31 May 2009
OUR QUIET CORNER
The other blogspots and websites around the world continue to show an amazing amount of traffic visiting their sites. I think it is fantastic when some of my favorite sites are getting people to stop and read their articles and commentaries over the mainstream press and their compromised lies and propaganda. I also think it's interesting that only a few people ever visit our site. It's like our quiet little corner in cyberspace. For those few that stop by and those that have comeback, thank you. It is our pleasure to share our thoughts and interests with you as this bizarre world unfolds.
NEWS and PROPAGANDA
Drones could face legal challenge in US
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American human rights activists might legally challenge the US military’s use of Predator drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The spy planes are virtually invisible when flying overhead. “That’s the spooky thing about the Predator,” terrorism expert Neil Livingstone says. Human rights activists point out that there’s no warning to innocent civilians in the targeted area. “This is not only a violation of the international laws of war,” says Gabor Rona, of Human Rights First, a US-based group. “It’s bad policy.” The laws of war allow individuals engaged in hostilities to be targeted in an armed conflict but strictly prohibit actions against those not engaged.
http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/drones-could-face-legal-challenge-in-us.html
65 years in jail for providing charity (to Palestinians that is)
****************************************************************
This week five men from the holy land foundation were sentenced to prison terms [...] If you funnel money to the Israeli terrorist army, it is tax-deductible in the US. And if you funnel money to any Palestinian group, you serve time in jail....
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54710&hd=&size=1&l=e
Abbas's forces kill Hamas militant in raid
******************************************
QALQILYA: A Hamas militant was killed and two Palestinian policemen were injured in exchanges of gunfire in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, Palestinian security officials said.
The clashes erupted when security forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, which administers the West Bank, raided a neighbourhood in the city of Qalqilya to arrest gunmen of the rival Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip.
The officials named the militant as Mohammad Yasin and said policemen were combing the area in a search for more gunmen. Witnesses said several Hamas gunmen holed up in buildings had ignored calls to surrender.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=79149
US, Israel fanning Indo-Pak tensions, says Qadhafi
**************************************************
‘The Pakistanis are told that their enemy is the Hindus, not the Jews or Christians, and therefore their bomb should be directed towards them, the Pakistanis’ immediate enemy, and not anyone else,’ writes Mr Qadhafi.
‘Similarly, the Indians are led to believe their real enemy is Pakistan and that the Pakistani bomb was directed towards them rather than the Israelis or Americans.’
The Libyan leader claims that this policy aims to preoccupy Pakistan with India and India with Pakistan. ‘Perhaps this is why America has not been willing to contribute to solving the Kashmiri problem, whereas the Israelis will try to keep it always flammable.’
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/13+us+israel+fanning+indo-pak+tensions-za-07
Iran defuses bomb in plane
**************************
Iranian security officials defused a bomb planted on a domestic passenger plane, officials said on Sunday, the latest incident of violence ahead of next month's presidential election.
"Last night, 15 minutes after the plane with 131 passengers took off, flight security guards found a handmade bomb placed in the lavatory," Fars said. "The plane landed immediately at Ahvaz airport and the bomb was defused."
The incident occurred just two days after 25 people were killed in a powerful bomb attack on a mosque in Zahedan in southeastern Iran claimed by a shadowy Sunni rebel group.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=79184
**********************************
American human rights activists might legally challenge the US military’s use of Predator drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The spy planes are virtually invisible when flying overhead. “That’s the spooky thing about the Predator,” terrorism expert Neil Livingstone says. Human rights activists point out that there’s no warning to innocent civilians in the targeted area. “This is not only a violation of the international laws of war,” says Gabor Rona, of Human Rights First, a US-based group. “It’s bad policy.” The laws of war allow individuals engaged in hostilities to be targeted in an armed conflict but strictly prohibit actions against those not engaged.
http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/drones-could-face-legal-challenge-in-us.html
65 years in jail for providing charity (to Palestinians that is)
****************************************************************
This week five men from the holy land foundation were sentenced to prison terms [...] If you funnel money to the Israeli terrorist army, it is tax-deductible in the US. And if you funnel money to any Palestinian group, you serve time in jail....
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54710&hd=&size=1&l=e
Abbas's forces kill Hamas militant in raid
******************************************
QALQILYA: A Hamas militant was killed and two Palestinian policemen were injured in exchanges of gunfire in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, Palestinian security officials said.
The clashes erupted when security forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, which administers the West Bank, raided a neighbourhood in the city of Qalqilya to arrest gunmen of the rival Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip.
The officials named the militant as Mohammad Yasin and said policemen were combing the area in a search for more gunmen. Witnesses said several Hamas gunmen holed up in buildings had ignored calls to surrender.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=79149
US, Israel fanning Indo-Pak tensions, says Qadhafi
**************************************************
‘The Pakistanis are told that their enemy is the Hindus, not the Jews or Christians, and therefore their bomb should be directed towards them, the Pakistanis’ immediate enemy, and not anyone else,’ writes Mr Qadhafi.
‘Similarly, the Indians are led to believe their real enemy is Pakistan and that the Pakistani bomb was directed towards them rather than the Israelis or Americans.’
The Libyan leader claims that this policy aims to preoccupy Pakistan with India and India with Pakistan. ‘Perhaps this is why America has not been willing to contribute to solving the Kashmiri problem, whereas the Israelis will try to keep it always flammable.’
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/13+us+israel+fanning+indo-pak+tensions-za-07
Iran defuses bomb in plane
**************************
Iranian security officials defused a bomb planted on a domestic passenger plane, officials said on Sunday, the latest incident of violence ahead of next month's presidential election.
"Last night, 15 minutes after the plane with 131 passengers took off, flight security guards found a handmade bomb placed in the lavatory," Fars said. "The plane landed immediately at Ahvaz airport and the bomb was defused."
The incident occurred just two days after 25 people were killed in a powerful bomb attack on a mosque in Zahedan in southeastern Iran claimed by a shadowy Sunni rebel group.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=79184
30 May 2009
STOP GIVING THEM IDEAS!!!
{It has been scientifically proven that re-gifting is O.K.}
_______________________________________
Chavez gift for Obama: Lenin's writing
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is reported to be ready to present to his US counterpart the first Soviet leader's instructions on political direction of the working class.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96538§ionid=351020704
Books, letter to be used in case against Suu Kyi
************************************************
Several items left by an uninvited American visitor, including a book on the Mormon faith and a letter, could be used to convict and imprison Burma pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on charges of violating her house arrest
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090523/suukyi_trial_090523/20090523?hub=World
Mexico's president given George Orwell's 1984 by the Queen
**********************************************************
At Buckingham Palace, Felipe Calderon was presented with a first edition of George Orwell's nightmarish book, which tells of a totalitarian regime and coined the concept Big Brother.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5077917/Mexicos-president-given-George-Orwells-1984-by-the-Queen.html
_______________________________________
Chavez gift for Obama: Lenin's writing
**************************************
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is reported to be ready to present to his US counterpart the first Soviet leader's instructions on political direction of the working class.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96538§ionid=351020704
Books, letter to be used in case against Suu Kyi
************************************************
Several items left by an uninvited American visitor, including a book on the Mormon faith and a letter, could be used to convict and imprison Burma pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on charges of violating her house arrest
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090523/suukyi_trial_090523/20090523?hub=World
Mexico's president given George Orwell's 1984 by the Queen
**********************************************************
At Buckingham Palace, Felipe Calderon was presented with a first edition of George Orwell's nightmarish book, which tells of a totalitarian regime and coined the concept Big Brother.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5077917/Mexicos-president-given-George-Orwells-1984-by-the-Queen.html
U.S. MANAGING MURDER IN IRAN
Jundullah claim responsibility for Iran blast
*********************************************
The Jundullah terror group has claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack that killed at least 25 people in southeastern of Iran.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96453§ionid=351020101
ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran
***********************************************
A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.
The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.
It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html
Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh
*******************
Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh
*********************************************
The Jundullah terror group has claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack that killed at least 25 people in southeastern of Iran.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96453§ionid=351020101
ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran
***********************************************
A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.
The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.
It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html
Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh
*******************
Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh
29 May 2009
DISPARITIES and CRUSADES
Israelis get four-fifths of scarce West Bank water, says World Bank
*******************************************************************
The region faces a fifth consecutive year of drought this summer, but the World Bank report found huge disparities in water use between Israelis and Palestinians, although both share the mountain aquifer that runs the length of the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have access to only a fifth of the water supply, while Israel, which controls the area, takes the rest, the bank said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/27/israel-palestinian-water-dispute
America still pursues military engagement over a peace strategy
***************************************************************
Some opponents of the Iraq War, including me, believe that a fundamental - and deeply misguided - objective of the war from the outset has been to create a long-term military base (or bases) in Iraq, ostensibly to protect oil routes and oil concessions.
The worries are even worse in Afghanistan. Among other problems, the US relies heavily on drones and bombers, leading to a high civilian death toll, which is inflaming public attitudes against the US. After one recent disaster, in which more than 100 civilians died, the Pentagon immediately insisted that such bombing operations would continue.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/22/content_11417757.htm
Secret Memos Reveal Bush Saw Iraq War as ‘Christian’ Crusade
************************************************************
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent President George Bush top-secret wartime memos with cover sheets that mixed Scripture and battle photos to cast the Iraq invasion as a holy Christian crusade, the journal CQ reports.
“Rumsfeld, not known to be religious, appeared to be trying to manipulate the Bible-quoting Bush into believing that invading Iraq was God’s will. “Commit to the LORD, whatever you do, and your plans will succeed—Proverbs 16.3,” appeared on an April 1, 2003 report over a photo of a U.S. soldier near a highway sign pointing to Baghdad. The next day, U.S. troops reached the Iraqi capital.
“Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps the faith—Isaiah 26.2,” appeared on an April 3, 2003 memo over a photo of a U.S. tank entering Baghdad.
Four months later, during a summit in Egypt, the Palestinian foreign minister said Bush told him he was on “a mission from God” and was getting commands directly from the Lord.
http://americanfreepress.net/html/bush_crusade_179.html
*******************************************************************
The region faces a fifth consecutive year of drought this summer, but the World Bank report found huge disparities in water use between Israelis and Palestinians, although both share the mountain aquifer that runs the length of the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have access to only a fifth of the water supply, while Israel, which controls the area, takes the rest, the bank said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/27/israel-palestinian-water-dispute
America still pursues military engagement over a peace strategy
***************************************************************
Some opponents of the Iraq War, including me, believe that a fundamental - and deeply misguided - objective of the war from the outset has been to create a long-term military base (or bases) in Iraq, ostensibly to protect oil routes and oil concessions.
The worries are even worse in Afghanistan. Among other problems, the US relies heavily on drones and bombers, leading to a high civilian death toll, which is inflaming public attitudes against the US. After one recent disaster, in which more than 100 civilians died, the Pentagon immediately insisted that such bombing operations would continue.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/22/content_11417757.htm
Secret Memos Reveal Bush Saw Iraq War as ‘Christian’ Crusade
************************************************************
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent President George Bush top-secret wartime memos with cover sheets that mixed Scripture and battle photos to cast the Iraq invasion as a holy Christian crusade, the journal CQ reports.
“Rumsfeld, not known to be religious, appeared to be trying to manipulate the Bible-quoting Bush into believing that invading Iraq was God’s will. “Commit to the LORD, whatever you do, and your plans will succeed—Proverbs 16.3,” appeared on an April 1, 2003 report over a photo of a U.S. soldier near a highway sign pointing to Baghdad. The next day, U.S. troops reached the Iraqi capital.
“Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps the faith—Isaiah 26.2,” appeared on an April 3, 2003 memo over a photo of a U.S. tank entering Baghdad.
Four months later, during a summit in Egypt, the Palestinian foreign minister said Bush told him he was on “a mission from God” and was getting commands directly from the Lord.
http://americanfreepress.net/html/bush_crusade_179.html
Plain & Simple.
***************
After all in your minds, it is not called an armed invasion and occupation...you call it an "unfortunate mistake", "an unnecessary war" at best, and preach to me and us that we should forgive, while you're still there, physically there "visiting" us and while you persist in the lie...
