Viste Parallele

Gheddafi e i Popoli Arabi Tutti in Rivolta. Anche i Palestinesi?

2011-02-26T16:22:00.002+01:00

dal blog Civium Libertas

[LINK]

Quello che succede nella sola giornata di oggi, 25 febbraio, nell’intero Medio Oriente e nell’Africa del Nord, ha dell’incredibile: sta diventando una pluri-sommossa in cui tutti i paesi in rivolta sono inter-connessi. E di seguito farò un breve resoconto, Paese per Paese, delle notizie di oggi in diretta.

[...]Questa mattina, erano TUTTI in piazza, in Libia, Giordania, Bahrein, Egitto, Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria. E perfino in Kuwait, Arabia Saudita e Iraq (!!!) iniziano le prime manifestazioni. Il messaggio delle folle era lo stesso ovunque: Andatevene via, governi e stranieri! Intervistati dai giornalisti, i manifestanti chiedevano: vogliamo riavere il nostro paese, vogliamo il rispetto, vogliamo la nostra dignità, vogliamo la democrazia, vogliamo essere liberi di decidere sulle nostre vite. Ma gli slogan e le richieste si differenziavano di Paese in Paese, con richieste specifiche. Le elencherò in seguito.

[...]E se siamo appena stati informati che Mubarak, con il suo patrimonio di 70 miliardi, era segretamente l’uomo più ricco del mondo, ecco che vengono mandati in onda i dati relativi agli assetti di liquidità che Gheddafi ha nelle banche estere: 32 miliardi nelle banche USA, oltre 70 in varie parti dell’Europa, almeno 25 nella sola Gran Bretagna: i proventi del petrolio, a cui il popolo non ha accesso, analogamente all’Egitto e molti altri paesi esportatori di petrolio in Medio Oriente e in Africa.

Quando nel ’69 Gheddafi prese il potere, i cittadini avevano riposto molte speranze nel nuovo leader. Piaceva il tono di sfida verso l’occidente, lo stesso tono che abbiamo ancora potuto apprezzare in occasione dell’ultima Assemblea delle Nazioni Unite l’anno scorso, quando Gheddafi espose nel suo discorso la necessità per una riforma del Consiglio di Sicurezza verso una gestione più democratica, visto che da sempre le Nazioni Unite sono ostaggio dei cinque Paesi con diritto di Veto su qualsiasi risoluzione dell’Assemblea prima e del Consiglio in seguito, che fa dell’ONU un’istituzione dittatoriale. Un discorso bello ma strano, visto che negli ultimi 20 anni Gheddafi si è allineato con le potenze occidentali.[...]

The Fellowship of the Cosmic Mind

2010-09-14T23:43:00.003+02:00

This is quite impressive... the most well written piece (Statement of Principles) of history, ever!

The Fellowship of the Cosmic Mind – Church of Revived PaleoChristianity was founded in September 2009 as a nonprofit religious corporation.

Statement of Principles

The primitive concepts woven together into the core of the Fellowship’s world view can be expressed in short form in the words of Kurt Gödel, who wrote:

The world is rational.
Human reason can, in principle, be developed more highly (through certain techniques).
There are systematic methods for the solution of all problems (also art, etc.).
There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind.
The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived.
There is incomparably more knowable a priori than is currently known.
The development of human thought since the Renaissance is thoroughly intelligible (durchaus einsichtige).
Reason in mankind will be developed in every direction.
Formal rights comprise a real science.
Materialism is false.
The higher beings are connected to the others by analogy, not by composition.
Concepts have an objective existence.
There is a scientific (exact) philosophy and theology, which deals with concepts of the highest abstractness; and this is also most highly fruitful for science.
Religions are, for the most part, bad but religion is not.

For a more in-depth look at the foundations of the Fellowship, you may wish to read the following document:

The Principles of the Fellowship of the Cosmic Mind

2010-04-02T00:33:00.000+02:00

Sudden Mass American Enlightenment Puzzles Congress and Causes National Security Alert

Ignatious O'Reilly
Sott.net

Washington - President Obama, U.S. congressmen and their aides held an emergency four hour-long meeting Wednesday to decide what action to take to stem a sudden and unprecedented mass enlightenment of the US population that threatens to destabilize the Government and create a fiscal crisis.

Millions of citizens jubilantly celebrated their new awareness as they suddenly realized they have been lied to all their lives on just about everything by their psychopathic, conscienceless leaders of major corporations, government and security agencies.

Residents in all major cities across the United States awoke Wednesday morning complaining that they were experiencing an inexplicable mental clarity that was causing them to realize the way they were about to spend their day was utterly pointless, a potential health threat and would only add energy and finances to a powerful wealthy elite that had been ruling their lives since as long as they could remember.

Congress was thrown into chaos when a majority of staff decided to simply stop showing up for work until their bosses resign; in a move of solidarity, energy companies turned off the power to government buildings and military bases, while water companies shut down their water supply; repair people refused to carry out repairs for the politically well-connected and television network staff refused to report the lies they are routinely ordered to tell by their editors.

One Chicago resident's report was consistent with many similar accounts coming in from across the country. Joe, 42 told us how he had become aware of the diversionary, divide and conquer machinations of the psychopathic oligarchs, especially in relation to abortion, health care, immigration, global warming, peak oil, 9/11, fake terrorism, both current wars and past wars, 'necessary police actions', empire building and resource plundering, left vs right, evolution vs creationism, fundamentalists vs everybody else!

"Wow! I sort of felt things weren't right but to suddenly be able to see the true nature of all the lies we've been bombarded with by media and Big Government is just mind-boggling," Joe exclaimed.

"The public seems to have finally understood that they're so sick and going bankrupt because of the FDA/AMA medical mafia and Big Pharma's Gestapo death grip over absolutely everything! I've noticed how food companies, Monsanto and Big Pharma's share prices have exploded over the past few years," said Joe. "I can see it's because they have bought Congress and have a complete monopoly over our food supply, health and non-existent consideration for others' well-being."

Reports are flooding in of people deciding to buy or trade for goods with hand crafters in their own region instead of shopping at Wal-Mart. Rather than buying GMO foods at the supermarket chain stores, they've formed co-ops with their neighbors, bought fresh food in bulk and are getting together to can foods, smoke meats and pickle vegetables - followed by a barbecue. Feeling so connected and enthused by that, ordinary people across the nation are organizing all kinds of meetings to learn all the old skills that their grandparents knew that made them independent.

People are leaving the cities in droves and, en masse, have established themselves on previously restricted government land. This resulted in a veritable frenzy of house-building and barn raising parties followed, once again, by barbecues where home-made pickles were enjoyed by all.

The reasons for the mass-awakening are as yet unclear. One possible explanation has been given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where officials have discovered that the normally high levels of fluoride added to the nation's drinking water were "accidentally omitted." It's suspected that workers at water plants are responsible. Government Health officials have advised all citizens to carry on working as normal, eat lots of fast-food and stay glued to their TV sets in the hope that any thoughts generated in people by seeing the reality of the situation will be pacified by toxins, apathy and a return to the steady atrophy of their brains.

Citizens have been urged by the Obama administration to report anyone they witness behaving in a non-consumer-capitalist manner to Homeland Security who, with the help of FEMA, will permanently detain anyone found more than 5 meters from a Television screen.

Connecting the Dots: The Mass Poisoning Begins, the Secret Team's Tricks Continue and the Dollar's Supremacy Heads for its End

2009-11-15T00:19:00.004+01:00

Source: SOTT.net

Saranno mai serviti a qualcosa questi vaccini???

Swine logic

The image at left contrasts the number of deaths in the past 300 days from "swine flu" and the number of deaths from other causes, including "communicable diseases". Without going into too much detail, in the past 300 days over 8 million people have died from communicable diseases and almost 30 million have died from non-communicable diseases. In contrast, just over 5,000 have allegedly died from "swine flu". We say "allegedly" because of the reports that many people who have been diagnosed with "swine flu" in the last 6 months did not in fact, have swine flu at all!

Here's a short CBS News report with the details:

In short, in the last 300 days more than twice as many people have died from encephalitis than have died form swine flu and more than three times as many have died from dengue fever than from swine flu. So why haven't we heard about the encephalitis or dengue fever pandemics??

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the billions of deaths predicted and propagandized by the media, the WHO and major Western governments are vastly over-exaggerated, yet the worldwide induced panic and fear mongering continues with a vengeance.

The US began rolling out its mass swine flu vaccine program by focusing discussion on whether they are able to provide enough vaccination in time - as opposed to the real issue of the safety and necessity of vaccines known to contain toxins. The UK targets supposed 'high risk', health workers, the vulnerable and Canada is using the excuse of the need for urgent production to roll out vaccine fortified with controversial adjuvants. Governments around the world are adding to the fear by closing schools and public meetings. The Ukraine Government's actions are typical of what is been reported: Gripped by swine flu fears it declares three week school holiday and ban of public events.

There is the usual mix of fear, threats and 'it's for your own safety' rhetoric to try and generate the maximum uptake of vaccinations. Obama's declaration of a swine flu national emergency empowers the health secretary to suspend normal federal requirements. A New York hospital has given the official warning that every employee must be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu or face possible termination. Despite resistance, Hospital Corp. of America has required it's 120,000 employee's to be given the vaccine or face losing their jobs. The U.S. Military is set to get mandatory swine flu shots soon and will act as guinea pigs:

"Because I can compel people to get the shots, larger numbers will have the vaccine," said Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command. "They will, as a percentage of the population, be vaccinated more rapidly than many of us. So we may see some objective results, good or not, of the vaccinations."

The dangers of the over-hyped vaccine are becoming more and more widespread. In Washington a RedSkins Cheerleader has been crippled for life after being Vaccinated. In Sweden, one of the earliest Countries to roll out a vaccination program, the further deaths linked to swine flu vaccine bring the total to 4. If those deaths aren't sufficient warning against vaccination, Swedish Nurses are reporting side effects and sickness from the vaccine. Incompetent medical staff are further adding to the fears over safety by 'over' dosing children with the H1N1 vaccine.

There are increasing vocal outrage and concerns from Doctors speaking out about the dangers of the H1N1 vaccine. Important research highlights the fact that autism rates double in children as vaccines poison an entire generation and historical data shows that vaccines are not what saved us

"Scientific medicine has taken credit it does not deserve for some advances in health. Most people believe that victory over the infectious diseases of the last century came with the invention of immunizations. In fact, cholera, typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough, etc, were in decline before vaccines for them became available - the result of better methods of sanitation, sewage disposal, and distribution of food and water."

The result of many individuals waking up to the fact that they are being lied to yet again is seen in the widespread shunning of the vaccine:

British hospital bosses quizzed by The Guardian newspaper claim that as few as 10 per cent of [health] staff will have the shot. In the US, many hospital employees are protesting against rules saying they must be vaccinated or lose their jobs. [...] 40 per cent of US parents say they won't vaccinate their kids, according to a poll by the University of Michigan. Many parents and health workers argue that swine flu is not dangerous enough to justify the potential side effects of a vaccine.

Further evidence of popular revolt is found in Finland, where polls report that 75% of Finns don't want to be vaccinated.

A highly controversial action of creating a two-class vaccination program was announced in Germany, where German politicians and the German army are to get a vaccine that does not contain controversial additives.

As well as swine flu's bigger impact on blacks and Hispanics not being addressed there is a great deal of speculation as to how this alleged pandemic will play out. Is it simply an early Christmas present to Big Pharma who are among those companies reaping the swine flu windfall? Or is this something more sinister? Could paper money become another victim of the "pandemic" as implantable RFID chips to prove vaccination are united with the introduction of a cashless society?

News that Obama's H1N1 National emergency declaration could invoke a FEMA response to a pandemic, that the company promoting implantable RFID chips, VeriChip shares jumped after the H1N1 patent license win and that Homeland Security is to get new powers allowing website blocking Security all offer ample warning that our predictions may well be on the horizon.

But why worry folks? All you have to do is, GET YOUR DAMN VACCINE!

What are they hiding? Flight 447 and Tunguska Type Events

2009-06-15T00:25:00.004+02:00

[link]

Air France Flight 447 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared over the Mid-Atlantic (just north of the equator) at approximately 1.33UTC on June 1st 2009.

No mayday signal was received from the aircraft and almost two weeks later, aviation officials have yet to give a coherent explanation as to what could have caused the sudden demise of a high tech Airbus 330-200 passenger plane.

As usual, the media are missing (or concealing) some very obvious yet understandably disturbing data about the nature of the threats to life on planet earth, and as usual, it is left to Sott.net to spell out the details.

One of the first official comments on the incident came from French Prime Minister Francois Fillon who said

"Our only certainty is that the plane did not send out any distress call but regular automatic alerts for three minutes indicating the failure of all systems."

Aviation experts were also said to be puzzled that there were no radio reports from the Airbus and stated that such a modern aircraft would have had to suffer multiple traumas to plunge into the sea.

Initial theorizing focused on the Pitot tube, part of the aircraft's system of pressure-sensitive instruments which determine airspeed, Mach number, altitude, and vertical speed. An Air France spokesperson stated on 3 June that "the aircraft sent a series of electronic messages over a three-minute period, which represented about a minute of information. Exactly what that data means hasn't been sorted out, yet."[17]

An aviation safety expert explained a few days later that "complete failure would require 100% failure of the electrical system," which "did not happen early in the flight, because the system was up linking data to the maintenance facility, indicating there was some electricity on the airplane.

The messages, sent from an onboard maintenance system, Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), indicated that between 02:10 UTC and 02:14 UTC - four minutes or less - 5 failure reports and 19 warnings were transmitted.The messages resulted from equipment failure data, captured by a built-in system for testing and reporting, and cockpit warnings also posted to ACARS. The failures and warnings in the 5 minutes of transmission concerned navigation auto-flight, flight controls, and cabin air-handling.

Among the ACARS transmissions in the first minute is one message that indicates a fault in the pitot-static system. Sources close to the investigation have confirmed that "the first automated system-failure message in a string of radio alerts from the crashed jet explicitly indicated that the airspeed sensors were faulty". The twelve warning messages with the same time code indicate that the autopilot and auto-thrust system had disengaged, that the aircraft collision avoidance system was in fault mode. Additionally the flight mode went from 'normal law' to 'alternate law'. The remainder of the messages occurred from 02:11 UTC to 02:14 UTC, containing a fault message for an Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (which sends air speed data to the pilots display as well as other systems such as the engines, autopilot, flight control and landing gear systems. At 02:12 UTC, a warning message indicated that there was a disagreement between the independent air data systems. At 02:13 UTC, a fault message for the flight management guidance and envelope computer was sent. One of the two final messages, transmitted at 02:14 UTC was a warning referring to the air data reference system, the other was a "cabin vertical speed warning".

All of the above would seem to bear out the aforementioned aviation expert's conclusion that the plane did indeed suffer multiple traumas before it plunged into the sea. Yet such a series of traumas would be unprecedented in modern aviation history, particularly given that the Airbus 330 is one of the most advanced and and safest commercial planes available. It has an excellent safety record, with more than 550 planes built and no passenger fatalities since it went into service in 1993. It is almost inconceivable then that such a plane with no history of technical issues could have experienced such complete technical failure so quickly that the pilot did not even have time to send a distress call ("Mayday") on the aircraft emergency frequency.

Unsurprisingly then, on June 11th the French Investigation and Analysis Office For Civilian Security discounted the idea then that the "air speed sensor" could have been the main cause of the crash.

Severe weather has also been proposed as a possible cause. This theory is based on the report that at about 1am UTC the pilots reported that they had encountered "stormy weather with strong turbulence". Daniel G. Kottlowski, a senior meteorologist with Accuweather.com calculated that thunderstorms in the region of the crash could have generated updrafts in the range of 100 miles per hour, although he conceded that this was not unusual weather for the region. According to commercial transport pilots familiar with the route, it is likely that the flight crew of the Air France aircraft was aware of the intensity of the storm in the flight path at that altitude long before actually encountering the thunderstorms. Using the on board radar pilots can see and fairly easily navigate around particular storm cells.

Lightning is also unlikely to have caused any serious problems because modern aircraft are designed to take lightning strikes without significant damage.

The most compelling evidence against the weather theory however is the fact that two Lufthansa jets flew through the same area both before and after Flight 447 without incident.

The United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday it had preliminary information indicating the two aircraft recorded data on prevailing temperatures and winds. But they were not equipped to automatically transmit information on turbulence.

On Monday, a source with access to the data transmitted to the World Meteorological Organisation told Reuters in Paris that the two jets passed through turbulence before and after the plane without incident, leaving experts scrambling to assess the weather's role in the disaster.

Indeed, no less than 12 other flights shared more or less the same route with Flight 447 around the time of the accident. No weather problems were reported by any of the planes.

Recent reports that passengers bodies have been found 54kms apart strongly suggest that the plane broke apart high in the air.

When faced with the problem of the loss of a commercial jet in mid-air with no obvious explanation, the mainstream media generally resorts to storytelling, with a little Hollywood movie-style emotional string pulling for good measure, as evidenced by this UK Times article:

Had AF447 suffered a structural failure? Did a window break or wing shear off? Whatever it was, the passengers must have been terrified. It was night over the Atlantic, lightning splitting the sky, the aircraft jolting in the turbulence, systems failing. Then massive decompression, cabin air gone and, outside, the temperature -30C or below. Mercifully they may not have suffered long.

Interestingly, in the same article the authors state:

Though no one yet knows for sure what destroyed the plane, investigators are concerned that it was not caused, as first suggested, by a lightning strike or a bomb or a meteorite. Instead they fear it was a fatal collision of high technology and the brute force of nature.

Ah yes, the "brute force of nature"! Now that is getting close, but even closer was the reference to a meteorite. Even though this idea received scant attention in the mainstream press, with only Discover magazine blog allowing one of their editors to speculate on the statistical possibility of an errant bolide sealing the fate of AF 447, it cannot be discounted. As the saying goes, when all other theories have been tried and found wanting, whatever remains, however implausible, must be the answer.

Readers of Sott.net will be familiar with the data we have compiled on the alarming increase in frequency of meteorite sightings and impacts over the past 10 years. Laura Knight-Jadczyk's article Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls presents a list of impact events dating from 10,000 BC to the present day. It was this and other data, studiously ignored by the mainstream media, that led us to quickly consider a more logical explanation to the sudden disappearance of AF 447.

Within a few days of the crash the first piece of evidence that something other than high technology and weather destroyed AF 447 came in.

A Spanish pilot with Air Comet (which flies from South and Central American countries to Madrid) flying the Lima to Madrid route reported a bright descending light in the region of AF 447's last position:

"Suddenly we saw in the distance a bright intense flash of white light that fell straight down and disappeared in six seconds".

At the time of the sighting, (the copilot and a passenger who was in the front kitchen area of the airplane also saw it), the Air Comet aircraft was located at seven degrees north of the equator and at the 49th meridian West. The estimated location for the A-330-203 until the moment of its disappearance is at the equator and around the 30th meridian West.

It seems reasonable to suggest that an aircraft would not produce a bright and intense white light for six seconds as it fell from the sky. The many dozens of meteorite and fireball sightings over the past few years however are often seen as bright white flashes of descending light.

A Sott.net reader later sent us the following report:

Early in the morning today (8th June 2009) I saw here in Brazil, an interview (on Record television network) with a native from the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha who stated that he saw strange lights in the night of the disaster with the Air France Jet.

He declared seeing a light (bright white) and later it changed directions several times and changed to red color.

So are we saying that a meteorite hit AF 447? Not exactly. The chances of a single smallish, (or even largish) rock falling from the sky and hitting a plane travelling at 500mph are surely too remote to be plausible. But meteorites and comets often do not simply fall to earth intact. Remember Tunguska?

The Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, at around 7:14 a.m. on June 30, 1908

Although the cause of the explosion is the subject of debate, it is commonly believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5 - 10 kilometres (3 - 6 miles) above the Earth's surface. Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the object's size, with general agreement that it was a few tens of metres across.

Although the meteor or comet burst in the air rather than directly hitting the surface, this event is still referred to as an impact. Estimates of the energy of the blast range from 5 megatons to as high as 30 megatons of TNT, with 10 - 15 megatons the most likely - roughly equal to the United States' Castle Bravo thermonuclear explosion set off in late February 1954, about 1,000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan and about one-third the power of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated.The explosion knocked over an estimated 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometres (830 square miles). It is estimated that the shockwave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. An explosion of this magnitude is capable of destroying a large metropolitan area.

