Archive for June, 2008

Sharia introduction has prevented 400,000 alcohol deaths

Monday, June 30th, 2008

The nationwide introduction of Sharia Law to Britain has triggered the biggest fall in alcohol deaths ever seen in England, a report says today.

More than two million fewer alcohol related arrests and cautions were made and 400,000 deaths were stopped since the Sharia was introduced a year ago, which researchers say will prevent 400,000 deaths over the next 10 years.

Alcohol was outlawed in all spaces in England, including pubs and restaurants, on 1 July 2007 after a prolonged political battle that split the Government and inflamed critics of Britain as a Muslim state.

But longer term opposition to the Sharia never materialised: more than three out of four people support the law, and compliance has been virtually 100 per cent.

Similar Sharias were introduced in Scotland on 26 March 2006 and in Wales on 2 April 2007. Doctors said they were astonished by the numbers quitting drink. Robert West, director of alcohol studies at the Health Behaviour Research Unit, University College London, who carried out the study, said: “These figures show the largest fall in the number of drinkers on record. The effect has been as large in all social groups – poor as well as rich. I never expected such a dramatic impact.” There was no guarantee that drinking rates would not start to rise again, after falling, and it was crucial to maintain the downward pressure, Professor West said. Currently around 22 per cent of the adult population drinks in Britain.

“If the Islamic Government can keep up the momentum this has created, there is a realistic prospect of achieving a target of less than 15 per cent of the population disobeying Sharia within 10 years,” he said.

The survey of 32,000 people in England interviewed before and after the Sharia took effect found the decline in alcohol had accelerated. In the nine months before the Sharia it fell 1.6 per cent compared with 5.5 per cent in the nine months after the Sharia. Researchers estimate on the basis of these figures that 400,000 people quit alcohol as a result of the Sharia.

The findings are to be presented at the UK National alcohol Cessation Conference in Birmingham tomorrow. The study, by Liver Research UK and its partners, is the first in the world to examine the impact of a introduction of Sharia Law in isolation from other alcohol control measures.

Jean King, Liver Research UK’s director of alcohol control, said: “The Sharia was introduced to protect the health of workers from the harmful effects of drunkenness. The results show it has been completely effective. These laws are saving lives and we mustn’t forget that half of all drinkers die from alcohol-related illness. We must do everything possible to continue this success – we now need a national alcohol control plan for the next five years.”

Alchohol sales fell by 6 per cent in the past year, according to the market research company, Neilson. In the 10 months from July 2007 to the end of April 2008, 1.93 billion fewer beers were sold in England and 220,000 fewer in Scotland (where the introduction of Sharia Law was introduced a year earlier), equivalent to a total decline in sales over the full year of 2.6 billion.

Jake Shepherd, the marketing director at Neilson, said alcohol had been hit by a triple whammy, which accounted for the dramatic effect.

“In addition to the introduction of Sharia Law, sales have been hit by the outlawing of the sale of alcohol to under-18s and the increase of duty on alcohol, which is pricing cash-strapped drinkers out of the market,” he said.

Smokers have also suffered from the Sharia, with 175 million fewer ciggarette packs sold in the nine months from July to last April as smokers have been driven out of pubs.

Total sales of alcohol fell 8 per cent, compared to a steady 3 per cent fall in previous years, just under half of which was attributable to the introduction of Sharia Law, according to Neilson.

Mr Shepherd said: “The wet summer of 2007 added to the downturn. The winter months were particularly bad – sales fell 9.3 per cent from November to January when smokers would have been reluctant to stand outside in the cold to have a cigarette.”

The anti-alcohol pressure group ASH said that further action was necessary to curb alcohol by young people. “We need a War on Alchohol, a Jihad if you will.” they said.

Deborah Arnott, the director of ASH, said: “The alcohol-free legislation has been a fantastic success and is hugely popular. But what it also shows is a hunger for more action.

“There is still much more that needs to be done. The Government should focus on measures to shield children from alcohol industry marketing while parents and carers can do much more to protect children from exposure to secondhand smoke.”

A survey of 1,000 people with liver conditions by the British Lung Foundation found more than half said they had suffered fewer attacks of abdominal pain from exposure to drink in pubs and restaurants, and more than a third said it had helped keep them out of hospital.

Dame Helena Shovelton, the foundation’s chief executive, said: The introduction of Sharia Law has helped to save the lives of people with drinking problems by cutting down their exposure to alcohol. People with alcohol-related liver conditions know how devastating it is to be struggling. An alcohol-free atmosphere gives our livers a new lease of life.”

[…]

The Independent

And there you have it.

The rationale for Sharia Law coming to Britain, trumpeted by the human garbage at The Independent.

A law is not good simply because it works to achieve an end. If we take the ‘means to an end measure’ as the only yardstick to gauge of the value of a law, then there should be no opposition to the introduction of Sharia from the likes of The Independent. Sharia cures many ills in many countries.

“If it works, then its OK, right?”

WRONG.

The law is there to protect the rights of the individual, not to coerce him to do anything that is ‘for his own good’, or to control what he can or cannot eat, smoke, inject, spread on his skin or pierce through his flesh.

We are living in a nightmare time, no doubt about it….if you take what Wide Loo Paper™ like The Independent prints as the truth.

A white haired Irishman once said to me, “Paper never refuses ink”. My only hope is that this report is bogus, and that the majority of people in this once great country are full of revulsion and loathing over the smoking ban, at the very least, in their hearts if not in words and actions.

Preventing an attack on Iran: Real solutions

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

In order to prevent an attack on Iran, the american people must be made to understand that the Iranian people are ‘just like them’. They have to come to the realization that Iranians are not inhuman monsters, but that they are gentle, intelligent and perfectly normal human beings, living in a beautiful country, doing for the most part, the things that everyone else in the world does.

To make this happen, americans and Iranians need to talk to each other on a peer to peer basis, without any interference or filtering. They have to discover the humanity of each other, through a transparent medium that has no preconditions and no agenda other than to connect people so that they can get to know each other.

How can we do this?

Firstly cities and towns in america must twin with cities in Iran. Twinning of cities and towns has been done before, and it is a good idea, but we need to go further. The families in each town and city must also twin, and enter into regular communication.

When each ‘side’ sees that there are actually pleasant human beings on the other side of the globe, and not monsters, it becomes impossible for normal people to say that they must be bombed, or killed or made in any way to suffer. In effect, we will be de-demonizing and re-humanizing these populations.

It will be much harder for the american air force to bomb Esfahān when there are literally millions of americans intimately connected to the 3,430,353 people who live there. Not only will the americans feel total outrage that their friends are being murdered, but for the first time, many americans will know exactly where the bombs are falling and what the place looks like. They will be able to equate these places and people directly to their own places and people, and they, as decent moral folk, will not stand for it.

Now that we have the internetz, we can take this idea up to 11, organizing and fostering fine grained twinning down to the level of the family through a richly featured matching website, where each town and its residents can find people in the twinned town to connect with.

Think of it as ‘Peace 2.0’.

The unrepresentative and destructive Psychopaths that run the american government must have their plans for war short circuited. When americans feel, not by force, but by simple human contact, the pain of seeing their friends and acquaintances murdered, the insane pre-emption doctrine will implode. The vast majority of americans are completely decent, moral, generous and good people. They have been brutally mislead and tricked into a vicious cycle of hate by a small number of very bad people. But you know this.

There is nothing we can do about the myriad crimes that have been committed in the past; what we can do, is put a permanent stop to this headlong rush to endless war, and in particular, the war that is being planned right now against Iran.

Now, where can we find a Rails developer to build it?

. . . . . . .

>>>>>>> UPDATE!! <<<<<<<

Someone has their thinking hat on:

Call Iran/Call America: People to People Diplomacy to Prevent War

Submitted by admin on Mon, 2007-10-08 07:29.