And in those sick, sick, minds of yours, you justify it all with "we are here to help."
Do you know why you do that ? I will tell you why. It is because you have this amazing propensity to LIE TO YOURSELVES...you are in fact the PEOPLE OF THE LIE.
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/05/plain-simple.html
Setting back the 9/11 Truth Movement a Decade
*********************************************
And that's what Alex Jones managed to do in the documentary, "New World Order" that aired yesterday evening on the Independent Film Channel.
Jones came across as an out of control, paranoid, delusional nut case who sees conspiracies behind every corner that are waiting to take him down.
Here's what Robert Lloyd of the LA Times said about Jones in "New World Order."
Jones is a self-inflating showboat who gets energy from hearing himself speak; he has cast himself as the star and main target in a conspiracy thriller he sees following him everywhere: a shirtless biker hanging around the Washington Mall is certainly Secret Service; the fire alarm that goes off in his hotel can only be a "setup."
And from the "Paper of Record," the New York Times, in their article Conspiracy Theorists Examined
The most prominent of the filmmakers’ subjects, the radio host Alex Jones, who is based in Austin, Tex., rails against the powers that be — all of them — in a manner that reinforces every cliché of the conspiracy theorist loon: paranoid, megalomaniacal, delusional, sweaty. The documentary’s most action-packed scene finds Mr. Jones throwing a major hissy fit when his hotel fire alarm goes off, thereby proving, without a shadow of a doubt, that “they” are trying to suppress his revelations.
And for once, I agree with the NYT. Between his bug-eyed facial features and waving his arms like a whirling dervish, Jones looked like someone who had escaped the confines of his straightjacket.
...the producers of this hit piece focused on the fringe elements of the 9/11 Truth Movement, from interviewing some Idaho militia types to the Florida Jesus freak that didn't seem to be playing with a full deck.
But it's the most visible and best known character, Jones who manages to trash the 9/11 Truth Movement thru his hysterics and acting like he has no control over his emotions.
Thanks Alex, for helping trash the 9/11 Truth Movement, you did a bang up piece for Tyranny, Death and Destruction. Your handlers must be proud!
http://careandwashingofthebrain.blogspot.com/2009/05/setting-back-911-truth-movement-decade.html
***************
After all in your minds, it is not called an armed invasion and occupation...you call it an "unfortunate mistake", "an unnecessary war" at best, and preach to me and us that we should forgive, while you're still there, physically there "visiting" us and while you persist in the lie...
And in those sick, sick, minds of yours, you justify it all with "we are here to help."
Do you know why you do that ? I will tell you why. It is because you have this amazing propensity to LIE TO YOURSELVES...you are in fact the PEOPLE OF THE LIE.
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/05/plain-simple.html
Setting back the 9/11 Truth Movement a Decade
*********************************************
And that's what Alex Jones managed to do in the documentary, "New World Order" that aired yesterday evening on the Independent Film Channel.
Jones came across as an out of control, paranoid, delusional nut case who sees conspiracies behind every corner that are waiting to take him down.
Here's what Robert Lloyd of the LA Times said about Jones in "New World Order."
Jones is a self-inflating showboat who gets energy from hearing himself speak; he has cast himself as the star and main target in a conspiracy thriller he sees following him everywhere: a shirtless biker hanging around the Washington Mall is certainly Secret Service; the fire alarm that goes off in his hotel can only be a "setup."
And from the "Paper of Record," the New York Times, in their article Conspiracy Theorists Examined
The most prominent of the filmmakers’ subjects, the radio host Alex Jones, who is based in Austin, Tex., rails against the powers that be — all of them — in a manner that reinforces every cliché of the conspiracy theorist loon: paranoid, megalomaniacal, delusional, sweaty. The documentary’s most action-packed scene finds Mr. Jones throwing a major hissy fit when his hotel fire alarm goes off, thereby proving, without a shadow of a doubt, that “they” are trying to suppress his revelations.
And for once, I agree with the NYT. Between his bug-eyed facial features and waving his arms like a whirling dervish, Jones looked like someone who had escaped the confines of his straightjacket.
...the producers of this hit piece focused on the fringe elements of the 9/11 Truth Movement, from interviewing some Idaho militia types to the Florida Jesus freak that didn't seem to be playing with a full deck.
But it's the most visible and best known character, Jones who manages to trash the 9/11 Truth Movement thru his hysterics and acting like he has no control over his emotions.
Thanks Alex, for helping trash the 9/11 Truth Movement, you did a bang up piece for Tyranny, Death and Destruction. Your handlers must be proud!
http://careandwashingofthebrain.blogspot.com/2009/05/setting-back-911-truth-movement-decade.html
Blackmail... Gold... U.S. hiring mosque bombers ?
Report: Iranian official accuses U.S. of hiring mosque bombers
**************************************************************
"Three people involved in the terrorist incident have been arrested," Jalal Sayyah, deputy provincial governor of the province near the border with Pakistan, was quoted by Iran's semi-official Fars news agency as saying.
He said that according to the obtained information, the people behind the terrorist act was hired by the United States.
The explosion rocked a crowd mosque in Zahedan, killing 23 people and wounding 125 others so far, according to Fars news agency.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/29/content_11453593.htm
Hitmen Contracts to Bust COMEX
******************************
The financial cartel dominated by the United States and United Kingdom is soon to suffer some serious blows. The list of their financial crimes is as magnificent as it is long. Its list of victims is as prominent as it is long. The harbored resentment is great by many global players. They waited patiently for the Obama Admin to install a new group, but the old group remains due to a revolving door from the same smoky club, dominated by Goldman Sachs once more. Their influence, if not bribery, of the USCongress is in continuation, sufficient for unwanted obsequious approval. The regulatory agencies are from the same encrusted chambers replete with stench. The Coup d’Etat of the USGovt financial offices has not changed with Obama, who sounds like a refreshing leader but who is actually a marionette under control by those who selected him, favored him with publicity, then enabled his election. Nothing has changed except the rhetoric of change and the pace on the path to bankruptcy for a few icon firms like General Motors and Chrysler, if not the desperate cries from the 50 states suffering from insolvency. More prominent failures will follow, since nothing has been remedied. The channeled funds directed to Wall Street firms continue unabated. The bread crumbs to Main Street and the people continue unabated. Even the war continues unabated. Forget not that Marie Antoinette once said “Let them eat cake” before the French Revolution and the Storming of the Bastille. Today, the Bastille is the entire USEconomy where insolvent Americans are stuck.
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1243519200.php
The Clinton Team and Blackmail
******************************
Filegate is, of course, the still-unresolved scandal of the FBI's illegal transfer to Clinton political operatives in the White House of the secret, personal background files of at least 900 Republican former officials. Those files, security experts say, are filled with raw, unverified information of the most personal and often lurid kind. Schippers says he believes the White House or its designees used leads from some of those files to blackmail law-makers on Capitol Hill. Congress, despite his urging, has failed to probe the matter.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_23_16/ai_62896460/
{We here at HUMAN BEINGS ARE FREE feel compelled to state our position on the decisions and actions taken by the people elected to their office through the votes of the citizens they represent, and whose decisions and actions are compromised through personal blackmail as an excuse...FUCK YOU!}
**************************************************************
"Three people involved in the terrorist incident have been arrested," Jalal Sayyah, deputy provincial governor of the province near the border with Pakistan, was quoted by Iran's semi-official Fars news agency as saying.
He said that according to the obtained information, the people behind the terrorist act was hired by the United States.
The explosion rocked a crowd mosque in Zahedan, killing 23 people and wounding 125 others so far, according to Fars news agency.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/29/content_11453593.htm
Hitmen Contracts to Bust COMEX
******************************
The financial cartel dominated by the United States and United Kingdom is soon to suffer some serious blows. The list of their financial crimes is as magnificent as it is long. Its list of victims is as prominent as it is long. The harbored resentment is great by many global players. They waited patiently for the Obama Admin to install a new group, but the old group remains due to a revolving door from the same smoky club, dominated by Goldman Sachs once more. Their influence, if not bribery, of the USCongress is in continuation, sufficient for unwanted obsequious approval. The regulatory agencies are from the same encrusted chambers replete with stench. The Coup d’Etat of the USGovt financial offices has not changed with Obama, who sounds like a refreshing leader but who is actually a marionette under control by those who selected him, favored him with publicity, then enabled his election. Nothing has changed except the rhetoric of change and the pace on the path to bankruptcy for a few icon firms like General Motors and Chrysler, if not the desperate cries from the 50 states suffering from insolvency. More prominent failures will follow, since nothing has been remedied. The channeled funds directed to Wall Street firms continue unabated. The bread crumbs to Main Street and the people continue unabated. Even the war continues unabated. Forget not that Marie Antoinette once said “Let them eat cake” before the French Revolution and the Storming of the Bastille. Today, the Bastille is the entire USEconomy where insolvent Americans are stuck.
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1243519200.php
The Clinton Team and Blackmail
******************************
Filegate is, of course, the still-unresolved scandal of the FBI's illegal transfer to Clinton political operatives in the White House of the secret, personal background files of at least 900 Republican former officials. Those files, security experts say, are filled with raw, unverified information of the most personal and often lurid kind. Schippers says he believes the White House or its designees used leads from some of those files to blackmail law-makers on Capitol Hill. Congress, despite his urging, has failed to probe the matter.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_23_16/ai_62896460/
{We here at HUMAN BEINGS ARE FREE feel compelled to state our position on the decisions and actions taken by the people elected to their office through the votes of the citizens they represent, and whose decisions and actions are compromised through personal blackmail as an excuse...FUCK YOU!}
NEWS and PROPAGANDA
Gunmen attack Ahmadinejad election campaign centre
**************************************************
Updated at: 2145 PST, Friday, May 29, 2009
TEHRAN: Gunmen attacked President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election campaign centre in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan on Friday, wounding three people including a child, the official IRNA news agency said.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=79028
Iran mosque blast bears 'US, Israel thumbprints'
************************************************
“The bomb tragedy that occurred yesterday in the city of Zahedan is awash with Israeli and US fingerprints,” said Tehran's Interim Friday Prayers Leader, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami.
“Without a doubt, it was a scheme to drive a wedge between the Shia population and the Sunni minority in Iran,” he added.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96389§ionid=351020101
Calls for war crimes inquiry over 20,000 civilian deaths in Sri Lanka
*********************************************************************
Sri Lanka faced new calls for a war crimes inquiry today after an investigation by The Times revealed that more than 20,000 civilians were killed – mostly by the army – in the latter stages of the war against the Tamil Tigers.
“This is an exaggerated story. Whoever has put up this report has been paid by the LTTE,” he told The Times.
“There can’t be any civilians killed by government forces in that area. How can the UN know about this? It had no people on the ground.” The UN, however, described its figures as “well-informed estimates”, adding that it did not have “precise, verifiable numbers” because of a lack of access to the conflict zone and the camps holding refugees from the area.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6387782.ece
Manipulation: How Financial Markets Really Work
***********************************************
In other words, let foxes guard the henhouse to keep inventing new ways to extract gains (a "free lunch") in increasingly larger amounts - "in the interest of helping to contain systemic risk factors and promote greater stability."
Or as Orwell might have said: instability is stability, creating systemic risk is containing it, sloping playing fields are level ones, extracting the greatest profit is sharing it, and what benefits the few helps everyone.
Michel Chossudovsky explains that: "triggering market collapse(s) can be a very profitable undertaking.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13773
**************************************************
Updated at: 2145 PST, Friday, May 29, 2009
TEHRAN: Gunmen attacked President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election campaign centre in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan on Friday, wounding three people including a child, the official IRNA news agency said.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=79028
Iran mosque blast bears 'US, Israel thumbprints'
************************************************
“The bomb tragedy that occurred yesterday in the city of Zahedan is awash with Israeli and US fingerprints,” said Tehran's Interim Friday Prayers Leader, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami.
“Without a doubt, it was a scheme to drive a wedge between the Shia population and the Sunni minority in Iran,” he added.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96389§ionid=351020101
Calls for war crimes inquiry over 20,000 civilian deaths in Sri Lanka
*********************************************************************
Sri Lanka faced new calls for a war crimes inquiry today after an investigation by The Times revealed that more than 20,000 civilians were killed – mostly by the army – in the latter stages of the war against the Tamil Tigers.