Although the Tunguska event is believed to be the largest impact event on land in Earth's recent history, impacts of similar size in remote ocean areas would have gone unnoticed before the advent of global satellite monitoring in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Tunguska meteorite probably was visible as it exploded and broke up, appearing as a bright white light descending in the sky. Six to ten miles up is within the height range of commercial aircraft. And AF flight 447 was indeed located in a remote ocean area. So if, as we suspect, the blast from a Tunguska-like comet - though a significantly smaller one than that which exploded over Tunguska - destroyed AF447, it would have produced something similar to an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) which explains the complete failure of the air craft's electronic systems. It is also likely that modern satellite monitoring systems would have picked up such an event. Indeed, Brigadier General S. Pete Worden's article NEOS, Planetary Defense and Government - A View From the Pentagon confirms this likelihood:

I can show people evidence of real strikes inflicting local and regional damage less than a century ago. Even more compelling are the frequent kiloton-level detonations our early warning satellites see in the earth's atmosphere.

Within the United States space community there is a growing concern over "space situational awareness." We are beginning to understand that it is essential to identify and track virtually everything in earth orbit. Some of these objects, down to a few centimeters in size, present a potential threat to commercial and civil space operations such as the International Space Station.

So, what are the chances that civilian, or even government/military satellite imagery will be available to either confirm or deny this "wild speculation" of ours?

Well, up until a few days ago the chances seemed good. But then, for some unknown reason, and very coincidentally, this happened:

Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified

Space.com
10 June 2009

For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth's atmosphere - but no longer.

A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com had learned.

The satellites' main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists.

The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified.

"It's baffling to us why this would suddenly change," said one scientist familiar with the work. "It's unfortunate because there was this great synergy...a very good cooperative arrangement. Systems were put into dual-use mode where a lot of science was getting done that couldn't be done any other way. It's a regrettable change in policy."

Scientists say not only will research into the threat from space be hampered, but public understanding of sometimes dramatic sky explosions will be diminished, perhaps leading to hype and fear of the unknown.

Commenting last year on the significance of the Tunguska event, former Apollo astronaut and chairman of the Board of Directors of the B612 Foundation, Rusty Schweickart, stated:

Tunguska is a great reminder of what we will likely have to deal with in the next 10 years or so. We now know statistically that there are some 600,000 or more "Tunguskas" out there of which we have to date discovered less than 1%! While for those of us who have been working this issue it is clear that we can deflect such impact threats ... the primary prerequisite is that we know one is coming! We can't protect ourselves against something we don't know about.

So the primary "message" of Tunguska is that it happened, it will happen again, and we can prevent it. but we have to find and track these smaller NEOs. Congress has spoken. They've told NASA to crank up a more powerful search program. NASA, however, has refused to act - or even to comply with Congress's request to recommend a search strategy and to estimate the budget needed to support it.

Their excuse? They don't have the budget to support it!

Thanks, NASA.

If a high-altitude cometary explosion did indeed destroy AF 447, then the decision by the US military (and government), just a few days later, to impose a black out on all information about earth-bound space rocks is extremely worrying. It suggests that members of the US government know that a cometary explosion destroyed the Air France flight and that they suspect that more such events, perhaps over populated areas, are likely in the near future. More horrifying however is the callous disregard for human life displayed by such a cavalier attitude to the withholding of information pertaining to what is clearly the greatest existential threat facing humanity today.

Of course, while you and I are to be denied this information and left to our fate, tens of thousands of these self-styled elite members of government and society have at their disposal several massive underground bunker installations such as Mount Weather or Cheyenne Mountain and no doubt many others. With their 25 ton blast doors, fitness suites, air filters, mini power stations and fresh water reservoirs, tax payer's money has not be spared in ensuring the comfortable survival of the least eligible.

Mona Samouni after Gaza Massacre

2009-02-05T15:09:00.005+01:00

10-year-old Mona Samouni describes how she became one of the very few survivors of the Samouni extended family, after an attack on the densely populated area of Zeitoun.

Delivered by Sott.net:

The Butchering of Gaza

2009-01-04T19:34:00.010+01:00

The Butchering Of Gaza - Nazi Germany Revisited
Joe Quinn
SOTT.net
Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:00 UTC

Much has already been written about the eight-day-long running massacre of Palestinians that is taking place in Gaza. Indeed, what more can be said when it is clear that the Israeli government is intent on blithely ignoring all petitions, both the ambivalent and the unequivocal, to stop the indiscriminate murder.

At least 450 dead so far (other reports put the figure closer to 500), many of them civilians, women, children, old and young, the rest policemen or Hamas officials. At least 2000 injured, many too seriously to survive or be treated in Gaza's severely blockaded hospitals. In short, in the last eight days the state of Israel has murdered approximately 500 innocent Palestinians and seriously injured 2000, and the representatives of the world's leading democracies sit virtually silent. Make no mistake and do not be fooled by the mainstream media reporting, every single Palestinian that has died or been injured as a result of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza is innocent. When a people that have been dispossessed of their land, livelihoods and homes, occupied, periodically murdered and regularly starved take action to resist and defend themselves, they are guilty of nothing but standing up for their human rights and their rights under international law.

Israel government ministers and their lackeys in the mainstream press are however eager to muddy the waters of this plain truth. They try to present the Gaza turkey shoot in much more vague terms. Reference is repeatedly made to the "violence" in Gaza and the toll it is taking. Consider this CNN headline and summary from the first day of the bombardment:

Obama, Rice discuss Gaza strikes

President-elect Barack Obama spoke with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday about the violence in Gaza, which has left as many as 225 people dead, two transition aides told CNN.

You see? It's the "violence in Gaza" that has been killing Palestinians, not Israeli government policy and war planes.

A Reuters report of the same day at least made reference to "Israel" and "kill" in the title:

Israel kills scores in Gaza air strikes

But the 229 people that had been killed by Israel was for some reason translated into "scores" for the title. You had to read the article to find out that "scores" actually means "hundreds" in Reuters-speak.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 229 people in one of the bloodiest days for the Palestinians in 60 years of conflict with the Jewish state.

Taken in the context of the current deplorable state of our world, the fact that Palestinians are being indiscriminately murdered may not seem so important to the average Westerner. After all, over the past few weeks thousands of Ugandans have been killed by DRC rebels (for but one example of the bloodletting going on around the world). Is the suffering of Ugandans any less significant to the average Western citizen than that of the Palestinians? Yes and no. From a humanitarian point of view it is no less significant, but from a political and social point of view the crimes against humanity in Gaza are more significant. As a member of a first world democracy, you are being asked to believe by your political leaders and the mainstream press that Israel and its armies are acting justifiably and that even as they drop one ton bombs on Palestinian homes, the state of Israel remains, in the recent words of George Bush, "a light onto the nations" and a fellow democratic nation. You are not being asked to believe that the DRC rebels are anything but murderous psychopaths (albeit secretly supported by Western governments). At stake then (other than the lives of innocent Palestinians) is your conscience and your ability to recognise blatant and murderous lies when you read or hear them. Also at stake is, perhaps, a final chance to understand the true nature of Western democratic government.

I have already noted that most of what can be said (by alternative news sites like Sott.net) about Israels flattening of Gaza and its inhabitants has already been said. Most of what you need to know to discern the reality of the situation in Gaza is available in the articles below this one - most, but not all. There is one detail that has not yet (to my knowledge) been exposed, but which is crucial if we are to understand the true depth of Israeli state mendacity.

The Israeli government claims that Hamas broke a ceasefire recently and began firing rockets into Israel and that the bombing of Gaza by the Israel air force is to stop the firing of these rockets by Hamas.

The truth is that Israel broke a five-month-long ceasefire with Hamas on November 4th, 2008 by assassinating six Hamas officials in Gaza. Please note the date that was chosen to do so (election day in the US). As reported recently in Haaretz, the attack on Gaza was planned six months ago. The Israel government has also flagrantly violated the terms of an agreement that it signed in November 2005 which stipulated that 400 truckloads a day of exports should have been leaving Gaza by the end of 2006. No goods have been allowed to leave Gaza and vital medical and food supplies have been regularly cut off over the past 4 years leaving much of Gaza's 1.5 million people malnourished.

Israel claims that the homemade, sugar-fueled rockets that wobble their way from Gaza towards the vicinity of nearby Israeli towns and which generally land harmlessly far and wide of their targets are its causus belli. These rockets are clearly primitive and by now every Palestinian must realise that they are useless as a weapon against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. More than that, every Palestinian must realise that the surest way to increase the chance that they or several members of their family will be dismembered by an Israeli missile is to keep firing impotent rockets into Israel. The REAL value of such rockets therefore is as justification to the Israel government to continue massacring and generally brutalizing the Palestinian people.

The logical deduction therefore is that it is not Hamas that has been firing rockets into Israel from the Gaza strip but the state of Israel itself. Back in October a senior Hamas leader said as much:

Hamas blames 'Israeli collaborators' for launching rockets

Albawaba.com
Sun, 12 Oct 2008

The Hamas rulers of Gaza Strip on Tuesday lashed out at gunners who fire rockets at Israel from the Palestinian territory in violation of a seven-week-old calm, calling them Israeli collaborators. "About the rocket-firing, I think those who are responsible are those who collaborate with Israel because there is a consensus by all Palestinian groups to respect the truce," said Dr. Mahmud Zahar, a senior leader of the Hamas movement.

On Monday, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in an empty field outside the southern Israeli city of Sderot, causing no casualty or damage.

According to AFP, Zahar told a Gaza radio station that the party which fired the rocket was "linked to Israel as they provide a pretext to exercise pressure on the Palestinian people."

After the latest incident, Israel on Tuesday closed the Nahal Oz crossing to Gaza Strip that is used to ferry in fuel and the Sufa passage for food deliveries to the impoverished and blockaded territory. On his part, MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular committee against the siege, strongly denounced Tuesday the Israeli decision to close the crossings, noting that the Gaza commercial crossings are already paralyzed despite the calm.

In June 2008, in an admission that he did not know who was firing rockets from Gaza into Israel, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh appealed for "factions" to maintain the cease fire.

That agents of the state of Israel are behind much if not all of the "Hamas rockets" is a reasonable conclusion and backed up by the Israeli governments long term penchant for fabricating Muslim terrorism.

For example:

Yemen seizes Israel-linked cell

BBC News
Oct 7th 2008

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.

Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen.

The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.

Israel's foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as "totally ridiculous".

"A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province.

And from the Yemen Observer:

President Saleh revealed on Monday that security forces in Yemen caught an espionage network for Israel made up of Arab nationals. This announcement came during his speech in front of MP's, Shura Council members, local council members, scholars and military and security leaders at Hadhramout University.

According to the president the suspected spies will be brought before the courts shortly in a public trial after investigations are complete.

The network was comprised of 40 people from different Arab nationalities spying for Mossad, the Israeli international intelligence said sources from National and Political Security Units. The members of the espionage network entered Yemen on the premise of conducting business, tourism and even for preaching in mosques. Saleh said that the suspected spies form a terrorism cell that uses also Islam to reach their targets.

Or this from the Sydney Morning Herald in 2002:

Palestinians arrest al-Qaeda 'poseurs'

December 8 2002

Palestinian security forces have arrested a group of Palestinians for collaborating with Israel and posing as operatives of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, a senior official said yesterday.

The arrests come two days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon charged al-Qaeda militants were operating in Gaza and in Lebanon.

"The Palestinian Authority arrested a group of collaborators who confessed they were working for Israel, posing as al-Qaeda operatives in the Palestinian territories," said the official, on condition of anonymity.

He said the alleged collaborators sought to "discredit the Palestinian people, justify every Israeli crime and provide reasons to carry out a new (military) aggression in the Gaza Strip."

Or these: Lebanon's Army captures Israeli Mossad 'Terrorist Ring'

Wednesday, 14 June, 2006

Beirut - The Lebanese army has said it had captured members of a terrorist network allegedly working for the Israeli Mossad and that a suspect confessed to his role in assassinating Hezbollah and Palestinian officials.

Last Saturday, the army said it had arrested Mahmoud Rafeh, a 59-year-old Lebanese citizen and retired police officer, for a May 26 car bombing that killed Mahmoud Majzoub, a senior Islamic Jihad official, and his brother in front of their home in the southern city of Sidon. Rafeh "had links to Israeli intelligence," a statement said.

On Tuesday, the army said that Rafeh ( left) had confessed to his role in killing the Majzoub brothers, and to other operations ... including bombings that killed two Hezbollah officials; Ali Hassan Dib in 1999 and Ali Saleh in 2003 and the 2002 killing of Jihad Jibril, the son of Ahmed Jibril, leader of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which based in Syria with bases in Lebanon.

Rafeh was part of a "terror network working for the Israeli Mossad," and its members took "training courses in and outside Israel," the statement said.

Investigators found Israeli computers, cameras, ammunition, military uniforms and forged identity cards in ring members' hideouts ( shown below), it added.

The ring smuggled the booby-trapped door of the Mercedes car that killed the Majzoub brothers from Israel, the army said.

An investigation was underway to arrest remaining collaborators, it concluded.

As Safir newspaper said a manhunt is currently underway to catch another suspect whom it identified as Hussein Khattab, a Palestinian official in the PFLP-GC. Lebanese police and the security apparatus of the PFLP-GC had believed he was involved in Jibril's murder but he was later cleared of the crime, the paper said.

An Nahar newspaper reported that Rafeh had been working for the Mossad since 1994. It said the army found in his house forged Lebanese papers that female Mossad agents used to enter the country as the alleged wives of the ring members.

Israeli intelligence agents stayed at the flat Rafeh had rented in Sidon near the residence of the Majzoub brothers to monitor their movements, the paper said.

Six ring members have already been arrested and another two are believed to have fled to Israel, An Nahar added.

President Emile Lahoud praised Lebanese forces for breaking up the terrorist network, saying "solidarity is the real power that can stand in the face of Israel and prevent sectarian conflicts," according to a statement released by his office.

Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, called the arrest and confession "a message" to all Lebanese that their country was not immune from "direct Israeli influence" -- despite Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

"Israel still sees Lebanon as a field to achieve political and future gains," Kassem told Hezbollah's Al Manar television late Tuesday.

Many people have previously been arrested in Lebanon on suspicion of spying for Israel. In 2004, a Tunisian woman of Palestinian origin and four accomplices were indicted on charges of plotting with Israel to assassinate Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Lebanese Army praised

Ahmad Yasseen a local political observer told Ya Libnan, "the fact that the Lebanese army captured the Mossad terrorist ring is proof that it should be the only authority that should be responsible for Lebanon's security "

Yasseen added: "It is time all Lebanese and Palestinian armed militia put their faith in the Lebanese army, instead of acting as 'state inside a state', which is destabilizing the country".

Commenting on the statements of Lahoud and Hezbollah Yasseen told Ya Libnan" they both should have praised the army instead of trying to justify the existence of the resistance groups".

Lebanese army shows a picture of the Mossad documents and equipment captured

Arafat: Israel Behind Suicide Bombings

August 25, 1995

Jerusalem Post

The complex Israeli-Palestinian relationship has given birth to a nasty new myth which began, like many such myths, with a lie so egregious that it could only be considered laughable. Now it threatens to become conventional wisdom.

Soon after the Beit Lid massacre, in which 21 Israeli soldiers were killed by two Islamic Jihad suicide bombers, Palestinian Authority chief Yasser Arafat told a group of visiting dignitaries that right-wing Israelis had collaborated with the killers. Otherwise, he said, the killers could not have passed through several army check posts without being stopped.

The implications were mind-boggling: not only was Arafat implying that Israelis would participate in the mass murder of Israeli soldiers. He was saying that the Israeli conspirators were so powerful that they could exercise control over the army units all along the route the killers took from Gaza to Beit Lid.

The visitors who heard the story, knowing that it could only be interpreted as the ravings of a lunatic, kept it mostly to themselves.

Being supporters of the peace process, they thought reporting it would embarrass Arafat and harm his credibility. But at least one listener divulged its contents privately, and it became known. To the amazement of many, Arafat kept repeating it both before visitors from abroad and to visiting Israelis.

On Tuesday, the day after the bus bombing in Jerusalem, Arafat decided to come out publicly with these "revelations." He not only announced in Gaza that there was collaboration between what he called "Israeli and Palestinian extremists," but that he had documents proving it.

One of his lieutenants, Secretary-General of the Palestinian Authority Tayeb Raheem, went into details. He said that the Israeli army and other security services contained secret organizations like the French OAS during Algeria's war of independence. They and the Islamic fanatics have a common interest to defeat the Oslo agreement, he said, repeating that the PLO has documents to prove the allegation.

Portraits of Palestinian Resistance

Electronic Intifada
Rima Merriman
8 June 2006

Palestinian resistance to the occupation comes in many shapes and forms, some of which involves armed resistance undertaken by organized groups with various ideologies. These groups are composed of barely trained young men who pit their meager and crude resources against one of the best trained and best equipped military body in the world, the Israeli Occupation Forces. Of the 76 Israeli soldiers who died in 2005, only six were killed as a result of Palestinian attacks. The rest died of illness or accidents. Thirty of them committed suicide.

The imbalance in the resources between the two sides of the conflict predictably yields a steady mowing down on the part of the Israelis of one young Palestinian martyr after another. Most Palestinian deaths, however, are of civilians (and children) simply going about their daily lives, getting caught up in Israeli ground and air attacks, Israeli indiscriminate fire and Israeli raids.

Israel's control of and entrenchment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, its continual attempts to stamp out Palestinian resistance to the occupation at any cost, relies heavily on intelligence gathered by Shabak, the 5,000-strong Internal General Security Service of Israel, whose motto is "Defender who shall not be seen".

With a cadre of well-trained, Arabic-speaking Israeli informants who are indistinguishable physically from the Palestinian population, Shabak has little problem gathering intelligence on a people whose every movement is regulated by hundreds of check points and by total Israeli control on their borders. These infiltrators prey on Arab innate hospitality and friendliness. The Palestinians call them "musta'ribeen", i.e., "those who appear to be Arabs". Palestinians are not surprised when someone, somewhere comes up to them and says: Got you!

PA police fire on undercover IDF unit in Bethlehem

Ha'aretz
11/30/2005

Palestinian policemen opened fire at undercover Israel Defense Forces soldiers during an operation in Bethlehem yesterday. No soldiers were hurt during the incident, and the IDF said its inquiry revealed that no policemen were hurt. However, the Palestinians said one policeman was wounded. According to the army's initial inquiry, the Palestinian police had not been informed about the army operation. Thus, when the soldiers, who were disguised to look like Arabs, came to arrest a wanted man not far from City Hall, the policemen took them for members of an armed Palestinian gang.

Confusion in PA: Who launched Qassam?

Ynet
27/11/2006

There has been general confusion in the Palestinian Authority after a Qassam rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into the western Negev. One of the cells of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military arm, has taken responsibility for the firing.

However, Abu Ahmad, one of the group's senior officials in the northern Gaza Strip, said to Ynet that he had no knowledge that his people carried out the shooting.

"As of now, we continue to be committed to the truce, but are reserving our right to respond to Israeli infractions," said Abu Ahmad.

Israeli agents accused of creating fake al-Qaeda cell

Sophie Claudet in Gaza City
AFP
December 9 2002

A senior Palestinian security official says his services have uncovered an Israeli plot to create a fake al-Qaeda cell in the Gaza Strip, a charge Israel has dismissed as absurd. The head of preventive security in Gaza, Rashid Abu Shbak, said Israeli agents posing as operatives of al-Qaeda recruited Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. "Over the past nine months we've been investigating eight [such] cases," Mr Abu Shbak said.

His claims came after the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said al-Qaeda militants were operating in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, raising fears of an intensification of Israeli military occupations. How much evidence is required before we accept the fact that Israel's existence, in its current form, is predicated on a "threat to its existence" from its Arab neighbors and that the Israeli government will do whatever it takes to maintain that threat? How many times will the Israeli government be allowed to dismiss as "absurd" the repeated allegations and evidence that it is behind much of the major "Muslim terrorism" to which it so enthusiastically responds?

The Israeli air force is currently bombing Palestinian civilian homes, universities, mosques.

The work of Bush's "light unto the nations" - Five Palestinian sisters, brutally murdered as they slept in their beds by Israeli forces

It is using massive GBU-39 "bunker buster" missiles recently acquired from and with the blessing of the US government. It is firing missiles at carloads of civilians and then posting videos on Youtube claiming that the cars were carrying rockets. Two days ago the state of Israel murdered five young girls, all sisters aged four to 17, while they slept in their beds. Even Palestinian donkeys and carts carrying children are fair game to Yahweh's storm troopers. Yesterday an "pin point accurate" Israeli missile decapitated a Palestinian child and dismembered her two brothers, all of whom were playing in the street. The Israeli government is urging you, the Western public, to not only condone these atrocities but to accept them as being carried out in your name.