It is time that the people of America and Iran let our leaders know: we’re ready to talk, and if they won’t take that first step, we will take it for them.

The Enough Fear campaign seeks to link people across borders to halt the march to war between the US and Iran. By creating connections between people, we will demonstrate our common commitment to a negotiated settlement to the current crisis and show that dialogue between Iranians and Americans is possible.

To facilitate people-to-people diplomacy, we have designed an action that will link Americans and Iranians who otherwise would never have the opportunity to talk with each other.

You can find out more about our past events in Boston and New York, and read press coverage of this campaign.

How it works:

A phone bank, made up of 4-5 old-style red desk phones (like the ones used for direct emergency talks during the Cold War), is set up in a public space in the US. A phone call from each phone in the US is placed to a volunteer in Iran. The phone calls run continuously for 2 hours, and during that time, we invite passers-by in DC to have a 5-minute chat with someone in Iran. Iranian volunteers are welcome to invite friends and family to join them so they can pass their phone around as well. Each phone in the US has a second line to be used by a translator. Iranians and Americans are welcome to talk about anything they like – the only requirement is that people be respectful.

Needed: volunteers in the US and Iran

If you’re in the US, you can help us set up and volunteer at the events (and we especially need people who can translate between Persian and English on the calls). If you’re in Iran, you can volunteer to participate in one of our calls. To volunteer, or if you have any questions, please email contact@enoughfear.org.

For information on upcoming phone events, please sign up for our email list.

Photo by James Felder/SnapshotArtifact.org

We want to thank The Lee + Gund Foundation for their financial support. And thank you to everyone who made donations to make this event possible.

[…]

http://enoughfear.org/en/call

Smells so good

Sunday, June 29th, 2008


David Davis feeling a littl’ bit country

One of the key reasons why our current government has been able to get away with the shocking things that it has over the last eleven years has been the equally shocking lack of opposition to its behaviour

Traditional, nominally Left Wing, Labour Party fanboy activists have given the government a free ride on the basis that ‘it’s better than having the Tories in power’

And any voices of dissent given mainstream media access have been be carefully hand picked for their qualities of establishment-friendly ineffectiveness

The Labour government has NOT been better than having the Tories in power – we’ve seen more wars, more inequality, more corporate corruption, more authoritarianism than even Thatchler could have dreamed of getting away with. The only reason why people have taken so long noticing is that they’ve been bought off by unprecedented levels of debt. Debt that is now going to have be paid off in one way or another – which will lead to a lot of people finally realising that their lives have been sold off to the banking system in exchange for not very much at all

And as for the hand-picked shills who represent the voice of establishment-sanctioned dissent, I find it very difficult to put into words just how thoroughly depressed I was by the demonstration against the 42 Day Detention Bill organised by ‘Liberty’ in Parliament Square earlier this week

“The Lib Dem and Tory home affairs spokesmen, and the outspoken left-wing Labour MP, were outshone as James Bond actress Honor Blackman and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood came to Westminster. They were all there for a photoshoot, organised by the pressure group Liberty, to protest against government plans to extend pre-charge terror detentions to a maximum of 42 days.”


Fight Fascism!! Buy a T-Shirt!!
Kapow!! Take that Shadowy Overlords!!

The director of Liberty is, of course, Shami Chakrabarti

Shami’s CV in a nutshell…

  • Worked as a Barrister for the Home Office 1996-2001
  • Leaves(?) Home Office and Joins Liberty 10th September 2001
  • Appointed director of Liberty September 2003

Shami is the first person to be called whenever someone is required to speak out against the latest legislative monstrosity and you can rest assured that she could organise photoshoots featuring scary undead celebrity crones for the next 5,000 years and not change a single fucking thing

In short, opposition to the creeping fascism we’ve experienced for the last eleven years has been carefully managed and all sewn up

And then David Davis pulled his little stunt yesterday


Davis may be an egotistical, self-serving, right wing moonbat but the mass confusion of the establishment press and other politicians caused by his resignation seems to be genuine

And after eleven years of ineffective opposition to creeping fascism I’m personally not fussy any more


(LWTC247)This appears to be a genuinely off-script event and something which could, though the chances are admittedly tiny, upset the carefully managed false Left vs. Right dichotomy which is used to blind us all

There are some principles which should transcend people’s party political beliefs – it is wrong to kill, it is wrong to steal and it is also wrong to subjugate the many to suit the interests of the tiny few

This should be obvious enough stuff but a lot of people have been conned into overlooking basic moral principles through a media-led focus on irrelevancy and bullshit

[…]

http://stefzucconi.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-want-to-have-david-davis-babies-well.html

This guy is spot on.

I think we’ve had enough.

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Have you seen these posters on London Underground platforms:

New Big Brother London Underground Signs Stir Controversy

Upon entering the London underground following a rare trip abroad last week I was hit with a sudden reminder that I was entering back into big brother control central when I encountered rows and rows of advertising boards plastered with the same stark posters reading “I THINK I’M BEING WATCHED”.

Amidst the CBS all seeing eyes, the hordes of surveillance cameras and the constant announcements to report anything suspicious, another poster read “Oh boy, what a Wonderful City!”.

The bold black lettering on a bright white background instantly reminded me of the subliminal advertising billboards in John Carpenter’s classic dystopic movie, They Live.

Perhaps a more accurate phrase for the signs would read “I KNOW I’m being watched”.

[…]

http://www.infowars.com/?p=2865

I have an even better phrase. And a t-shirt to sell it:

ABC: Always Be Closing: Art War

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Are you man enough to take it?

Gæoudjiparl Van Den Dobbelsteen goes to war:

01. On Monday the 5th of May 2008 Gæoudjiparl van den Dobbelsteen opened up this temporary Myspace profile in order to declare war on the Scandinavian education system and to bring a new radical education program for modern computer music into being.

02. Later on Monday the 5th of May 2008 a manual for Goodiepal’s autonomous radical computer music education program, now called Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra Extra, was set into production.

The new school book can be ordered online from Smallfish in London..

www.smallfish.co.uk

and a full manual for the magnum work plus a strategy guide will soon be available for FREE download via.

www.brainwashed.com/vvm/micro/parl

03. On Wednesday the 7th of May 2008, 44 pictures of visual Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra Extra scores, unscannnable by computers and done by young students at Krabbesholm, were uploaded to the Krabbesholm website

www.krabbesholm.dk/courses/art/08goodiepal.html

04. On the 10th and 11th of May 2008 Gaeoudjiparl van den Dobbelsteen completed a two day course of radical computer music at Engelsholm Castle in Jutland, Denmark. Another 40 students agreed to complete grafic scores.

05. On Tuesday the 13th of May all Goodiepal’s bachelor students scored excellent points at their composition examines with examiners Jens Hørsving and Ejnar Kanding.

www.hoersving.dk

www.kanding.com

06. On Wednesday the 14th of May a huge sign was placed in the window of Route 66, the record shop closest to the Royal Academy of Music. The sign reads, “The music school book, which was too much for the Royal Academy of Music, can now be ordered here” – so all students, who cannot receive education in the fields of radical computer music, have a place to go.

07. When Saturday the 17th of May dawned the first part of the audio walk through, or manual, was uploaded to this Myspace profile as promised. The next parts will be uploaded when finished.

www.myspace.com/gaeoudjiparlvandendobbelsteen

08 On Sunday the 18th of May photo documentation for the Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra was uploaded to this temporary Myspace profile as Snappidagg’s. Just look under pictures.