“This is an exaggerated story. Whoever has put up this report has been paid by the LTTE,” he told The Times.
“There can’t be any civilians killed by government forces in that area. How can the UN know about this? It had no people on the ground.” The UN, however, described its figures as “well-informed estimates”, adding that it did not have “precise, verifiable numbers” because of a lack of access to the conflict zone and the camps holding refugees from the area.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6387782.ece
Manipulation: How Financial Markets Really Work
***********************************************
In other words, let foxes guard the henhouse to keep inventing new ways to extract gains (a "free lunch") in increasingly larger amounts - "in the interest of helping to contain systemic risk factors and promote greater stability."
Or as Orwell might have said: instability is stability, creating systemic risk is containing it, sloping playing fields are level ones, extracting the greatest profit is sharing it, and what benefits the few helps everyone.
Michel Chossudovsky explains that: "triggering market collapse(s) can be a very profitable undertaking.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13773
Another Outrage
By Cindy Sheehan
May 26, 2009 "AfterDowningSt" -- Last week, after being bombarded with pseudo-patriotic images of graveyards, gravestones and flags, I decided to begin posting images of maimed and killed Iraqis, but especially children and transform the mega-pseudo-patriotic Memorial Day to Remembrance of Victims of US Empire Day.
I got a great response to this and my friend and videographer, Clifford Roddy put together a short film called: finaledit, with the images I posted and with images that he took at a national cemetery in Santa Fe, NM where we were together for my Myth America book tour. I have a Cindy Sheehan You Tube page so we posted it there.
The video was just yanked off of You Tube because it “violates the terms of service” but even before it was yanked, it had a warning: “This video is unsuitable for children.”
The pictures of the dead and maimed Iraqi children were gruesome. War is gruesome. War is never pretty but the Iraqi war has been “Sanitized for your protection.” It’s not enough that adult males have been tortured but thousands of women and children have also been imprisoned and cruelly treated.
I think it’s pretty gruesome that the US Military has held up to 6000 juveniles in its torture prisons in the Middle East and there has been rape and torture reported to individuals as young as 10 years old! How can any human being torture another human being, much less a child? These kinds of stories remind me of the most horrendous slasher movies that I can think of, but they are not the pretend product of twisted fantasy, but factual and mind-blowingly real.
Former US Soldier, Steven Green, was recently given life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2007 rape, mutilation and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Not only was Green the ringleader in the rape and murder; the squad also killed her family.
Unfortunately, even though Green was a “bad apple,” the situation we find ourselves in is an entire salad of rotten fruit and incidences like this one are not uncommon, but rarely reported.
Once when I was in Amman, Jordan speaking with prominent Iraqis, a Sheikh told me that US soldiers burst into his home, severely beating him and raping his wife, all in the presence of his 14-year-old son. The Sheikh told me that it was his son’s fondest dream to kill US Soldiers. Can you imagine this happening to your family? What if something like this happened in your home? You’re sitting around watching American Idol, or some crap like that, and Iraqis break into your home and terrorize and brutalize your family? I am sure you would all just chalk it up to “freedom and democracy” and be happy to go about your miserable lives comforted by the fact that your country was being occupied and destroyed for your own good.
During the US-UN-Clinton led sanctions against Iraq, the UN estimates that over 500,000 children died from starvation, disease, or violence. 500,000 Iraqi children would be like 5,000,000 US children dying. Former UN Ambassador under Clinton called that sacrifice for US Empire by the children of Iraq “worth it.” Over one million people have died in Iraq since Bush's invasion in 2003 and most of that figure counts women and children.
I have spoken to men who were still in their teens who were sodomized with broom handles in Guantanamo. I have seen the horrific photos of the US’s inhumanity to man and cannot forgive my country for the terror it has unleashed on the world. I can’t stand the fact that our government operates with such craven cowardice and has harmed so many people while Americans revel in blissful ignorance.
Young people who never get a chance to live their lives have their lives snuffed out so corporations can profit and politicians can earn their John Wayne, muy macho credentials and I wish that we could get a movement going that would be as large and as angry about weddings parties being blown up in Iraq-Af-Pak as they are about inequality in marriage rights here in the US. Please don’t email me with hostility because I wrote about marriage equality: I am 100% for marriage equality, but I am also 100% for people living to be able to be married whether they are gay or straight. Lives are in the balance and our inaction is tipping the scale in the wrong direction.
I am sorry (sarcasm) that our video “violated” You Tube’s terms of service, but the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan not only violate my terms of service, but international law.
By Cindy Sheehan
May 26, 2009 "AfterDowningSt" -- Last week, after being bombarded with pseudo-patriotic images of graveyards, gravestones and flags, I decided to begin posting images of maimed and killed Iraqis, but especially children and transform the mega-pseudo-patriotic Memorial Day to Remembrance of Victims of US Empire Day.
I got a great response to this and my friend and videographer, Clifford Roddy put together a short film called: finaledit, with the images I posted and with images that he took at a national cemetery in Santa Fe, NM where we were together for my Myth America book tour. I have a Cindy Sheehan You Tube page so we posted it there.
The video was just yanked off of You Tube because it “violates the terms of service” but even before it was yanked, it had a warning: “This video is unsuitable for children.”
The pictures of the dead and maimed Iraqi children were gruesome. War is gruesome. War is never pretty but the Iraqi war has been “Sanitized for your protection.” It’s not enough that adult males have been tortured but thousands of women and children have also been imprisoned and cruelly treated.
I think it’s pretty gruesome that the US Military has held up to 6000 juveniles in its torture prisons in the Middle East and there has been rape and torture reported to individuals as young as 10 years old! How can any human being torture another human being, much less a child? These kinds of stories remind me of the most horrendous slasher movies that I can think of, but they are not the pretend product of twisted fantasy, but factual and mind-blowingly real.
Former US Soldier, Steven Green, was recently given life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2007 rape, mutilation and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Not only was Green the ringleader in the rape and murder; the squad also killed her family.
Unfortunately, even though Green was a “bad apple,” the situation we find ourselves in is an entire salad of rotten fruit and incidences like this one are not uncommon, but rarely reported.
Once when I was in Amman, Jordan speaking with prominent Iraqis, a Sheikh told me that US soldiers burst into his home, severely beating him and raping his wife, all in the presence of his 14-year-old son. The Sheikh told me that it was his son’s fondest dream to kill US Soldiers. Can you imagine this happening to your family? What if something like this happened in your home? You’re sitting around watching American Idol, or some crap like that, and Iraqis break into your home and terrorize and brutalize your family? I am sure you would all just chalk it up to “freedom and democracy” and be happy to go about your miserable lives comforted by the fact that your country was being occupied and destroyed for your own good.
During the US-UN-Clinton led sanctions against Iraq, the UN estimates that over 500,000 children died from starvation, disease, or violence. 500,000 Iraqi children would be like 5,000,000 US children dying. Former UN Ambassador under Clinton called that sacrifice for US Empire by the children of Iraq “worth it.” Over one million people have died in Iraq since Bush's invasion in 2003 and most of that figure counts women and children.
I have spoken to men who were still in their teens who were sodomized with broom handles in Guantanamo. I have seen the horrific photos of the US’s inhumanity to man and cannot forgive my country for the terror it has unleashed on the world. I can’t stand the fact that our government operates with such craven cowardice and has harmed so many people while Americans revel in blissful ignorance.
Young people who never get a chance to live their lives have their lives snuffed out so corporations can profit and politicians can earn their John Wayne, muy macho credentials and I wish that we could get a movement going that would be as large and as angry about weddings parties being blown up in Iraq-Af-Pak as they are about inequality in marriage rights here in the US. Please don’t email me with hostility because I wrote about marriage equality: I am 100% for marriage equality, but I am also 100% for people living to be able to be married whether they are gay or straight. Lives are in the balance and our inaction is tipping the scale in the wrong direction.
I am sorry (sarcasm) that our video “violated” You Tube’s terms of service, but the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan not only violate my terms of service, but international law.
NEWS and PROPAGANDA
Bomb blast rocks Iranian city of Zahedan
****************************************
A bomb planted in a mosque in a southeastern Iranian city near the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan has reportedly caused civilian casualties.
At least twenty people have been killed in the bombing in the city of Zahedan while more than fifty five others have been injured
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96311§ionid=351020101
Sri Lanka avoids war crimes probe, slams West
*********************************************
Sri Lanka's Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe dismissed Western criticism as "double standards." "They are opposed to the independent action we took to counter and defeat, but they are silent about what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Gaza,"
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/world/11747933.asp?gid=237
Hamas condemns US charity members’ prison terms
***********************************************
...some 8,000 Palestinians remained imprisoned by Israel. These included 300 children and 550 people held without charge or trial under so-called administrative detention, including some held up to six years in this way. In a related development, a senior Hamas official criticised as politically motivated and unjust the prison sentences handed down by a US court to members of a Muslim charity that sent aid to the Palestinian group.
Hamas’ deputy political leader, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said on Thursday that two of the men who were sentenced were relatives of the group’s top leader, Khaled Mashaal. The US designated Hamas as a terrorist organisation in 1995, making it illegal to offer the group support.
A court in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday sentenced two founding members of what was once the largest US Muslim charity to 65 years in prison each for funnelling millions of dollars to Hamas. Three other members were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 to 20 years for conspiracy.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=180031
UN expert: US failing to properly probe war crimes
**************************************************
"There have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practices and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings - including possible war crimes - in the United States' international operations,"
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_US_MILITARY_KILLINGS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-05-28-16-27-15
****************************************
A bomb planted in a mosque in a southeastern Iranian city near the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan has reportedly caused civilian casualties.
At least twenty people have been killed in the bombing in the city of Zahedan while more than fifty five others have been injured
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96311§ionid=351020101
Sri Lanka avoids war crimes probe, slams West
*********************************************
Sri Lanka's Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe dismissed Western criticism as "double standards." "They are opposed to the independent action we took to counter and defeat, but they are silent about what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Gaza,"
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/world/11747933.asp?gid=237
Hamas condemns US charity members’ prison terms
***********************************************
...some 8,000 Palestinians remained imprisoned by Israel. These included 300 children and 550 people held without charge or trial under so-called administrative detention, including some held up to six years in this way. In a related development, a senior Hamas official criticised as politically motivated and unjust the prison sentences handed down by a US court to members of a Muslim charity that sent aid to the Palestinian group.
Hamas’ deputy political leader, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said on Thursday that two of the men who were sentenced were relatives of the group’s top leader, Khaled Mashaal. The US designated Hamas as a terrorist organisation in 1995, making it illegal to offer the group support.
A court in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday sentenced two founding members of what was once the largest US Muslim charity to 65 years in prison each for funnelling millions of dollars to Hamas. Three other members were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 to 20 years for conspiracy.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=180031
UN expert: US failing to properly probe war crimes
**************************************************
"There have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practices and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings - including possible war crimes - in the United States' international operations,"
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_US_MILITARY_KILLINGS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-05-28-16-27-15
28 May 2009
ON FREEDOM(part11)
I lament this world, and relament what could have been had not layers of lies and illusion been sublimated, perpetuated, growing and swelling with each new birth and every new communicative device serving as instruments of propaganda and oppression. If I have a lot of money, or imagine that I have control over people because they do what I tell them to do, or I trace my historico-geneological thread back to some family of authority, blood of royalty, aliens from another planet or dimension, I am still a brand new, free being. The world has never seen me before now. I am independant of all expectations that could have been recorded. The many ways that I can conduct my behavior, or choose my actions in this world are too numerous to quantify. I exist now. I can think, be honest, comport the freedom that I am. Or I can merely calculate, lie, and act as though I am under the control of others. Elites, secret cabals, masters of the universe are old fictions that have been reinforced with new energy today and constitute for some a basis for reawakening. After years of dormancy, these illusions free beings entertain of gods on earth controlling the world, many accept. For some it is a true though, hidden fact newly discovered again. Stories of brainwashing, mind control, and computers that think, are all about creating wonder and fear of their power. Computers don't think, they calculate, they can not empathize, nor can they doubt. How can a mind be controlled? How can you accept that a mind can be defined? I at first thought brainwashing may have it's origins in christianity as in washing the sinful dirt from, but christians are concerned with a different organ. Descartes imagined for reason's sake, a chimera creating illusion after illusion, so that one may even question their own existence. He doubted such impossible illusions, and in his doubting he realized that no matter what illusions may be brought to bare he was not tricked into forgetting that he was not a slave to illusions. He would not accept illusions any longer from either his Jesuit pedagogues, nor ghosts of the imagination. Rene Descartes was free. Like you and I now.
