State has no records of Berg's firm (Nick Berg)

The Daily Local ^ | 05/14/2004 | JONATHAN TULEYA

[calcowgirl]

Prometheus Methods Tower Services Inc., the business that cost Nick Berg his life in Iraq, has no records with the Pennsylvania Department of State.

The company that specialized in building communications towers never registered with the Pennsylvania Corporation Bureau, said Brian McDonald, spokesman for the state department.

McDonald conducted a search of the bureau’s online list of registered businesses, but found no matches.

The same search done by a Daily Local News reporter produced the same results -- several businesses contained the word "Prometheus" in their names. Only one is located in West Chester, and it is not related to Berg’s business.

Companies are not legally required to register with the state, but McDonald explained it is usually the first step an owner takes.

"You’d be very foolish not to register your business with the department," he said. "It is nearly impossible to exist without doing it."

Registering allows an owner to set up his business’s tax structure. It also establishes how the business is run, for example, whether or not it is for-profit or nonprofit.

"It is basically the infrastructure by which businesses are set up in the commonwealth," McDonald said.

McDonald added it is possible the business could be listed in the bureau’s records under a different name.

Searching the statewide yellow pages online found two company names containing the word "Prometheus" in Philadelphia. One is an Internet consulting business.

An employee at the second one, which is called Prometheus Radio Project, said it was not affiliated with the business owned by the local man slain in Iraq by members of al-Qaida.

Officials at the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue and the Internal Revenue Service said state and federal laws prohibited their agencies from providing any records they had of Prometheus Methods Tower Services -- even whether the company had ever filed a return.

"Any information that we get or is contained on a tax return I can’t release," said Steve Kniley, press secretary for the state revenue department. "It is considered confidential under tax law."

Tax records become public information only if a lien is filed against a business. According to Kniley, there are no liens against Berg’s company.

Bill Cressman, spokesman at the IRS’s Philadelphia office, said the only companies with public tax records are nonprofit corporations.

At least one person claims he can confirm Prometheus’ existence.

Jay Shur, who works at the radio station WCHE 1520 AM in West Chester, said on Wednesday he was in the process of hiring Berg to build a communications tower for the station when news of his death came out.

The station was awaiting approval of plans from both the borough and an environmental agency before construction could begin, according to Shur.

"There’s a lot of paperwork to go through, and the area we were looking at was a marsh- land so we had to get clearance," he said."When I do get the OK, I’ll have to look for another contractor."

Michael Berg briefly spoke about Prometheus during a press conference Thursday morning outside his home.

"My son was not over there to make money," Michael Berg said. "My son’s business, which was very profitable before he went to Iraq ..I will make good on anything the company owes anybody, but it’s pretty much going to be defunct."

It is unclear how many employees Prometheus had. Michael Berg spoke of a "foreman" during the press conference. However, Nick Berg traveled to Iraq alone.

Staff Writer Jill Nawrocki contributed to this article.

[Hank Rearden]

"You’d be very foolish not to register your business with the department," he said. "It is nearly impossible to exist without doing it."

Sounds like Russia.

Or any other state in this "free" country.

[AnAmericanMother]

You may be reading too much into it. I knew all of the words to "Alice's Restaurant" in my early 20's. I was a conservative then and so were my parents.

Me too. My kids are more conservative than I am, and that's saying a lot. My husband is an army brat, my mom is pretty liberal (she's a professional dancer) but my dad is somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. I still know all the words to Alice's Restaurant. It's a family tradition to play the song every Thanksgiving. My KIDS know all the words, too.

But just because you know a song doesn't mean you agree with every sentiment expressed by the singer. I mean (I mean, I mean) I know all the words to "Der Holle Rache Kocht in meinem Herzen," from The Magic Flute, but I'm certainly not going to encourage my daughter to stab her dad or try to overthrow the church (or the Masons, or whoever Sarastro is representing) . . . and I don't advocate such behavior in ANYbody. ;-)

[Taffini]

Nick spent entirely too much time reading obscure material and writing e-mails with bizarre references to fall within the range of normal guy in his 20s. It looks like code to me


give me an example of this if you have one handy

[ValerieUSA]

sheeeesh! Read the danged thread!
Like the words from Alice's Restaurant to describe his arrest.
Like the ripped out page left behind in his hotel room.
Like the name of his company.
Like carrying around a Koran.
Go ahead and find some more on your own........

[Servant of the 9]

Now wait just a minute, I wear Birkenstocks! Do people think I am a liberal? I don't think they do. They think I wear ugly shoes but its because my feet don't hurt when I wear them, its NOT a political statement.

Yes, it is.

You may not realize it, but Birkenstocks are the equivilent of an "Envision World Peace" sticker on the back of an electric vehicle. Everyone you meet judges you instantly on that basis.

There are other comfortable shoes.
Or try Doc Martins, they only imply you are an skinhead idiot.
Have a pair of cowboy boots made. Nothing is as comfortable as made to measure boots.

So9

[Mo1]

"setting up a lib radio outlet" just doesn't mesh with his dad's statements about his being a "big Bush reporter". That must be exposed as a lie, or there is a huge problem with most of the hypotheses...

I don't believe the father and I don't think Nick was a conservative that supported Bush and this war

I've seen this guy on the local news here and he is a rabid lefty .. who is using the death of his son as a political tool

[Piranha]

I can't find any reference to a ripped out page left in a hotel room. What is this about?

[Mo1]

managing to do "radio" work for the Republican National Convention,

You know what doesn't make sense about the work he did with the 2000 Republican National Convention??