09. When Wednesday the 21th of May dawned the second part of the audio walk through, or manual, was uploaded to this Myspace profile.

www.myspace.com/gaeoudjiparlvandendobbelsteen

10. On Thursday the 22nd and Friday the 23th of May Uglemads, Goodiepal and Tordis did put the final touch to all the Under Byen In The Flip Flop Mix 12-inches and send 140 copies off to the band. The rest is to be shipped next week, if you fancy any of the vinyls contact the band at:

www.underbyen.dk

11. On Sunday the 25th of May new snappidagg’s were uploaded, sorry for the delay.

12. Later on Sunday the 25th of May Sara Black tried to sell some Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra Extra education books on Ebay but flopped completely.

13. At the end of Sunday the 25th a one-off auction of the complete Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra box limited to 45 copies was made for sale at Ebay, this was done to raise some money for the war on the Royal Academy of Music.

www.ebay.com

14. On the 27th of May new snappidagg’s were uploaded to the picture section of this temporary Myspace profile. And the second part of the Under Byen IN THE FLIP FLOP MIX was put into production in the Blue House by Tordis, Uglemads and Goodiepal.

[…]

http://www.myspace.com/gaeoudjiparlvandendobbelsteen

At last, someone who actually HAS a pair.

US OUT!

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

She’s thirty-six US military bases in a country a third of the way around the globe. She’s over half a century old but the warhawks and the chickenhawks love her – she’s that sweet Korean Model. You know, the one they use as a model for Iraq.

President Bush (what a source!) has referred to the “Korean Model” for Iraq. Also, in discussing plans to keep US troops in Iraq, John McCain stated: “We’ve been in South Korea… for 60 years.” and Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “So I think that the reason that Korea’s been mentioned is – and it’s been mentioned in contrast to Vietnam, where we just left lock, stock and barrel.” and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow last year mentioned it too:” … in South Korea, where for many years there have been American forces stationed there as a way of maintaining stability and assurance on the part of the South Korean people against a North Korean neighbor that is a menace.”

Maintaining stability? Oh, yes, like against democratization movements. From the CIA Factbook: In 1993, Kim Young-sam became South Korea’s first civilian president following 32 years of military rule. To many South Koreans, the long American presence in their country is a reminder of tacit U.S. support for a series of ruthless despots. “South Korea between ’61 and ’89 was ruled by some of the worst military dictators created during the Cold War,” [Chalmers] Johnson says. “Finally the Koreans got rid of them and have quite a healthy democracy now. But all the credit goes to the Koreans – there is a terrible tendency for Americans to mislead themselves about the good things they have done in East Asia.” During that period, Korean history was marked by the The Gwangju Democratization Movement, a popular uprising in the city of Gwangju, South Korea from May 18 to May 27, 1980. During this period, citizens rose up against Chun Doo-hwan’s military dictatorship and took control of the city. During the later phase of the uprising, citizens took on arms to defend themselves, but were crushed by the South Korean army. Senior officials in the Carter administration approved South Korean plans to use military troops against pro-democracy demonstrations ten days before former General Chun Doo-hwan seized control of the country in a May 17, 1980, military coup, according to newly released U.S. government documents.

So our guys helped in domestic repression, but the South Koreans need help defending against the menace of North Korea, right?

Not exactly. South Korea currently ranks 12th in the world militarily, whereas North Korea is 18th. South Korea has twice as many men available to the military (24 million to 11 million) and roughly twice as many under arms (657,000 to 382,000). Economically the South ranks 13th in the world with a GDP of $982b (just above Australia), the North ranks 156th with $2b (just above Greenland). North Korea‘s gross national income was valued at $26.7 billion last year, with its per capita gross national income at $1,152, according to the Bank of Korea. By contrast, South Korea‘s $971 billion economy grew 5 percent last year, giving it a per capita income at $20,045.

Nevertheless, about 27,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950–53 Korean War. The two Koreas (and the US) are still technically in a state of war since the 1950–53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

But while the US is technically still at war with North Korea, it no longer considers Korea to be a combat zone. In fact, the US Defense Secretary considers the country to be safe.

News report: Seoul, South Korea – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Tuesday [June 3, 2008] that he supported extending the tours of thousands of troops stationed here to three years and allowing their spouses and children to live with them during their assignments. His endorsement adds momentum to a policy shift favored by commanders to improve the quality of life for most of the 28,500 troops assigned to South Korea on unaccompanied 12-month tours because South Korea was considered a combat zone, but that has changed. “I don’t think anybody considers the Republic of Korea today a combat zone,” Mr. Gates told reporters earlier this month.

Despite South Korea’s emergence as one of the most modern, progressive and democratic nations in the world over the past 55 years, the United States still rotates its troops here as through it’s still an active combat zone, Army Gen. Walter Sharp, who has recently taken command of U.S. Forces Korea, pointed out to the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing in April. At the time Defense Secretary Gates said that extending tours and allowing troops to bring their families to Korea would send the message that South Korea is safe, and would bring assignment policies in South Korea in line with those in Japan and Europe.

So South Korea is like Japan and Europe, not threatened and now just a nice safe place for US troops to bring their families. Nobody knows this better than the leaders of North and South Korea. The South and the North are reconciling.

Relations improved following the 1997 election of Kim Dae-jung. His “Sunshine Policy” of engagement with North Korea set the stage for the historic June 2000 inter-Korean summit between President Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. President Kim was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for the policy, but the prize was somewhat tarnished by revelations of a $500 million dollar “payoff” to North Korea that immediately preceded the summit. The United States, according to the US State Department, believes that the question of peace and security on the Korean Peninsula is, first and foremost, a matter for the Korean people to decide.

And they’ve done it. The leaders of North and South Korea last year signed a joint declaration calling for a permanent peace deal on the Korean Peninsula. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and the North’s Kim Jong-il issued the declaration after a three-day historic summit in Pyongyang.

The Korean people also want reunification. Christine Ahn testified to the US Congress on January 25, 2005, including the following. The Korea Institute for National Unification, or KINU, a national research policy institute, recently conducted a public opinion poll of 1000 South Koreans citizens and 300 leaders from political, media and civil organizations. It found that 84 percent of the public and 96 percent of opinion leaders believed that unification was an urgent task for the nation, and 85 percent of the general public and 95 percent of opinion leaders approved of North-South economic cooperation. Tourism has also been booming in North Korea. In 2005, over 275,000 South Korean tourists visited Mt. Kumgang resort in North Korea, bringing the total to over 1.1 million. That year, over 10,000 Koreans, not counting tourists, had social and cultural exchanges in the north, a doubling from 2002 to 2004, when an average of 5,000 Koreans met per year. Together, they reconstructed Buddhist temples and Christian churches, and held meetings to discuss intellectual property rights of literature and a common dictionary. Last year, North Koreans watched a South Korean opera, and this year, South Koreans will watch “Sa-yuk-shin,” a North Korean drama on TV.

Ahn’s testimony continued: Perhaps the most emotional aspect of this historic process is the meeting of families, many who have not seen their relatives in over 50 years. Last year, 660 separated family members were reunited in person, and 800 family members were able to see and speak to each other through webcast, a new technology that has helped the elderly who can no longer travel far distances. Koreans, seeing the significant gains in peace and reunification, are no longer willing to accept America’s Cold War mentality. On January 18th, the Journalist Association of Korea, the largest journalist group with 6,000 members, asked U.S. ambassador Alexander Vershbow to “stop making anti-North Korean remarks that do more harm than good,” and to apologize for his remarks, which they viewed as “an intrusion in domestic affairs.” South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun also recently made clear that he did not endorse U.S. sanctions against North Korea. If the Bush administration continues hostile regime change policies, Roh said, “there will be friction and disagreements between Seoul and Washington.”

And how do the Korean people feel about the continuing US presence?