Elsa Rassbach interviews André Shepherd, a U.S. soldier applying for asylum in Germany
**************************************************************************************
In Nuremberg, the chief U.S. prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, stated: "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." In opening the trial on behalf of the United States, he stated that "while this law is first applied against German aggressors, this law includes and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment." What does Nuremberg mean to you?
The Nuremberg statutes are the foundation of many U.S. soldiers' refusal of the Iraq war, and to some extent of the Afghanistan war. The United States with its Allies after World War II crafted these laws stating that even though you’ve gotten orders to commit crimes against humanity, you don’t have to follow them, because every person has their own conscience. That was more than 60 years ago. Today the U.S. government seems to be under the impression that those rules do not apply to it.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54648&hd=&size=1&l=e
**************************************************************************************
In Nuremberg, the chief U.S. prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, stated: "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." In opening the trial on behalf of the United States, he stated that "while this law is first applied against German aggressors, this law includes and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment." What does Nuremberg mean to you?
The Nuremberg statutes are the foundation of many U.S. soldiers' refusal of the Iraq war, and to some extent of the Afghanistan war. The United States with its Allies after World War II crafted these laws stating that even though you’ve gotten orders to commit crimes against humanity, you don’t have to follow them, because every person has their own conscience. That was more than 60 years ago. Today the U.S. government seems to be under the impression that those rules do not apply to it.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54648&hd=&size=1&l=e
27 May 2009
More ON FREEDOM (part 3.1): The Beauty Of A Changing Mind, or How To Resist Slavery
More ON FREEDOM (part 3.1): The Beauty Of A Changing Mind, or How To Resist SlaveryA response to: ON FREEDOM (part 3) by Relament, posted 6 May 2009
I ask an Other: "Do you believe in abortion?"; "Do you believe in God?"; "Are you a republican or a democrat?" … or maybe even, “Do you love me?” Relament points out, I think keenly, to the reinforcement of illusions through the language of acceptance. When we ask someone “Do you believe in x?”—what exactly is it that we are asking? Are we asking what they think, in that very moment, about whatever is the subject matter of that question; or are we rather inquiring into what may be called the essence of what that person is/thinks? Do we accept that what they tell us in that moment, in fact, can only be of and at that moment? Or do we often record that data for future reference, which we will refer to when we want to hold them in that position? Do we celebrate when someone changes their mind, or do we condemn them for it?
Many of us, raised to create worlds of pre-defined roles and beliefs and actions and attitudes, are rudely-but-beautifully awakened when our perspective finally embraces that the world (because it is created/contains Free Beings) is not form (or essence or soul), but Change. The world is Fluid. It is Dynamic. It is Responsive. It is CREATED. By us! It is NOT rigidly categorizable… divisible… nor is it predictable (because of those damn pesky free beings, including me!).
I’m totally just mooching off of Relament’s positions now… but I shall scream alongside: “Hesitation… Illusion… Embarrassment… Be Gone!” If the alternative is (falsely-apparently) Secure Slavery, I’ll err on the side of Fanatic Freedom.
I ask an Other: "Do you believe in abortion?"; "Do you believe in God?"; "Are you a republican or a democrat?" … or maybe even, “Do you love me?” Relament points out, I think keenly, to the reinforcement of illusions through the language of acceptance. When we ask someone “Do you believe in x?”—what exactly is it that we are asking? Are we asking what they think, in that very moment, about whatever is the subject matter of that question; or are we rather inquiring into what may be called the essence of what that person is/thinks? Do we accept that what they tell us in that moment, in fact, can only be of and at that moment? Or do we often record that data for future reference, which we will refer to when we want to hold them in that position? Do we celebrate when someone changes their mind, or do we condemn them for it?
Many of us, raised to create worlds of pre-defined roles and beliefs and actions and attitudes, are rudely-but-beautifully awakened when our perspective finally embraces that the world (because it is created/contains Free Beings) is not form (or essence or soul), but Change. The world is Fluid. It is Dynamic. It is Responsive. It is CREATED. By us! It is NOT rigidly categorizable… divisible… nor is it predictable (because of those damn pesky free beings, including me!).
I’m totally just mooching off of Relament’s positions now… but I shall scream alongside: “Hesitation… Illusion… Embarrassment… Be Gone!” If the alternative is (falsely-apparently) Secure Slavery, I’ll err on the side of Fanatic Freedom.
Image by Sergio | http://www.flashquake.org/archive/vol5iss1/
More ON FREEDOM (part 2.1): The Truth of Freedom; The Fallacy of Rights
More ON FREEDOM (part 2.1): The Truth of Freedom; The Fallacy of RightsA response to: ON FREEDOM (part 2) by Relament, posted 7 May 2009
Forget standing up for your rights! BE free-ly! The ongoing debate over the "loss of freedom" in the US is a dangerous misnomer. Freedom IS, and cannot be taken away. RIGHTS, therefore, are not the same as freedom, as they can be taken away. Rights, in fact, do not even exist in the real, immediate sense that Freedom does. Are YOU not Freedom Incarnate? I shan't even acknowledge that it is possible for others to grant and withdraw permission for my actions... they can't have any of the freedom that I create. As some may try to maintain the illusion of destruction, I shall continue the creation of my free life.
Image from public domain
Over 60,000 Georgians rally on Independence Day
Tens of thousands of Georgian protesters rallied on Tuesday in Georgian capital city of Tbilisi, demanding President Mikhail Saakashvili's resignation, according to reports reaching here.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/27/content_11440173.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/27/content_11440173.htm
This is a piece I found from August, 2008, that Aphorista wrote. I really liked it and just wanted to re-post it. She screamed this during the Georgian attack on S. Ossetia...
COMMENTARY: Shout NO to WAR! Stop the INSANITY! Who started this Russian-Georgian-Ossetian conflict? Does it really matter? I can tell you this, with certainty, it was not the bulk of the people of Russia, nor was it the bulk of the people of Georgia, nor was it the bulk of people of Ossetia who wanted and started this conflict. It is the very few who call themselves leaders, elite from the rest, that bomb and starve the rest of us, or send our brothers and sisters away to become killers. The warring in this world of ours is increasing everyday. When will the people of all of these warring nations scream "NO!" loudly enough for the warring leaders to listen? It is time to make our own demands. We cannot continue to participate in a system of such death and destruction. I cannot even begin to speak to the Russian people, or the Georgian and Ossetian people, perhaps they have seen this warring coming on for a long time, just as the people in this nation are now watching the build-up to a war against Iran. All I can say is, there is more than enough that the American population must demand of the US government in terms of change, and there likewise appears to me, from my very limited perspective into Russian-Georgian-Ossetian affairs, to be more than enough that must be demanded of those governments by their peoples as well. Although, the United States does clearly take the cake when it comes to most wrongdoing.
We the people, of the world, must unite to stop these wars. The warmongers simply cannot do it without us. If we refuse to participate, they immediately become impotent. Protesting is a start; embarrassing them and forcing them to put their political careers on the line is a start. But it is direct action, and direct non-action, REFUSAL to participate in our own enslavement and the killing of human beings, that is the only truly effective method. It is that sort of action that I believe is the required level of action to enact any real change.
Yes, the first step is education, or rather, depropagandization. It is not that American people are stupid for not having seen this coming; it is not that the American people are so dumb that we do not have the capacity understand what is really going on. It is that most of us, as individuals, have allowed ourselves become so propagandized, so comfortable with the state of affairs as they are presented to us by the almost-utterly-united media-government complex, that we are willing adopt a laissez faire attitude, even when our own best judgment conflicts with it. But I believe We Can Change. But one must be willing to re-evaluate almost everything that he has come to believe over the course of his life that has been fed to him by the religious, governmental, and perhaps most of all, corporate institutions.
At least that's my story, and perhaps it is similar to yours. For me it is a constant battle for the truth. Now I'm more fully coming to understand how the truth can be utterly obscured by dogmatic frameworks of thought: religious beliefs of all varieties; patriotism and unquestioned trust in one's government; unquestioned trust in science and technology; or the belief that these world mega-corporations are just the result of really successful, but perfectly legal and right, entrepreneurial business. All of these fallacies have, at times in my life, blinded me from seeing truth that was right in front of my face. I feel like for the first time, though I read him first 10 years ago, that I truly understand Descartes' method, if not his conclusions. As opposed to beginning my thinking from basis points that I already have determined to be "true," I should always begin thinking with the fullest skepticism that I am able to muster. And this is most important when those foundations are buried deep, such as, "There is a God," and "My government is basically Good." To question foundations is not the same as discarding them, but once one begins questioning them with a fully skeptical attitude and honesty, one may be surprised by what is discarded and also by what is not discarded. Knowledge based on any authority other than OUR OWN will always lead us astray, just as self-developed dogmas can do the same damage. Minds open to all possibility, but accepting very few, if any, things as absolute, are the minds that are best prepared to seek out the truth, and best prepared to act on it.
But on to part 2, beyond educating ourselves we must take action (now!) to at least slow the appalling death count due to warring and economic enslavement. I cannot give recommendations for others, but there are many tactics, and each of us should use our own creativity, our own free being, to find out what it is about each of us as individuals that can do something to effect this change. For some it is writing and "digg"-ing, trying to literally bombard the internet, with so much information that even the individuals who are most blinded to truth by propagandization cannot help but come across alternative perspectives. For others, it may be a much more homegrown approach, trying to develop one's community into a more self-sustaining group that can live beyond the collapse of the imperialistic system. For others, it is constant letter-righting to the editors of major publications, to their city councilmen, and to their representatives in state and local government, urging them to do the right thing, and more importantly, forcing their wrongdoing into the public eye by copying those letters to everyone. For others, it may be union and strike leadership, helping the rest of us reduce our dependency on the corporate system, the corporate system which is killing on our behalf. And for those working in military, industrial, governmental complexes that they judge to be doing wrong, I hope their goal is to GET OUT if they cannot do something substantive to stop the killing from within the system NOW.
All of these approaches are necessary, and there are INFINITELY more that can and MUST be added to the list. Each free person no doubt has a unique way of communicating and acting that can aid the cause of peace. But they all add up to, as I see it, two basic parts: education and action. And both of these essentially boil down into this mantra for me: FREE DIALOG AND REFUSAL TO PARTICIPATE IN OUR OWN ENSLAVEMENT AND THE KILLING AND ENSLAVING OF OTHERS...that is, BEING FREELY, ALL WAYS, ALL THE TIME! Human beings are free. Yes, it is hard to act freely after living a life of what you thought was freedom, but was actually enslavement. But it is possible because we are already free--we just must uncover that freedom that is buried under our own propagandization. I hope I am living proof. I strive to be free. I strive everyday to question more, be more skeptical, and in the process discern a little more truth, and behave in my full capacity as a being of choice. Being free can be intimidating, but it is absolutely necessary. Please join us in fighting for liberty under the law, and freedom in our lives. Do what you determine is right!
COMMENTARY: Shout NO to WAR! Stop the INSANITY! Who started this Russian-Georgian-Ossetian conflict? Does it really matter? I can tell you this, with certainty, it was not the bulk of the people of Russia, nor was it the bulk of the people of Georgia, nor was it the bulk of people of Ossetia who wanted and started this conflict. It is the very few who call themselves leaders, elite from the rest, that bomb and starve the rest of us, or send our brothers and sisters away to become killers. The warring in this world of ours is increasing everyday. When will the people of all of these warring nations scream "NO!" loudly enough for the warring leaders to listen? It is time to make our own demands. We cannot continue to participate in a system of such death and destruction. I cannot even begin to speak to the Russian people, or the Georgian and Ossetian people, perhaps they have seen this warring coming on for a long time, just as the people in this nation are now watching the build-up to a war against Iran. All I can say is, there is more than enough that the American population must demand of the US government in terms of change, and there likewise appears to me, from my very limited perspective into Russian-Georgian-Ossetian affairs, to be more than enough that must be demanded of those governments by their peoples as well. Although, the United States does clearly take the cake when it comes to most wrongdoing.