Sixty some years ago very similar scenes to those in Gaza today were playing out in Germany and Poland, and the then Nazi government urged Western citizens to accept it all as necessary and justified. Many people then accepted and condoned the Nazi atrocities, and many more turned a blind eye.

The Nazis 1942 war on Poland's "terrorists"

Israel's 2009 war on Palestine's "terrorists"

You are probably bored of being reminded that those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, or that history really does repeat itself. But you should remember that history only repeats itself when we the people sit back and wishfully think that this time things will be different. The Nazis massacred millions of people over a twelve year period from 1933 to 1945. WWII (which claimed the lives of 65 million people) was ignited by an act of brutality very similar in nature to the Israeli actions in Palestine. The ideological descendants of the bankers, political leaders, military men and global geopolitical strategists that financed, pursued and profited from that last "great" war are today sitting in Tel Aviv, Washington and London with mass murder and mayhem once again on their minds.

So let us not allow history to repeat itself, yet again, by permitting the clearly psychopathic morality of our political leaders to be passed off as "freedom and democracy" or a "just fight" against some manufactured foe. Let us, if only with our collective conscious awareness, resist the blatant crimes against humanity and massacring of the innocent that is taking place in Gaza. And let us remember the core issue and injustice that must be addressed before Israel's right to exist can ever be recognised:

Happy Winter Solstice! We Won!

2008-12-27T14:20:00.004+01:00

Una vittoria per la libertà di criticare, di scambiarsi informazioni e raggiungere i fatti. Un caso in più per far valere i propri diritti all'informazione - soprattutto quando dietro la maschera di un guaritore si nasconde un venditore di farmaci altamente dannosi per la salute psichica del 'paziente'.

Tutto iniziò così:

Hocus pocus, free speech in focus

Ora, su Signs of the Times, l'ultimo aggiornamento:

SOTT Editors
SOTT.net
Sun, 21 Dec 2008 08:50 UTC

On December 18th, 2008 an Opinion and Order was handed down by Chief Judge Ancer L. Haggerty of the Oregon court in civil case 08-233-HA, brought by Eric Pepin's Higher Balance Institute against Quantum Future Group, Quantum Future School, Signs of the Times and Laura Knight-Jadczyk. The case claimed libel/defamation, false light and intentional interference with economic relations. The case was answered with a special motion to strike the claims under Oregon's anti-SLAPP statutes. This Opinion and Order was the court's judgment on that special motion.

To cut to the chase, because this news is just too good to wait until Christmas to unwrap, the anti-SLAPP motion was granted and the claims of Higher Balance Institute have been stricken. In the process, the term "horse hockey" has been enshrined in American Case Law.

For those who have not followed this case from the beginning, SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation. According to wikipedia, it is "a lawsuit or a threat of lawsuit that is intended to intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition." Judge Haggerty's opinion not only affirms the assertion that HBI had filed suit against Laura, SOTT, et al to silence this voice, but that such attacks are not acceptable in the eyes of the law.

To briefly recap the core of the case, we quote from Judge Haggerty's opinion:

On November 4, 2007, Knight-Jadczyk re-posted portions of The Oregonian newspaper articles concerning Pepin's arrest and acquittal and posted her own commentary which included, in part, the following: "It's really starting to look like this Eric Pepin and his Higher Balance Institute is merely a COINTELPRO and a front for pedophilia."

The court notes that plaintiff focuses its argument upon the "front for pedophilia" posting, and does not advance specific arguments regarding Knight-Jadczyk's other posting. The court has conducted an independent review of Knight-Jadcyzk's other comments and concludes that the following analysis is applicable to all of her postings.

On that same date, Knight-Jadczyk also responded to a post from another forum user who asserted that HBI serves a valid purpose to those seeking answers. Knight-Jadczyk posted, in part, the following:
Horse hockey. There is nothing there except a pathological deviant and his deviant followers conning the public. There's nothing at all about "waking up" there. For example, most meditation will do little but put you back to sleep. It's an act of self-calming and falling into confluence with the psychopathic reality.
Plaintiff's claims against Knight-Jadczyk, therefore, rely upon her assertions that "HBI is a 'front for pedophilia;' HBI is a "cointelpro" organization; HBI markets nothing more than an act of "falling into confluence with a psychopathic reality;" and HBI is "conning" the public. [...]

This court concludes that the postings by Knight-Jadczyk constitute information provided by "another content provider" under Section 230 of the CDA. Therefore, defendants SOTT, QFG, and QFS are immunized against those postings by the CDA. Because plaintiff cannot show a probability of prevailing on its claims against QFG, QFS, and SOTT, involving either the moderators' postings or Knight-Jadczyk's postings, the applicable anti-SLAPP statutes compel that the claims against these defendants are stricken. [...]

Defendant Knight-Jadczyk concedes that the CDA does not prohibit claims against her based on her own postings. Nevertheless, plaintiff cannot show a probability of succeeding on its claims against Knight-Jadczyk individually. [...]

Plaintiff maintains that Knight-Jadczyk's statements are false and defamatory. A defamatory statement is a factual assertion that subjects another to "hatred, contempt or ridicule" or tends "to diminish the esteem, respect, goodwill or confidence in which [the other] is held or to excite adverse, derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions against [the other]." [...]

Whether a statement is capable of a defamatory meaning is a question for the court. [...]

This court concludes that Knight-Jadczyk's statements constitute protected opinion.[...]

Finally, the court examined whether the postings were sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proven. This examination also supports concluding that the postings constitute protected opinion. [...]

For the reasons provided, QFG's Special Motion to Strike Complaint, Knight-Jadczyk's Special Motion to Strike Complaint [28], and QFS and SOTT's Special Motion to Strike Complaint are granted.

What has actually happened here is that Truth and reason have prevailed. The stating of opinion, and in this case opinion that is backed up by documented fact, is constitutionally protected free speech! That we celebrate this as a great victory, which it is, reveals a great deal about the times in which we live; dark times, indeed. Judge Haggerty's opinion was by no means a foregone conclusion. HBI makes a lot of money while SOTT and Laura Knight-Jadczyk do not. Without the generous donations and encouragement from readers of SOTT that allowed the hiring of a crack team of attorneys from the firm of Cooper, White & Cooper LLP, along with a whole lot of work by people who are already overworked, things could have turned out very differently.

Imagine that scenario for a moment: HBI prevails or at least achieves their likely goal of simply burying Laura and SOTT under a mountain of debt. Not only would SOTT and the SOTT forum be silenced, but all voices of truth on the Internet would be one step closer to the same fate. The potential ramifications of this case were enormous.

So, the timing of this ruling, on the cusp of the Winter Solstice, is downright poetic. The long nights are coming to an end. Light and warmth are returning, Spring is just around the corner. But what does that really mean?

We might be tempted to relax, figuring that justice will finally prevail. After all, it really does seem like a new day is dawning, doesn't it? The eight year Winter of the Bush administration is almost behind us. A new administration is being formed, lead by the first African American President of the United States, and the freedom to speak our minds even against those with the wealth to put the wheels of the justice system in motion against us has been affirmed.

But this is not a time to relax. Celebrate, yes, but not relax. This light in the darkness should give us hope, but not the false belief that everything is now made right and there is no more work to do! Make no mistake about it, this victory in the courts does not bring an end to attacks on our freedom of speech, nor does it necessarily gain any new ground in the struggle to end oppression. What has been won is the holding of a position. We have not stepped further backward toward greater oppression, but more attacks are happening now, and even more are coming. You can take that to the bank (assuming the bank hasn't gone bust!)

This victory does give us hope. The Goliaths with their money and the ability to wield the legal system that comes along with it can be beaten by the Davids. It doesn't happen by merely hoping or placing blind trust in "the system" and "having faith" that truth will win in the end. This David had to fight, fight hard, and fight with eyes open wide to the reality of the situation; and with help from many others. That is the hope. With knowledge, understanding and networking, we can fight!

Every culture has some sort of celebration in the dead of Winter, whether it be solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the New Year, whatever. These celebrations all involve the coming together of friends and family to share food, to share warmth, and to help those in need. For too many of us, those aspects of the celebrations have become habitual obligations. Having grown up In an age of well stocked grocery stores and energy for heat and light delivered right to our houses, it's easy to lose sight of the need to work together that is part and parcel of Winter celebrations. We go through the motions, but do we remember what is behind those motions?

The Goliaths can be fought, but not by lone Davids. In every fight, sacrifices must be made. Those in the thick of the battle make the greatest sacrifices, but their sacrifices will amount to nothing without the support of others. Even if that support is only a small donation of money, it is meaningful and vital in that it is part of a community working together toward the common goal, in this case defending free speech. As the environment warms and life seems to get easier, do we relax our vigilance, or do we fight even harder against oppression?

Like this case, Winter Solstice brings the hope of better days ahead. But do not forget that the coldest months follow the Solstice. It takes a while for the 'light' and warmth to gain dominance again. There is still so much to do. Political prisoners are still being tortured, children are still being starved and killed, entire populations are still being exploited, and bailouts are still being handed out to the wealthy as you and I struggle to make ends meet. All of these taken together as just "me against the world" can be overwhelming. Facing these problems with the vain hope that a new administration or anyone else will fix it all, or that somehow justice will prevail while we sleep,will lead to nothing but more problems.

Facing these problems by working, and working together, to overcome them can lead to positive results. We have just seen it happen.

For today, thanks to the work of Laura Knight-Jadczyk, the SOTT team and everyone who has given time, money or any other form of support to this fight, Internet freedom of speech has not taken the severe blow it could have taken. For that, we can and should give thanks. How we give thanks is the key. I propose the best thanks that can be given, the only thanks that is meaningful, is to use this for-the-moment protected Internet freedom of speech while we still have it. Use it for everything it is worth.

What has been won is our ability to continue to speak and learn in the open, for the time being. Take this opportunity. Read SOTT and discuss what you read on the forum and elsewhere. Knowledge protects. Get some while the fruit is still relatively easy to reach.

Happy Winter Solstice - the promise of the Return of the Light!

Alaska, God and the Elections

2008-10-15T00:50:00.003+02:00

I'm wondering about all those HAARP's antennas up there...

Sarah Palin's Show

2008-10-03T23:10:00.003+02:00

from: Connecting the Dots: Palin Ascends, Your Savings Plummet, The World Steps Into The Twilight Zone

Sleepwalking into disaster, the human race appears to have crossed the point of no return in more than one area:

- The American people are playing with fire by supporting religious extremist and political dunce Sarah Palin - and they will get burned.

- In the process they may also burn a considerable portion of the rest of the world.

- Synchronously, the financial system gets the last, gentle push over the abyss; hungry and poor people will provide lots of excuses for fascism - some will even ask for it.

- The climate is acting up, as it usually does during this time of the year, but the Sun is not behaving according to expected cycles, and together with a few clues here and there, we wonder if something in the cosmic/geophysical system has not changed for good.

Hockey Mom Fascism

Here's the big ominous news of the month: A fundamentalist, hawkish, power-hungry, far-right, predatory-capitalist and not very bright woman; rumored to be racist and proven to care naught for the environment, with disturbing links to sinister Christian extremist churches has been tapped as the Republicans vice presidential nominee. She happens to be pleasant enough to the eye (more than John McCain anyway) and calls herself a "hockey mom" and, wonder of wonders, that's all the qualifications the American people seem to need to swing massively to her camp. Indeed, just when everyone was counting on modern messiah Obama to come and 'save us' from George & Dick (there's no chance of that, but never mind), along comes Sarah Palin with all the appeal that John McCain (a man who displays all the charisma of an Egyptian mummy) lacks.

Which is worse - what will happen to the US and the world if the Republicans remain in the White House (as they most probably will), or the fact that a zombie nation is fast asleep while this is happening? And where did we see this very same script before?

Oh, yes, it was the 1930s and a blue collar little (one could say funny) man, with certain religious views, and an army of Aryan soldiers ready to die for his pathological paramoralisms, was rising to power in Germany. A few people were able to see Hitler for who he was and what the consequences of his reign would be. Among them was a journalist named Fritz Gerlich, who paid with his life for his work, and Sebastian Haffner, who lived to tell us the story in a manuscript found and published by his son after his death, titled Defying Hitler. Haffner, with great insight paints a vivid portrait of "what led so many ordinary Germans to join with or acquiesce to the Nazi program", placing personal responsibility on each German citizen for the consequences of this action or inaction. He wrote:

"... It may seem a paradox, but it is nonetheless the simple truth, to say that on the contrary, the decisive historical events take place among us, the anonymous masses. The most powerful dictators, ministers, and generals are powerless against the simultaneous mass decisions taken individually and almost unconsciously by the population at large... Decisions that influence the course of history arise out of the individual experiences of thousands or millions of individuals."

We know what happened in Nazi Germany, yet today we complacently wonder to ourselves: "how could the German people have allowed Hitler to do what he did? How cruel and inhuman were they to allow the Nazis to perpetrate such horrendous crimes!"

Perhaps some of you think we are being too alarmist or pessimistic about Palin. After all, the Republicans haven't won the election yet and although they did creep ahead in the polls for a while, Obama seems to be back on top, right? And if he wins, who knows, maybe he could turn out to be a man of the people who plays the game well enough to get into a position from which he could do some good?

We at SOTT have a problem with this view. Experience has taught us that there are no real elections in modern Western Democracies, and that the American people in particular do not have the luxury of actually electing anyone at this point in time. By now, the means and methods for stealing elections have been perfected by the right wing Christian fundies, and they are planning to do it again. Yes folks, election theft for 2008 is already underway!

Since the McCain ticket was not doing that well (how to convince the people that McCain won if he is so far behind Obama?) they brought out the 'heavy weapons', the mom of our worst nightmares, in the hope that she will appeal to all other mothers and women. McCain and Palin are playing the 'Sisterhood' card with barely-disguised cynicism. As if normal women share any kind of real femininity with Ms. Pitbull. When the final results are known, we'll probably be told that McCain and Palin won by a short margin, and the media commentators will tell us that the "hockey mom" factor convinced those few who did not make up their minds until the last minute.

So there you have it. The only thing they really need to establish during the campaign is a plausible explanation for a 'victory', and they can only do so if the masses are asleep. It is in the sense of being awake (or not) that we, the anonymous masses, are responsible for the outcome. People who are awake and aware are immune to fraud.

Palin, if nothing else, stands for everything that is against true femininity and motherhood. She and that army of trained faithful warriors are ready to give their lives for paramoralisms and psychopathic dogmas, spreading death and destruction on their path. Sound familiar?

Palin is a member of a cult with laughable beliefs, yet the bunch of them have, over the last two decades, infiltrated the American political sphere, and turned the country, slowly but surely, into a police state. They took over the media and for years have been brainwashing millions of people, remembering all the while, that "education" starts at a young age.

Palin, their blue-collar muse, believes that the war in Iraq is an act of God, and proudly sends her son to do God's will, because, "Hey! It's about time for that Rapture and only we, the 'Chosen' will be saved, but those others have to go". Those 'others' by the way, include the vast majority of ordinary people, people like you and me. Behind Palin are the same hands that have been playing Bush all along - the Dominionists .

To put it charitably, Palin is a woman of dubious intelligence. She can't answer a question that is not in her script and believes that the earth is 6000 years old, despite all geological, scientific evidence. She is clearly dangerously delusional.

This mean, cruel woman's policies favor killing endangered animals and destroying Mother Earth.

This inhuman woman, incapable of empathy, voted that the raped women of Alaska had to pay for their own forensic examinations. Her right-wing fundamentalist policies are against families and women in general.

This hypocritical woman uses people to achieve her goals and took the hard-earned money of Alaskans to spend it on her cult, as reported here.

And she has a good chance of becoming the president of the US. McCain is too old and has health issues, and yes, everything shows that he will win. Hear it from the mouth of an expert. Besides, the Rothschild family - the system's ultimate insiders - do not bet on a horse to see it lose the race. And it seems that they are betting a bundle on McCain.

Another alarming aspect is that we are seeing a lot of pressure being put on women in these elections. As the Women's Voices, Women Vote put it:

[...] unmarried women "have the potential to elect the next President." In an email, WVWV writes that "While married women favored McCain over Barack Obama by 49 to 42 percent, unmarried women supported Obama over McCain by 60 to 30 percent...Numbering 53 million, these single, separated, divorced and widowed women represent 26 percent of the voting age population." Add to this that for the first time in history, almost as many adult American women are unmarried as married, and we can see why Sarah Palin may have been a political choice for the GOP.

We wonder whether these women will be the scapegoats when the rigged election results show that the next four years will be even worse than the eight previous ones with Bush; "Hey, they were the ones responsible, not the Diebold machines". All these millions of "single, separated, divorced and widowed women".... Uppity women, anyone?

We wonder also whether most of them will wake up and realize that while Palin is marketed as being the female and the mother, in reality her being and core beliefs are slaying everything feminine. Some already have.

Will the rest of us? Will we heed Haffner's words and allow our decisions to change the course of history? Because as is shown below, in all respects, the world is currently not a happy-go-lucky place at all!

Welcome to Gilead, Governor Palin!

If you've ever read Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale, you will recall the key role that was played by the women assigned to be the "Aunts." The story revolves around a futuristic American society in which fundamentalist Christians install a gender-based caste system where each woman is assigned a specific societal function. It is a commentary on the dangerous erasing of the line between church and state in the contemporary United States.

The merging of religion and government is carried out by a group of older, white male "commanders" whose propaganda demands that citizens be constantly terrorized into submission and obedience. The resulting regime is Atwood's vision of the worst-case scenario: an American police-state theocracy where every woman's identity is reduced to her sexual attributes, and each is assigned to a category based on her physical qualifications. Subtle references to racist philosophy are mixed into the literalist religious rhetoric.

The attractive young women of reproductive age are the "handmaids"; the attractive but infertile middle-age women are the "wives"; the dark-skinned women of any age are domestic servants, and so on. All women are forbidden from reading or writing. The country is renamed the Republic of Gilead, a reference to the biblical homeland of the patriarchs. And the Aunts - who are middle-aged white women of some previous prestige and education - are especially sinister characters. The primary job of the Aunts is to keep the handmaids (the childbearers) subservient.

They go about this by convincing the handmaids that they are powerless and can only contribute to society when they fulfill their God-given responsibility to serve the commanders. The Aunts' job, put simply, is to exploit other women by keeping them submissive and telling them that it's for the good of all (and even more insidiously, that in obeying, the handmaids "empower" themselves.) What makes the Aunts so remarkable is their collective failure to realize that they are simply being used by the commanders to keep other women in line, and their willingness - glee, even - at doing so is simultaneously sad and terrifying.

So what compels the Aunts to become traitors to both their sex and their country? First, they believe that their contribution to the repressive social order is righteous, and second, they've found that under this rigid system of social control, they have the illusion of a tiny bit of power.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Governor and Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is the Gileadian "Aunt" manifested. Her sudden emergence onto the American political scene, accompanied by a burst of enthusiasm on the part of many American women, is a surreal example of life imitating art. Much of Palin's rhetoric, tactics and personal philosophy seem to be taken directly from the Auntie training manual.

By accepting the position on the GOP ticket despite her astonishing lack of qualifications, Palin signaled that she was prepared to be used - on the basis of her sex alone - in exchange for the promise of status and power.

Refer to Palin's RNC convention speech, which was mostly a fawning homage to McCain's patriotism and leadership, sprinkled with condescending references to Obama as "our opponent." Although the lines were delivered with Palin's own folksy vernacular and over-enunciation, it was not Palin, but McCain - or more accurately, the GOP elders at whose feet he finds himself on election eve - who wrote the speech and whose voice echoed through the hall that night in St. Paul. Women who find themselves drawn to Palin because they think she epitomizes the classic "woman who has it all" might want to take a closer look. Sarah Palin was picked for the ticket solely because of - not despite - the fact that she is female. By keeping her sequestered from the media, McCain has confirmed he does not have faith in an unscripted Palin's ability to represent the campaign to the world.

By going along with it, Palin is telling us that she's perfectly fine with being controlled by her male superiors. And by portraying herself as the candidate of the empowered woman (while simultaneously promoting policy that is openly hostile to the interests of working and middle-class American women), she reveals the sad truth about how little progress we've actually made.

Lest we think that Senator McCain is hesitant to keep pushing this stereotype in the face of abysmal performances by Palin in news interviews, the most recent reports reveal that his campaign intends to hype the expected wedding between Palin's pregnant daughter and her boyfriend, the date of which is apparently being set just prior to the November election - with McCain and Palin sitting in the front row.