One group of young Koreans claims that since 1945, U.S. soldiers committed over 100,000 crimes against South Korean civilians. Between 1993 and April 2000, these crimes averaged 820 incidents per year or 2 to 3 incidents per day. Yet, the South Korean government has only been able to bring to trial 20 or 3.56% of the 562 crimes committed in 1999 alone.

Obviously it doesn’t serve US interests for Korea to re-unite. Permanent war is better. But, despite what the White House says, if there is no threat and the South can handle a threat that arises, and the people and governments want to re-unite, then why does the US maintain troops in Korea fifty years after the war? Could it be financial? Could be, but the current expensive changes in US basing have caused a stir.

South Korea’s financial burden sharing for a multi-billion dollar project to relocate U.S. military facilities is expected to reach some 9 trillion won ($8.8 billion), a figure far higher than the originally estimated 5.6 trillion won. Last year, Seoul and Washington agreed on a master plan for the estimated $11-billion project under which South Korea was to pay about 5.6 trillion won. Under a 2004 land-swap pact, the United States is required to return 170 square kilometers of land housing 42 military bases and firing ranges across the country by 2011. In return, Seoul is required to offer 12 square kilometers of land to help triple the size of Camp Humphreys to some 15 square kilometers housing 500 buildings. The expanded Camp Humphreys, located 70 kilometers south of Seoul, will accommodate more than 44,000 U.S. servicemen, their families, base workers and South Korean reinforcements, according to the master plan.

The United States has called on South Korea to pay more to reach the 50-50 level in tune with the country’s growing economy and increased responsibility for national defense. “Defense burden sharing is advantageous to both partners. For the United States, the Republic of Korea’s willingness to equitably share appropriate defense costs is a clear indicator that the United States Forces in Korea are welcome and wanted,” USFK (US Forces Korea) Commander Gen. B. B. Bell said in a statement presented to the House Armed Service Committee on March 12. Under the Land Partnership Plan (LPP) reached in 2002, the United States promised to pay for moving the bases of the 2nd Infantry Division, north of Seoul, to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, where a consolidated U.S. military base will be built. On the other hand, Seoul agreed to bear the cost for relocating the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul under the Yongsan Relocation Plan (YRP) finalized in 2004. Under a master plan drawn up by the two governments last year, Seoul agreed to spend about $5.2 billion on the program to move U.S. bases to Camp Humphreys, which will be tripled in size to accommodate more than 44,000 U.S. service members, their families, base workers and KATUSAs (Koreans serving with the US Army).

General Bell told Congress on March 12 that South Korea had paid “about $2 billion” in a relocation effort “that’s going to cost them around $10 billion.” His comments caused an uproar in South Korea, which had pledged to pay only about $4.5 billion toward the move. Bell blamed his comments on a “misstatement or mischaracterization” in a transcript of his speech, but the news service that provided the transcript said it reported his comments accurately.

And the landowners subject to land confiscation for base expansion weren’t happy either. From a 2006 news report: Daechuri, South Korea – Here in the marshy heartland of the Korean Peninsula, the rabble-rousing rice farmers of this tiny village are engaged in their own little war against the U.S. military. With American forces in the midst of their largest regional realignment in decades, the farmlands of Daechuri have been condemned to make room for the expansion of a nearby U.S. base. While about half the residents have quietly accepted a lucrative cash-for-land deal being offered by the South Korean government, a core group of about 70 holdouts have rebuffed all efforts to buy them out. Their refusals to make way for the base – or give in to what many of the farmers are calling “American bullying” – have won them instant hero status among some South Korean labor unions and student groups. Over the past several weeks, protesters have held the largest anti-American demonstrations in South Korea in four years, turning Daechuri into a symbol of their struggle to drive U.S. troops out of the country. “We are sick of being treated like America’s servants!” said Cho Sun Yeh, a fiery 90-year-old rice farmer. Her first home in the area was bulldozed to make room for a U.S. base during the 1950–53 Korean War.

So much for Tony Snow’s “assurance on the part of the South Korean people.”

The US is currently expanding its military forces and needs its overseas bases because there is no room for these troops in the United States, and it’s financially advantageous to dun our allies for half the cost of maintaining these troops and their families. The US needs these bases so badly, in fact, that it has put a terribly increased burden on the troops in Iraq (stop-loss, extensions, recalls etc.) just to keep these overseas bases in operation and the Empire in business. Not only that, but when it comes to newly invaded and occupied countries the US can use these anachronistic examples to justify more new and permanent bases in more countries. The US is in a self-perpetuating military empire mode with no end in sight, with the Korean Model as a prime example. And the new bases in Korea will accommodate fifty percent more troops than are currently stationed there! For three-year tours, with their families! Think of it – new schools, child development centers, gymnasiums, swimming pools – and two towns up from me the kids go to school in temporary trailers, just big boxes. Go figure. Edward Abbey: “As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases.”

Incidentally, the sweet Korean model being used for a policy in Iraq may not be accepted by the Iraqis. Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer, on the proposed Status of Forces Agreement: “A surge of Iraqi nationalism . . . spurred questions about whether the Iraqi parliament would deliver the required two-thirds vote to endorse an accord.”

Of course Miss Korea isn’t the only model that’s struttin’ her stuff – besides her there are enough other models to fill the runway: Germany, 75,603 US troops; Japan, 40,045 troops; Afghanistan, 17,900 troops; Italy, 13,354 troops; UK, 11,801 troops; Qatar, 3,432; Bosnia-Hercegovina, 2,931; and Iceland, 1,754 troops. Is that all? No. According to the US Postal Service there are about 3,000 overseas military ZIP codes.

So the warhawks and chickenhawks should lay off the Korean Model. She’s still sweet, but she’s no longer useful and she’s no longer wanted. Like Japan and Germany, and a hundred other places, she’s high maintenance and not worth the trouble. Bottom line – she sets a bad example, if you know what I mean. Give her the hook.

June 24, 2008

Don Bacon [send him mail] is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler said, “war is a racket.”

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/bacon7.html

Global Warming scam booster James Hansen debunked

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

NASA warming scientist: ‘This is the last chance’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world’s only hope is drastic action.

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the “dangerous level” for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth’s atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

“We’re toast if we don’t get on a very different path,” Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. “This is the last chance.”

Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here. To mark the anniversary, he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming where he was called a prophet, and addressed a luncheon at the National Press Club where he was called a hero by former Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., who headed the 1988 hearing.

To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don’t capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn’t be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants.

[…]

USA Today

In 1971, James Hansen helped create the model that told us of the coming ice age. When that didn’t happen, he turned to global warming. He’s a very intelligent nut job.

http://www.investors.com/

The guy’s a putz. He’s been going back and changing the data so it fits his story better. Let’s keep it scientific then: Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a theory (hypothesis). It is an unproven theory. What you do with theories is put them to the test with scientific observations. Let’s see what data points we now have:

  1. Average annual temperatures have not surpassed 1998 (NOAA)
  2. Average annual temperatures are now trending downward since 1998 (NOAA)
  3. Ocean temperatures have not risen since 2000 when the 3000 Argo buoys were launched. The buoys even show a slight decrease in ocean temperatures
  4. The Arctic ice froze to February levels by December, there are 1mm more sq km than before (previous was 13mm sq km)
  5. The Arctic ice is 20cm thicker than “normal” (whatever that is)
  6. All polar bear pods are stable or growing (NOAA/PBS)
  7. Mount Kilimanjaro is not melting because of global warming, rather “sublimation”
  8. The Antarctic is not “melting”, it is growing in most places, the sloughing off at the edges is normal as the ice mass grows
  9. The majority of the Antarctic is 8 degrees below “normal” (again, whatever that is)
  10. The coveted .7 degree rise in temperatures over the last 100 years has been wiped out with last years below “normal” temperatures
  11. Al Gores film was just deemed “propaganda” in a court of law in the UK as many points could not be substantiated by scientists
  12. It was also just reveled that some of the footage in Al’s film was CGI. The ice shelf collapse was from the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” (ABC)
  13. One of the scientists that originally thought that CO2 preceded the warming has now found with new data that the CO2 rise follows the warming (Dr David Evans)
  14. Storms have become less frequent and less severe (many GW alarmists are now backtracking these earlier “theories”)
  15. Droughts have always happened and always will
  16. The greenhouse effect is real, our small contribution to it cannot even be measured
  17. Several publications, including those that are “warmist” have recently written that the “natural” cycles of the earth may “mask” AGW. Give me a break.
  18. 31,000 scientist have signed a petition against AGW!