We the people, of the world, must unite to stop these wars. The warmongers simply cannot do it without us. If we refuse to participate, they immediately become impotent. Protesting is a start; embarrassing them and forcing them to put their political careers on the line is a start. But it is direct action, and direct non-action, REFUSAL to participate in our own enslavement and the killing of human beings, that is the only truly effective method. It is that sort of action that I believe is the required level of action to enact any real change.
Yes, the first step is education, or rather, depropagandization. It is not that American people are stupid for not having seen this coming; it is not that the American people are so dumb that we do not have the capacity understand what is really going on. It is that most of us, as individuals, have allowed ourselves become so propagandized, so comfortable with the state of affairs as they are presented to us by the almost-utterly-united media-government complex, that we are willing adopt a laissez faire attitude, even when our own best judgment conflicts with it. But I believe We Can Change. But one must be willing to re-evaluate almost everything that he has come to believe over the course of his life that has been fed to him by the religious, governmental, and perhaps most of all, corporate institutions.
At least that's my story, and perhaps it is similar to yours. For me it is a constant battle for the truth. Now I'm more fully coming to understand how the truth can be utterly obscured by dogmatic frameworks of thought: religious beliefs of all varieties; patriotism and unquestioned trust in one's government; unquestioned trust in science and technology; or the belief that these world mega-corporations are just the result of really successful, but perfectly legal and right, entrepreneurial business. All of these fallacies have, at times in my life, blinded me from seeing truth that was right in front of my face. I feel like for the first time, though I read him first 10 years ago, that I truly understand Descartes' method, if not his conclusions. As opposed to beginning my thinking from basis points that I already have determined to be "true," I should always begin thinking with the fullest skepticism that I am able to muster. And this is most important when those foundations are buried deep, such as, "There is a God," and "My government is basically Good." To question foundations is not the same as discarding them, but once one begins questioning them with a fully skeptical attitude and honesty, one may be surprised by what is discarded and also by what is not discarded. Knowledge based on any authority other than OUR OWN will always lead us astray, just as self-developed dogmas can do the same damage. Minds open to all possibility, but accepting very few, if any, things as absolute, are the minds that are best prepared to seek out the truth, and best prepared to act on it.
But on to part 2, beyond educating ourselves we must take action (now!) to at least slow the appalling death count due to warring and economic enslavement. I cannot give recommendations for others, but there are many tactics, and each of us should use our own creativity, our own free being, to find out what it is about each of us as individuals that can do something to effect this change. For some it is writing and "digg"-ing, trying to literally bombard the internet, with so much information that even the individuals who are most blinded to truth by propagandization cannot help but come across alternative perspectives. For others, it may be a much more homegrown approach, trying to develop one's community into a more self-sustaining group that can live beyond the collapse of the imperialistic system. For others, it is constant letter-righting to the editors of major publications, to their city councilmen, and to their representatives in state and local government, urging them to do the right thing, and more importantly, forcing their wrongdoing into the public eye by copying those letters to everyone. For others, it may be union and strike leadership, helping the rest of us reduce our dependency on the corporate system, the corporate system which is killing on our behalf. And for those working in military, industrial, governmental complexes that they judge to be doing wrong, I hope their goal is to GET OUT if they cannot do something substantive to stop the killing from within the system NOW.
All of these approaches are necessary, and there are INFINITELY more that can and MUST be added to the list. Each free person no doubt has a unique way of communicating and acting that can aid the cause of peace. But they all add up to, as I see it, two basic parts: education and action. And both of these essentially boil down into this mantra for me: FREE DIALOG AND REFUSAL TO PARTICIPATE IN OUR OWN ENSLAVEMENT AND THE KILLING AND ENSLAVING OF OTHERS...that is, BEING FREELY, ALL WAYS, ALL THE TIME! Human beings are free. Yes, it is hard to act freely after living a life of what you thought was freedom, but was actually enslavement. But it is possible because we are already free--we just must uncover that freedom that is buried under our own propagandization. I hope I am living proof. I strive to be free. I strive everyday to question more, be more skeptical, and in the process discern a little more truth, and behave in my full capacity as a being of choice. Being free can be intimidating, but it is absolutely necessary. Please join us in fighting for liberty under the law, and freedom in our lives. Do what you determine is right!
26 May 2009
ON FREEDOM(part10)
The 'State', does not exist. I read about the existential threat to the state. Loyalty oaths to the state. Mandatory service to the state. There is no reason to allow the existence of the state in any serious discussion. Free beings lie a lot, that happens, and people forget things, but even if I decide to play a game for a few hours, I am quite aware that I don't have to play the game. I am free to stop acting, wishing, and hoping. I can leave the fake world of illusions, which only occurs when I choose it to occur. I am not speaking of vibrations, frequencies, or other solipsistic notions. This is not red pills or blue pills or rabbit-holes, it's not a case of dual worlds. It's chosen illusions. Peer-pressure, traditions, culture, and history are choices not determinations. I can say that a neurologist, a psychiatrist, a priest, a profiler, an expert in DNA analysis, and my Mother determines what my character can do or not do if I want to play a game. Freedom is not simple. Occam's razor doesn't apply to free beings. I choose when I want to stop playing because I am free. The only existential threats are to free beings. Loyalty oaths are threats, as are mandatory services. Threats to free beings.
NEWS and PROPAGANDA
Israel: anger over proposed laws
*****************************
Israel's far-right foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman calls for new laws to force Israeli Arabs to swear loyalty to the Jewish state and make it illegal to commemorate the Nakba.
http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=105169&videoChannel=1
Do Not Waste Your Time in Palestine, Obama
****************************************
In the West Bank and even in Gaza, the Palestinian public opinion expressed anger at the continued ignorance of illegal “President” Abbas. Everybody knows that President Abbas wants no reconciliation with Hamas, he does not want a Fatah conference to be held, he does not want Presidential, and Parliamentary elections. These are the demands by the US and Israel, which Abbas implements against the will of the majority of the Palestinians...
http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2009/05/24/do-not-waste-your-time-in-palestine-obama
WHY OBAMA MAY NOT WANT ANY MORE TORTURE PICTURES RELEASED
************************************************************************
"Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib . . . The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."
http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
Somalia fighting
**************
More than two weeks of fighting between pro-government forces and insurgents in the Somali capital have left at least 208 people dead and 700 wounded, a government minister said.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=179495
Japan panel wants "first strikes" against enemies: report
**************************************************
A Japanese ruling party panel is to propose that pre-emptive strikes against enemy bases be allowed despite the country's pacifist constitution
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54O04S20090525
Act 4 – Building 7 and Flight 93: The Grand Finale that Wasn’t
*************************************************************************
This is the story of Flight 93 and Building 7; the Grand Finale of their 9/11 Shock Opera that never took the stage. This was their biggest mistake and therefore our best chance at exposing the authors for the criminals and terrorists that they are.
Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing… all of these investigations, and many others, came to a sudden end as crucial records were lost when Building 7 fell at 5:20pm, Sept. 11th 2001.
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/911-shock-opera-act-4-%E2%80%93-building-7-and-flight-93-the-grand-finale-that-wasn%E2%80%99t/#more-5941
*****************************
Israel's far-right foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman calls for new laws to force Israeli Arabs to swear loyalty to the Jewish state and make it illegal to commemorate the Nakba.
http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=105169&videoChannel=1
Do Not Waste Your Time in Palestine, Obama
****************************************
In the West Bank and even in Gaza, the Palestinian public opinion expressed anger at the continued ignorance of illegal “President” Abbas. Everybody knows that President Abbas wants no reconciliation with Hamas, he does not want a Fatah conference to be held, he does not want Presidential, and Parliamentary elections. These are the demands by the US and Israel, which Abbas implements against the will of the majority of the Palestinians...
http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2009/05/24/do-not-waste-your-time-in-palestine-obama
WHY OBAMA MAY NOT WANT ANY MORE TORTURE PICTURES RELEASED
************************************************************************
"Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib . . . The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."
http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
Somalia fighting
**************
More than two weeks of fighting between pro-government forces and insurgents in the Somali capital have left at least 208 people dead and 700 wounded, a government minister said.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=179495
Japan panel wants "first strikes" against enemies: report
**************************************************
A Japanese ruling party panel is to propose that pre-emptive strikes against enemy bases be allowed despite the country's pacifist constitution
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54O04S20090525
Act 4 – Building 7 and Flight 93: The Grand Finale that Wasn’t
*************************************************************************
This is the story of Flight 93 and Building 7; the Grand Finale of their 9/11 Shock Opera that never took the stage. This was their biggest mistake and therefore our best chance at exposing the authors for the criminals and terrorists that they are.
Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing… all of these investigations, and many others, came to a sudden end as crucial records were lost when Building 7 fell at 5:20pm, Sept. 11th 2001.
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/911-shock-opera-act-4-%E2%80%93-building-7-and-flight-93-the-grand-finale-that-wasn%E2%80%99t/#more-5941
25 May 2009
REMEMBERING U.S. INVASIONS for memorial day
That Grenada invasion
*********************
... the initial justifications proved to be demonstrably false. The major justification... was the protection of 800 American students at the US-run St George's University. US officials falsely claimed that the island's only airport was closed, offering the students no escape. In reality, scores of people left the island on charter flights the day before the invasion; scheduled flights had ceased as a direct result of pressure by US officials. After limiting the ability of Americans to depart, the US then used their presence as an excuse to invade.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20081024/cleisure/cleisure2.html
The Invasion of Haiti
*********************
This is a context that a lot of people don't understand when looking at what's going on over there. None of this could have happened without the complicity of the United States, without the facilitation by the United States, without the funding and support of the United States, and the icing on the cake is the fact that at the last minute, American military personnel, with weapons, enter the Presidential residence and tell the President - the democratically elected President of Haiti, elected with 92% of the vote, that he has to leave. Not that 'we're here to protect you because there's paramilitaries marching here coming to get you right now', but that 'the paramilitaries are on their way: they're going to kill you and your family. Your option is to stay here and die, or to leave with us on an airplane, to god knows where'. For Colin Powell and some of the other Administration Servants to sit there and say that this constitutes a voluntary departure or, not coercion....it defies belief.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/8523
A LIST OF
USA Invasions, Bombings,
Military Aid, Political Interventions
and Sanctions
*************************************
The USA frequently interferes in nations' elections. At the same time it is against the law to interfere in USA elections. The USA often insists on countries having United Nations inspections for weapons programs while denying access for its own extensive chemical, nuclear and biological armoury. The USA will use the international legal system when it suits but ignore its resolutions if they go against the USA. This behaviour is reported around the world leading to much anger and resentment at the USA. Little of this gets reported to the USA public however.
