|
11/7/2002
World Braces for 'Triumphant' Bush :.The world now faces President George W. Bush triumphant after the midterm elections. His Republican Party is in command of both Houses of Congress, and Bush can claim a potent new mandate for an assertive foreign policy whose unilateralist "America First" implications have disconcerted friends and foes alike."We are dealing with a power that has no limit in its dealing with foreign issues," said Mohammed Shaker, head of the Egyptian Council on Foreign Relations, whose wariness of a Bush administration unrestrained by any other branch of government was widely shared beyond U.S. shores.
Diplomats in Washington Wednesday, while noting that the executive branch was always in charge of foreign policy, suggested that the Republican majorities in Congress would give the Bush administration even more self-assurance in foreign policy, and adding weight to its more hawkish voices and weakening the doves.
posted by Kevin at 1:23 AM
U.S. in Denial as Poverty Rises :.New Haven is a metaphor for the America which on Tuesday elects its Senate and House of Representatives. It is the country's fourth poorest city, where the ghetto laps at the walls of a university worth $11 billion (�7bn) in tax-exempt endowments, educating America's next generation of rulers. A sign at the freeway turn-off advertises New Haven as the birthplace of President George Bush.
It is a city with the same infant mortality rate as Malaysia and a terrifying rate of deaths from Aids - one day care centre alone commemorated the loss of 600 clients at a memorial service on Wednesday. But it is located in America' richest state, Connecticut, which has, proportionally, more millionaires than any other.
posted by Kevin at 1:22 AM
11/6/2002
International Banking Software and Services Company "Counts" Your VotesI don't vote for Republicans. I don't vote for Democrats. I only vote for third party candidates. So, I know I'm throwing my vote away. I read Votescam back in 1993, so I basically stopped believing in the electoral process in this county long ago. I just show up because it's nice to pretend that there's some form of representative process in this country. TR and I were sitting here, casually discussing how simple a matter it would be for a few bozos to completely manipulate the voting and vote tabulation process using closed-source computer systems. You know, eliminate any possibility of a recount or investigation. No paper trail. Then we started looking into some of the electronic systems in use. HAHAHA! This stuff is off the rails. Why is a British company (De La Rue, parent of Sequoia Voting Systems) involved with U.S. elections? Take a wild guess at what De La Rue does! This company is a MAJOR vendor of goods and services to governments, international bankers, central banks, and THE Central Bank, the Bank of International Settlements! They manufacture tamper proof I.D. cards, passports and maybe even the cash in your pocket. I find it very interesting that a company with so many connections to elite government and banking circles, a company with access to the most personal information for hundreds of millions of people, would also be involved in producing closed-source, unauditable voting systems for U.S. elections. If this is some sort of nightmare, I've had enough, I want to wake up. From the De La Rue ABOUT page: De La Rue is the world 's largest commercial security printer and papermaker, involved in the production of over 150 national currencies and a wide range of security documents such as travellers cheques and vouchers. Employing almost 7,000 people across 31 countries, the company is also a leading provider of cash handling equipment and software solutions to banks and retailers worldwide helping them to reduce the cost of handling cash. We are also pioneering new technologies including tailored solutions to protect the world 's brands through to government identity solutions in secure passports, identity cards and driver 's licences.Does anyone out there find it interesting that a gas pipeline expert and 15 year employee of British Petroleum was appointed to the De La Rue Board of Directors in September 2001? To the Board of Directors of the same company that is making voting machines for U.S. elections? Yes, as I type this, the Oil Junta in the White House is reveling in their massive (!and historically unusual!) mid term election gains! Philip Nolan
Non-Executive Director
Philip Nolan BSc PhD MBA, 48, was appointed to the Board on 1 September 2001. He is Chief Executive Officer of Eircom, the Irish telecoms operator and was appointed in January 2002. Formerly, he was Chief Executive of Lattice Group plc. Lattice Group is one of three successor companies of British Gas, specialising in the provision, management and servicing of infrastructure networks. The company comprises Britain's gas pipeline business, Transco, as well as telecommunications and other businesses. Dr Nolan joined the then British Gas in 1996, becoming Managing Director of Transco in June 1997. He was appointed to the BG Board in July 1998. He spent 15 years with BP and in 1995 was seconded from BP to the role of Managing Director, Interconnector (UK) Ltd, the consortium formed to construct and operate the pipeline which links the gas network of the UK to that of mainland Europe.From Elections In America - Assume Crooks Are In Control : Sequoia is another voting systems company that sends a cold chill down my spine. "Mob ties, bribery, felony convictions, and threats of coercion are visible in the public record of the election services company," according to investigative journalist and filmmaker Daniel Hopsicker, and reported in Spotlight.com. Hopsicker says that Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci, a 65-year-old senior executive with Sequoia, and the firm's Louisiana representative, recently pled guilty to passing out as much as $10 million dollars in bribes over the course of almost an entire decade." According to American Law Education Rights & Taxation (ALERT), Ricci is the president of Sequoia International, which also manufactures casino slot machines.Enough for now. My head hurts.
posted by Kevin at 5:25 AM
11/5/2002
U.S. and U.K. Lashed to the Mast of the Same Sinking Ship :.The Oil Ship: As available reserves decline, the world's oil-hungry nations are tussling to grab as much as they can for themselves. Almost everywhere on earth the United States is winning. It is positioning itself to become the gatekeeper to the world's remaining oil and gas. If it succeeds, it will both secure its own future supplies and massively enhance its hegemonic power.