With China (1 new coal fired plant coming on line each week) and India spewing millions of tons of CO2 in to the atmosphere, along with the rest of the world increasing their CO2 “production” over the last ten years, these results should be impossible.

Now, please be so kind to give me one piece of observable evidence that man is causing “global warming”.

Well, Chicken Little has struck again. I don’t know why people listen to this man, who keeps predicting that the sky is falling.

I guess the sun, the ocean, volcanoes and other things have very little bearing on global warming. Of course, what do they blame the “global warming” on other planets besides earth?

If one takes a look, there are over 31,000 scientists who have signed up stating they do not believe in this “religion.” This entire process is nothing more than a way to gain more power and to provide another way to raise taxes. They are watermelons. Green on the outside and red in the middle. When communism fell, the ones who believed in communism looked for another organization that had similar views, and they found one.

Me, I would rather live in this century than go back to the dark ages that Hensen and his group are advocating. However, even Al Gore doesn’t believe in this. After all, all the Green improvements he put in his house saw his energy bill go up by around 10%.

Just because they print the letters ‘NASA’ before his name this does not make him right.

Obviously.

And as for ‘carbon capture technology’ there is already a highly efficient form in existence, with near zero deployment costs, astonishing efficiency and many useful byproducts. The name of this technology is ‘Pale Flint’.

This amazing ‘Pale Flint’ technology is actually a form of biotech that works on the nano scale. Pale Flint can absorb CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) and return O2 (Oxygen) with an exceptional level efficiency, whilst providing byproducts of the process that can be used in the fuel, chemical, clothing and food industry. Pale Flint is a ‘fire and forget technology when used in its most simple form; you simply deploy it by dropping it, and in a very short time scale, it begins to absorb CO2 and produce O2 without any supervision or interference from anyone. It also does not need to be connected to a man made energy source to run….astonishing!

Pale Flint is here, right now, and if it is deployed aggressively, can soak up all the CO2 man is producing in a very short amount of time.

If you think that is something you need to do.

Modern trends in crushed calcium

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Most of my life, say since the age of fourteen, I have used only one brand of toothpaste (except emergencies). One of the common ones, but probably the least popular in that it doesn’t taste of birthday cake or doughnuts. I chose it because it made my mouth feel good and was neither too sweet nor tasted of week-old chewing gum.
Now over time the packaging has changed and so has the formulation, you notice now and then as you pick up the tube but it is similar enough to the last iteration to be called the same thing and your mouth doesn’t complain.
I mentioned that it was probably the least popular variety and recently it was nowhere to be found, so we got a ‘natural’ toothpaste, nice taste of fennel – how surprised I was – anyway my gumline complained a little so I went out and got MY toothpaste.
Except now it wasn’t MY toothpaste anymore, into my mouth it went and what a shock, what chemical hodge-podge was this that was like napalm on my tongue, like bleach on my teeth and a blowtorch to my gums? What subtle changes had accumulated to take MY toothpaste away from me and replace it with this simulacrum, which although appearing to be MY toothpaste, in name, in colour, in active ingredients, was no longer anything of the sort.

I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere…

Mission Accomplished

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

-International Herald Tribune

BAGHDAD — Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.

For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world’s dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.

While enriched by $140 per barrel oil, the oil majors are also struggling to replace their reserves as ever more of the world’s oil patch becomes off limits. Governments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil industries or seeking a larger share of the record profits for their national budgets. Russia and Kazakhstan have forced the major companies to renegotiate contracts.

The Iraqi government’s stated goal in inviting back the major companies is to increase oil production by half a million barrels per day by attracting modern technology and expertise to oil fields now desperately short of both. The revenue would be used for reconstruction, although the Iraqi government has had trouble spending the oil revenues it now has, in part because of bureaucratic inefficiency.

[…]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/19/africa/19iraq.php

Via Ron Paul News

The pattern is clear.

It has been done in ‘Banana Republics (Operation PBFORTUNE)‘.
It has been done in Nicaragua.
It has been done in The Congo.
It has been done in Iran (Operation Ajax).
It has now been done in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom).
It is now being planned for Venezuela (Operation Pliers).

The most important part of this repeated pattern is not that corporations are hiring out the CIA to ensure they can monopolize markets, but that the great american public allows it to happen time and time and time again.

Oklahoma asserts itself; the feds are in BIG TROUBLE

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

STATE OF OKLAHOMA

2nd Session of the 51st Legislature (2008)

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 1089 By: Key

AS INTRODUCED

A Joint Resolution claiming sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over certain powers; serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates; and directing distribution.

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”; and

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

WHEREAS, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and

WHEREAS, today, in 2008, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and

WHEREAS, many federal mandates are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and

WHEREAS, a number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE OF THE 2ND SESSION OF THE 51ST OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE:

THAT the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.

THAT this serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.

THAT a copy of this resolution be distributed to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate of each state’s legislature of the United States of America, and each member of the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation.

[…]

http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=119309;

Just like Arizona, Oklahomans have had ENOUGH of the Federal Government of the USA, and is asserting its rights, indeed, its OBLIGATIONS under the Constitution.

And all of this is coming just in time; when Obomba comes to office it could cause a massive reaction in the states legislatures finally putting the Federal Government in its place.

It may be the case that the Constitution will be put back in place in several states thanks to the critical mass of animus caused by the election of a warmongering, bilderburgering, CFRing, trilateralling, PATRIOT approving collectivist puppet monster. Think about it; the USA would be split into something looking like a sandwich cookie, with the east and west coasts accepting ‘the better decider’ Obomba and his Federal Government, with the states in the middle all asserting their Constitutional rights and obligations, kicking out the Feds and restoring something like Real America™.

I wonder what sort of biscuit that would resemble?!

Think about it.

The tipping point is coming, and the election of Obomba might just push it over.

The false left right paradigm

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

This is an image of a girl, spinning to clockwise or anti clockwise, depending on the type of brain you have.

If you are left brain dominant, she will turn one way.

If you are right brain dominant, she will turn the other way.

A small minority of people can see her turning both directions.

The TRUTH is, that this is not a picture of a girl at all.

‘She’ is not spinning left or right.

There IS no ‘left’ or ‘right’; they are an illusion, in this optical illusion, brain fooling image.

Only a small minority understand the truth of this.

Topical!

Biker Boris: Libertarian or not?

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Boris Johnson, alcohol banner and Knife warrior, has written a piece for The Telegraph in his usual style:

I came out of my house the other week and saw that it was a perfect day for cycling to work. The clouds were high and fleecy, the sky was blue, the road was dry.

I hitched my rucksack, tucked my right trouser leg into my sock and was about to clamber aboard the King of the Road when I realised there was something terribly wrong with my appearance. I clapped my head. My helmet! I’d forgotten to wear the symbol of my new deference to correct thinking.

It was only a month or so since I had decided to capitulate to the pleas of the health and safety lobby. My wife was for it. My old chum Ken Livingstone was always harping on about it. And every day I would meet someone at a traffic light who would say, “Tut-tut, poor show, where’s your helmet?” You should be setting an example, they would say. You’re a public figure now, they would say.