The USA has, by far, bombed more countries than any other nation. Sometimes the United Nations approves. If it does not, the USA will bomb anyway. Many countries are subject to unilateral economic sanctions by the USA. Cuba is a good example. The USA will not only impose sanctions but often cajoles and bullies other countries to follow it. Again, the United Nations is used if possible, and ignored if not.
http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa02.html
*********************
... the initial justifications proved to be demonstrably false. The major justification... was the protection of 800 American students at the US-run St George's University. US officials falsely claimed that the island's only airport was closed, offering the students no escape. In reality, scores of people left the island on charter flights the day before the invasion; scheduled flights had ceased as a direct result of pressure by US officials. After limiting the ability of Americans to depart, the US then used their presence as an excuse to invade.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20081024/cleisure/cleisure2.html
The Invasion of Haiti
*********************
This is a context that a lot of people don't understand when looking at what's going on over there. None of this could have happened without the complicity of the United States, without the facilitation by the United States, without the funding and support of the United States, and the icing on the cake is the fact that at the last minute, American military personnel, with weapons, enter the Presidential residence and tell the President - the democratically elected President of Haiti, elected with 92% of the vote, that he has to leave. Not that 'we're here to protect you because there's paramilitaries marching here coming to get you right now', but that 'the paramilitaries are on their way: they're going to kill you and your family. Your option is to stay here and die, or to leave with us on an airplane, to god knows where'. For Colin Powell and some of the other Administration Servants to sit there and say that this constitutes a voluntary departure or, not coercion....it defies belief.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/8523
A LIST OF
USA Invasions, Bombings,
Military Aid, Political Interventions
and Sanctions
*************************************
The USA frequently interferes in nations' elections. At the same time it is against the law to interfere in USA elections. The USA often insists on countries having United Nations inspections for weapons programs while denying access for its own extensive chemical, nuclear and biological armoury. The USA will use the international legal system when it suits but ignore its resolutions if they go against the USA. This behaviour is reported around the world leading to much anger and resentment at the USA. Little of this gets reported to the USA public however.
The USA has, by far, bombed more countries than any other nation. Sometimes the United Nations approves. If it does not, the USA will bomb anyway. Many countries are subject to unilateral economic sanctions by the USA. Cuba is a good example. The USA will not only impose sanctions but often cajoles and bullies other countries to follow it. Again, the United Nations is used if possible, and ignored if not.
http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa02.html
24 May 2009
NEWS and PROPAGANDA
At least 300 human skeletons found in Aligarh, India
************************
“Children while playing generally come here to get their ball. A child came here and saw a skull. He got scared and ran away. We then came here and saw that behind the jail there is not one but thousands of skulls here. Digging is being done and at least 200-300 skulls have been recovered. Let’s see how many more will be found. I believe the number can even reach 2000-3000,” said Amit Shrivastav, a local.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=78510
India likely to move on U.S. military pact
****************************
India's new ruling coalition, freed of pressure from its former communist allies, is expected to move forward soon on a military logistics deal with the United States that would help U.S. operations in the region. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's former communist allies opposed the agreement, saying Indian military bases could become permanent ports of call for the U.S. military engaged in unilateral operations in the region.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54N0AF20090524
India: China bigger threat than Pakistan
****************************
The world’s two most populous nations fought a brief but brutal war over their 3,500 km (Himalayan border in 1962, and both sides claim the other is occupying big but largely uninhabited chunks of their territory.
India has also been pursuing closer relations with the United States, something that worries China.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/07-china-bigger-threat-than-pakistan-indian-air-force-chief-ha-04
Deadly bombing hits Mogadishu base
*********************
At least 53 people are believed to have died in the violence since Friday morning, when Somali forces launched attacks on several areas of Mogadishu which are controlled by the opposition forces.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/05/200952412389527287.html
Israeli soldiers caught looting
*******************************
There seems no end to the business initiative of the Givati Brigade. This brigade gained international notoriety when - following the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza - it put out T-shirts showing its snipers aiming at the belly of a pregnant Palestinian woman, with the snappy caption of “1 shot - 2 kills.”
But, the Givatis are not new to notoriety. For this is the brigade established in 1948 from the veterans of the Irgun terrorist gang. Among other outrages, Irgun Gang was responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 and the massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassin in 1948.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95855§ionid=351020202
************************
“Children while playing generally come here to get their ball. A child came here and saw a skull. He got scared and ran away. We then came here and saw that behind the jail there is not one but thousands of skulls here. Digging is being done and at least 200-300 skulls have been recovered. Let’s see how many more will be found. I believe the number can even reach 2000-3000,” said Amit Shrivastav, a local.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=78510
India likely to move on U.S. military pact
****************************
India's new ruling coalition, freed of pressure from its former communist allies, is expected to move forward soon on a military logistics deal with the United States that would help U.S. operations in the region. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's former communist allies opposed the agreement, saying Indian military bases could become permanent ports of call for the U.S. military engaged in unilateral operations in the region.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54N0AF20090524
India: China bigger threat than Pakistan
****************************
The world’s two most populous nations fought a brief but brutal war over their 3,500 km (Himalayan border in 1962, and both sides claim the other is occupying big but largely uninhabited chunks of their territory.
India has also been pursuing closer relations with the United States, something that worries China.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/07-china-bigger-threat-than-pakistan-indian-air-force-chief-ha-04
Deadly bombing hits Mogadishu base
*********************
At least 53 people are believed to have died in the violence since Friday morning, when Somali forces launched attacks on several areas of Mogadishu which are controlled by the opposition forces.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/05/200952412389527287.html
Israeli soldiers caught looting
*******************************
There seems no end to the business initiative of the Givati Brigade. This brigade gained international notoriety when - following the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza - it put out T-shirts showing its snipers aiming at the belly of a pregnant Palestinian woman, with the snappy caption of “1 shot - 2 kills.”
But, the Givatis are not new to notoriety. For this is the brigade established in 1948 from the veterans of the Irgun terrorist gang. Among other outrages, Irgun Gang was responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 and the massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassin in 1948.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95855§ionid=351020202
23 May 2009
NEWS and PROPAGANDA
South Korean ex-president jumps to his death
***********************
"...he was sorry for disappointing the nation."
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95707§ionid=351020405
Man shoves would-be suicide jumper off bridge for holding up traffic
***************************
"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interests," Mr Lai was quoted as saying by the China Daily newspaper.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/5372890/Man-shoves-would-be-suicide-jumper-off-bridge-for-holding-up-traffic.html
Microsoft halts IM services to Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Syria and North Korea
***********************
According to a statement published Friday on the Microsoft website, Internet users in Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria and North Korea who wish to use instant messaging services will be gifted with Error 810003c1 and a message box that will say "We are unable to sign you in to the .NET Messenger Service."
"Microsoft has discontinued providing Instant Messenger services in certain countries subject to United States sanctions," the statement explains
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95735§ionid=351020101
Facts and Myths about Obama's Preventive Detention Proposal
***********************
It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention" authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the future because they are alleged to be "combatants."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22688.htm
Mogadishu street fighting kills 45, wounds 182
*****************************
Somali government forces attacked rebel strongholds in Mogadishu on Friday, triggering battles across the capital that killed at least 45 people, the highest daily death toll for months.
Neighboring states and Western security forces fear Somalia, which has been mired in civil war for 18 years, could become a haven for terrorists linked to al-Qaeda.
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/05/22/73560.html
Israel government too extreme to make peace: Syria's Assad
*********************************
"The failure of the peace process so far has clearly shown that Israel is the obstacle. How can a state that was founded on illegal occupation and continues to murder the original inhabitants work toward peace?" Assad said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54M0OV20090523
George Galloway’s Letter to the Charity Commission about Viva Palestina
********************************
During Israel’s 22-day attack on virtually defenceless Palestinian civilians in Gaza – condemned by virtually everyone in the world from the United Nations to the Pope and including the British government – an organization The Zionist Federation took out a full page advert in the Jewish Chronicle on 9th January asking readers to send “care packages” to “our [ie Israeli] soldiers fighting on the front line” in Gaza and to send charity vouchers to a British registered charity Operation Wheelchairs Committee (charity number 263089) for the same purpose.
http://intifada-palestine.com/
***********************
"...he was sorry for disappointing the nation."
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95707§ionid=351020405
Man shoves would-be suicide jumper off bridge for holding up traffic
***************************
"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interests," Mr Lai was quoted as saying by the China Daily newspaper.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/5372890/Man-shoves-would-be-suicide-jumper-off-bridge-for-holding-up-traffic.html
Microsoft halts IM services to Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Syria and North Korea
***********************
According to a statement published Friday on the Microsoft website, Internet users in Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria and North Korea who wish to use instant messaging services will be gifted with Error 810003c1 and a message box that will say "We are unable to sign you in to the .NET Messenger Service."
"Microsoft has discontinued providing Instant Messenger services in certain countries subject to United States sanctions," the statement explains
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95735§ionid=351020101
Facts and Myths about Obama's Preventive Detention Proposal
***********************
It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention" authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the future because they are alleged to be "combatants."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22688.htm
Mogadishu street fighting kills 45, wounds 182
*****************************
Somali government forces attacked rebel strongholds in Mogadishu on Friday, triggering battles across the capital that killed at least 45 people, the highest daily death toll for months.
Neighboring states and Western security forces fear Somalia, which has been mired in civil war for 18 years, could become a haven for terrorists linked to al-Qaeda.
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/05/22/73560.html
Israel government too extreme to make peace: Syria's Assad
*********************************
"The failure of the peace process so far has clearly shown that Israel is the obstacle. How can a state that was founded on illegal occupation and continues to murder the original inhabitants work toward peace?" Assad said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54M0OV20090523
George Galloway’s Letter to the Charity Commission about Viva Palestina
********************************
During Israel’s 22-day attack on virtually defenceless Palestinian civilians in Gaza – condemned by virtually everyone in the world from the United Nations to the Pope and including the British government – an organization The Zionist Federation took out a full page advert in the Jewish Chronicle on 9th January asking readers to send “care packages” to “our [ie Israeli] soldiers fighting on the front line” in Gaza and to send charity vouchers to a British registered charity Operation Wheelchairs Committee (charity number 263089) for the same purpose.
http://intifada-palestine.com/
A note to Aphorista...
While I go through and criticize the layers of illusions that I find to prevail in one form or another covering up freedom, you clearly expressed being free in your response to part1 of 'On Freedom':
"How may I uncover those hidden illusions I hold of which I am not aware?
Be. New. In this moment. Now. No Illusion-Shattering Required."
While I go through and criticize the layers of illusions that I find to prevail in one form or another covering up freedom, you clearly expressed being free in your response to part1 of 'On Freedom':
"How may I uncover those hidden illusions I hold of which I am not aware?
Be. New. In this moment. Now. No Illusion-Shattering Required."
ON FREEDOM(part9)
From crusades choosing which gods will be worshiped, to the latest athlete thanking one of their personal gods for choosing them to score a goal, free beings have said 'no, thank you' to freedom in favor of oppression, slavery, and ignorance. There are even those who create gods that they say represents freedom, with ritualized gratitude following therein. God, jesus, satan, the gift-givers of the imagination, brought into the world to help free beings forget about their freedom. The theists love and/or fear gods and obediently worship and praise their creations. The atheists are not happy with gods and rebel against the notion by even claiming in front of everyone that gods don't exist because god just wouldn't act that way if he did exist. The agnostics don't know if there are gods and don't decide on the matter because 'anything is possible'. All three positions drink at the same bar. Many free beings go into that bar for spirits and souls, but it is just a bar. After a few drinks all three positions can be quite dangerous to be around. Lying, hating, and clueless all intoxicated with their limits, their burdens, and their ignorance, disclose power and expose weakness in one another until they part. They sleep with angels and demons and fantastic possibilities awaiting at their door ready to tie another one on. There are as many reasons as there are circumstances in ones life for negating freedom to live at that bar. In liberating myself from gods the world did not welcome me with a celebration. The world closes and opens as always. There is no one and nothing to thank for realizing that I have always been free.
22 May 2009
NEWS and PROPAGANDA
Sanctions Proposed Against Eritrea
********************
The UN's Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) asked the Security Council to impose 'tough' sanctions on Eritrea Thursday due to its call for the ouster of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki is quoted saying "this so-called [Somali] government is not a government in terms of legitimacy. It cannot even influence one very small neighbourhood in Mogadishu, let alone Somalia."
http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/sanctions-proposed-against-eritrea.html
Deadly battles in Somali capital
****************************
At least seven people have been killed after Somali government forces launched an attack in an attempt to drive opposition fighters from the capital, Mogadishu.
Witnesses said at least four members of al-Shabab, an armed group, and a journalist from Shabelle Radio, a local independent station, were among the victims of Friday's clashes.
"They have recaptured four police stations between here and the palace, and they are advancing further."
But al-Shabab rejected the claims of military success.
"...our fighters are defending themselves," Sheikh Ali Mahmoud Rage, a spokesman for al-Shabab, said. "They have not not taken any positions from us."