The world's oil reserves, the depletion analysis centre claims, appear to be declining almost as swiftly as the North sea's. Conventional oil supplies will peak within five or 10 years, and decline by around 2 million barrels per day every year from then on. New kinds of fossil fuel have only a limited potential to ameliorate the coming crisis. In the Middle East, the only nation which could significantly increase its output is Iraq.Viable alternatives to fossil fuels have existed for years. The reason these technologies aren't used has nothing at all to do with their viability. This isn't about oil, or the lack of oil. This is about political power. The oil paradigm imprisons countries, and Elites like it that way. The U.S., by securing control of the remaining deposits of oil, is desperately trying to maintain a world order that is already dead. For U.S. strategists, the logic is that the U.S. can use oil as a choke point for development, or, at the whim of the U.S., non-development in any part of the world. What would happen to Elite power and influence in the world if every individual had a free and endless supply of clean energy? Countries, and the people within them, would do whatever they wanted, outside of the influence of the U.S. and its handmaidens. Rather than openly developing and implementing new technologies, Elites in many parts of the world would rather have the U.S. attempt to maintain the fossil fuels based status quo. Let's transition from The-Way-Things-Are to The-Way-Things-Could-Be: Wind alone could easily handle the energy demands. (If you think I'm kidding, read up on wind.) Then you have technologies like Bearden's Motionless Electromagnetic Generator (MEG), and any number of other alternatives. This stuff rattles the apple cart. It upsets the entire world order. Global Elites won't allow this stuff to take over until they can figure out a way to lock it up and control it. Well, unless people like you get off your asses and do something about it. If you have an engineering background, replicate the MEG, join the MEG builders group, talk to Naudin in France, talk to Bearden himself (these guys will write back!). People all over the pace are getting results. I don't know enough about electronics to build one of these things on my own, but surely some of you do. Go for it! TR sent in some great Michio Kaku information that directly relates to the state in which we find ourselves. We are merely children, dabbling with the power of creation. Most species don't make it much further along in their development than where we are right now. Take a look out your window, take a good long look! That's about as far as most planetary civilizations probably get. Michio Kaku, for those of you who don't know, is one of the world's most brilliant physicists. TR writes: I was reading a very interesting interview by Michio Kaku. In it he was saying that we are a Type 0 civilization that is still burning dead plants for power. We are now in the transition to a Type 1 civilization, which will control the planet. He goes on to say, "Perhaps and just perhaps, there were 10,000 Type-0 civilizations in our galaxy, but they all self-destructed because a transition from Type-0 to Type-1 is the most dangerous of all transitions. It is the greatest paradigm shift of all because that means we have the power to self-destruct." That's it. Civilization has been around for 6,000 years but the power to self destruct--only 50. Everyday, it is miracle that we are still around. How many miracle days will we have before the last one? The universe is probably littered with aborted Type 1 civilizations. Kaku says: "The generation now alive � the generation watching this video � that generation is the most important generation that has ever been born � that has ever walked the surface of the Earth because that generation - the generation of today - will determine whether we make the transition from Type-0 to Type-1� to a planetary civilization� to an age of Aquarius. Or whether we pollute our atmosphere with carbon dioxide� whether we irradiate ourselves with the power of uranium. When we go into outer space one day, and we see other civilizations in space. Perhaps we will see dead civilizations. Perhaps we will see atmospheres irradiated with the power of uranium. Perhaps atmospheres too hot to sustain life. Perhaps we�ll see planets that tried to make the transition from Type-1 to Type�2 but never made it. Here we have a warning and that warning is: unless we can control the sectarianism, the nationalism, the fundamentalism, the hatreds and anger that came with our rise from the swamp� unless we can control these passions, we may never make it to the age of Aquarius."This next part really blew my mind: And if we are just a Type-0 civilization, this means we are children� children. We are not even Type-1 yet! We do not even register on the charts. Some people say, �Well why don�t they visit us, these aliens?� Well when you walk down the street and you see an anthill, do you go down to the ants and say, �I bring you trinkets, I bring you beads, I bring you knowledge, I bring you the power of dna, the power of nuclear weapons?� Or do you just step on a few of them?
We have to be humble.