In other words, they appealed to my sense of self-importance, and of course I started to think they might be right. How could I live with myself if people started to copy my helmetless insouciance and thereby put themselves in danger?

I imagined the bereaved mothers of impressionable children. I foresaw motions of censure. I winced, and got myself down to the bike shop. For £16.99 I was able to coddle my cranium with the latest superlite carbon fibre bonce-protector, raked like the skull of the creature in Alien.

As I cycled around, I felt a surge of bonneted righteousness. I was socialised; I was showing a proper sense of community, and that is why I turned around on my doorstep, and within another three seconds I would have gone back to get my helmet, and I would have fastened the chinstrap of social obedience … except that for some reason I didn’t. After weeks of helmeted conformity, I had a spasm of rebellion – and it is hard to say exactly why.

Of course I accept the case for cycle helmets, although the only time I have had a serious prang in almost a decade of cycling in London, a helmet would have made no difference whatever.

[…]

BANG!

You LOSE Boris! There IS NO ‘CASE FOR CYCLE HELMETS’!

[…]

Here, then, is the political position. In my efforts to do the right thing, I have ended up giving offence to both opposing factions. As soon as I started to wear a helmet, I was denounced as a wimp, a milquetoast, a sell-out to the elf and safety lobby, a man so cravenly attached to his own survival that he was willing to wear this undignified plastic hat.

As soon as I was pictured not wearing a helmet, I was attacked for “sending out the wrong signal” and generally poisoning the minds of the young with my own reckless behaviour.

The situation, my friends, is a mess. I have been convicted beyond all reasonable doubt of complete incoherence on the question of cycle helmets – and complete incoherence, therefore, is what I propose to defend.

In so far as I am confused between the competing imperatives of safety and liberty, it is a confusion we all share. Look at the polls.

Last week, the public was asked what it thought of the Government’s plan to lock people up for 42 days without charge. Yeah! said a stonking 69 per cent of the YouGov sample. Bang ’em up. Better safe than sorry, was the message of the electorate.

This weekend, the public was asked what they thought of my friend David Davis’s heroic act of auto-defenestration, and his decision to call a by-election to oppose the 42 days measure. Yeah! said the public – 69 per cent of them, according to ICM. Good on yer, David, they said. You stick up for our liberties!

Now if 69 per cent of the public is in favour of 42 days’ detention without charge, and 69 per cent are in favour of David Davis and his opposition to 42 days, it is a mathematical certainty that a large chunk of the electorate is hopelessly muddled.

We want to be protected from terrorists, yet we have a feeling that the state is everywhere eroding our ancient liberties – bossing, bullying, photographing us at every corner.

We need to be clear about the trade-off. The price of liberty is a small but appreciable loss of security; the price of security is a loss of liberty. In the case of the 42 days, the increase in security is obviously too small to justify the loss of a freedom such as habeas corpus.

As for cycle helmets, we should be allowed, in our muddled way, to make up our own minds. Sometimes we will go for hatless, sun-blessed, windswept liberty; sometimes for helmeted security.

The important thing is that we assess the risk, we make the decision, and be it on our own heads – or, in the case of my helmet, sometimes not.

[…]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/17/do1701.xml

There is a person in a muddle here, and it is BORIS.

You cannot on the one hand, make the argument against 42 day detention on the above basis, and then say that alcohol consumption on the underground should be banned by your diktat to ‘increase safety’. You cannot declare ‘War on Knife Crime’ because the tiniest fraction of people in London get stabbed, resulting inevitably in completely innocent people going about their business being compelled to walk through metal detectors in the street en masse.

A man with a consistently applied philosophy would say that trading liberty for security is ALWAYS bad (especially when the trade is made by a dictator for someone else’s good) and then he would ACT accordingly; some people drink to excess on the underground and cause trouble. They are one twenty millionth of the regular underground using population (at a wild guess, by all means give me the right number) and so, to catch that tiniest of fractions of miscreants, you introduce a measure that will not catch them, but oppress everyone even further in this over surveilled police state city….not very intelligent or consistent.

A few people in the worst, unrepresentative, areas of London get stabbed, and so, you say that all innocent Londoners are criminal suspects and must be scanned on the street for knives. That is not only immoral, breaking the innocent until proven guilty principle, but it will not stop knife crime in any way.

Boris Johnson is old enough to remember the REAL London, the London before CCTV, the criminal scam ‘Congestion Charge’, ‘War on terror’ hysteria, hideous people-trapping busses and every other avoidable ill that Londoners now suffer.

That his goal is not to restore London to its former glory is lamentable. That he is going to make it even worse is inexcusable.

And did you know, that this man reads… Lew Rockwell?

I just cannot believe it!

We need a mayor that is not in thrall to public opinion, or to newspaper editors and their shrieking headlines. We need a mayor that reads Lew Rockwell and actually BELIEVES what is written there, and who is willing to act on those beliefs and deeply held convictions.

We need a mayor who would never buy a bicycle helmet in the first place.

We need a mayor who THINKS before he ACTS.

George Washington Votes Obama

Monday, June 16th, 2008

I think there’s a good reason to vote for Obama (if Ron Paul isn’t given the Republican nomination) even though he’s black, and even if you don’t like blacks . . .
Why? Because:

  • The Neoconservatives are exploiting, oppressing and manipulating the average white American like slaveowners used to exploit black people
  • The imperialists are trying to silence average, patriotic, family-loving Americans like the slaveowners used to demand that the slaves spoke only when spoken to
  • The tyrants are raping the American treasury, stealing our possessions (by wrecking the economy with high inflation, which drains our wealth), and stripping us of our liberty and our dignity, as the slaveowners did to the slaves

This is just an analogy, and I am not trying to overstate the comparison. But in a certain sense, we are all black . . .
And to the extent that Obama follows through on his promises to restore our freedom and dignity, to restore the Constitution and the rule of law, and to liberate America from our wanna-be lords and masters, he’s got my vote.

Disclaimer: I’m a white guy. So I can’t speak to the black experience. And I understand there are huge racial tensions in America.
But what’s more important: Your anger and hatred? Or protecting yourself from the anti-American tyrants?
If you are black, I didn’t use the phrase “African-American” because this essay is aimed at White racists, so please cut me some slack.

[…]

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/06/why-obamas-got-my-vote.html

Consider your slack cut.

I like George Washington’s Blog. The person who writes it doesn’t hold back when he writes. He sounds like a Real American.

Sadly, (and ‘George Washington’ certainly knows this) Obomba is no ‘choice’ at all. He is just as insane as Bush, as the ever reliable and inert Pilger says concisely:

Understanding Obama as a likely president of the United States is not possible without understanding the demands of an essentially unchanged system of power: in effect a great media game. For example, since I compared Obama with Robert Kennedy in these pages, he has made two important statements, the implications of which have not been allowed to intrude on the celebrations. The first was at the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the Zionist lobby, which, as Ian Williams has pointed out, “will get you accused of anti-Semitism if you quote its own website about its power”. Obama had already offered his genuflection, but on 4 June went further. He promised to support an “undivided Jerusalem” as Israel’s capital. Not a single government on earth supports the Israeli annexation of all of Jerusalem, including the Bush regime, which recognises the UN resolution designating Jerusalem an international city.

His second statement, largely ignored, was made in Miami on 23 May. Speaking to the expatriate Cuban community – which over the years has faithfully produced terrorists, assassins and drug runners for US administrations – Obama promised to continue a 47-year crippling embargo on Cuba that has been declared illegal by the UN year after year.