Is it possible that Sarah Palin is just blissfully un-self-aware, or is it that she so eager for any illusion of power that she'll allow herself to be marketed no matter what the cost to the dignity of all women? If Palin were truly an empowered woman, she would have refused to allow herself and her daughter to be used in this manner - to assist a party whose rhetoric and imagery promote the ideal woman as deferential to established norms rather than acting as an independent - or critical - thinker.

If her selection was intended to signal to American women that empowerment is possible, why is Palin being kept under lock and key? Clearly, this is not an individual whose intelligence or perspective McCain respects, or else he would permit her to speak for herself. To continue pretending that Palin's selection was anything other than an attempt to manipulate the voting public on the basis of a straitjacketed view of sexual roles is a dangerous lie that no American of any gender can afford to abide.

Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats

Palin Can't Name Any Newspapers Or Magazines That She Reads

Palin: 'Only Flag in My Office' Is Israeli

Excerpts from the New Messiahs

By Katherine Yurica

Storm Warning! Dark Days Ahead!

2008-09-14T13:33:00.001+02:00

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
SOTT.net
Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:28 EDT

Today is the anniversary of the Beginning of the End.

It has been seven long, bloody years since our planet was set on a path of global conflict and self-destruction by a gang of psychopaths who thought it would be a good idea to take control of the world by staging a false flag attack on the U.S.A. a la Hitler and the Reichstag. Well over a million Iraqis and tens of thousands of young men from America and its "partners," both the coerced and the bought and paid for kind, are dead.

This cabal of rapacious gangsters have shocked, raped, pillaged and plundered the patrimony of America to the extent that U.S. citizens must now make choices between whether to eat or stay warm, assuming they have a roof over their head at all. The infrastructure of a once-proud nation has rotted away, both psychologically and physically. Today, the American government is a global pariah, and the American people are headed for the trash heap of history.

At the same time, the planet is facing challenges of another kind - climate change - that, even without global war, will take a devastating toll likely in terms of billions of humans and animals, not to mention the flora that underpins life in our world. Already millions are dead and more are dying due to "human caused" global suffering and lack of foresight in respect of the climate and our resources.

Meanwhile, the US presidential election farce is rolling merrily along even though we know that none of the pathological morons seeking the highest public office in the land have any intention of doing anything significant to change the trajectory of our unhappy civilization. I find it ironic that the US election process, long known by insiders to be a contest of "electability" based on appearance, now includes a bona-fide beauty queen. It was bad enough when an actor was elected to act as president...

But I digress.

Through it all, SOTT.net has worked day and night, from around the globe, to keep you - the reader - up to date on those things crucial not only to your awakening, but your very survival. Even before it all began, before SOTT was even thought to be a necessary venue for understanding what is going on here on the BBM, I was seeking the answers to just what is wrong with our world in other respects via years of research culminating in the Cassiopaean Experiment. That experiment led to the book "High Strangeness" which has recently been reviewed by Richard Dolan, author of UFOs and the National Security State: History of a Cover-up. His encouragement has been most welcome. It was in the context of the Cs material, which dovetailed so perfectly with Richard's hard, factual, documentary research, that the understanding of our current reality was framed, and that understanding has not only stood the test of time, it has been remarkably accurate time and time again.

But it hasn't been easy. It has cost us dearly in almost every imaginable way. And it continues. I am writing today because SOTT.net is in a state of emergency and not for the first time this year, either! We have definitely been experiencing stormy weather in more ways than one. Even though it is the time for our usual fund raiser which we hold twice a year to supplement book sales (SOTT will never go commercial!), SOTT again faces additional financial burdens that we hope our readers will share with us.

Attacks against our work began even before SOTT.net came into existence, and those assaults only intensified in the period following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Over the course of the past 6 years, as we have continued to expose the manipulations of the Pathocrats and the lies and deceit that define their game of global chess, the pressure to silence us has increased exponentially.

As most of you know, during the early months of this year, SOTT.net, QFG, Inc, and yours truly, were slammed with a vicious lawsuit that threatens everything that SOTT.net and the Cassiopaean Experiment stand for: Truth and Freedom. Eric Pepin's Higher Balance Institute was the vehicle for this attack. It may not have been coincidental that this all transpired as I was going into the hospital for major surgery from which I still have not recovered. But that would be just too conspiracy minded! As we wrote at the time:

This is an attack on internet freedom and freedom of speech, plain and simple. If Eric Pepin were to win, based on the accusations in the complaint, it would set a precedent that would reverberate across the world. It would make anyone who had a different opinion or view of the world - other than that which is approved by the PTB - subject to suppression and censure. The issues of psychopathy and conspiracy are specifically named in the complaint as well as the connection between religion and making money. If this suit were to succeed, it would significantly chill further discourse about conspiracies, pathological deviance, mind control methods and real cults, including the Judao-Islamo-Christian dominator trio. It would be a disaster.

Thankfully, regular readers and other supporters came through and we were able to deal with the expense of the first round of legal filings. But there were expenses we didn't count on, like having to fight a second, parallel suit to re-open the sealed criminal records of Eric Pepin. And now, our attorneys tell us that it is likely that, even if the judge moves in favor of our anti-SLAPP motion, Eric Pepin's Higher Balance Institute is likely to appeal. One way or the other our attorney's will have to argue the case in court and Pepin's criminal records will be crucial to our arguments. But, as I said, we won the right to them, and to use them, even if the judge ordered that it must be done "under seal." Pepin has claimed to have "friends in high places," and it may be so.

Now, in addition to our need to fund this legal battle moving forward, Eric Pepin's criminal records must be transcribed by an official transcriber. There are five days of testimony at about 275 pages of transcript per day. It's going to cost a bundle to transcribe and we need to get started right away. And that is only part of the problem!

As I mentioned, we generally have two fund raisers a year to supplement book sales income. However, the state of the economy has hit everyone hard, and that means we are getting hit also. Book sales - our major support - are so low that we have had to implement many cost saving measures. Some of you have noticed changes, (we've had to let back-up and alternate servers go), and there will be more, as we tighten our belts and economize along with everyone else.

Like many others, we can't even pay the bill for the coming winter's heating fuel that was delivered this week. We haven't missed paying our rent up to this point, but next month isn't looking too good! The plain fact is, in addition to being against the wall regarding legal expenses, we again need your help with the monthly expenses of servers, satellite, and related support.

We ALL need to get through this darkest of times together, the beginning of the eighth year after 9-11, and only together can we do it. We want to be able to continue to keep the lighthouse going, to shine the light on the End Games, the players, the plots, the playing field, and keep the warning bells sounding so that other tempest tossed sailors can avoid the rocks, the tricks and traps of the psychopaths in power.

Bottom line is: right now, something's got to give and we hope it isn't going to be us having to give up the fight! We hope that our readers will come through for us again and give so we can keep on giving! If every regular reader of SOTT could manage to give $5, $10, or $20, we can do it!

One thing is certain, we can't do it without YOU!

I mentioned changes above: there will be more. Some of these changes are designed to help us continue our wide-ranging news coverage while, at the same time, minimizing our costs. Our web services, which include our massive news archive, will continue, and in the coming week or so, we will be unveiling the New and Improved SOTT.net. After we are through this Dark and Stormy Night, if we survive it, we plan to add even more features, returning to our weekly podcasts, and adding videos!

SOTT.net needs your increased and continued support! Help us keep the Light House going! Please give as generously as you can and, as always, you have our heartfelt gratitude that you have chosen SOTT.net as your portal to the world.

We haven't given up on Tomorrow!

Click here to donate, or use the form at the top of this page!

US Downfall

2008-09-10T15:12:00.002+02:00

That's it. Is difficult to see it when you're in it.

The Dumb, the Stupid, the Clueless and the Uninformed.

from Smoking Mirrors blog - by Les Visible

I’ve been away for awhile… maybe a month or more… maybe I’ve always been away and just drop in on occasion with a new personality for the next period of engagement. It’s hard to know what’s what. Look at the problem people have with reality. They must have a problem with it because they will accept anything but and they generally prefer to be told what is happening rather than look into the situation themselves. By the title of this piece and by your own observations, I guess you know I’m talking about significantly more than half of the population.

I’ve long been of the opinion that all of the great and transformative acts for good that are practiced on this Earth are accomplished by ten percent of the people. I’ve also felt that the majority of evil is accomplished by another ten percent. The people in the middle are the hamburger meat in the fast food restaurant of the times in which we live. Among this group are thirty six personality types and you meet them all as you go and long before you actually leave. There are a handful of unique characters who exemplify their time and there is a much larger group that plays a tape loop over and over again until it wears out. You could no more talk to these people about what is really going on than you could convince them that they have anything to do with it.

These people can go to college and read Kant and Kafka but only for the purposes of conversation… not for any meaningful insight. These writers and the composers and artists are nothing more than suits that these people dress themselves in, in an effort to be admired or get laid by people whose company they richly deserve. They can attend the opera and the ballet (and they deserve that too). They can ponder modern art and then use that, as they use all art and the like as instruments in the service of their vanity… namedropping… repeating the words in scholarly reviews… preening and posturing as if their invented knowledge and limited understanding of something granted them the same cachet as the creator. In respect of most of what is called art, someone still capable of embarrassment wouldn’t even want it. But you can’t embarrass these people. The best you can hope for is to make them angry or feel discriminated against.

However, if you are evil; which is the prevailing fashion accessory of the time, well then… these people are going to hang on your every word and sometimes hang because of them. The more I live the more I begin to think that people get what they deserve and they’ll kill you if you try to protect them from it.

How stupid or clueless do you have to be to still believe what you hear on TV or is reported in the press in any of the mediums it employs? By now with so many lies and so much corruption exposed and increasing by the day how is it possible to still believe the people who lied to you the day before and the day before that? I find it to be a most uncanny magic act. It’s not even very good magic.

My theory is that they send people out into the world to study the types of stupidity and cluelessness that are practiced by the personality types and then they get prototypes to perform it for them so that they can agree with themselves by proxy on whatever BS they’ve assumed to be the truth. It stands to reason that if you can’t accept the truth about yourself, or are far too uninformed to even imagine that such a thing exists, then you can’t accept the truth in any form ever. You can’t and won’t see that 9/11 was an Inside Job. You’re too vain and self-involved to risk censure from those as stupid as yourself. You laugh about it even though you are the target.

You wave little signs that say, “Service” and “Country First” when the only service you are employed in is self service and the only country you possess is the land of ignorance in which your illusions flourish like kudzu along the highway to nowhere that you are traveling on.

You believe that Russia attacked Georgia and not that the Israelis who control Georgia attacked South Ossetia which provoked a Russian response. You believe that Bin Laden is alive and masterminding world terror from a cave in Pakistan when world terror is being formulated in London, Tel Aviv and Washington D.C. You think it’s disgraceful that Sarah Palin has to endure scrutiny about hiding something from people who didn’t bother to look. You wouldn’t know that she was chosen precisely because of her liability by the people who control both sides because it suits their onward agenda for which the fix is already in.

If you’re in the jungle and everything you know about the jungle is a lie then your chances of survival are not very good. They’re even worse when you refuse to accept that your own experiences show you that what you thought to be true was a lie and you just refuse to alter your perceptions even when they are proven to be patently absurd. You’re a marvel really. I can’t imagine what it is to be like you. For me it would be like sitting at the kitchen table and stabbing myself over and over in the back of the hand with a fork while insisting it wasn’t happening.

It doesn’t occur to you that some impending hurricane wasn’t what it was sold as, or that they knew that all along. It doesn’t occur to you to look around and see what else is happening and which this is a distraction from. You don’t make the leap between the callous indifference to Katrina and the self- serving cries from the people who caused the one and are appealing for help and donations for the other. You don’t think to yourself that if they have done so little since Katrina that they are not likely to do much more about anything else unless they… benefit from it.

You just go along to get along until your number comes up and you get to scream, “Why me?” It doesn’t bother you… the millions of dead and destroyed lives. Even when the press which works for the people who did it admits that it was all a lie which caused it you still don’t get it. You can’t fix something if you don’t know why it is broken. You can’t repair something by replacing the wrong part.

That you have not dragged George W. Bush and Dick Cheney out of the White House and hung them in Lafayette Park years ago tells me that you’d rather have dinner with Sacher-Masoch than De Rouchefoucauld even if they or you could speak the necessary English. Of course with Sacher-Masoch you don’t really have to speak… just scream. Pain like music is a universal language and seems to be something you enjoy

You’d better get your act together before it’s too late. Bad shit has a way of happening to stupid people with more frequency depending on just how bone dead stupid they are. You’d better stop waving bumper stickers and believing everything you are told and worse… acting on it as if it were true. It isn’t possible that the ones lying to, feeding on and controlling you have your best interests at heart. They want you worse than dead and they are working on it right now.

Of course… you are probably not reading this. Someone with lacquered hair and a mouthful of lies is probably talking to you and you’re dreaming of shopping and sex regardless of how unattractive you are. You’ll wake up when the sirens fill the air and the building is on fire. That’s usually how it goes. You’ll wonder why you didn’t wake up and how it got to be too late without anyone telling you. That’s how it always goes. But people were telling you… life was telling you… circumstances were telling you… your conscience was telling you but you… you weren’t listening. You weren’t listening because you were dumb, stupid, clueless and uniformed.

Anti-semitism, British Academia and the Israel Lobby

2008-08-30T15:41:00.002+02:00

Un attacco ad un'associazione accademica britannica, L'UCU, e la conseguente campagna di diffamazione contro uno dei suoi membri, Jenna Delich, rea di aver incluso un link verso un articolo Joe Quinn (Sott.net) sfortunatamente parcheggiato sul sito del bianco e razzista David Duke.

Fatto è che la Delich non era a conoscenza della figura di Duke; stava solamente linkando ad un articolo del Quinn. Il Quinn da parte sua non era a conoscenza che il suo articolo era stato riprodotto in un tale sito (Duke). Nè la Delich, né il Quinn condividono le idee razziste di David Duke, ma ad ogni modo qualcuno ha preso subito spunto per lanciare una campagna diffamatoria contro i due (Engageonline), accusandoli di antisemitismo e deprecando il chiaro legame tra l'UCU e l'anti-semita David Duke.

Poco dopo ecco la campagna di diffamazione arrivare alle porte del Jerusalem Post. A volte certi "chiari legami" non potrebbero essere montati meglio... alla base di tutto questo l'ennesima conferma che non si può in alcuna maniera criticare le politiche del governo di Israele senza essere tacciati di antisemitismo, come se tutti i cittadini israeliani fossero sempre e comunque a favore delle scelte di quest'ultimo, come dire che un attacco alle politiche italiane nelle vesti del governo Prodi o Berlusconi sia un attacco ad ogni singolo italiano, come dire che una critica al governo francese nelle vesti di Sarkozi sia diffamante per ongi singolo cittadino francese.

La cosa, semplicemente, non regge alla luce dei fatti (nonché al comune buon senso...).

Sott ha pubblicato un articolo che spiega in dettaglio tutte le fasi della vicenda. Sia il Quinn che la Delich sono intervenuti per ribadire la loro distanza dalle opinioni di David Duke. L'articolo fa anche il punto sull'accanimento dei media nel rigirare qualsiasi accusa ad 'Israele' come atto di antisemitismo.

Anti-semitism, British Academia and the Israel Lobby

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:04 EDT

Every year since 2002 the University and College Union (UCU), the largest trade union and professional association for academics working in further and higher education throughout the UK, has attempted to implement some form of boycott of Israeli academic institutions that have been shown to be complicit in the ongoing persecution of the Palestinian people. And each year, amid much acrimony and cries of "anti-semitism", boycotters meet with significant resistance from pro-Israeli members of British academia, and other institutions.

This year however, lowly Sott.net has inadvertently become involved in the melee.

In 2007, the congress of the UCU voted by 158 votes to 99 on Motion 30, which called for the UCU to circulate a boycott request by Palestinian trade unions to all branches for information and discussion. It called on lecturers to "consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions."

Motion 30 was amended:

Congress notes that Israel's 40-year occupation has seriously damaged the fabric of Palestinian society through annexation, illegal settlement, collective punishment and restriction of movement.

Congress deplores the denial of educational rights for Palestinians by invasions, closures, checkpoints, curfews, and shootings and arrests of teachers, lecturers and students.

Congress condemns the complicity of Israeli academia in the occupation, which has provoked a call from Palestinian trade unions for a comprehensive and consistent international boycott of all Israeli academic institutions.

Congress believes that in these circumstances passivity or neutrality is unacceptable and criticism of Israel cannot be construed as anti-semitic.

Congress instructs the NEC to:

circulate the full text of the Palestinian boycott call to all branches for information and discussion;

encourage members to consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions;

organise a UK-wide campus tour for Palestinian academic/educational trade unionists;

issue guidance to members on appropriate forms of action.

actively encourage and support branches to create direct links with Palestinian educational institutions and to help set up nationally sponsored programs for teacher exchanges, sabbatical placements, and research.

In the end however, and after much pressure being brought to bear, the boycott effort was dropped on legal advice that it would be unlawful and could not be implemented, despite the fact that the motion merely called for individual branches to inform their members and debate the pros and cons of a boycott and decide for themselves how or if to proceed.

In May this year, a similar motion was tabled and passed at the UCU annual conference that again called on members to: "consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating."

What this amounts to is basically a call for UCU members to just think about the implications of ties with Israeli academic institutions that are involved in supporting Israeli government oppression of Palestinians. Once again however, the pro-Israel camp came out in force.

The point of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is eminently defensible because its primary goal is to put pressure on the Israeli government to cease its brutal treatment of the Palestinian people and to adhere to international law. It has absolutely nothing to do with any anti-semitism among the supporters of the boycott in British academia. Of course, this does not stop the anti-boycott pro-Israel camp from repeatedly using the slur of "anti-semite" in an effort to intimidate those calling for a boycott.

Since the beginning of the boycott movement, several anti-boycott websites have sprung up, the most prominent of which seems to be engageonline.org.uk, operated by David Hirsh, lecturer at University of London's Goldsmiths College.

Engage was:

"created to arm people with arguments and facts that they could use to counter the propaganda of the boycott campaign within the Association of University Teachers. Engage grew from a being a resource for that particular and successful campaign into being a resource that aims to help people counter the boycott Israel campaign in general, as well as the assumptions and misrepresentations that lie behind it.

That's the background, now comes the unsavory part.

For the past few months, debate for and against the boycott has been raging on a private UCU member email discussion list (about 700 members) with the majority of members coming out in favor of the boycott. A selection of these private email exchanges were leaked to the Engage website (many can be read here), but one in particular must have seemed like a godsend to the anti-boycott pro-Israel camp.

Three days ago, in her defense of a colleague who was arguing for the boycott on the private discussion list, UCU member and lecturer Jenna Delich wrote the following:

John,

In support to your link this may be a long but also an interesting reading:
http://www.davidduke.com/general/humanitarian-disaster_595.html
No comment necessary. The facts are speaking for themselves.

Jenna
Jenna Delich

The article that Ms. Delich referenced was written by me in 2006 and entitled "Racism, not Defence, at the heart of Israeli politics" (original here). However, the link was to the web site of infamous white supremacist David Duke. Someone at Duke's site (or Duke himself) had apparently republished the article, without my permission or knowledge.

Unsurprisingly, the anti-boycott camp immediately pounced and, ignoring the most obvious explanation (that Ms Denlich had never heard of Duke and was simply posting a link to the article and not his website) decried the "obvious link" between the UCU and "perhaps the most notorious racist and anti-semite in the world".

[Note: the second link above is from a blog called "Harry's place", which appears to be run by someone who is either a member of the UCU or is closely associated with someone who is. "Harry" claims that his site offers a "democratic-left perspective". To get an idea of what "democratic-left" means to 'Harry', see this link]

I can't speak for Ms. Delich (although I strongly suspect my hypothesis above is accurate), but all contributors toSott.net deplore racism and everything that Duke stands for. A careful reading of our published works makes our position on Israel, Judaism etc. very clear to any normal, rational person, and nowhere will you find the merest hint of any real anti-semitism, racism, holocaust denial, white supremacy, or KKK membership for that matter. In fact, Sott.net was founded on solidly humanitarian ground and in response to the increasingly extremist beliefs and policies infecting the halls of power and the minds of far too many otherwise well-meaning people.

It is natural therefore that we would seek to speak out against Israeli government and military human rights abuses against Palestinians, and that we would strongly support the UCU boycott of certain Israeli academic institutions as a way to put pressure on the Israeli government to change its ways.

The best known case of a similar international boycott occurred during the Apartheid regime in South Africa when dozens of nations around the world implemented various types of sanctions and boycotts (including academic boycotts) that played an important role in the ultimate fall of the unjust system.