Reporters confirmed that several bodies had been left on the ground and at least eight civilians injured while trying to escape.
Sources at two Mogadishu hospitals told Reuters that they received a total of 85 wounded civilians on Friday.
In the past 10 days, more than 100 people have been killed and 46,000 have been displaced as the fighting has escalated.
Earlier this week an East African group called on the UN to impose an aerial and maritime blockade on Somalia to prevent the opposition fighters from acquiring more weapons.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/05/200952271510325.html
Sept. 11 Commission official selected to head US National Intelligence Council
*************************************
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair has tapped the deputy director of the Sept. 11 Commission to head the top U.S. office for intelligence analysis.
Blair's first choice, Charles Freeman, bowed out of consideration two months ago under congressional criticism for his public comments about Israel and allegations about his ties to foreign governments.
http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/05/21/sept-11-commission-official-to-lead-intel-group/
Senate O.K.'s $91 Billion in War Funds
***************************
The Senate approved $91 billion in funding for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan yesterday, with all senators but three voting for the bill. This, along with a House vote last week in favor of $97 billion
http://www.truthout.org/052209J?n
Obama's War: Drunk, Bored Trigger Happy Mercenaries Kill Afghan Civilians
*************************************************************************
For those of you who have been following the intricacies of the various ongoing Blackwater/Xe scandals (hard to keep up with indeed), the situation unfolding in Kabul is certainly on your radar. In short, four Blackwater/Xe operatives working for Paravant LLC, a subsidiary of Blackwater/Xe are alleged to have fired on a civilian car they say they saw as a threat, killing at least one Afghan civilian.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54479&hd=&size=1&l=e
Two Sides of the Same Coin... Heads-Heads
***************************
This baby was the victim of an air strike, a bombing that killed her entire family and leveled her modest home to the ground. My father pointed at this heartbreaking baby and said, "Sibel, this is war. This is the real face of war. This is the result of war. Do you think anything can justify this? I want to replace the glamorous exciting phony images of those war movies in your head. I want you to remember this for the rest of your life and stand against this kind of destruction…"
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7172#more-7172
No, I Do Not Support "The Troops"
********************
Our national catechism tells us that America is Good -- and that America's murders are Good Murders. You may not say otherwise.
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/
Biden in the Balkans: US asserts interests in shattered region
******************************
Jones declared that, “Americans are not satisfied with the Brussels leadership in the Balkans” and criticized a number of European countries that are calling for a delay in the accession of more Balkan states to the EU and NATO.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13700
********************
The UN's Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) asked the Security Council to impose 'tough' sanctions on Eritrea Thursday due to its call for the ouster of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki is quoted saying "this so-called [Somali] government is not a government in terms of legitimacy. It cannot even influence one very small neighbourhood in Mogadishu, let alone Somalia."
http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/sanctions-proposed-against-eritrea.html
Deadly battles in Somali capital
****************************
At least seven people have been killed after Somali government forces launched an attack in an attempt to drive opposition fighters from the capital, Mogadishu.
Witnesses said at least four members of al-Shabab, an armed group, and a journalist from Shabelle Radio, a local independent station, were among the victims of Friday's clashes.
"They have recaptured four police stations between here and the palace, and they are advancing further."
But al-Shabab rejected the claims of military success.
"...our fighters are defending themselves," Sheikh Ali Mahmoud Rage, a spokesman for al-Shabab, said. "They have not not taken any positions from us."
Reporters confirmed that several bodies had been left on the ground and at least eight civilians injured while trying to escape.
Sources at two Mogadishu hospitals told Reuters that they received a total of 85 wounded civilians on Friday.
In the past 10 days, more than 100 people have been killed and 46,000 have been displaced as the fighting has escalated.
Earlier this week an East African group called on the UN to impose an aerial and maritime blockade on Somalia to prevent the opposition fighters from acquiring more weapons.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/05/200952271510325.html
Sept. 11 Commission official selected to head US National Intelligence Council
*************************************
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair has tapped the deputy director of the Sept. 11 Commission to head the top U.S. office for intelligence analysis.
Blair's first choice, Charles Freeman, bowed out of consideration two months ago under congressional criticism for his public comments about Israel and allegations about his ties to foreign governments.
http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/05/21/sept-11-commission-official-to-lead-intel-group/
Senate O.K.'s $91 Billion in War Funds
***************************
The Senate approved $91 billion in funding for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan yesterday, with all senators but three voting for the bill. This, along with a House vote last week in favor of $97 billion
http://www.truthout.org/052209J?n
Obama's War: Drunk, Bored Trigger Happy Mercenaries Kill Afghan Civilians
*************************************************************************
For those of you who have been following the intricacies of the various ongoing Blackwater/Xe scandals (hard to keep up with indeed), the situation unfolding in Kabul is certainly on your radar. In short, four Blackwater/Xe operatives working for Paravant LLC, a subsidiary of Blackwater/Xe are alleged to have fired on a civilian car they say they saw as a threat, killing at least one Afghan civilian.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54479&hd=&size=1&l=e
Two Sides of the Same Coin... Heads-Heads
***************************
This baby was the victim of an air strike, a bombing that killed her entire family and leveled her modest home to the ground. My father pointed at this heartbreaking baby and said, "Sibel, this is war. This is the real face of war. This is the result of war. Do you think anything can justify this? I want to replace the glamorous exciting phony images of those war movies in your head. I want you to remember this for the rest of your life and stand against this kind of destruction…"
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7172#more-7172
No, I Do Not Support "The Troops"
********************
Our national catechism tells us that America is Good -- and that America's murders are Good Murders. You may not say otherwise.
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/
Biden in the Balkans: US asserts interests in shattered region
******************************
Jones declared that, “Americans are not satisfied with the Brussels leadership in the Balkans” and criticized a number of European countries that are calling for a delay in the accession of more Balkan states to the EU and NATO.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13700
21 May 2009
More ON FREEDOM: Empathy & Imagination | Being With & Being Alone | Freedom Overcomes Illusions
More ON FREEDOM (part 1.1): Empathy & Imagination | Being With & Being Alone | Freedom Overcomes Illusions
A response to: ON FREEDOM (part 1) by Relament, posted 6 May 2009
The capacity and desire to “imagine anything and any situation” is an essential component of the endeavour we call empathy. Empathy an endeavour, rather than an emotion or a mode of determination, because trying to feel and understand the mind of an other is an intrinsically endless occupation. We can reach and pull, question and answer, dig until our nailbeds bleed, yet one can never fully explore the unplumbable depth that is each and every human being. Relament is a battery of empathetic tools and empathetic desire. I can think of no one I have conversed with in my life who has made more of a charter out of Empathy than he. Yet… at this moment… he chooses to be (pretty much) alone, even while still on his empathetic quest. Odd choice? Perhaps! Is that oddness a bad thing? Hell no! We each choose, and thereby create, our freedom. The world of free beings IS an odd place, and that’s just alright with me…
But what are the limits of one's freedom? (We’re not gods; or are we?); or rather, does freedom have limits?; or rather, am I not establishing the limits of (my) freedom through my choices? To take a bit of a tangent from Relament's thesis, let me say that what I have found to be the case in this life is that any and every limit to freedom, once recognized and subsequently ignored, is then no longer a limit. We can argue nature vs. nurture vs. freedom and independence all day, but it is in reflection combined with action that we can eliminate those limits that, once boiled down, are merely habits which are malleable and under our control, if we choose to remain (un-)conscious of them. We create our own limits and our own freedom. Our freedom is limited only by how we are willing to, and actually do, ACT.
Illusions [can be] --> Limits [are] --> Choices [create (enrich or inhibit)] --> Freedom / Life!
A response to: ON FREEDOM (part 1) by Relament, posted 6 May 2009
The capacity and desire to “imagine anything and any situation” is an essential component of the endeavour we call empathy. Empathy an endeavour, rather than an emotion or a mode of determination, because trying to feel and understand the mind of an other is an intrinsically endless occupation. We can reach and pull, question and answer, dig until our nailbeds bleed, yet one can never fully explore the unplumbable depth that is each and every human being. Relament is a battery of empathetic tools and empathetic desire. I can think of no one I have conversed with in my life who has made more of a charter out of Empathy than he. Yet… at this moment… he chooses to be (pretty much) alone, even while still on his empathetic quest. Odd choice? Perhaps! Is that oddness a bad thing? Hell no! We each choose, and thereby create, our freedom. The world of free beings IS an odd place, and that’s just alright with me…
But what are the limits of one's freedom? (We’re not gods; or are we?); or rather, does freedom have limits?; or rather, am I not establishing the limits of (my) freedom through my choices? To take a bit of a tangent from Relament's thesis, let me say that what I have found to be the case in this life is that any and every limit to freedom, once recognized and subsequently ignored, is then no longer a limit. We can argue nature vs. nurture vs. freedom and independence all day, but it is in reflection combined with action that we can eliminate those limits that, once boiled down, are merely habits which are malleable and under our control, if we choose to remain (un-)conscious of them. We create our own limits and our own freedom. Our freedom is limited only by how we are willing to, and actually do, ACT.
Illusions [can be] --> Limits [are] --> Choices [create (enrich or inhibit)] --> Freedom / Life!
- What illusions are necessary (if any)? What illusions are dissolvable (if not all)?
- What illusions are desirable to me (if any)? What illusions do I desire to shed (if not all)?
- How may I uncover those hidden illusions I hold of which I am not aware?
