bust disappears totally because the body fat is so low. If you look at pictures of Marion Jones performing in her prime you will immediately see what I mean.

Then there is HGH, which is a great favorite with all the athletes because its effects are simply wonderful and it is totally undetectable in the body because it is there naturally anyway. It would be like testing someone to see if he had blood in his veins. The energy level goes up, the body fat goes down, the muscles increase in size and the natural aging process stops. HGH does have some tell-tale side effects, though. If you take enough, your head gets bigger. Your teeth then become crooked because they no longer fit in your jaws. Then the hands and feet start to grow, too.

There are also other steroids such as Dianabol, which basically just makes you grow huge. It also has a tendency to make the hair fall out and to cause acne and what are called "bitch tits" If you see an athlete with a shaved head, bad skin, and a certain, er development you can probably guess he takes Dianabol. In female athletes Dianabol can make the clitoris grow to be the size of a thumb.

Of course this doping grows more sophisticated all the time and there are probably many new drugs that an amateur athlete like me wouldn't even know about. What we need to do is to all quit kidding ourselves and realize that the current situation, where the best cheater wins, is untenable. Instead of this useless "testing" which any 12-year old could beat because you cycle on and off the steroids anyway; all one needs to do is make sure that the "off" cycle coincides with the testing, which unbelievably is announced in advance, we should just accept the fact that performance enhancing drugs are here to stay. The important thing is that they be used safely and under the supervision of doctors, instead of just being available at the gyms and clubhouses as they are now.

I will also go out on a limb here and say that a lot of these athletes like Marion Jones are thrown to the wolves because all the money-making ability has been squeezed out of them and they are not worth anything to anyone anymore. Other athletes, who have done more drugs than Marion Jones ever dreamed of doing, like one with the initials "RC" are held up as pillars of the community whose continued success is due to "a hard work ethic" because they can still make money for someone.

It's time for a new day in sports, one where we realize our lost innocence and move forward together. Keeping the wool pulled over our eyes will accomplish nothing.

From time to time I have become involved in threads and discussions on various blogs about the possibility of a war with Iran. Now, I do not think there will be a war with Iran. If there was going to be one, I feel it would have been about two or three years ago. The army has basically been destroyed in Iraq over the past four years. There have been many casualties, and also many resignations of the more intelligent young officers. There has also been much wholesale destruction of valuable pieces of equipment and literally thousands of bombing raids. Now, when things are blown off or blown up, whether they be human beings or Patriot missiles, they need to be replaced. This has not happened. Especially do they need to be replaced if this total fiasco of a war is going to be expanded. This is why there will be no war.

What surprises me is the anger and rage I get from a lot of people when I say I do not think there will be a war. Do these people WANT a war? One would think that the response from the average progressive and intelligent person would be, well, I think that you are wrong but I hope that you are right. Instead I get insulted, called a liar and goodness knows what else. I am also told that I must PROVE that there will be no war with Iran. Anyone with any sense knows that it is impossible to prove a negative. I have no crystal ball, just a knowledge of history.

In consequence, I have decided to provide a list of the top ten reasons why I feel there will, thank goodness, be no war with Iran. Now I want to define "War" here. I do not think 14 frogmen burning down a pier or some bombing raids after which the Unites States runs away, declares victory and dresses Shrub Bush up in the flightsuit with the padded crotch again count as wars. Victory in war means that you have destroyed your enemies' armies in the field.

1. There is no money to pay for a new war.

2. Hezbollah kicked the bejesus out of the Israelis last summer. The fantasy of the big tough Israeli soldier who was going to run the Middle East for America is fading fast.

3. Everything that Bush and Cheney have done militarily has proved a complete fiasco.

4. Computer simulations of the US attacking Iran have all shown the US losing.

5. No General in his right mind is going to attack a country when wars on both its right and left flanks are being lost. This is called being encircled and surrounded. It is known as defeat.

6. There is no enthusiasm on Wall Street for $300 a barrel oil. 

7. Both Cheney and Bush are the lamest of lame ducks. It is difficult to say who hates them more, the Republicans or the Democrats. They no longer have the power or influence to really do anything to anyone anymore, whether for good or ill.

8. The American people no longer trust Bush or Cheney.

9. We have no allies, no troops, and no equipment or ammunition. We have no plans and no means to get any.

10. There is no graphic on CNN or Fox News for a war with Iran. You know the sort of thing I mean, some ridiculous slogan in huge letters over a map of Iran or some such. To me this nails it. No graphic, no war.