So if a broad boycott of South Africa was almost universally agreed to be righteous, why does the mere proposal of a simple boycott of Israeli academic institutions meet with such resistance? After all, the similarities between the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians and South African Apartheid have already been made clear:

"This is like apartheid": ANC veterans visit the West Bank

Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said last night that the segregation endured by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories was in some respects worse than that imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa.

Members of a 23-strong human-rights team of prominent South Africans cited the impact of the Israeli military's separation barrier, checkpoints, the permit system for Palestinian travel, and the extent to which Palestinians are barred from using roads in the West Bank.

After a five-day visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, some delegates expressed shock and dismay at conditions in the Israeli-controlled heart of Hebron. Uniquely among West Bank cities, 800 settlers now live there and segregation has seen the closure of nearly 3,000 Palestinian businesses and housing units. Palestinian cars (and in some sections pedestrians) are prohibited from using the once busy streets.

"Even with the system of permits, even with the limits of movement to South Africa, we never had as much restriction on movement as I see for the people here," said an ANC parliamentarian, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge of the West Bank. "There are areas in which people would live their whole lifetime without visiting because it's impossible." [...]

Fatima Hassan, a leading South African human rights lawyer, said: "The issue of separate roads, [different registration] of cars driven by different nationalities, the indignity of producing a permit any time a soldier asks for it, and of waiting in long queues in the boiling sun at checkpoints just to enter your own city, I think is worse than what we experienced during apartheid." She was speaking after the tour, which included a visit to the Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem and a meeting with Israel's Chief Justice, Dorit Beinisch.

One prominent member of the delegation, who declined to be named, said South Africa had been "much poorer" both during and after apartheid than the Palestinian territories. But he added: "The daily indignity to which the Palestinian population is subjected far outstrips the apartheid regime.And the effectiveness with which the bureaucracy implements the repressive measures far exceed that of the apartheid regime." [...]

In Hebron's main Shuhada Street, the South African delegation was plunged into a confrontation after one of the local settlers' leaders disrupted the tour by unleashing a barrage of abuse through a megaphone at one of the Israeli guides. Amid angry arguments, police arrested three of the Israeli guides.

Mrs Madlala Routledge exclaimed: "This is ridiculous. Why are they arresting our guides and leaving the man with the megaphone?"

Dennis Davis, a high court judge and one of the South African delegation's several Jewish members, told the extreme right-wing Hebron settlers' leader Baruch Marzel: "These provocations didn't come from us. I'm Jewish and I look at this and I say to myself, how can I feel fear from other Jews?"

Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC parliament member, said that the visit to Yad Vashem had been "extremely moving" because his mother had been a Holocaust survivor who lost many members of her family. "As you walk into Yad Vashem you see a quote that says in effect you should know a country not only by what it does but what it tolerates," he said. "So I found it very shocking to then come and here and see footage of teenagers heaping abuse on Palestinian children as they come out of school, and throwing stones at them. And that this should be done in the name of Judaism I find totally reprehensible.

"What the Holocaust teaches us more than anything else is that we must never turn our heads away in the face of injustice."

See also Gideon Levy's, Twilight Zone/'Worse than apartheid' in Haaretz

From the UK Guardian:

In October 2005, 13-year-old Iman al-Hams was shot and wounded by an Israeli army unit in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, despite being identified as a little girl, and wearing a school uniform. Iman was machine-gunned by the unit's commander. She had 17 bullets in her body, and three in her head, a Palestinian doctor told the Guardian. Iman is one of 654 Palestinian children to have been killed in the occupied territories since September 2000. Several were killed as they sat at their desks in class. Three and a half thousand children have been wounded. Over 300 are in Israeli prisons.

In South Africa's state of emergency of the mid-1980s, declared in response to a nationwide campaign of protest, 312 children were killed, over 1,000 wounded, 2,000 children under 16 were detained without trial, thousands more arrested, hundreds fled into exile, and a generation was marked for life. Noble Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu wrote about one child, Johnny, whom he saw after some time in police custody: "I wanted to cry, I was filled with a blazing anger against a system that could do this to a child ... Johnny's case alone ought to be enough to fill any decent person ... with revulsion and indignation."

Iman's is such a case, 20 years on. Archbishop Tutu has described the situation of the Palestinians under occupation as worse than South Africa under apartheid. In July 2004, the international court of justice ruled that Israel's 280 mile wall, the latest burden on Palestinians, was illegal. But Israel, like the old South Africa faced with international disapproval, simply ignored it.

Twenty years ago, 496 British academics responded to an appeal from the African National Congress leaders in exile after two academics were served with banning orders. They signed a letter calling for an academic boycott of South Africa. Today, some in the new generation of British academics feel they cannot accept Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the policies that brought the wall, and a new generation of children suffering like those South African children whose wounds of mind and body never healed.

Iman and Johnny will never go to college. But some of the Israeli soldiers implicated in crimes like the one that killed the little girl are university lecturers who serve in the occupation army reserve forces every year, and who otherwise go about their academic "business as usual" for the rest of the year. No Israeli academic institution has ever severed its organic ties with the military-security establishment in protest. None has issued a public statement condemning the grave violations of Palestinian human rights. This is part of the reason why Palestinians have called upon the world to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

And that is precisely the goal of the repeated attempts by the UCU to institute an academic boycott (of some nature) against Israeli institutions - to make a public statement condemning the Israeli government for its human rights abuses. Yet somehow, the debate is always twisted and turned around to allegations of "anti-semitism" - that if you support the boycott you are somehow motivated by a 'hatred of Jews because they are Jews'. The contention is clearly ridiculous. Those supporting the boycott and the vast majority of those that condemn the situation in Palestine and Israel are well aware that the Israeli government and the Jews of Israel and elsewhere are far from synonymous. Events leading up the Iraqi invasion, when Tony Blair ignored the mass public demonstrations and not only joined the US-led invasion but fabricated evidence to justify it gave the British public a stark reminder of just how impotent they are to influence government policy on the most important matters.

In Israel the situation is no different. A majority of Israeli citizens want peace (who wouldn't?) but their government continues its aggressive policies towards Israel's Arab neighbors, placing the lives of Israelis at risk, and public opinion be damned. How then can the anti-boycott camp in the UK and elsewhere reasonably insist that exerting academic, political or economic pressure on the Israeli government is tantamount to hatred of Jews? Clearly the boycott seeks to achieve the very same thing that a majority of ordinary Jews (at least in Israel) want - an end to the violence and peaceful cohabitation. The answer of course is that they cannot 'reasonably' make such a claim, and there is nothing reasonable about the tactics they use to silence the boycott campaign.

Jenna Delich posted a link to my 2006 article. She was unaware that the link was not to the original Sott.net article but to a reproduction (now removed at my request) on David Duke's site. She sought to share the content of the article, notno way anti-semitic. My article draws conclusions that are backed by mainstream press reports (which I cite). My article attacks the Israeli government and its institutions and warns that (in my opinion) in the not too distant future the actions of the Israeli government may prove to be as much of a threat to the lives of Israeli Jews as they are now to the lives of Palestinians and Arabs in the Middle East. Clearly this is not anti-semitic. the content of the site on which it appeared. The content of my article is in

Is anything that I say in my article actually wrong? Not in my opinion. However, if someone at Engage or Harry's Place, can point out the errors, I will be happy to accept them and make the necessary corrections/retractions. But I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, because such people are not interested in reasoned argument backed up with objective facts. Writers at Harry's place continue to claim that my article is "racist diatribe" and that "Jews were the target", despite the fact that the word "Jew" or "Jews" or "Jewish" do not appear in the article. My article is clearly directed at the Israeli government and its institutions, yet the anti-boycotters are determined to convince everyone, me included, that I, and anyone who agrees with my points, are attacking the Jews! Well, I'm sorry but I'm not buying it, because it is unmitigated nonsense. I don't care how much they try to convince me that I hate Jews, I will always reject such a charge. Why would I hate people I don't even know? Why would I hate people I DO know and love? I have several close friends of Jewish background, people I consider brothers and sisters. Are the anti-boycotters saying that the fact that I wrote an article that was critical of the Israeli government, means that I now hate my close friends?!

Jenna Delich is clearly not a racist, she is moved by the plight of oppressed people everywhere. This much is clear from her messages to the UCU list and support for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The anti-boycotters and Israel-firsters at sites like Harry's place are undoubtedly aware of this yet they choose to slander and defame Delich, casting her as a racist and "Neo-Nazi". They posted her picture on the Harry's place website and started a blog called the Jenna Delich archives at jennadelich.blogspot.com, which they state is:

"a repository of posts concerning the Sheffield-based UCU member who posts links to articles on the website of neo-Nazi and former Ku Klux Klan member, David Duke"

One mistake, one unintentional posting of a link to Duke's site, and Delich is now apparently someone who "posts links to articles on the website of neo-Nazi and former Ku Klux Klan member, David Duke." How's that for a smear job on an innocent woman? Do these seem like the actions of people who are interested in open and honest discourse on the plight of the Palestinian and Israeli people? Or are they the actions of people who, having no reasonable argument to put forth, resort to ad-homimen attacks and the blunt force instrument that is the cry of "anti-semitism". In doing so, are these people not in fact working against the expressed desire of the Israeli people for peace with their Palestinian and Arab neighbors? In thwarting the efforts to pressure the Israeli government to fulfill the wishes of the Israeli people for a peaceful settlement (which is being forestalled by continued Israeli oppression of Palestinians), how can these people claim to be defending Jewish interests? Clearly they are not, but they are certainly defending the interests of the corrupt Israeli government, in precisely the same way that the pro-war rantings of right-wing American 'patriots' defend only the interests of the corrupt Bush government and their lackeys.

If I criticize the US government (which I do, often) does that mean that I hate the American people? If I criticize the Irish government (which I do, often), does that mean that I hate the Irish people? Do I hate myself? Am I a 'self-hating Irishman'? Am I permitted to deny any association with, or that I am influenced by the real anti-semitism of the Nazi era on the basis that I was born many years later in a country many miles away with no exposure to anti-Jewish sentiment? If so, can I then claim immunity from the threat of being made guilty of anti-semitism by virtue of non-Jewishness and expect that my criticism of the Israeli government will be understood as just that - criticism is of the Israeli government - and not hatred of the disenfranchised Jewish people? Is it possible for a person to criticize or otherwise democratically agitate for the removal of a government without also wishing the demise of an entire population?

Is it possible that the vast majority of critics of the Israeli government are motivated by a sense of empathy with the suffering of the Palestinians, and outrage at the Israeli government as the source of that suffering, rather than a bizarre and unrelated hatred of Jews? And is it possible that those who refuse to accept this contention and instead condemn government critics as "anti-semites" do so because they themselves simply do not, or cannot feel such empathy for the oppressed? Is the problem here that we are essentially talking different 'languages'? If this is the case, and my own experience suggests that it is, then perhaps we should recognise it and 'draw the line'. Let the anti-boycott and pro-Israel camp continue to prevaricate and excuse the abuse of the innocent, and let the rest of continue to fight for justice.

Of course, that fight for justice will not be easy, mainly because of the biased nature of the mainstream media. Did I just say that?? Yes I did, in fact, I already said it my infamous article:

"Yet the Israeli government does a very good job of convincing the whole world that it is the victim in the conflict. How can this be? Israeli control of the press? Could that ubiquitous "conspiracy theory" actually be closer to a conspiracy fact? I don't really care, all I want is for someone to explain to me how, in a situation where there is massive evidence that 1.4 million completely isolated Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip are being systematically murdered and starved by the state of Israel with its shiny 21st century military and all the tax dollars and support America can muster, somehow the entire world believes that those 1.4 million dispossessed are "evil terrorists" and "only have themselves to blame".

Somebody, please tell me how it comes to pass, if not by control of the mainstream press, and very significant control at that."

Now, are the above comments anti-Semitic? If they are backed up by mainstream sources that show a clear bias towards Israel in the mainstream press, are they still anti-Semitic? If a meticulously researched scholarly paper by two eminent U.S. professors provides ample evidence for the existence of a very powerful Israel lobby in the US and in other nations, is it anti-Semitic to infer that said lobby could exert control over mainstream press corporations that report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that said lobby could have some connection to the Israeli government?

Can someone please explain to me how, if I draw this conclusion, it is evidence that I 'hate Jews because they are Jews'. How does making logical and reasonable deductions from verifiable facts make me anti-semitic? Or perhaps I am anti-semitic because I am challenging the logic of those supporters of Israel that want to label me anti-semitic?

Since we are on the topic of the mainstream press, I should note that the fracas over Jenna Delich's posting of a link to my article was picked up by the Jerusalem Post:

UK union posts link to anti-Semitic article

August 26 2008
Jonny Paul, London

A member of the British academic union that voted to reintroduce a boycott of Israeli academia has posted a link on the union's Web site to an anti-Semitic article on the Web site of former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Jenna Delich, a member of the University and College Union, posted a message on the UCU Web site's activist list with a link to the article.

Delich's message was in support of a colleague who backs the boycott call. It reads: "John, in support to your link this may be a long but also an interesting reading: www.davidduke.com/general/humanitarian-disaster-595.html. No comment necessary. The facts are speaking for themselves, Jenna."

Note the title of the piece. Mr. Paul is apparently in agreement with the anti-boycott camp in the UK that critcism of the Israeli government in order to pressure it to end the human rights abuses in Palestine is "anti-Semitic".

The article, "Racism, not Defense, at the Heart of Israeli Politics," is an attack on the "Israeli oligarchs" and was circulated to hundreds of the union's active members. It was written by a 9/11 conspiracy theorist named Joe Quinn.

"9/11 conspriacy theorist"? Well, ok, I can accept that. I am of the opinion that the 9/11 attacks involved a group of people conspiring together.

In the article he writes: "There is much evidence to warrant an in-depth investigation of the role played by agents of Israel in the 9/11 attacks. Yet the ubiquitous, tiresome and completely baseless threat of being labelled "anti-Semitic," for criticizing the actions of the Israeli government effectively prevents all but the most courageous from following the leads. Coincidence? We think not...

I am not entirely certain whether Mr. Paul quoted this paragraph because he agrees with me that to label those who criticise the Israeli government as "anti-Semitic" is a baseless accusation, or if he thinks this paragraph is evidence of my alleged hatred of Jews.

"Just what level of power do Israeli interests wield in the halls of power in the US that any investigation into Israeli spying activities on US soil against US intelligence agencies can be so completely quashed? Would this constitute a level of power and control that would allow those interests to carry off a terrorist attack like 9/11 and have it blamed on 'Arab terrorists?'"

Again, I am not sure why Mr Paul chose this paragraph. Maybe he thinks I have a point. Maybe he read Walt and Mearsheimer's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, or maybe he read the Washington Post article of September 10th 2001 entitled, U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study, and where it is stated:

Located at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the School for Advanced Military Studies is both a training ground and a think tank for some of the Army's brightest officers. Officials say the Army chief of staff, and sometimes the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ask SAMS to develop contingency plans for future military operations. During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, SAMS personnel helped plan the coalition ground attack that avoided a strike up the middle of Iraqi positions and instead executed a "left hook" that routed the enemy in 100 hours.

The cover page for the recent SAMS project said it was done for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But Maj. Chris Garver, a Fort Leavenworth spokesman, said the study was not requested by Washington.

"This was just an academic exercise," said Maj. Garver. "They were trying to take a current situation and get some training out of it."

The exercise was done by 60 officers dubbed "Jedi Knights," as all second-year SAMS students are nicknamed.

The SAMS paper attempts to predict events in the first year of a peace-enforcement operation, and sees possible dangers for U.S. troops from both sides.

It calls Israel's armed forces a "500-pound gorilla in Israel. Well armed and trained. Operates in both Gaza [and the West Bank]. Known to disregard international law to accomplish mission. Very unlikely to fire on American forces. Fratricide a concern especially in air space management."

Of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS officers say: "Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act."

Of course, if Mr Paul is aware of this report by the elite of US military intelligence, I hope that he would agree with me that the Mossad is an Israeli government institution, and any criticism of it does not imply a concomitant hatred of Jewish people.

Quinn links to the Web site of convicted Holocaust-denier David Irving saying: "On the morning of 9/11 and just as the WTC towers were crumbling, the five Israelis were caught doing the 'happy dance' as they videotaped the Twin Towers fall." The piece closes with the claim: "Either someone does something about these sick psychopaths, or they, and their kind in Washington and around the world, will destroy us all."

Now here is where Mr. Paul snuggles up close to the defamers at Engage and Harry's Place and at the same time engages in some real sloppy journalism. All Mr. Paul had to do was click on the link on Duke's website to see that there is not and never has been a link to Duke's website on my original Sott.net article (or anywhere else on Sott.net). It should not have been difficult therefore for Mr. Paul to deduce that Duke reproduced my article rather than me "linking" to his site. Furthermore, if Mr. Paul had indulged in some responsible journalism he could easily have contacted me to verify whether or not I had given permission for the article to be posted by Duke or if I even knew that he had done so (I did not). So for some reason, I am not shocked that the Jerusalem Post went for the easy option of a poorly researched hit piece that supports the dubious claim that anti-semitism is on the rise in British academia.

Paul continues:

The link was discovered by Engage, a group of left-wing trade unionists and academics active in the anti-boycott campaign.

Now, the idea that Engage is "left-wing" has me perplexed. I thought that left-wingers were traditionally anti-war, bleeding heart liberal, humanitarian types. Engage was established to opposed the boycott which puts it firmly in the pro-Israeli government camp, with all that entails. Unless of course by "left-wing" Engage means Tony Blair's 'New Labour' type of 'left-wingism', in which case I fully understand, but I'm going to have to redefine my political 'isms.

Dr. David Hirsh, lecturer at University of London's Goldsmiths College and editor of the Engage Web site, said: "Since 2003 academic unions have been dominated by a campaign to exclude Israelis, and nobody else, from UK campuses. We have warned the [UCU] general-secretary on numerous occasions that this campaign has imported anti-Semitic ways of thinking into our union, she either didn't understand or didn't care. That the union is now circulating racist material should be understood as a manifestation of its institutional anti-Semitism; it cannot be written off as yet another random accident."

It is again unsurprising that Mr. Paul chose to quote from the Engage web site and its owner (I presume) David Hirsh. It was Hirsh who first revealed Ms. Delich's message and kicked off the sweeping generalisations that "the UCU is circulating links to David Duke's website on behalf of Delich."

Hirsh said Delich's e-mails on the activist list had already been the subject of two formal complaints to the union. However, the UCU judged that the evidence was unpersuasive.

And why might the UCU have judged that the evidence was unpersuasive? Could it possibly be that the evidence for Ms. Delich's racism or anti-Semitism was unpersuasive?

Dr. Jon Pike, a member of the UCU national executive but speaking in a personal capacity, said: "I'm not surprised that anti-Semitic material has again dropped into my inbox from the union activists' list. What is shocking is the failure of the union's internal procedures to do anything about this. UCU prides itself on being an anti-racist union. In fact, it is probably the most complacent public institution in Britain in relation to increasing anti-Semitism and the leadership turns a blind eye, or worse, to the racism in the union. Behind all this is the campaign of discrimination against Israeli academics which is fostered by some in the union and encouraged by the leadership."

Eve Garrard, senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Keele University in Staffordshire, said: "This is precisely the kind of thing which drove me recently to resign from the UCU. It has become a union which is complacent about anti-Semitism: It regards prejudicial hostility toward Jews, from within the union itself, as something too unimportant for it to bother with. I didn't feel able to remain in an institution which treats anti-Semitism indulgently, as a special exception to a generally anti-racist stance."

Below is one email that Ms. Delich posted to the activist list in April this year. (emphasis mine):

Like quite a lot of others I feel tired from getting bulks of messages on an hourly basis with this endless discussion going on, and have very rarely felt the need to say something. However, I now feel that I might add a few words.

First, I find the whole talk about anti-semitism as an attempt to shift the focus from attacking the IDEA of Zionism and the Israeli politics inspired by it, and subsequent terror it has brought on the Palestinian people. Not all people (in this case Jews) buy into one and the same idea (as we know, it wasn't even the case in WWII). Therefore, I don't [think] we could comfortably say that Zionism=Judaism, and therefore, all Jews are Zionists. We know that it isn't either true or correct. So, I can't see how attacking an idea may equate to attacking an entire nation or one people. I personally would strongly oppose if a member of my people spoke on my behalf trying to represent me if I did not agree with him. Nobody could have a carte blanche to speak in the name and on behalf of the entire nation. Thus, I don't think that we can box all Jewish people in a package labelled Zionism, and therefore consider one's opposition to the idea of Zionism as an attack on the 'entire package'.