NOBODY but the Unions do work in Philly ...

Heck .. even MTV was shut down because the Union weren't doing the work there

[RnMomof7]

No one should be murdered in this way , but there is more to this story IMO.

I can not believe it was sheer coincidence that the terrorist had his phone number and look where he was..

The father is a peace activist that denounced the war.

I just have a guess.
The government had some info on him, but nothing firm.

The terrorists see him being released from US custody and suspect a double agent..

Off with his head

[Servant of the 9]

managing to do "radio" work for the Republican National Convention,

You know what doesn't make sense about the work he did with the 2000 Republican National Convention??

Consdidering his companies sales were $60,000.00 per annum, I would guess Berg was just a lone guy who chipped and painted.

So9

[bert]

Nick Berg = Rachel Corrie = what's her name in DC

[buffyt]

It means FORETHOUGHT....

Prometheus (mythology), in Greek mythology, one of the Titans, known as the friend and benefactor of humanity, the son of the Titan Iapetus by the sea nymph Clymene or the Titaness Themis. Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus were given the task of creating humanity and providing humans and all the animals on earth with the endowments they would need to survive. Epimetheus (whose name means afterthought) accordingly proceeded to bestow on the various animals gifts of courage, strength, swiftness, and feathers, fur, and other protective coverings. When it came time to create a being who was to be superior to all other living creatures, Epimetheus found he had been so reckless with his resources that he had nothing left to bestow. He was forced to ask his brother's help, and Prometheus (whose name means forethought) took over the task of creation. To make humans superior to the animals, he fashioned them in nobler form and enabled them to walk upright. He then went up to heaven and lit a torch with fire from the sun. The gift of fire that Prometheus bestowed upon humanity was more valuable than any of the gifts the animals had received.

Because of his actions Prometheus incurred the wrath of the god Zeus. Not only did he steal the fire he gave to humans, but he also tricked the gods so that they should get the worst parts of any animal sacrificed to them, and human beings the best. In one pile, Prometheus arranged the edible parts of an ox in a hide and disguised them with a covering of entrails. In the other, he placed the bones, which he covered with fat. Zeus, asked to choose between the two, took the fat and was very angry when he discovered that it covered a pile of bones. Thereafter, only fat and bones were sacrificed to the gods; the good meat was kept for mortals. For Prometheus's transgressions, Zeus had him chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where he was constantly preyed upon by an eagle. Finally he was freed by the hero Hercules, who slew the eagle.

[livius]

See post #103.

He left behind in his room a yellowed and folded page from a book by Jon Burmeister, a South African writer of thrillers who died in 2001.

The page carries a short prose poem titled "The War That Wasn't." It describes a man named Jericho, who is awakened by machine-gun fire, "his heart hammering thunderously against the ribcage as though trying to escape."

The poem ends: "What the hell was happening? God knows, he thought. But it seemed clear that the war had arrived -- the war that wasn't coming here . . ."

Jon Burmeister seems to have written political thrillers and science fiction, although I have no idea what his politics were. It's odd that Berg would have left behind something he had clearly carried around with him for some time, if it was yellowed and folded.

[Skywalk]

Thanks to P-Marlowe for this find. All evidence points to his company and his ingenuity in this field being legitimate. Smear on, everyone.

[Helms]

Dying to have your take(S) on this.

[P-Marlowe]

It was weird. I found a blog where the PAB convention was mentioned and it mentioned that Berg was an exhibitor. So I found the PAB web site. They had some pictures of their last convention. I was looking for a picture of Berg in a crowd and a thumbnail jumped out at me. I clicked on it and there was Berg, smiling and pitching his invention. It was a hell of a lot better picture than anything else on the internet. I am amazed that this wasn't the picture that the AP would have used. But I don't think they did the necessary research to find it.

At any rate, the second I found this picture and put it together with some of the blog stories, I realized this guy was a real visionary broadcast professional. Whatever he was doing in Iraq, he was qualified to do it. And if by chance he was a spy, he was one of ours and he was damned good at it.

[Skywalk]

Notice also that he looks much more like the man in the video that than photo of him in the muscle shirt.

[Las Vegas Dave]

his father is also the only person saying Nick was a Bush supporter...

Someone could check with the board of elections to see if he is registered as a (R) of (D), then we would know if daddy is lying.

[MiniCooperChick]

That may be true but does the fact that he was a real professional negate all the weird "coincidences" and other red flags? The 9-11 terrorists knew enough to fly planes but they were still bad guys.

I'm not passing judgment right now on whether Berg was a bad guy or not, but questions still need to be answered.

[Helms]

Check this out. He did some work in Binghamton which along with SUNY is a big and I suspect more radical stinkhole for Answer type folks, this is just an aside, this is bizzae.:
Tuesday, May 11, 2004 4:13 PM

New York radio tower project was Berg's final US job

(Binghamton - AP) — Nick Berg — the 26-year-old Pennsylvania man who was killed by beheading in Iraq — completed work on his final radio tower job in the United States two months ago.

Berg's company — Prometheus Methods Tower Service of West Chester, Pennsylvania — installed a radio transmission tower for WHWK in Binghamton.

Station chief engineer Larry Hodge says Berg started erecting the 850-foot tower in late February, a few weeks after he'd returned from Iraq.

Hodge told Binghamton radio station WNBF that Berg worked in Binghamton until March 12th. He headed back to Iraq two days later.

The engineer said Berg "seemed to have no fear at all" about returning to Iraq. Hodge said Berg told him he thought "things are pretty safe over there."