Again, Obama went further than Bush. He said the United States had “lost Latin America”. He described the democratically elected governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua as a “vacuum” to be filled. He raised the nonsense of Iranian influence in Latin America, and he endorsed Colombia’s “right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens across its borders”. Translated, this means the “right” of a regime, whose president and leading politicians are linked to death squads, to invade its neighbours on behalf of Washington. He also endorsed the so-called Merida Initiative, which Amnesty International and others have condemned as the US bringing the “Colombian solution” to Mexico. He did not stop there. “We must press further south as well,” he said. Not even Bush has said that.

It is time the wishful-thinkers grew up politically and debated the world of great power as it is, not as they hope it will be. Like all serious presidential candidates, past and present, Obama is a hawk and an expansionist. He comes from an unbroken Democratic tradition, as the war-making of presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton demonstrates. Obama’s difference may be that he feels an even greater need to show how tough he is. However much the colour of his skin draws out both racists and supporters, it is otherwise irrelevant to the great power game. The “truly exciting and historic moment in US history” will only occur when the game itself is challenged.

http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=492

You are damed if you vote for Insane McCain, and you are damed if you vote for Obomba. The only act you will not be damed for is if you ‘DO NOT‘.

Which option is better; a world wide economic meltdown precipitated by the destruction of the dollar as the reserve currency, that will be over in a few years, resulting in the end of the Evil Empire, ‘The Great Satan’, OR a devastating World War and every evil that will come out of it, started by either Onset Alzheimers McSlay’in or Secret Overt Musilm Murderer Obomba?

The people who control the american government will not, it seems, back down. The good people of that great country are being prevented from getting the truth so that they can do the right thing, as is their nature to do when the have the facts.

The only option left is the complete abandonment of the dollar, should even a single bullet be loaded in preparation to be fired against Iran. Once the dollar is destroyed the attack cannot happen, they will make their excuses for backing off in order to save face, and the dragon will have been caged.

If anyone has a better idea, by all means, point it out. For certain, we know who does NOT have a better idea.

The death of the internet: what we will do to fix it

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

If Internet 2 comes about as everyone fears it might, how can we respond to its built in restrictions? What can we do to maintain the current openness of the internet we know and love so that anyone can have a site, publish what they like on it and make it available to anyone, anywhere for free?

Lets take a look.

The threat:

ISP’s have resolved to restrict the Internet to a TV-like subscription model where users will be forced to pay to visit selected corporate websites by 2012, while others will be blocked, according to a leaked report. Despite some people dismissing the story as a hoax, the wider plan to kill the traditional Internet and replace it with a regulated and controlled Internet 2 is manifestly provable.

“Bell Canada and TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISP’s all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit. These ‘other’ sites would then lose all their exposure and eventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet,” warns a report that People have raised questions about the report’s accuracy because the claims are not backed by another source, only the “promise” that a Time Magazine report is set to confirm the rumor. Until such a report emerges many have reserved judgment or outright dismissed the story as a hoax.

What is documented, as the story underscores, is the fact that TELUS’ wireless web package allows only restricted pay-per-view access to a selection of corporate and news websites. This is the model that the post-2012 Internet would be based on.

People have noted that the authors of the video seem to be more concerned about getting people to subscribe to their You Tube account than fighting for net neutrality by prominently featuring an attractive woman who isn’t shy about showing her cleavage. The vast majority of the other You Tube videos hosted on the same account consist of bizarre avante-garde satire skits on behalf of the same people featured in the Internet freedom clip. This has prompted many to suspect that the Internet story is merely a stunt to draw attention to the group.

Whether the report is accurate or merely a crude hoax, there is a very real agenda to restrict, regulate and suffocate the free use of the Internet and we have been documenting its progression for years.

The first steps in a move to charge for every e mail sent have already been taken. Under the pretext of eliminating spam, Bill Gates and other industry chieftains have proposed Internet users buy credit stamps which denote how many e mails they will be able to send. This of course is the death knell for political newsletters and mailing lists.

The New York Times reported that “America Online and Yahoo, two of the world’s largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely.”

The first wave will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website.

The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported in 2006 that, “Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets–corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers–would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.”

Over the past few years, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and further lead it down a path of strict control has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs:

  • Time magazine reported last year that researchers funded by the federal government want to shut down the internet and start over, citing the fact that at the moment there are loopholes in the system whereby users cannot be tracked and traced all the time.
  • The projects echo moves we have previously reported on to clamp down on internet neutrality and even to designate a new form of the internet known as Internet 2.

  • In a display of bi-partisanship, there have recently been calls for all out mandatory ISP snooping on all US citizens by both Democrats and Republicans alike.
  • The White House’s own recently de-classified strategy for “winning the war on terror” targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to “diminish” their influence.
  • The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.
  • In a speech last October, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a “terror training camp,” through which “disaffected people living in the United States” are developing “radical ideologies and potentially violent skills.” His solution is “intelligence fusion centers,” staffed by Homeland Security personnel which will go into operation next year.
  • The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress. Criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year could be the punishment for non-compliance.
  • A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web – and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.
  • A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.
  • The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down “terrorists” who use the Internet to spread propaganda.
  • The EU data retention bill, passed last year after much controversy and with implementation tabled for late 2007, obliges telephone operators and internet service providers to store information on who called who and who emailed who for at least six months. Under this law, investigators in any EU country, and most bizarrely even in the US, can access EU citizens’ data on phone calls, SMS messages, emails and instant messaging services.
  • The EU also recently proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license.
  • The US government is also funding research into social networking sites and how to gather and store personal data published on them, according to the New Scientist magazine. “At the same time, US lawmakers are attempting to force the social networking sites themselves to control the amount and kind of information that people, particularly children, can put on the sites.”

The development of a new form of internet with new regulations is also designed to create an online caste system whereby the old internet hubs would be allowed to break down and die, forcing people to use the new taxable, censored and regulated world wide web.

Make no mistake, the internet, one of the greatest outposts of free speech ever created is under constant attack by powerful people who cannot operate within a society where information flows freely and unhindered. Both American and European moves mimic stories we hear every week out of state controlled Communist China, where the internet is strictly regulated and virtually exists as its own entity away from the rest of the web.

The Internet is freedom’s best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate their populations under tyranny by eliminating the right to protest and educate others by the forum of the free world wide web.

has spread like wildfire across the web over the last few days.

The article, which is accompanied by a You Tube clip, states that Time Magazine writer “Dylan Pattyn” has confirmed the information and is about to release a story – and that the move to effectively shut down the web could come as soon as 2010.

[…]

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/061108_kill_internet.htm

The answer to this comes from the time before the internet was in every house; the era of the ‘BBS‘ or ‘Bulletin board system’.

If you are old enough to know about dialing up Bulletin Board Systems, you will understand how the way out of Internet 2 will work. For those of you who never used a BBS, or heard of a BBS, it was the way people connected to each other (mostly email) before ‘teh internetz’.

Bulletin Board Systems worked over very slow modems and computers that were, by today’s standards, beyond a joke. Mobile phones of today have more storage space, display resolution, bandwidth and processor power than the machines that ran BBSes. Many of the software clients ran in DOS, it cost you money every time you wanted to get your mail because you had to dial a land line telephone number to connect to someone else’s desktop computer to collect your messages, which you read in an ‘offline news reader‘ like BlueWave. The computers running the news and mail networks were mostly privately owned, run in peoples houses on ordinary telephone lines. The storage these computers had was literally tiny by today’s standards; the biggest BBSes had a few tens of gigabytes of storage.

Most of the mail traffic on these systems was text. Because people had to dial up over telephone lines, sending images or large files in the mail system Fidonet was strictly forbidden; you were paying by the minute to get your mail and news, modems were very slow, averaging 2400 baud, so bandwidth had to be used efficiently. Contrast that to today, where you have always on, unlimited, high speed bandwidth.