So, why not try to focus on the real essence of the entire discussion:

Zionism and the official politics of Israel, and its effects on innocent Palestinian civilians who have been denied the basic human rights as a result of such a politics?

As to the boycott, I simply see the point of the boycott and similar actions as a way of political pressure to try and change the official politics of one government. We are all familiar with sanctions and even bombing of parts of the world (e.g. Libya, Iraq) that were endorsed by the International community in order to remove oppressive regimes and a certain politics that had far more severe/devastating effects on the entire civilian population of those countries (children, women, elderly etc.) than a boycott would have on Israel.

But how do you change one politics if you do not put pressure on the people of that country to make them stand against their government? And are you (or anybody in their right mind) prepared to support building a College on settlements that were once legally the Palestinian land? Would you allow anyone to come and build a shed in your garden, driving you out of there (although it would be only a very tiny piece of land), and them pride myself in having the most beautiful shed in the neighbourhood expecting others to admire its beauty, and praise and applaud the perpetrator? And what would you think of those neighbours who would dare applaud someone invading you garden?

As to the bullying, I could never see a political discussion to be deemed as bullying. However, for those who claim this to have been so it would be interesting to invite them to state the exact quotes that they find to constitute bullying. I always believe that claims have to be substantiated by hard facts (what, where, when,and who).

Regards
JENNA DELICH

You can read a few more of the "racist" emails from Ms. Delich at this link (search for 'JENNA'). In all of them she comes across as a reasonable person who is motivated by the suffering of innocent people and anger at the Israeli government for meting it out. So where is the anti-semitism? Mr Hirsh explains:

"Anti-Semitism is routinely tolerated on the activist list when it is expressed in the language of hostility to Israel," Hirsh said. "Only a small group of Jews and anti-racists have been standing up against this culture on the list. Some have been excluded from the list on trumped up charges; others have been driven off the list by continual accusations of bad faith. Some have left the union because they cannot bear to pay their dues to what they consider to be an anti-Semitic organization."

So anti-semitism is "hostility to Israel". To be more specific, in the context of the debate within the UCU, for Mr Hirsh and the rest of the anti-boycott camp, "anti-semitism" is hostility to the Israeli government and it's policies towards Palestinians. This definition however diverges sharply from the working definition of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights which states:

"...criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-semitic."

The International Court of justice ruled in 2004 that the 'separation fence' is illegal, should be dismantled, and Palestinians should be compensated for damages. The Israeli government ignored the ruling and continued to build the wall, so the Israeli government is today in clear violation of international law and as a result is causing suffering to millions of people.

Would any other nation be criticized for similar flagrant disregard for international law and human rights? More importantly, has any other nation been criticized for similar flagrant disregard for international law and human rights? The answer is an emphatic 'yes'. Can we therefore criticize the Israeli government and bring pressure to bear on it by way of boycotts without being labeled anti-Semitic? The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and therefore EU law says that we can. As such, for all those who abhor the Israeli government's continuing brutal treatment of defenseless Palestinians, understand that you are not only legally entitled to criticize the Israeli government, you are also morally bound to do so.

Comment: Update: Within a few hours of posting the link to the mailing list, Ms. Delich responded:

I didn't realise who David Duke was nor did I hear of him. I just looked at the article not the website where it appeared. Apologies for picking up that website as I personallly am strongly against any racists, anti-semitists and the likes of them. I just found the article quite powerful, and none are saying that Joe Quinn (the author of the article) is a racist or anti-semitist, and the article is quite interesting. So, perhaps we should focus on the article itself and not where it appeared (if we look at it in a broader sense, the website itself appeard on Google and so did the article)? Anyone can put anything on their website... Sincere apologies once again though for picking the wrong website, but it's the article that I found interesting as it gives some amazing facts and it was not written by David Duke (who, I most certainly agree, has no place in UCU but is the author of the website and not the article).

Mr Hirsh at Engage and all of the other "left-wing" anti-boycott, pro-Israeli government defamation artists were surely aware of Ms. Delich's response, yet they chose to pursue their opportunistic and scurrilous manipulation of Ms. Delich's simple mistake in their efforts to perpetuate the Israeli government's continued persecution of the Palestinian people.

By their fruits you shall know them.

Italian in US jail due to fascist laws

2008-05-18T17:08:00.002+02:00

This post is from Annoticoreport

Italian Refused Entry, Refused Exit, US Claims He Asked for Asylum, Kept in Custody and Incommunicado

This is Not merely Bureaucratic Tangle or Paperwork Errors. This is Not merely Incompetence. This is Outright "Bush" type LYING, Claiming that a person had asked for Asylum, when they had Not!!!!!! Am I a Lout to EVER Believe Anything my Government says. ??

This is BIZARRE . I can not do it Justice by trying to Summarize it. A Must Read !!!!!!!

Italian’s Detention Illustrates Dangers Foreign Visitors Face

The New York Times

By Nina Bernstein

May 14, 2008

He was a carefree Italian with a recent law degree from a Roman university. She was "a totally Virginia girl," as she puts it, raised across the road from George Washington’s home. Their romance, sparked by a 2006 meeting in a supermarket in Rome, soon brought the Italian, Domenico Salerno, on frequent visits to Alexandria, Va., where he was welcomed like a favorite son by the parents and neighbors of his girlfriend, Caitlin Cooper.

But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome, either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for asylum.

Ms. Cooper, 23, who had promised to show her boyfriend another side of her country on this visit " meaning Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon" eventually learned that he had been sent in shackles to a rural Virginia jail. And there he remained for more than 10 days, locked up without charges or legal recourse while Ms. Cooper, her parents and their well-connected neighbors tried everything to get him out...

“We have a lot of government people here and lobbyists and lawyers and very educated, very savvy Washingtonians," said Jim Cooper, Ms. Cooper’s father, a businessman, describing the reaction in his neighborhood, the Wessynton subdivision of Alexandria. "They were pretty shocked that the government could do this sort of thing,..."

...Angelica De Cima, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, said she could not discuss any individual case.....

While those turned away are generally sent home on the next flight, "there are occasional circumstances which require further detention to review their cases," Ms. De Cima said. And because such "arriving aliens" are not considered to be in the United States at all, even if they are in custody, they have none of the legal rights that even illegal immigrants can claim.

Government officials have acknowledged that intensified security since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has sometimes led to the heavy-handed treatment of foreigners caught in a bureaucratic tangle or paperwork errors. But despite encouraging officers to resolve such cases quickly, excesses continue to come to light....

In questioning Mr. Salerno, customs agents seemed to suspect that he intended to work here. Ms. Cooper, a copy editor for an educational publication, said she was in the airport lobby when an agent called to ask about Mr. Salerno’s income and why he visited so often.

The youngest son of a prosperous contractor in Calabria, Mr. Salerno helps out in his brother’s law firm in Rome and is able to visit the United States several times a year. Neighbors said he joined volunteers in refurbishing the Wessynton recreation center in 2006, then became one of its summer attractions, kicking a soccer ball with the kids and playing tennis with the adults.

“He just is a very open, fun and helpful guy," said Christopher M. Porter, a resident of Wessynton.

Ms. Cooper said that at the airport, when she begged to know what was happening to Mr. Salerno, an agent told her, "You know, he should try spending a little more time in his own country."

Another agent eventually told her to go home because Mr. Salerno was being detained as an asylum-seeker.

“The border patrol officer said to my face that Domenico said he would be killed if he went back to Italy," she recalled, voicing incredulity that, in his halting English, he could express such a thought. "Also, who on earth would ever seek asylum from Italy?"

Twelve hours later, when Mr. Salerno was granted a five-minute phone call, he called Ms. Cooper and denied saying anything of the kind. Instead, he said, the asylum story seemed to be retaliation for his insisting on speaking to his embassy.

After being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he was taken to the Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, Va., where he ended up in a barracks with 75 other men, including asylum-seekers who told him they had been waiting a year.

Ten days after he landed in Washington, Mr. Salerno was still incarcerated, despite efforts by Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, and two former immigration prosecutors hired by the Coopers.

“He’s just really scared," Ms. Cooper said in an interview last Thursday. "He asked me if Virginia has the death penalty."

Luis Paoli, a lawyer hired by the Coopers, said there was no limit on detention while waiting for an asylum interview. But even after officials agreed the asylum issue had been a mistake, Mr. Salerno was not released.

“Now an innocent European, who has never broken any laws, committed any crimes, or overstayed his visa, is being held in a county jail," Ms. Cooper wrote in an e-mail message to The New York Times last Wednesday, prompting a reporter’s inquiries.

Less than 24 hours later, immigration officials intervened and arranged to deliver Mr. Salerno to Dulles, where last Friday he flew to Rome. Ms. Cooper, who said she was now considering moving to Italy, was by his side.

Mr. Salerno was still shaken. "In America," he said, "there are so many good people and beautiful people that don’t deserve to be showing these terrible things to the world."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14visa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

La Crisi Alimentare Mondiale

2008-05-03T15:49:00.003+02:00

E' a dir poco spaventoso. In un mondo all'apice della tecnologia ora il rischio è quello di morire di fame, e a capolino sono giunte le nuove tecnologie per estrarre carburante da quel grano che dovrebbe sfamare il mondo.

Già si sentono da qualche tempo le prime avvisaglie, il prezzo del grano sta aumentando a dismisura. Il bello (atroce) è che non serve ad fico secco in termini ecologici produrre biodiesel. (Quello del cambiamento climatico è uno spauracchio che ci renderà, e ci sta rendendo, la vita impossibile, piegando ulteriormente la finta economia che ci fa arrivare a malapena a fine mese. Il libero mercato e la shock economy hanno fatto arricchire soltanto chi l'ha inventata assieme a quel manipolo di boiardi di stato che l'hanno presa sottobraccio, o sotto un mirato ricatto della Banca Mondiale e di quell'incubo chiamato FMI - Fondo Mondiale Internazionale.

L'economia americana ha fatto più morti di quelli che è riuscita a tenere in vita a suon di promesse mai realizzate, in soldoni un altro modo di fare la guerra senza esser visti. Il problema alla radice sono quel manipolo di psicopatici a cui vengono affidate le redini del sistema, nessuno di queste personcine potrà mai fare alcuna scelte per il bene comune della loro nazione o per quella di altri a cui impongono il loro sistema, semplicemente perché non hanno una coscienza! Profitto a tutti i costi.

da ComeDonChisciotte

Gran parte degli americani considera l'alimentazione come un aspetto sicuramente garantito. Anche le famiglie statunitensi appartenenti alle fasce più disagiate spendono ben il 16 per centro del loro budget per l'alimentazione. In molte altre nazioni è tutto molto meno garantito. Le famiglie Nigeriane spendono il 73% dei loro introiti per mangiare, i Vietnamiti il 65%, gli Indonesiani la metà.

Lo scorso anno il costo dell'importazione nei paesi in via di sviluppo è aumentato del 25% e il prezzo del cibo ha raggiunto i livelli più alti degli ultimi 25 anni. Il costo del grano è raddoppiato negli ultimi due anni: si tratta del prezzo più elevato degli ultimi 28 anni. Gli aumenti provocano agitazioni e malcontento da Haiti all'Egitto. Molti paesi hanno imposto il controllo dei prezzi sul cibo o delle tasse sulle esportazioni agricole.

La scorsa settimana il presidente della banca mondiale, Robert Zoellick ha avvertito che 33 nazioni sono a rischio di crisi sociale per l'aumento dei prezzi: “Per i paesi in cui l'alimentazione occupa dal 50 al 75% della spesa non c'è possibilità di sopravvivenza”.

Nonostante tutto sembra che i costi non tendano a scendere minimamente. L'organizzazione mondiale del cibo e dell'agricoltura (FAO) sostiene che la produzione di cereali quest'anno sarà la più bassa dal 1982.

Serve che gli Stati Uniti e gli altri paesi sviluppati si assumano le loro responsabilità. La crescita vertiginosa dei prezzi è parzialmente dovuta a forze incontrollabili – incluso l'aumento del costo dell'energia e la crescita della classe media in Cina e India. Questo ha aumentato la domanda di proteine animali, che richiedono una grande quantità di grano.

Ma il mondo sviluppato sta aggravando la situazione supportando la produzione di biocarburante. Il Fondo Monetario Internazionale (FMI) stima che la produzione di bioetanolo negli Stati Uniti equivalga quasi al 50% della domanda di grano mondiale di tutti i paesi negli ultimi 3 anni. Questo alza ulteriormente il costo del grano, aumenta i prezzi dell'alimentazione e così anche i prezzi delle altre coltivazioni – principalmente dei semi di soia - dato che i produttori cambiano i loro campi in grano, d'accordo con il dipartimento dell'agricoltura.

Washington fornisce un sussidio di 51 centesimi a gallone di etanolo lavorato e propone una tariffa di 54 centesimi a gallone nell'importo. Nell'unione europea la maggior parte delle nazioni sgravano il biocarburante da alcune tasse del gas e propongono una tariffa media, equivalente a più di 70 centesimi a gallone di etanolo importato. Ci sono molte ragioni per mettere fine a questi interventi. Nella ipotesi migliore il bioetanolo fornisce solo una piccola riduzione di gas serra molto rispetto all'uso della benzina. E potrebbe far peggiorare la situazione se portasse a più terreni coltivati al posto di foreste e praterie. L'aumento dei prezzi è il campanello di allarme per aprire un'urgente discussione che miri a portare i supporti all'etanolo pari a zero.

A lungo termine, la produttività agricola dovrà aumentare nel mondo in via di sviluppo. Mr. Zoellick suggerisce che i paesi ricchi possano aiutare a finanziare una “rivoluzione verde” per aumentare la produttività e far crescere i raccolti di grano in Africa. Ma l'aumento dei prezzi del cibo richiede alle nazioni sviluppate di provvedere più immediatamente all'assistenza. Lo scorso mese il programma dell'alimentazione mondiale (WFP) ha detto che l'aumento del grano crea un buco di più di $500 milioni nel suo budget per aiutare milioni di vittime della fame in tutto il mondo. Le nazioni industrializzate non sono molto generose, sfortunatamente. Gli aiuti d'oltreoceano delle nazioni ricche sono diminuiti l'anno scorso del 8,4% dal 2006. Le nazioni sviluppate avrebbero dovuto incrementare i loro budget del 35% negli ultimi 3 anni, almeno per rispettare gli impegni che avevano preso nel 2005.

Questo obiettivo non va abbandonato. La continua crescita della classe media in Cina ed in India, la spinta per carburanti rinnovabili e i danni anticipati alla produzione agricola causata dal riscaldamento globale comportano che i prezzi del cibo siano ovviamente alti. Milioni di persone, principalmente nelle nazioni in via di sviluppo, potrebbero aver bisogno di aiuto per evitare la denutrizione. Purtroppo le politiche delle nazioni ricche di energia hanno aiutato a creare il problema. Adesso questi paesi dovrebbero aiutare a risolverlo.

Titolo originale: "The World Food Crisis"

Fonte:
Link
10.04.2008

Partitazzi

2008-04-17T23:30:00.001+02:00

Grande è la chiarezza sotto il sole. La situazione è di merda

DI TRUMAN BURBANK
Comedonchisciotte

Veltrusconi ha sconfitto il vero nemico, i partitini, in particolare è riuscito ad espellere la sinistra dal Parlamento. L'obiettivo principale, che era di levare ogni possibilità di scelta agli elettori, costretti a scegliere tra due partiti con lo stesso programma, è stato raggiunto. Il progetto di svuotamento della democrazia italiana procede a tappe forzate.

I partiti senza qualità

Al di là dei due partiti maggiori e dei loro alleati, ha vinto chi ha saputo indicare un nemico. Casini l'ha fatto, prendendosela con Veltrusconi, ed ha resisitito. Bertinotti non ha saputo indicare un nemico ed ha perso.

La strada è ora libera verso una legge elettorale che lasci due soli partiti. Ma forse non se ne farà nulla. Il veltrusconismo ha funzionato anche con questa legge elettorale, il porcellum di Calderoni, nonostante il tentativo di Mastella di ostacolare il progetto di bipartitismo.

Il programma

Il programma di governo conta poco, visto che era uguale per PD e PdL. Comunque i programmi servono sostanzialmente per abbindolare gli elettori in prossimità delle elezioni. Il prossimo nemico vero sono i giudici.

Gli ostacoli

Ma Veltrusconi avrebbe vinto in ogni caso. Occorre anche vedere dove le cose per lui non sono andate al meglio.
a) Berlusconi deve governare
b) senza godere dell'effetto fisarmonica in cui il centro sinistra risanava le finanze ed il centro destra poteva elargire evasione
c) senza più un nemico comunista
d) con la mina vagante di Bossi
e) con il rischio che qualche Bruto si stanchi di Cesare e lo accoltelli.

Sembra esserci un disagio di Berlusconi nel momento in cui la maggioranza di destra è solida, la governabilità è garantita ed egli è costretto a governare senza la scusa di un'emergenza su cui poter allestire un inciucio. Sicuramente questa possibilità di una vittoria netta era stata considerata, ma probabilmente non è la più gradita.

A ciò si somma il forte successo della Lega nord, che ripartirà con iniziative separatiste, anche prendendo spunto dal Kosovo. Va poi considerato che il deficit pubblico resta elevato e Berlusconi avrà scarse possibilità di manovra sulla finanza pubblica.

Nessuno ha più alibi

Berlusconi deve far finta di governare e Veltroni deve far finta di fare opposizione. In Parlamento lo spettacolo è assicurato. La sinistra ha ricevuto una batosta epocale. Non ha più rappresentanti in Parlamento, per la prima volta dopo il ventennio fascista.

Ma essa ora ha imparato che i "Porta a porta" televisivi non sono il suo campo di gioco. La sinistra deve ritornare nelle strade e nelle piazze e raccogliere la protesta. L'impresa è immane, il potere logora chi non lo ha, diceva un vecchio democristiano. Ma il coraggio della disperazione potrebbe portare qualche risultato. Si dovrà ripartire su base locale.

E' facile prevedere un aumento del conflitto sociale, con scioperi e manifestazioni di piazza. Qui si potrebbe vedere un ritorno della politica.

Truman Burbank
Fonte:www.comedonchisciotte.org
15.04.08

Liberi noi! Libertà di parola in pericolo

2008-03-28T23:42:00.004+01:00

Mmm... problemi grossi. Siamo già al secondo comunicato e i rischi sono alti, per tutti noi bloggers. Basta una goccia per far traboccare il vaso, basta l'ombra di una scusa per scatenare una guerra.

Auto-proclamato ‘Maestro Spirituale’ Minaccia la Libertà di Parola su Internet

Articolo tradotto da:
PRNewsChannel
Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:43 EDT

San Francisco, California - Nel mirino di un attacco lanciato da un auto-proclamato Maestro Spirituale che minaccia seriamente la libertà di parola su Internet, SOTT.net ha annunciato oggi che l' avvocato Walter Hansell e il consulente legale Stephen Kaus la sua difesa contro una società dell'Oregon che ha depositato una causa per diffamazione.
Hansell e Kaus sono partner nella Cooper, White & Cooper LLP, uno studio legale di San Francisco che ha difeso la libertà di parola e di comunicazione per decenni.

Quantum Future Group (QFG - California non-profit), SOTT.net, Laura Knight-Jadczyk, fondatore di SOTT.net e Quantum Future School, una libera confederazione internazionale di persone che si incontrano su Internet per discutere di molti argomenti, sono stati citati in un tribunale distrettuale degli Stati Uniti da Higher Balance Institute (HBI) con sede in Oregon, diretta dal proprietario Eric Pepin. Il traguardo del Pepin è alla ricerca di circa $ 4,5 milioni in danni per le opinioni che sono state riportate su di lui da parte di privati e HBI sul Web forum Signs Of The Times (SOTT.net). La discussione sul forum SOTT.net era basata su relazioni concernenti precedenti accuse a carico di Eric Pepin di molestie sessuali e abusie abusi su minori. Secondo le notizie, Pipino è stato assolto dopo una sensazionale testimonianza contro di lui.

"LA causa di HBI è un attacco frontale sulla libertà di parola, nonché al libero flusso globale di informazioni e di opinioni su Internet. Si tratta di un attacco a forza diretta alle discussione di sincere opinioni tra persone che condividono interessi comuni", ha detto Hansell.

Mentre il QFG non ha alcun interesse di proprietà sul sito Web SOTT.net, che si regge dietro al diritto di ogni persona ad esprimersi liberamente e apertamente, in particolare nell'interesse del diritto pubblico di essere a conoscenza di prodotti e servizi e di coloro che li promuovono.

