Inspecting the global underbellyA journalist at large

By WND Staff

The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe is an
important project in individual Internet reporting and a force to be
reckoned with in underground journalism. In addition to a small daily
selection of articles from the current press, it showcases numerous
in-depth independent articles, most written by Mr. Grabbe. Subjects
include global finance; money on the Internet (so much is here on
digital cash, in fact, that a separate guide is provided here; encryption and privacy; a
tremendous Vince Foster series; and various “citizen investigations” by
Mr. Grabbe and others.

David Martin’s major essay on the Foster case, “America’s Dreyfus
Affair,”
is here. So is the
Donaldson Interim Report on Flight 800, as well as Ian Goddard’s
reporting
on the subsequent coverup. Also a link to General
Benton K. Partin’s report on the Oklahoma City bombing, the one
describing demolition charges on at least four Murrah Federal Building
columns — click here. And that’s just
a selection of the available guest offerings.

There’s certainly gold to be discovered here — and I’m not just
talking about Mr. Grabbe’s recent five-part series on the gold market
(listed in sections, fairly high up the main page, under “Recent
Articles by J. Orlin Grabbe”). As one scrolls one’s way through the
site, one is increasingly overwhelmed by the amount, depth, and coverage
of Mr. Grabbe’s reporting. This is pithy journalism, often with electric
content and tremendous impact.

Take a look at “Hackers vs. Politicians,” Parts I and II” for a short
course on how to do your own financial investigations of politicians,
government officials, judges, and
law enforcement people. Check out “CIA Proprietary
Companies? Cui Bono?”
for a
list of companies that may have stashed assets under USCA Title 18,
Section 6, Line 11 for William Casey, Ron Brown, Vince Foster, Bill
Clinton and others. Or this exposé: “Governor Marc Racicot Presents …
CHILD SEX IN MONTANA!”– not
for minors or the squeamish, please. Here’s an article on the White
House “Big Brother” database that discusses the role of Jackson
Stephen’s software firm Systematics in creating security holes both in
White House and commercial banking software. And coming soon: an article
describing Department of Justice guidelines for seizing computers.

Under no circumstances should you miss this link to a comprehensive,
recent, and very practical FAQ on protecting your Social Security
number.

A WorldNetDaily reader and fan of Mr. Grabbe considers him “an
arrogant, ornery, moderately profane man” — and an indispensable daily
news resource. I couldn’t have said it better. I’d add that his site
sports one of the most impressive collection of research links I’ve ever
seen available from a single Web site.

As Mr. Grabbe points out in his article, “The Internet and the Death
of the News Monopoly”: in the
age of the Web “it is no longer required that one kiss the ring of Abe
Rosenthal or his successors in order to be heard.” Well aware of the
revolutionary nature of the Internet’s impact on the transmission and
presentation of news, he is exercising the privileges and
responsibilities of the new journalism to the hilt.

Banned books online

The On-Line Books Page, which
indexes over 7,000 books that can be freely read via the Web, has a
subsection listing
links to books that not only are available online but also have been the
objects of censorship or censorship attempts. Selections include
Ulysses, Candide, Lysistrata, the Canterbury Tales, Twelfth Night and
The Merchant of Venice, and the ever-popular Huckleberry Finn, as well
as political works like Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding”
and freedom-of-speech advocate Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and Age of
Reason.

The Digital Freedom Network publishes the
current writings of people who have been or are now being censored by
the governments of their own nations. Among the dissident authors
featured are Bao Ge and Wei Jingsheng (China), Salima Ghezali (Algeria),
Raúl Rivero (Cuba), Pius Njawé (Cameroon), and Koigi wa Wamwere (Kenya).
DFN does not publish material that is pornographic or terrorist. Don’t
forget to click “news” (or go straight to
http://www.dfn.org/news/news.html) for a list of action alerts that’s
set up to let you write letters or make phone calls (free over the
Internet) on behalf of those who have had their human rights violated.

This year’s Banned Books Week takes place September 26 – October 3,
1998. Click here for details, or contact the
American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom by
emailing [email protected] or by calling 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4223.

Chemical and biological weapons: South Africa

In Covert Action Quarterly’s Winter ’98 issue can be found an
essay by De Wet Potgieter entitled “Apartheid’s Poison Legacy: South
Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Program,”
substantive excerpts
of which are available online. Topics touched upon
include: the use of black units as guinea pigs; attempts to develop
race-changing drugs (for spying, not pseudo-therapeutic, purposes); the
contamination of drinking water with disease pathogens during the
transition to Namibian independence; the use of gas by South African
Special Forces in Angola in 1978; and more. (N.B. References for all the
above allegations are available, along with the full text of the
article, but you have to pay CAQ. I didn’t. Subscriptions are $22 per
year in the USA; click here.)

Hungarian Tomato Surprise

Planet Ketchup contains
a smorgasbord of ketchup-oriented offerings. What’s included in this
labor of love? The story behind “57 Varieties.” A weird little gallery
featuring photographs of the author’s personal collection of
ketchup-related items. A “sinbook,” in which you can describe your own
guiltiest ketchup indulgences and read the confessions of others
(notably one Moanica Lewdinsky, who recommends it on the “Bill Wiener”).
And a dozen ketchup recipes, including blueberry, banana, and
tomato-free.

Also a weird little story turning upon Internet privacy (or the lack
thereof) in Europe. According to the site’s Hungarian maintainer,
Hungarian police in 1996 sent a fax around to the local Internet service
providers, asking them to provide lists of their users in Esztergom, a
small town outside of Budapest. It seems that somebody had planted a
bomb in a bottle of ketchup. Since everyone knows you can download
bomb-making instructions from the Internet, the police figured they
should investigate the local users. Nearly every local ISP actually gave
the police this information.

Incidentally, according to this story, Hungary passed a law in 1991
to prevent misuse of information associated with the national identity
card. Has anyone out there anything to report as to how it’s working
out?

International phone directories

There aren’t very many reliable international phone directories
available online, mostly because different countries are differently
wired (and I use the word in more or less the same sense as in the
expression “differently abled”). The Global Phone Directory Index
lists a motley yet
quite respectable assortment of directories. Links are offered to online
telephone directories, both official and unofficial, mostly business but
many residential, in a variety of nations. This Australia-based site is
especially good on Pacific regions — China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia
— and it administers its own online Australian white and yellow pages.