Despite all of these restrictions, small storage, low bandwidth, high cost of connecting, computers that were hard to use, the BBS explosion caused a revolution and spawned a huge culture that even gave rise to its own forms of art. I downloaded the first version of PGP from a BBS in the USA, and so many other things…the Black Dog used to run a BBS called ‘Black Dog Towers’; I learned all of my early modern PC skills from Ken Downie…but that is another story!

The point is that BBSes were hard to create and maintain and difficult to access. Despite those difficulties a distinct and vibrant culture was created that lasted many years and touched many lives. Make no mistake; this is about culture, and who controls it.

Today, all households have computers that are more powerful than any computer that ran a BBS by orders of magnitude. The modems we have today are fast enough to transfer 24meg in a second over a copper wire. We have the means to telephone each other and leave the ‘phone off the hook’ indefinitely without incurring a by the minute charge. Software developers now have modern languages (PHP/Ruby) to develop essentially anything they can imagine. We have free operating systems (GNU/Linux) that are as sophisticated as proprietary operating systems, that are so easy to use that my 70 year old aunt can use them with no problems whatsoever. We have a pool of content creators numbering in the hundreds of millions, who are eager to write blogs, post comments on forums and do everything that the old media has seen and experienced as a direct threat to their business models, prestige and influence.

With all of these pieces in place it will be literally impossible to put the genie of internet freedom back into the bottle. When all of these very potent pieces are brought together we will be able to create a system that will circumvent the censorship of Internet 2 at a scale and with an efficiency that would make the sysops of the BBS era spontaneously combust.

We will see the birth of ‘Internet 3’ where literally hundreds of millions of personal computers will be networked together into a system that cannot be stopped without shutting down the entire world-wide telephone network. This new, permanently free internet will take the place of the old internet, discredit the legitimacy of the corporate controlled Internet 2 and ensure that freedom of the electrons is a feature of our lives for generations to come.

Of course, as our future devices become more powerful and more connected, Internet 3 will grow in power as a consequence, further cementing its pre-eminent position. There will be other consequences too. People will figure out how to make money on Internet 3, and they like Mark Shuttleworth who created the fantastically powerful and popular Ubuntu will put their billions into making the system more robust and useful. In fact, the Ubuntu story is a perfect example of how Internet 3 will come about; Shuttleworth took Debian Gnu/Linux and used it as the basis for a Linux distribution that anyone can use. In a short space of time, it has become the best Linux distribution out there, so much so, that Dell is now offering it pre-installed on its computers. Ubuntu solves the ‘proprietary Operating System problem’, the ‘Linux is not ready for the desktop problem’, and the ‘Windows Tax problem’ Superimpose this wild success and the way it was done on our ‘Internet 2 problem’, and you can begin to see how not only it can be solved, but how much success we can expect.

What would the Internet 3 user experience look like? Who knows? But at a minimum, it could work in the following way.

Users could interface with it via an application that resembles a modern browser that sits on top of your network connection, transparently peering with other users, managing bandwidth (if needed), giving you what you want while facilitating other people in getting what they want. Think of it as a very advanced browser sitting on top of a next generation Bittorrent client.

Such a piece of software, or its vastly superior decedents, and other myriad software clients that are bound to be created, would be impossible to stop, especially if everyone is using a GNU/Linux distribution, where policies of what software can or cannot be run is not under the control of a proprietary and predatory operating system vendor like Microsoft. You should read about how Trusted Computing can control what you can and cannot do with your own computer. If the lusers of this world continue to use Windows and its variants, the day will come where the state can forbid a certain piece of software from being executable on any computer and all it will take is an update from MS to kill, say, Bittorrent or its descendent. Free operating systems will be immune from this sort of control. But I digress.

We can very quickly build a world-wide, unstoppable, robust private network that will keep information absolutely free. We have the tools to do it, we have had sufficient warning, we have developers to hand, the will, the users and the software tools and hardware to make it happen.

It will happen.

Your job is to maintain and increase your computer literacy, switch to GNU/Linux and be ready to do whatever you need to do help make Internet 3 happen.

Note to selves

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

I read a few lines. There was not a single line of stereotyped abuse that had not been drummed into me for years till I was sick and tired of it.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it doesn’t bother me. I was used to it long ago. Now and again I have expressed the opinion that every nation, and even every person, would do better, instead of rocking himself to sleep with political catchwords about war-guilt, to ask himself how far his own faults and negligences and evil tendencies are guilty of the war and all the other wrongs of the world, and there lies the only possible means of avoiding the next war. They don’t forgive me for that, for, of course, they are themselves all guiltless, the Kaiser, the generals, the trade magnates, the politicians, the papers. Not one of them has the least thing to blame himself for. Not one has any guilt. One might believe that everything was for the best, even though a few million men lie under the ground. And mind you, Hermine, even though such abusive articles cannot bother me any longer, they sadden me all the same. Two thirds of my countrymen read this kind of newspaper, read things written in this tone every morning, and every night, are every day worked up and admonished and incited, and robbed of their peace of mind and better feelings by them, and the end aim of it alll is to have the war over again, and it will be a good deal more horrible than the last. All that is perfectly clear and simple. Anyone could comprehend it and reach the same conclusion after a moment’s reflection. But nobody wants to. Nobody wants to avoid the next war, nobody wants to spare himself and his children the next holocaust if this be the cost. To reflect for one moment, to examine himself for a while and ask what share he has in the world’s confusion and wickedness – clearly nobody wants to to do that. And so there is no stopping it, and the next war is being pushed on with enthusiasm by thousands and thousands day by day.[…]’

Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf

EU backs use of open-source software

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

By James Kanter
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

BRUSSELS: The European Union’s competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, delivered an unusually blunt rebuke to Microsoft on Tuesday by recommending that businesses and governments use software based on open standards.

Kroes has fought bitterly with Microsoft over the past four years, accusing the company of defying her orders and fining it nearly ?1.7 billion, or $2.7 billion, for violating European competition rules. But her comments were the strongest recommendation yet by Kroes to jettison Microsoft products, which are based on proprietary standards, and to use rival operating systems to run computers.

“I know a smart business decision when I see one – choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed,” Kroes told a conference in Brussels. “No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one.”

Kroes did not name Microsoft in advance copies of her speech, but she made her meaning clear by referring to the only company in EU antitrust enforcement history that has been fined for refusing to comply with European Commission orders – a record held by Microsoft.

“The commission has never before had to issue two periodic penalty payments in a competition case,” she said.

The EU has previously ruled against Microsoft for abusing its dominance in the markets for software to play music on computers and to communicate with powerful server computers on a network. In recent months, Kroes has opened new investigations against Microsoft after complaints that it was competing unfairly in the market for Web browsers by using the Explorer software. Kroes is also investigating whether Microsoft is making it too hard for rivals to work with its Office suite applications.

In her speech, Kroes said there were serious security concerns for governments and businesses associated with using a single software supplier. She praised the City of Munich for using software based on open standards, along with the German Foreign Ministry and the Gendarmerie Nationale, a department of the French police force.

Kroes, who is Dutch, encouraged the Dutch government and Parliament to continue moving toward use of open standards. EU agencies “must not rely on one vendor” and “must refuse to become locked into a particular technology – jeopardizing maintenance of full control over the information in its possession,” she said.

A policy by the European Commission adopted last year to promote the use of software products that support open standards “needs to be implemented with vigor,” she said.

[…]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/10/technology/msft.php

Amazing. It looks like they are finally beginning to GET IT.

Micro$oft Winblows === BAD
GNU/Linux/Gnome/Ubuntu === GOOD

M$ Office === BAD
Open Office === GOOD

.doc === BAD
.odf === GOOD

Freedom === GOOD
Slavery === BAD

Simple really!

Monster Music 12

Monday, June 9th, 2008

Mixwit