"Quando un business commerciale di prodotti di meditazione guidata da un sedicente 'Maestro' fa causa a una società non-profit e un individuo in un tentativo di soffocare la sede di una comunità di persone che condividono notizie e opinioni pubbliche vitali, qualcosa non funziona. Fortunatamente le leggi degli Stati Uniti prevedono strumenti atti a respingere attacchi del genere: lo scudo della Costituzione ", ha detto la Knight-Jadczyk.

"Un attacco su un forum pubblico è un assalto su diritti di persone in tutto il mondo. Se non resistiamo noi, chi sarà disposto a farlo?", ha continuato.

SOTT.net chiede che tutti coloro con un interesse per la salvaguardia della libertà di espressione su Internet compiere uno sforzo per garantire che queste informazioni raggiungano il più ampio pubblico possibile. SOTT.net ha bisogno anche del vostro aiuto nel reperire i fondi necessari per difendere la libertà di parola, a nome di tutti.

Signs Of The Times:

SOTT.net è una via d'uscita di notizie e analisi alternative e indipendenti che cerca di puntare il faro su eventi significativi e tendenze che influenzano il mondo intero. SOTT.net aiuta a fare chiarezza su di un mare di confusione mediatica. Il sito è interamente finanziato da donazioni provenienti da individui e gruppi che cercano di sostenere il suo lavoro. Per ulteriori informazioni, visita SOTT.net

Quantum Future Group:

Quantum Future Group (QFG) sostiene le attività che riuniscono le persone a intraprendere e promuovere lo studio delle idee e la ricerca scientifica in tutti i campi scientifico e socio-culturali per portare avanti una più profonda comprensione sul nostro mondo e sul nostro ruolo all'interno di esso, senza riguardo a nazionalità o etnia. QFG mira ad aumentare la comprensione di tutta l'umanità per umanità, nel suo complesso, la sponsorizzando ricerche sotto ogni punto di vista per vedere come possano coincidere. QFG supporta una ricerca documentata che possa essere liberamente e ampiamente disponibile a tutta l'umanità. Per ulteriori informazioni visitare il Quantum Future Group.

Cooper, White & Cooper LLP:

Cooper, Cooper & White LLP, con sede a San Francisco, è da tempo difensore della libertà di espressione e di comunicazione. Per ulteriori informazioni, visita Cooper, Cooper & White.

9-11 e gli Attacchi Invisibili

2007-09-16T15:15:00.000+02:00

1) Le due torri collassano in caduta libera. Considerando un "effetto domino" i tempi di caduta non computano assolutamente, per questioni fisiche sulla conservazione del momento.

2) Anche ipotizzando che dell'esplosivo sia stato messo all'interno delle due torri per facilitare il collasso dell'enorme intelaiatura d'acciaio che le sorreggevano dall'interno, né i riscontri visivi né quelli sismici danno conferma della suddetta ipotesi.

3) Considerando la massa di acciao fumante che non ha smesso di ardere se non giorni e giorni dopo il crollo alla base delle torri stesse, considerando la dimensione delle particelle di polvere risultate dopo il collasso, le auto bruciate a quasi un miglio di raggio attorno a Ground Zero, le enormi travi d'acciaio che si polverizzano o che vengono fotografate tagliate di netto come burro, gli altri edifici del complesso del WTC che si sbriciolano come pane secco, il più che misterioso quanto improbabile collasso - sempre in caduta libera! - del palazzo n.7 o WTC 7, considerando tutto questo insomma:

Aprite finalmente gli occhi se ancora non l'avete già fatto! Non è mai troppo tardi.

9-11 Anniversary Propaganda Special! WTC Demolition theory challenged by Cambridge University engineer

Chi è Don J.J. Hurtak?

2006-04-12T23:42:00.000+02:00

Le Chiavi di Enoch (Keys of Enoch), Il Cosiglio dei Nove (The Council of Nine), CIA, poteri psichici, disinformazione per coprire progetti di manipolazione mentale.

Invenzioni da far passare per realtà per gioco, o realtà da far apparire come ridicole invenzioni?

Il perché certa gente si dedica a mirati funambolismi da capogiro, invece di far soldi con semplici libri di fantascienza.

ANTI-COINTELPRO (blog)

http://anti-cointelpro.blogspot.com/

Sul penultimo Papa

2005-04-13T00:04:00.000+02:00

Mi sembra di essere appena uscito da una "bolla di realtà", una settimana di bombardamento mediatico, un vero 'De Labore Solis', luce paralizzante che fuoriesce sparata direttamente da un tubo catodico.

Resisto per default dall'inoltrare il sospetto SMS per non buttare via soldi inutilmente ed arricchire una compagnia telefonica che ne ha fin troppi, ed altrettanti ne butta via accumulando debito - che poi finiamo di pagare noi.

Non resisto nell'essere portato a credere che "parlare di pace" equivalga a "portare la pace". Tra il dire e il fare...

Non sta proprio in piedi. Sulla sanguinosa e malatamente preventiva e prefabbricata guerra in Iraq (senza contare le altre, in questi 27 lunghi anni), si dovevano spendere fiumi di parole e non inutili e sporadici interventi. Andavano ribaltate le testate dei giornali, articoli infuocati, prese di posizione nette e decise e insulti a non finire.

Nessuno ha più occhi per vedere, ma solo per tirare a campare il più possibile.

Ipocrisia. Tanta.

E' tutto e solo una questione di politica e di interessi. Chi non rispetta le 'relazioni internazionali' viene eliminato, e non è di morte naturale, anche se a volte può apparire come tale.

Di certo siamo di fronte a tempi marcati col fuoco.
Un'immensa Ara sacrificale. L'Ara dei fatti non colti.
Ci stanno vendendo - chi non è attento diventa cibo per ignoti.

Papa e Pace

2005-04-03T15:33:00.000+02:00

Mi è appena arrivato un SMS in cui si legge :

"Questo sms parte da Roma, qst notte lasciate la luce accesa nei balconi come segno d'amore per il nostro PAPA morto. Manda questo sms a + persone non fermarlo"

La luce del mio balcone rimane spesso accesa comunque, forse perché di morti ne abbiamo a bizzeffe in questo frangente di una sofferta era, basta dare uno sguardo ad Oriente. E purtroppo là in pochi hanno ancora il privilegio di lasciare il mondo, spirando quando davvero si è fatta l'ora.

Penso che una cosa ben più importante e significativa si possa fare puntualizzando il fatto che questo nostro Papa ci ha mandato chiari e diplomatici messaggi, sulla sua volontà di intendere la pace, sempre, soprattutto per mezzo della memoria di quello che milioni di individui hanno sofferto durante il più recente conflitto mondiale. E la memoria storica si sta cancellando inesorabilmente proprio sotto i nostri occhi annoiati.

In un mondo dove non si fa alcuno sforzo per prevenire una guerra, ma al contrario la si scatena preventivamente in nome di una "democrazia", termine che da tempo, e non solo dopo la guerra in Iraq, non ha più alcun significato, visto che dipende solo ed esclusivamente dalla bocca che lo pronuncia, e lo USA solo a fini personali, nella più totale e universale alienazione e distruzione della realtà, dell'oggettività, del buon senso e di quei fondamenti - invisibili a molti - che distinguono l'Uomo dalla Macchina, chi ha occhi per vedere ed orecchie per sentire da chi semplicemente riceve passivamente e reagisce automaticamente, perché tra l'organo ricevente e quello motorio non c'è nient'altro che un vuoto di non-essere.

Poi mi vado a leggere qualcosa...

Incontro B+C, ovverosia C+B = 0-

2005-03-18T00:55:00.001+01:00

Arriva il giorno in cui, preso alla sprovvista da intense chiaccherate sull'importanza di tirar su una "fortuna", e sempre più incline a pensare che per me era veramente troppo da gestire, notai la presenza di una sottile connessione tra i progetti di C. e le mire di B.; e così organizzai l'incontro.

Passiamo sotto casa di C., e lui sale in macchina.

Ma, puzza come un barbone! Me ne accorgo solo ora, nello spazio ristretto della vettura sportiva di B. Il mio amico mi farà notare la stessa cosa il giorno dopo, dopo il reportage. Poverino - penso - una sì vulcanica persona ridotta in quello stato, bisogna proprio fare qualcosa, per lui.

Si parla di business per tutta la serata. Anzi, loro parlano di business per tutta la serata. Ascolto, poi li lascio interloquire per il resto della nottata. Mi era venuto un gran sonno all'improvviso, chissà come mai(?), e poi il mattino seguente io lavoravo, loro invece potevano scegliere.

Nicotina problema del secolo

2005-03-09T23:55:00.000+01:00

Oggi voglio parlare un po' del fumare, e del ruolo della nicotina.

La presente campagna antifumo, su scala mondiale, è quantomai singolare, anche se già accoppiata con un nefasto antecedente. La più grande campagna anti-fumo venne fatta da Hitler: sotto il regime nazista il fumatore era visto come persona non grata al volere del potere.

Ma non è curioso?

La nicotina è praticamente la copia carbone di un neurotrasmettitore di massima importanza, l'Acetilcolina. Gli nAChR sono chiamati recettori nicotinici, e agiscono nel cervello e nel corpo come interruttori molecolari, che connettono circuiti cellulari nervosi coinvolti in funzioni essenziali, dalla vista alla memoria, dal controllo del battito cardiaco al movimento dei muscoli in generale.

La nicotina è stata più volte citata in molte ricerche di neurochimica, come possibile cura contro il morbo di Alzheimer e di Parkinson.

Mi viene un sospetto. Come la domanda che sorge spontanea quando si associa forzatamente il fumare alla mera sigaretta, e il tabacco a una miscela di agenti chimici nocivi alla salute, e addizionati a dovere. Ma allora mi chiedo: è tabacco quello che si trova all'interno della comune sigaretta, o è semplicemente un blando surrogato di quest'ultimo?

Quanto incide l'effetto placebo in tutte queste statistiche?

Il "vero" tabacco contiene anch'esso questa miscela letale di additivi? La stessa aria che respiriamo oggi in città e vicino a qualsiasi complesso industriale, è o non è altrettanto nociva per noi tutti, e come facciamo realmente a sapere quali siano le reali cause scatenanti del temibile "cancro al polmone", quando in giro c'è gente che ha fumato dai 15 ai 91 anni, e ci ha lasciato con polmoni funzionanti e una gola ancora elastica?

C'è tanta confusione. Come nella testa di chi continua a dar retta alle salvifiche pubblicità gettate in pasto al grande pubblico, persona da accudire e da curare. Quanto ci vogliono bene, così all'improvviso.

Comunque, fuma solo se ti senti di fumare, potresti non esserci tagliato affatto; dove il non esserci tagliato affatto ha un duplice significato.

Continua l'avventura

2005-03-07T00:00:00.000+01:00

Inizia la sessione di fondamenti pratici di informatica.

C. arriva alla base con il suo assistente, o presunto tale, carico di scatoloni con PC, schede madri, video, monitors e tutto quanto serve per dare il via ad una nuova stagione di assemblaggi.
C'è anche il mio nuovo HD da 80Gb, dice che è una nuova versione a 8500 rpm; non mi risulta che niente del genere sia mai stato messo sul mercato, a parte i veloci SCSI, che però di solito vanno a 10000 giri...forse non sono stato attento alle ultime novità, replico che è un vero spasso.

Gli assemblaggi procedono un po' a rilento. A volte vengono riciclati dei pezzi vecchi, così da far uscire qualche PC in più. Ho qualche problema, soprattutto con le viti da usare, ce ne sono di 3 tipi diversi e a volte si rischia di incastrare un componente al case, vitanaturaldurante!

Volano caffè e sigarette ad un ritmo un po' troppo serrato, l'intossicazione aiuta solamente a tenere alto il ritmo di ogni sessione di assemblaggio. Maneggiando vecchi banchi di memoria senza le dovute precauzioni può essere pericoloso, si rischiano degli stalli apparentemente irrisolvibili le cui cause si perdono nel groviglio di ferramenta delle prime fasi del lavoro. Terribile la perdita di tempo generata.

Tra un intervallo e un altro, e tra un'installazione software e la successiva, ci si scambiano suggerimenti e pettegolezzi di ogni genere, dai cavi al bios, da chi abita dove a chi fa quanto. C. parla orgoglioso del suo passato da tuttofare, pieno di "se avessi" per giustificare il suo attuale stato di squattrinato. "Ai bei tempi mi ero abituato ad uscire di casa con almeno 500mila in tasca in contanti..." e via dicendo, gli affari vanno e vengono, si sa, e una buona occasione è sempre dietro l'angolo.

C. sembra tenerci molto alla sua immagine, penso che sia normale, visto che se una persona ha fatto tanto nella vita, per poi ad un tratto ritrovarsi a lavorare solo per "riparare", un minimo di orgoglio ci può star bene insomma, soprattutto verso una persona con cui si parla e lavora bene insieme e conosciuta solo da pochi giorni.

Le sue dimostrazioni consistevano nel rispolverare vecchie foto, nonché documenti attestanti attestati, vendite, compravendite e chi più ne ha più ne metta, dove la sua stessa figura, le sue doti di affarista e imprenditore di se stesso risaltavano in tutto il loro splendore.

Appariva sempre più chiaro, come C. teneva a sottolineare, che il meglio di sé, l'apice della sua espressione di finanza creativa, era avvenuta sempre al di fuori dei confini nazionali. Detto questo il tipo cominciò a piacermi sempre di più.

Da lì a poco cominciò a propormi i primi affari.

Il Codice Da Vinci

2005-02-27T00:11:00.000+01:00

Il libro di Dan Brown ha creato sostanzialmente due cose:

- Ha fatto passare un brivido sulla schiena a molti, soprattutto in Vaticano e all'Opus Dei, che vengono criticati duramente, compresi quelli che si sono schierati subito in loro difesa, come Mr. Introvigne.

- Ha contribuito ad aggiungere dati erronei e confusi, ammucchiandoli sopra scheletri e vacche sacre ammuffite, tutta roba vecchia e sepolta sotto un paio di millenni, e mai riportata alla luce - o più probabilmente, volutamente mai -.

Interessante questo articolo, con belle immagini, sul Codice Da Vinci (in Inglese).

Vedere il link: Da Vinci Code

[Estratto dal libro: The Secret Hystory of the World]

- La Giustizia (XVI secolo)

Commenti eletti e fondamentali 2

2005-02-25T15:30:00.000+01:00

Ogni volta che faccio un giro sul web per vedere cosa succede in giro per il mondo, rimango sempre più a bocca aperta, constatando che il "fondamentalismo" è in effetti una piaga dilagante.

In Oriente il fondamentalismo costringe uomini e donne ad usi e costumi che non fanno altro che sopprimere i valori - fondamentali - dell'individualità.

In Occidente il fondamentalismo sta riaffiorando di nuovo, dopo che sembrava essere stato sepolto con la fine del Medioevo - e oltre. Negli USA il fenomeno sembra alquanto preoccupante; nel Nuovo Mondo non ci fu il "Medioevo", ma forse questa follia da inquisizione è una dinamica che deve in qualche modo tornare a galla di tanto in tanto, sembra quasi essere un fenomeno temporale ciclico, da cui non ci si riesce a liberare.

La storia si ripete = il tempo è ciclico = viviamo in una sorta di prigione temporale, forse?

...simpatico link.

Insomma, Shlonkom Bakazay è il blog di "un iracheno-americano che si vergogna", e il suo reportage, dal Porter Memorial, parla da solo, è pieno di immagini.

Pensiero #123

2005-02-24T16:17:00.000+01:00

Escher - "I tre Mondi"

Per vedere meglio provare a considerare-dire-fare, portando tutto a debita cottura, i seguenti ingredienti:

Tre mondi

Due parole

Una scelta

Commenti eletti e fondamentali

2005-02-24T14:27:00.000+01:00

Mi è piaciuto il commento di Tommaso Merlo postato su censurati.it, dove la cosa più interessante non è tanto la critica a Buttiglione in sé per sé, quanto la puntualizzazione del fatto che chi è andato in guerra contro un fondamentalismo, è fondamentalista lui stesso:

"La vicenda Buttiglione, cattolico e legato alla chiesa, suggerisce però un interpretazione più ampia. Buttiglione, ingiustamente o meno, è stato considerato uno dei seguaci dell’onda bigotta ed estremista di cui Bush è il più illustre rappresentante. Quella politica che, sono parole di Bush, ha lanciato la guerra del bene contro il male, in una sorta di crociata d’altri tempi. E che vorrebbe fronteggiare il fondamentalismo islamico, con una neo integralismo cristiano."

Il libro di Eric Laurent, spiega bene i dettagli della questione. E non è soltanto e solo Bush il problema, tutta la Casa Bianca è assediata da cristiani fondamentalisti.

E poi c'è anche un inaspettato riferimento alla matriciana, che mi ha guidato via web all'articolo stesso:

"In Italia, si tratta dei soliti copioni alla matriciana, coloro che incapaci di produrre idee nostrane, coerenti con la propria identità, cercano di scimmiottare le follie dei neoconservatori americani. Un progetto politico deprimente. E questo, sia per il sempiterno complesso di inferiorità verso l’America, che li costringe a scopiazzare idee altrui in maniera casereccia e quindi patetica perché artificiale. Sia perché, in questo caso, i copioni alla matriciana cercano di seguire idee fallimentari e pericolose. Idee che oltre il pasticcio iracheno, stanno portando Bush al fallimento. Bush, sta rischiando di perdere le elezioni nel bel mezzo di una guerra."

Aimè, Bush ha vinto ancora, anche se nel 2004 tutto era stato già scritto e pilotato. Qualcuno ha votato ma di "Elezioni" neanche l'ombra.

C'è un certo "Santino in America" che ci racconta qualcosa in proposito, un tipo un po' strano che immortala eroi sovietici, ma che dipinge bene la situazione negli States.

E poi una lista di atroci perplessità a proposito delle elezioni USA 2004.

Parentesi pt . 5a

2005-02-19T19:06:00.000+01:00

Quando B. ricevette quelle intimidazioni, il mondo intorno a lui sembra essersi riempito di occhi invisibili che sbirciavano l'etere in ogni direzione, in ogni momento. Anche le telefonate sembravano diverse, c'era uno strano eco di fondo, che spesso creava un inquietante fruscìo.

Un giorno addirittura mi disse che mentre stava parlandomi al telefono, sentì una voce metallica che blaterargli all'orecchio frasi poco rassicuranti. Io dall'altra parte ero in grado di sentire solo quello strano rumore.

Di sicuro qui in Italia la pratica dell'intercettazione telefonica è cosa assai diffusa, come ci illumina l'articolo di oggi.

"E' stato registrato - dice la Tim, telefonia mobile - un continuo incremento di attivazioni di intercettazioni telefoniche", e quindi è stato raggiunto "il limite delle cinquemila linee intercettabili, limite massimo attualmente disponibile".

"Il numero delle intercettazioni - è in Italia enormemente superiore a quello degli altri paesi europei"

Hey! Siamo i primi in Europa!

Anzi, siamo enormemente in prima posizione...

Chissà in quegli anni quanti potevano essere i telefoni sotto sorveglianza, e chissà se l'allaccio veniva sempre praticato sotto l'egida di una sana caccia al crimine. Spero sempre che quello di B. fosse solo un caso isolato, o una paranoia, o...cos'altro?

Presente pt. 3a

2005-02-19T15:04:00.000+01:00

Concludo questo piccolo esercizio di consapevolezza esterna, sottolineando quanto l'amato-odiato www sia indispensabile per raccogliere quanta più realtà oggettiva possibile, e farne buon uso, magari. L'importante è perlomeno - sapere come gira il mondo.

Sentir suonare più di una campana prima di dire l'ultima è sempre stato un ottimo esercizio di consapevolezza. Su internet si ha la possibilità di leggere, seppur non completamente, tutti i giornali del mondo. A volte è richiesta la conoscenza di più lingue, e molto spesso basta saper leggere un po' d'inglese, visto che sempre più testate online vengono tradotte in questa lingua.

E fa piacere che a volte qualcuno si ricordi che esiste anche l'italiano!

Leggete ad esempio il sito di Al Jazira versione italiana. Uno spasso.
Non so quanto abbia a che fare con Al Jazeera.

Beppe Grillo dice che Al Jazeera è sponsorizzata da due grandi multinazionali americane, e che il satellite da cui trasmette è lo stesso che viene usato anche dalla CNN. In effetti è un network che ha base in Qatar, che è una sorta di base americana, come l'Italia del resto.

Val bene uno sguardo, comunque.

Presente pt. 2a

2005-02-19T14:17:00.000+01:00

Detto fatto. Ho parlato un po’ dell’Iran e Bush proprio oggi rincara la dose con un enigmatico, forse non più di tanto, “Mai dire mai”.