Iraq's deadly attacks kill 65 people
************************************
The most deadly attack on Thursday was in Baghdad's southern district of Doura when a suicide bomber detonated at the crowded popular market of Athoriyin, killing 12 civilians and wounding 25 others, a police source said. The bomber targeted U.S. soldiers on patrol at the entrance of the marketplace, the source said, quoting police reports as saying that three U.S. soldiers were killed in the attack and five others wounded. Thursday's attacks followed a deadly car bombing near a popular restaurant in Baghdad's northwestern neighborhood of Shualaa on Wednesday evening, killing up to 40 people and wounding 83 others, the police said.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/21/content_11414917.htm
Back to Black...by Layla Anwar
______________________
Useless... Totally useless... How fast I move back into black...it always amazes me. The only comfortable color, the only color I feel safe in, ever since you liberated me, ever since you liberated us... Summer is at our doorstep, all colorful. I go through the yearly motions. Hide the Winter, bring out the Summer...clothes. A task I have been postponing for ever. A ritual I have been postponing for ever... Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Mark the seasons, I tell myself...mark them. Make that passage...it's Summer knocking on your door. I stare out of my window and I say - yes it is summer knocking... Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall...the seasons have become all the same...a question of variation of temperature. That's it. Some days are colder and some are hotter...But they're all the same. I gathered all the good will I could muster, I opened my wardrobe and was aghast to see the amount of black clothes I had. Black sweaters, black trousers, black dresses, black jeans, black skirts, black...black, black and black... Is that why I dress up my blog in colors ? I thought to myself. Is that why I splash it with colors, trying to give it Life ? Hello, we are still here. Hello there is a living voice here. Hello can you hear me ? Can you hear me ? Can you hear me through megabytes of cyberspace ? Can you hear me in the Black ? Do you ? Am I coming loud and clear ? Or are you like the clothes hanging in my wardrobe, dusty with the passing days, stuck in the Winter of your minds ? It's Summer knocking on my door...Bring me the colors. Let them in, one by one...Pink, Yellow, Green, Lilac, Blue...Carry them in baskets and adorn them with hand picked flowers from fresh springing meadows... Let me smell the earth again. Let me smell the sun. Let me smell life...again. Wait, I will make myself beautiful for you. I am hiding my black winter clothes and bringing out my colored summer ones. Look at the pattern. Feel the fabric. Do you see that flowered dress ? Look at this one, it's pure white silk. And what about that one - it's embroidered with the finest of blue... Look, look, they're all out, waiting to be worn...waiting to be born again... I promise no dust. I promise no fuss. I promise to be a good girl. No procrastination. No laziness. No stalling. No... Oh, here you are, knocking on my door. What flowers did you bring ? What do they smell like ? Is Summer hidden in them, in between their stalks, in between their petals ? Will you greet me with embraces and kisses, like in the old days ? I open the door... A dwarf stares at me...holding an old rusty tray and a list of names...encrypted on burned paper... Over 40 dead today, he said. An explosion. It happened at 7 pm, just when the Sun was setting and when a cool breeze made it safe... I shut the door in his face. I shut the door. I leave my winter clothes spread on the floor, like skeletons... waiting to find a corpse to dress...I shut the door and leave them lying there, pieces of fragmented red, pieces of fragmented black...I leave them lying there...in between seasons with no name...in between life and death... I leave them there...in the grey of my life, of our life... I leave them there, for another Spring, another Summer, another...Winter. And am back to Black.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54443&hd=&size=1&l=e
************************************
The most deadly attack on Thursday was in Baghdad's southern district of Doura when a suicide bomber detonated at the crowded popular market of Athoriyin, killing 12 civilians and wounding 25 others, a police source said. The bomber targeted U.S. soldiers on patrol at the entrance of the marketplace, the source said, quoting police reports as saying that three U.S. soldiers were killed in the attack and five others wounded. Thursday's attacks followed a deadly car bombing near a popular restaurant in Baghdad's northwestern neighborhood of Shualaa on Wednesday evening, killing up to 40 people and wounding 83 others, the police said.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/21/content_11414917.htm
Back to Black...by Layla Anwar
______________________
Useless... Totally useless... How fast I move back into black...it always amazes me. The only comfortable color, the only color I feel safe in, ever since you liberated me, ever since you liberated us... Summer is at our doorstep, all colorful. I go through the yearly motions. Hide the Winter, bring out the Summer...clothes. A task I have been postponing for ever. A ritual I have been postponing for ever... Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Mark the seasons, I tell myself...mark them. Make that passage...it's Summer knocking on your door. I stare out of my window and I say - yes it is summer knocking... Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall...the seasons have become all the same...a question of variation of temperature. That's it. Some days are colder and some are hotter...But they're all the same. I gathered all the good will I could muster, I opened my wardrobe and was aghast to see the amount of black clothes I had. Black sweaters, black trousers, black dresses, black jeans, black skirts, black...black, black and black... Is that why I dress up my blog in colors ? I thought to myself. Is that why I splash it with colors, trying to give it Life ? Hello, we are still here. Hello there is a living voice here. Hello can you hear me ? Can you hear me ? Can you hear me through megabytes of cyberspace ? Can you hear me in the Black ? Do you ? Am I coming loud and clear ? Or are you like the clothes hanging in my wardrobe, dusty with the passing days, stuck in the Winter of your minds ? It's Summer knocking on my door...Bring me the colors. Let them in, one by one...Pink, Yellow, Green, Lilac, Blue...Carry them in baskets and adorn them with hand picked flowers from fresh springing meadows... Let me smell the earth again. Let me smell the sun. Let me smell life...again. Wait, I will make myself beautiful for you. I am hiding my black winter clothes and bringing out my colored summer ones. Look at the pattern. Feel the fabric. Do you see that flowered dress ? Look at this one, it's pure white silk. And what about that one - it's embroidered with the finest of blue... Look, look, they're all out, waiting to be worn...waiting to be born again... I promise no dust. I promise no fuss. I promise to be a good girl. No procrastination. No laziness. No stalling. No... Oh, here you are, knocking on my door. What flowers did you bring ? What do they smell like ? Is Summer hidden in them, in between their stalks, in between their petals ? Will you greet me with embraces and kisses, like in the old days ? I open the door... A dwarf stares at me...holding an old rusty tray and a list of names...encrypted on burned paper... Over 40 dead today, he said. An explosion. It happened at 7 pm, just when the Sun was setting and when a cool breeze made it safe... I shut the door in his face. I shut the door. I leave my winter clothes spread on the floor, like skeletons... waiting to find a corpse to dress...I shut the door and leave them lying there, pieces of fragmented red, pieces of fragmented black...I leave them lying there...in between seasons with no name...in between life and death... I leave them there...in the grey of my life, of our life... I leave them there, for another Spring, another Summer, another...Winter. And am back to Black.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54443&hd=&size=1&l=e
20 May 2009
Just a Suggestion... by Layla Anwar
*********************
"I have a suggestion to President Obooma and his administration, a suggestion that will end the "war on terror" once and for all, and will make the whole world a safer place...
This is what I propose.
Why surge in Afghanistan when you can surge in Pakistan ? Commit a few thousands of your bravest boys and girls, in the Northern Provinces. Do not content yourselves with air power. You need to be physically there. You know, fight the fight.
The reason am suggesting that - is because first, I would like you to see for yourselves, the beautiful scenery in the Swat valley and second, since you are so used to John Wayne's cowboy style approach to things, I found an equal for your duels. The Pakistani Pashtuns. You may consider them a local variation of John Wayne.
Îf you think that the Iraqi "insurgents" are merciless, that the Afghan Talibans are lethal, you really ought to try the Pashtuns. They are rough, tough and take no shit from nobody. Just like your John Waynes.
Don't rely on the Pakistani government. Go for it yourselves, no one can scratch your own backs like your own nails. Try it, it will be fun, a cakewalk.
I can promise you that the Pashtuns there will welcome you with flowers and candies, just like they did in Afghanistan and just like we did in Iraq. But they are more hospitable than us. Wallah, they will even make you dance the Hulahoop, on one leg. Ya'ani, you know -- a break dance.
Come on be a sport. Do it, for the sake of the "war on terror." So we can finally be rid of YOUR terror once and for all."
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/05/just-suggestion.html
*********************
"I have a suggestion to President Obooma and his administration, a suggestion that will end the "war on terror" once and for all, and will make the whole world a safer place...
This is what I propose.
Why surge in Afghanistan when you can surge in Pakistan ? Commit a few thousands of your bravest boys and girls, in the Northern Provinces. Do not content yourselves with air power. You need to be physically there. You know, fight the fight.
The reason am suggesting that - is because first, I would like you to see for yourselves, the beautiful scenery in the Swat valley and second, since you are so used to John Wayne's cowboy style approach to things, I found an equal for your duels. The Pakistani Pashtuns. You may consider them a local variation of John Wayne.
Îf you think that the Iraqi "insurgents" are merciless, that the Afghan Talibans are lethal, you really ought to try the Pashtuns. They are rough, tough and take no shit from nobody. Just like your John Waynes.
Don't rely on the Pakistani government. Go for it yourselves, no one can scratch your own backs like your own nails. Try it, it will be fun, a cakewalk.
I can promise you that the Pashtuns there will welcome you with flowers and candies, just like they did in Afghanistan and just like we did in Iraq. But they are more hospitable than us. Wallah, they will even make you dance the Hulahoop, on one leg. Ya'ani, you know -- a break dance.
Come on be a sport. Do it, for the sake of the "war on terror." So we can finally be rid of YOUR terror once and for all."
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/05/just-suggestion.html
Who's Next for Dinner ?
***********************
Which country in the Arab world, the news hardly ever cover and in which there is a serious battle going on ?
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/05/whos-next-for-dinner.html
***********************
Which country in the Arab world, the news hardly ever cover and in which there is a serious battle going on ?
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/05/whos-next-for-dinner.html
19 May 2009
Hamas says new gov't boosts political chaos
************************
"This government will remain illegal and illegitimate and we will not recognize it or deal with it," Barhoum added.
The new government, led by the Western-backed Salam Fayyad, was sworn in in the West Bank city of Ramallah earlier in the day. It excludes Hamas which won the parliamentary elections in 2006.
Barhoum said that excluding Hamas in the government "meets the U.S. and Israeli desires which are against the interests of the Palestinian people and their rights."
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/20/content_11403652.htm
Israeli war jets strike on several Gaza Strip targets, one wounded
********************************************
Israeli warplanes on Tuesday night carried out a series of airstrikes on several targets in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, wounding one person and causing severe damages to two buildings, medics and witnesses said.
Earlier Tuesday, witnesses said that F16 warplanes hovered over Rafah town and then two explosions were heard after two bombs fired by the warplanes struck the borderline area and destroyed tunnels used by Palestinians for smuggling.
The Palestinians dug thousands of tunnels after Israel tightened its blockade on the enclave and prevented products to enter through crossings between Israel and Gaza. The tunnels are used for smuggling goods, food, medicine and fuels.
But Israel said that Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and other militant groups are using the tunnels to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza, used for carrying out attacks against Israel.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/20/content_11403775.htm
Unexceptional Americans: Why We Can’t See the Trees or the Forest
*****************************************
More importantly, torture has been routinely practiced from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and continued to be used as the imperial ventures of the “infant empire” — as George Washington called the new republic — extended to the Philippines, Haiti, and elsewhere. Keep in mind as well that torture was the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion, and economic strangulation that have darkened U.S. history, much as in the case of other great powers.
Accordingly, what’s surprising is to see the reactions to the release of those Justice Department memos, even by some of the most eloquent and forthright critics of Bush malfeasance: Paul Krugman, for example, writing that we used to be “a nation of moral ideals” and never before Bush “have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for.” To say the least, that common view reflects a rather slanted version of American history.
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/unexceptional-americans-why-we-cant-see-the-trees-or-the-forest/
The tortured world of US intelligence By Roger Morris
*******************************************************************
This is a vintage American chronicle with dramatic settings and dark secrets. The cast ranges from hearty boosters in Kansas to bitter exiles on the Baltic, from doomed agents dropped behind Russian lines across Eurasia to Islamic clerics car-bombed in the Middle East - all in a family saga of long-hidden paternity... such a sweeping history - the history, in this case, of that blind deity of havoc, the CIA - cannot come condensed or blog-sized. It is, necessarily, without apology, a long trail a-winding.
http://atimes01.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IF23Ak03.html
************************
"This government will remain illegal and illegitimate and we will not recognize it or deal with it," Barhoum added.
The new government, led by the Western-backed Salam Fayyad, was sworn in in the West Bank city of Ramallah earlier in the day. It excludes Hamas which won the parliamentary elections in 2006.
Barhoum said that excluding Hamas in the government "meets the U.S. and Israeli desires which are against the interests of the Palestinian people and their rights."
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/20/content_11403652.htm
Israeli war jets strike on several Gaza Strip targets, one wounded
********************************************
Israeli warplanes on Tuesday night carried out a series of airstrikes on several targets in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, wounding one person and causing severe damages to two buildings, medics and witnesses said.
Earlier Tuesday, witnesses said that F16 warplanes hovered over Rafah town and then two explosions were heard after two bombs fired by the warplanes struck the borderline area and destroyed tunnels used by Palestinians for smuggling.
The Palestinians dug thousands of tunnels after Israel tightened its blockade on the enclave and prevented products to enter through crossings between Israel and Gaza. The tunnels are used for smuggling goods, food, medicine and fuels.
But Israel said that Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and other militant groups are using the tunnels to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza, used for carrying out attacks against Israel.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/20/content_11403775.htm
Unexceptional Americans: Why We Can’t See the Trees or the Forest
*****************************************
More importantly, torture has been routinely practiced from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and continued to be used as the imperial ventures of the “infant empire” — as George Washington called the new republic — extended to the Philippines, Haiti, and elsewhere. Keep in mind as well that torture was the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion, and economic strangulation that have darkened U.S. history, much as in the case of other great powers.
Accordingly, what’s surprising is to see the reactions to the release of those Justice Department memos, even by some of the most eloquent and forthright critics of Bush malfeasance: Paul Krugman, for example, writing that we used to be “a nation of moral ideals” and never before Bush “have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for.” To say the least, that common view reflects a rather slanted version of American history.
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/unexceptional-americans-why-we-cant-see-the-trees-or-the-forest/
The tortured world of US intelligence By Roger Morris
*******************************************************************
This is a vintage American chronicle with dramatic settings and dark secrets. The cast ranges from hearty boosters in Kansas to bitter exiles on the Baltic, from doomed agents dropped behind Russian lines across Eurasia to Islamic clerics car-bombed in the Middle East - all in a family saga of long-hidden paternity... such a sweeping history - the history, in this case, of that blind deity of havoc, the CIA - cannot come condensed or blog-sized. It is, necessarily, without apology, a long trail a-winding.
http://atimes01.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IF23Ak03.html
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