If there�s a Type-3 civilization in our galaxy and there could be � Carl Sagan believed that yes, there is probably a Type-3 civilization someplace in our galaxy - would we even be smart enough to know that there is a Type-3? I mean think about it. If there�s a ten lane super-highway being built right next to an anthill, are the ants smart enough to even understand what a ten lane super-highway is? Or to understand the gibberish these humans are saying? Or why these humans would build such a ten lane super-highway? Or even that humans exist at all? I mean think about it. We physicists do. And some of us come to the conclusion that maybe we are not even smart enough to know how stupid we are. Maybe we are not even smart enough to know that there is a Type-3 civilization just on the other side of that hill in the galaxy. We�re not smart enough to realize that they talk to each other. They have a flourishing civilization with ten lane hyper-highways everywhere. And here we are stuck on this mud ball called the third planet of the Sun, in the Orion arm of a minor galaxy, in the backwash of the Virgo super-cluster, thinking that we are Nature�s greatest creation� that we are God�s gift to humanity� that our science is the greatest of all science and our art is the greatest of all art, when in fact there is a whole universe out there�Research Credit: DG
posted by Kevin at 5:50 PM
11/4/2002
Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)
Formal Acknowledgement of Problem-Reaction-Solution Strategy :.This will probably go down as the most incredible article posted on this website. This has got to be the top of the curve in terms of Absurdity-As-Reality. I don't know how we're going to beat this one! The Problem-Reaction-Solution cycle is nothing new to most of my lunatic readers. But just in case you're new, or don't have an extensive collection of freak knowledge, here it is in a nutshell: Once upon a time, there was a guy named Hegel. His Dialectic went on to form the philosophical, theoretical and operational foundations of a system of psychological warfare intended to be used against civilian populations. For governments, the goal was not only to achieve a level of political control routinely enjoyed by totalitarian regimes, but to also create a system that was more resistant to uprisings, insurrections, revolutions, etc. Today, "open societies" are actually distributed totalitarian regimes. (Let that concept sink in for a few moments.) Control is maintained via several, seemingly disparate, components of the society. Government, Industry and Academia present such a robust and convincing illusion of "openness and freedom" than the vast majority of people actually believe that they are free, that their governments are reasonably democratic and that they can make changes to the system if necessary. Of course, none of that is even remotely true. Most people, rather, exist in a form of feedback loop. They are presented with various stimuli that provoke predictable responses, none of which threaten the status quo. The few who are aware of this fraud and speak out against the "core values" of the system are belittled, humiliated and imprisoned. The fewer still in a capacity to actually threaten "normal operations" are routinely murdered for stepping out of line. Also commonly referred to as the Problem-Reaction-Solution cycle, the Hegelian Dialectic allows those in control to not only remain in control, but undertake policies that, "Push the envelope" of what is acceptable. One can come up with examples all day long, but let's take a look at the current King Daddy of them all: The U.S. wants to steal oil from Central Asia and the Middle East. Present a problem: 9/11. Present a reaction: War. The solution emerges: U.S. invades Central Asia and steals oil. Iraq is next. This is the ultimate How-To-Get-There-From-Here tool in the hands of policy makers. Well, the nuts running this nuthouse have now gone public with the name of a group tasked with carrying out the type of operations I just described above: Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG): According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization--the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)"--will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.
In other words--and let's say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld's plan--the United States government is planning to use "cover and deception" and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. Let's say it again: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of innocent people--your family, your friends, your lovers, you--in order to further their geopolitical ambitions.Interesting Note: Does this story contain elements of weirdness similar to the establishment of the Information Awareness Office, with its almost unbelievable symbol, the all seeing eye, freaky uses of Latin, etc.? Note the acronym for Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group: P2OG. Any takers on a possible connection to the infamous P2 (Propaganda Due) Lodge of Italy? Related: Original L.A. Times articleResearch Credit: TR
posted by Kevin at 4:20 AM
U.S. Using the Same Scam Invented by the Brits (Again) :.Is anyone keeping a tally sheet of my analytical hits? HAHAHA! Recall this article I wrote from a couple of days ago: Over the past few decades, Britain, one of the world's most powerful states, used roughly 300 armed Irish people (IRA, et al.) as an excuse to turn the entire place into a large penal colony. Now the U.S. is doing the same thing.And now this from the Telegraph U.K.: America is contemplating a radical overall of the FBI and the creation of a domestic spying organization modeled on Britain's MI5, according to US intelligence sources.
Tom Ridge, President George W Bush's director of homeland security, will hold talks in London next week focusing on the British experience of combating the IRA over more than three decades.I think I should stand on a street corner with a sign that says: Will Predict Global Political Events For Food.
posted by Kevin at 4:18 AM
|
:. Reading
 Fatal
Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell
Readers will come to see
that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest"
- fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors
such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way
into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff
from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to
genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield
monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our
farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate
farms.
 Friendly
Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross
This is a relatively
short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise
of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th
century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward;
the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and
military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined
to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly
persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans
through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.
 The
Good Life
by Scott and Helen Nearing Helen
and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land
movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based
on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating,
timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging
philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.
 Silent
Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd
In Silent Theft, David Bollier
argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering
privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are
engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we
collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs,
software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative
works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often,
however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps
give away our assets. Amazingly,
the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed
because we have lost our ability to see the commons.
 The
Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics
Guide by John Seymour The
Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that
teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony
with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops
and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and
wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.
 When
Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten
When Corporations
Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated
the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets
and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It
documents the devastating human and environmental consequences
of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct
values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their
own narrow ends.
 The
New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques
for the Home and Market Gardener
This expansion
of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended
for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes
practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables,
with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock,
the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other
topics.
|