Si capisce meglio andando sul sito della CNN:

"Listen, first of all, you never want a president to say 'never.' But military action is certainly not -- it's never the president's first choice. Diplomacy is always the president's first -- at least my first choice."

"Ascoltate, prima di tutto, non vorrete mai far dire and un presidente 'mai'. Ma un’azione militare non è sicuramente – non è mai la prima scelta del presidente. La diplomazia è sempre la prerogativa prima del presidente – almeno è la mia prima scelta”.

Meno chiaro di così si muore. Appunto. Ma stiamo a vedere.

Presente

2005-02-18T23:44:00.000+01:00

Mentre scrivo di memorie passate non posso non gettare uno sguardo anche al presente, alle recenti notizie sui giornali, e alla disperata landa Medio Orientale.

La guerra in Iraq, come confermato dagli Stati Uniti stessi, è partita basandosi su informazioni fasulle.

Ma il fatto terribile è che, adesso che la matriciana fumante è bella che servita, quelli al governo continuano a girare il coltello nella piaga, e sembra proprio che l’arma gli sia “sfuggita di mano”, colpendo anche altri paesi ai fianchi dell’Iraq: Siria e Iran.Fanno fare a Condi Rice il giro d’Europa per raccogliere consensi e collaborare insieme, per riuscire nell’intento di radicare una democrazia che è costata la morte di 100.000 civili.

Si impegnano continuamente, e danno fiducia ad un ex boiardo planetario del calibro di John Negroponte, come descrive l’articolo di Dave Lindorff “La sanguinosa carriera di John Negroponte”.

Intanto in Libano viene ucciso Hariri, e la folla inneggia contro la Siria, già nel mirino americano; gli USA replicano che non è detto che la Siria sia implicata nell’attentato (poco ma sicuro…), ma intanto fanno notare che la Siria sta giocando sporco, appoggiando la resistenza irachena.

E poi: “L'Iran non è nella nostra agenda. Per ora” – dice Condoleezza– e il giorno dopo replica aggiungendo “Teheran e Pyongyang sanno bene che non possono avere arsenali di quel tipo, spero che arrivino presto a conclusioni ragionevoli”. Il ché, ricordando che già tre o quattro mesi fa i neocons avevano iniziato a parlare dell’Iran come un potenziale pericolo e tenendo a mente la lunga sequela di ‘botta e risposta’ tra USA e Iraq, mesi prima dell’inizio della guerra, non mi fa prospettare niente di buono.

Morte. Falso dialogo. E poi via! Giù le bombe. Preventivamente.

Se mai la ragione prevarrà dopo questi anni di crisi, la faccenda della “guerra preventiva” risuonerà nella testa degli increduli lettori di libri di storia, come l’ennesima macchia nera che grava sulle coscienze dell’umanità intera, laddove la guerra in Iraq, analizzata finalmente con la dovuta dose di oggettività e distacco ideologico, unico momento di barlume intellettuale per gli stolti capaci di vedere soltanto girando indietro lo sguardo, si aggiungerà alla lunga sequela di crimini all’umanità sponsorizzati dall’umanità stessa.

Seguono tutti il pifferaio magico.

Dal tabaccaio in procinto di fallire, ancora…

2005-02-14T23:20:00.000+01:00

Insomma, il PC arriva a destinazione, ci mette un po’ per caricare il S.O., ma una volta comparso il desktop fila tutto liscio, a parte il fine sessione, che richiede uno spegnimento manuale, dovuto al “motore” che gira più del dovuto.

Passano le settimane, poi mi rifaccio vivo dal tipo, perché mi serve qualche altro pezzo a buon mercato (davvero?).

Voglio un HD nuovo! Passare a Linux, installare più sistemi operativi in uno, e costringere in qualche modo questo amico alla mano, a darmi qualche lezione di assemblaggio hardware. Volevo in soldoni fare un po’ di esperienza, che diamine, muovermi un po’, ed avere la possibilità di fare un corso pratico senza sborsare soldi era veramente quella che per me più si avvicinava ad un’occasione d’oro. Coi fiocchi…

Il baffuto individuo annuisce e mi scruta con fare indefinibile, tutte le volte che sollevo questa mia urgenza. Dice che mi chiamerà al prossimo assemblaggio, ma per il momento non si fa altro che scambiare due parole, bere caffè su caffè, e fumare a ripetizione davanti al monitor, o ai monitors…e fortuna che qualcuno ha scoperto la nicotina, altrimenti il mio cervello sarebbe già bello che modellato da quella miriade di onde elettromagnetiche, che, da perfette indisciplinate, entrano sempre senza bussare.

E poi non parliamo di cellulari. Almeno per il momento, perché ne parleremo molto più in là, statene certi.

Stavo dicendo… bè, di caffè ce n’era in abbondanza, almeno nei primi tempi, visto che il tipo teneva un macchinetta del caffè espresso costantemente accesa nel suo salottino puzzolente, e di sigarette non ne mancavano, almeno, ripeto, in questo primo periodo di riscaldamento, visto che il negozietto di cui ho parlato qualche puntata fa, era in realtà un minuscolo sali e tabacchi, attività avviata da si tanto tempo, anche se con i giorni contati: bastava un minimo di comune senso pratico per cogliere che un’imminente catastrofe era vicina.

Era infatti il più sfornito dei tabacchi della zona (se le fumava tutte lui?), e un mondo senza tabacco che brucia è come una macchina col serbatoio pieno in sosta perenne.

Per la cronaca, scrivendo, passo dal presente al passato senza ritegno, e persevero.

Parentesi pt. 4a

2005-02-09T14:50:00.000+01:00

A ripensarci bene, il fatto così come mi era stato riportato risale a più di 8 anni fa, la frase che B. sentì dirsi in quella inusuale occasione, non suonava proprio: "falla finita o saremo costretti ad eliminarti".

Per prima cosa, il losco automobilista parlava in inglese. Inoltre il verbo usato per descrivere l'imminente presa di provvedimenti da parte dei famigerati "uomini in nero", nel caso che B. avesse continuato con testardaggine nella sua impresa, non era semplicimente la parola inglese che sta per "eliminare", quanto un più deciso ed efficace "erase", o "cancellare".

Faccio questa precisazione perché ho ritrovato di recente un articolo in cui viene descritta una situazione molto simile, facendoci apparentemente svalicare il confine dell'umana comprensione, entrando in un mondo assai nascosto.

Il passo interessante, scritto in una rivista specializzata da Richard Dolan, nel 2001, lo riporto qua sotto, assieme ad una veloce traduzione a seguire:

"He asked for my logs ...then he asked us both to sign a non-disclosure agreement saying this was classified information – we were not to release this to anybody, and that was it." – SAC Launch Controller.

"One older officer discussed with me what possibly could happen if there was a revelation. He was talking about being erased and I said, ‘Man, what do you mean erased?’ And he said, ‘Yes, you will be erased–disappear.’ ... Those threats have been made and carried out." – Army Brigadier General.

"And he told me, ‘If we just took you out in the jungle, they would never find you out there....if you tell anybody, you will just come up missing....We will do you and your whole goddamn family.’" – Marine.

Traduzione:

"Domandò dei miei appunti ...poi chiese ad entrambi di firmare un patto di non-divulgazione dicendo che si trattava di informazioni classificate - non dovevamo rilasciarlo a nessuno, e questo era quanto". - SAC Launch Controller.

"Un impiegato anziano discusse con me cosa sarebbe potuto accadere se una qualsiasi rivelazione fosse trapelata. Parlava di essere cancellato (erased) ed io dissi, 'Senti un po', ma cosa intendi per cancellato?' E lui replicò, 'Si, sarai cancellato-fatto scomparire'. - Brigadiere Generale dell'Esercito

"E mi disse, "se ti trasciniamo fuori in mezzo alla giungla, nessuno ti ritroverà mai più...se lo dici a qualcuno, ci sarà semplicemente una nuova persona scomparsa in più da cercare...lo faremo a te e a tutta la tua dannata famiglia". - Un Marines

2005-02-08T22:08:00.000+01:00

Pensiero negativo e colorato #007
matriciana

La fine del Mondo?

2005-02-05T00:43:00.000+01:00

E' una sensazione difficile da descrive, quanto facile è il modo di trovarne conferma nel mondo che ci circonda. Intendo dire che quando certe stranezze accadono, un forte senso di disperazione sembra avvolgermi in una stretta mortale, e se si cerca di distrarsi leggendo il giornale magari, ci si accorge che l'occhio si posa, come per un istinto turbato, su tutte quelle notizie che non augurano niente di buono, che sono sempre state lì, ogni giorno da un po' di tempo a questa parte succedono cose che fino a pochi anni prima sarebbero state considerate "fuori dal mondo", cioè tutta quella serie di notizie shock sul corrente stato del Mondo, che di solito non si notano perché troppo occupati a leggere di politica e di cultura...

Sembra in soldoni che stia arrivando la fine del Mondo.

Voglio dire, hai un amico che conosci da sempre che è stato appena avvicinato da misteriose forze di un potere occulto, gente senza scrupoli che ti "persuade" a fare quello che dicono loro...ti senti sorvegliato anche tu in qualche modo!!!

La mente lavora a mille in casi come questi, e non è solo paura quello di cui voglio parlare, ma è anche avere in un certo modo gli occhi puntati su quello che realmente succede nel mondo, che stranamente si svela nei momenti più impensati, era stranamente una visione più oggettiva della realtà quello che stavo sperimentando.

Sembrava proprio la fine del Mondo, come l'avevo sempre conosciuto.

Parentesi pt. 3a - l'Orlo...

2005-01-25T01:16:00.000+01:00

B. arriva "all'orlo della situazione".

Più che un orlo era un muro, ma anche un pozzo completamente inaspettato sul suo cammino, un pozzo di cui non si vedeva il fondo.

B. ricevette una strana mail. Minacce.

Strano. Ne parlò con un suo amico che vedeva quotidianamente, il quale si mostrava interessato ai suoi studi, senza però capirne a fondo il linguaggio. Il tutto infatti sembrava uscito da un film di fantascienza, o roba del genere, ma andiamo avanti...

B se ne stava andando a dare un esame, e a qualche metro dall'entrata della Facoltà, una macchina nera gli si affiancò.

B. pensò di fermarsi credendo che il guidatore della bella macchina, dopo aver esitato un po' in quell'incrocio trafficato, se la sarebbe sbrigata velocemente nel girare e ripartire.

Con sua sorpresa il finestrino del guidatore si abbassò, e il tipo, straniero, invece di chiedere informazioni su dove e come raggiungere una qualsivoglia destinazione, disse a grandi linee: "falla finita o saremo costretti ad eliminarti".

Che pasticcio! Da come erano vestiti sembravano proprio dei Men in Black, ma non i simpaticoni visti al cinema nell'omonima serie.

Parentesi pt. 2a

2005-01-25T01:04:00.000+01:00

Il quaderno degli appunti cresceva in spessore al passare del tempo e della penna sul foglio.

B. era quantomai preso dal suo cercare e ricercare, e l'impegno nell'applicazione portava con sé meraviglie inaspettate, idee trascritte che una volta rilette sembrava incredibile che fossero state concepite e scritte da lui stesso.

Diceva di essere sull'orlo di qualcosa di veramente interessante, e che gli si stava aprendo dinnanzi uno spiraglio che lo avrebbe portato a fondere assieme molte teorie, per trovarne una nuova che le avrebbe superate tutte.

In effetti la cosa che più si avvicinava a descrivere questo suo 'presentimento', era che effettivamente un punto di svolta era vicino.

Parentesi

2005-01-23T17:50:00.000+01:00

B. ha degli studi umanistici alle spalle che non lo hanno proprio soddisfatto, e così, al momento della grande scelta, ha optato per un ramo scientifico, i numeri saranno la sua prossima grande passione.

Studiare matematica teorica è dura, ma è quasi un divertimento per una mente affilata come quella di B., che ha la possibilità di cercare il punto dove numeri e letteratura si intersecano fino a fondersi, appagandolo di nuove risposte a domande rimaste in sospeso durante i suoi studi da adolescente.

B. è affascinato dagli scritti di Einstein, e da una miriade di altri divulgatori di scienza, e non c'è frase che possa descrivere la sua gioia nel constatare che, oltre a pagine di formule, queste menti celebri contribuivano e contribuiscono a produrre saggi letterari di enorme spessore.

Passando da teoremi a trattati, ad un certo punto B. si scontra con il mistero dei misteri, grande quanto quello della vita stessa, ma forse un po' più abbordabile in termini di complessità: quello del 'tempo'.

Gli studi proseguono e ai testi universitari consigliati vi si aggiungono scaffali di libri di approfondimento. B. scava a fondo percorrendo percorsi trasversali, tenendo sempre fermo il dito sul tema principale della sua personale ricerca. Oltre alle abbondanti letture, il grosso del lavoro viene sbrogliato su i quaderni di appunti, grazie ad un impegno costante e a doti intuitive fuori dal comune. Insieme, conoscenza e creatività fanno scintille.

Ed ecco come ad esempio riusciva anche a trovare delle falle tra le citazioni di uno dei suoi maggiori ispiratori. La frase di Einstein: "L'immaginazione è più importante della conoscenza" gli stava stretta.

Probabilmente il paragone del celebre scienziato tra 'immaginazione' e 'conoscenza' , non implica il fatto che l'immaginazione non ha bisogno della conoscenza. Forse, visti e conosciuti i suoi contributi alla scienza, E. con questa frase voleva dirci che la conoscenza è sterile se non c'è immaginazione, forse meglio intesa come atto creativo.

Probabilmente, la stessa frase ribaltata avrebbe avuto più senso, la conoscenza sarebbe stata confermata come cosa più importante, nulla togliendo all'importanza dell'immaginazione, visto che il "più importante che" non pregiudica l'importanza del secondo termine di paragone, e confermando la conoscenza come motore primo dell'Universo, indipendentemente dall'immaginazione. Ma sembra esserci ancora una certa confusione nella terminologia usata...

Intendeva forse E. entrare nei panni di Dio, il quale avendo già la conoscenza tutta aveva e ha un necessario bisogno di "immaginazione" per imprimere movimento al 'tutto'?

Oppure immaginazione e conoscenza devono andare necessariamente di pari passo. Immaginazione e conoscenza insieme sono la definizione stessa di creatività, anche se tutto dipende da chi e come queste vengano poi utilizzate.

...difficile dire se B. aveva visto giusto o se le sue considerazioni fossero solo il riflesso della troppa importanza che egli dava ai suoi pensieri.

E' importante cogliere la differenza tra immaginazione e creatività, e la conoscenza poi, è un termine sempre a rischio per noi, bisognerebbe saper distinguere il vero dal falso in assoluto, almeno limitatamente alla nostra percezione della realtà oggettiva, il che implica un osservatore tremendamente attento alla realtà che lo circonda. Non è cosa semplice; il ritenerlo possibile richiede un'immensa forza di volontà.

Contatto!

2005-01-20T14:04:00.000+01:00

Insomma mi serve almeno un PII o un Celeron che girino a 4ooMHz. E' una configurazione un po' datata ma con un po' di pazienza ci gira di tutto. In risposta ricevo continue conferme ed alla fine contatto il tipo per andare a ritirare il computer; la mia Ex scalpita ed io non vedo l'ora di poter assistere C. in qualche assemblaggio, il ché mi tornerebbe assai utile, visto che molte cose che so in teoria non le ho mai messe in pratica per mancanza di...pezzi.

Vado all'appuntamento, il ritrovo è a cassa di C., ha un piccolo negozio in zona centro, che è anche l'entrata per accedere all'abitazione.

Ci sono quelli che sembrano dei suoi conoscenti in negozio, e mentre C. sta finendo di montare un paio di PC, io gli vado incontro e mi presento. Il "mio" PC è bello che pronto, una manciata di secondi per trovare un cavo per l'alimentazione ed ecco che si accende.

La schermata iniziale visualizza un 374MHz.

"Ma...?"

C. "Si lo so, non avevo altro al momento, va bene lo stesso no?"

"...ma facciamo di sì, tanto più o meno..."

C. "E' un 300 o 350MHz overclockkato, adesso non mi ricordo bene..." - "Guarda ci ho messo Windows XP, gira bene con 256Mb di RAM, ha due dischi rigidi, il secondo è uno SCSI, è solo da un giga, ma è molto veloce...guarda che grafica fluida, la scheda video è nuova!"

C. continua col pilota automatico, è così entusiasta del suo assemblaggio che continua a smanettare di fronte al monitor come se parlasse con uno che completamente digiuno di fondamenti di informatica, e non ha mai visto un PC girare prima d'ora...lo lascio fare per un po', poi spingo per concludere perché devo proprio tornare a casa.

Al momento di pagare il prezzo è un po' salito dal preventivo ottenuto per telefono, ma ho fretta, c'è gente che aspetta ed inoltre ho cambiato lavoro da un paio di mesi e ho il conto pieno di soldi per la 'buona uscita'. Non mi peserà affatto sborsare qualche Euro in più per un'amica che è sempre squattrinata, ma con assoluto bisogno di un PC per trovare lavoro, al più presto.

Primi passi

2005-01-18T14:34:00.000+01:00

Dimentico la Matriciana, anche se somiglia di più ad una Amatriciana, e mi sparo il più classico dei piatti, maccheroni al sugo fatto con cipolle, aglio, olio d'oliva, pomodoro ovviamente, e una nevicata di parmigiano. Per secondo un'insalata con sale, aceto e olio in successione, ed infine una bistecca di manzo, necessaria considerato il mio gruppo sanguigno, alla faccia di un anno e più di dieta macrobiotica, servita per altro a rimettermi in sesto fisicamente e a farmi meglio valutare quali cibi il mio organismo tolleri meglio.

Ho un po' da fare nel primo pomeriggio, prima di riattaccare al lavoro, e anche in tarda serata, come sempre, per la solita surfata nel virtuale specchio del mondo, il www.

Fuori la temperatura si alza di giorno in giorno, l'estate si avvicina, ma io posrto ancora una giacca pesante perché mi piace girare con più tasche possibili addosso; tra chiavi, portafoglio, tabacco, accendino, agenda, una penna, fazzoletti, foglietti vari e almeno un posto sempre libero per ogni necessità, un giornale, un libretto, un CD...dovrei andare in giro con una borsetta o meglio con un marsupio, ma sono sempre d'impiccio.

D'estate è una vera tragedia!

Ho dimenticato il cellulare. Squilla.

D. ha un amico di suo padre che monta e vende PC, la mia Ex ne sta cercando uno usato ed economico e quindi l'informazione cade proprio a fagiolo. D. mi fa da tramite, io spiego i dettagli della macchina a lei, e lei telefona a C. per vedere se la cosa è fattibile. Mi ci vorrà un mesetto per averla pronta, ma si può fare.

In cucina...

2005-01-17T20:59:00.000+01:00

Ingredienti:

gr. 400 di bucatini gr. 150 di guanciale di maiale gr. 100 di polpa di pomodoro gr. 50 di pecorino romano ½ bicchiere d'olio d'oliva peperoncino sale pepe

...se ne sta quieta dentro un libro la mia ricetta, sullo scaffale vicino al frigorifero, ricordo di un pranzo fugace al ristorante, sbalordito dall'ottima cottura della pasta e dal sapore esplosivo, acceso da una mattinata faticosa e da un lavoro troppo insipido.

A dire il vero quelli che trovai sul mio piatto non erano proprio bucatini bucatini, quelli de Roma per intenderci, ma nient'altro che un surrogato industriale di quelli tradizionali, anche se di ottima fattura.

E poi non mi trovavo neanche a Roma, e quindi molto probabilmente la ricetta che mi dimenticai di chiedere al cuoco poteva pressappoco assomigliare a questa qui:

Ingredienti:

400g. di spaghetti, 1 cipolla, olio, 120g. di guanciale o pancetta di maiale, 1 spicchio d'aglio, 1 kg. di pomodori sbucciati (oppure una scatola di pelati di 500g.), zenzero rosso, 100g. di pecorino grattugiato.

...quella per gli spaghetti e non per i bucatini, e forse fu proprio lo zenzero rosso a stimolare il mio palato come mai alcun primo aveva fatto prima di allora, insieme ad un guanciale di prima qualità, che rendeva il tutto così saporito. E questo per sottolineare che c'è sempre una prima volta per tutti, il problema semmai è quello di non farsela sfuggire.

E sì, se ne sta lì la mia ricetta, "mia" perché ora è solo una memoria di un felice passato, per me e per il mio stomaco, che non digeriamo più niente del maiale.