Recently on C-Span (July 2009) former astronaut and Freemason Buzz Aldrin remarked that there is a "monolith" on the Martian moon of Phobos. He then asks: "Who put it there?"...then answers himself with some lame response about how "the Universe or God" put it there. Yeah, whatever Buzz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDIXvpjnRws
28 July, 2009
The General and The Aliens
The General and the Aliens
By Scott Corrales
(with thanks to Raul Núñez)
A number of books and magazine features have been written, over the years, about the presence of strange non-human “counselors” or “advisors” whose presence has weighed heavily upon some of the most important figures in world history. The exact nature of these shadowy beings has always been a matter of controversy: some have associated them with space aliens, time travelers, envoys from the court of the King of the World in legendary, subterranean Aghartha, tutelary spirits, ascended masters. As these entities never present their credentials, and the gulf of centuries separates us from their activities, these accounts are safely circumscribed to myth and hearsay. These visits, while usually reserved for individuals endowed with political or military power, have sometimes been bestowed upon others, as in the case of the resplendent beings who visited the alchemist Facius Cardan in August, 1491, and who discussed the nature of the universe and the immortality of the soul. These entities, appearing before the befuddled alchemist, were arrayed in gold and purple armor with glittering boots. One of them, the foremost among them, was described as having “the most commanding air...and a face that was dark red in color.”
Might this red-faced elemental have been the “Red Man” who appeared on three separate occasions to Napoleon Bonaparte? And what of the “Grey Man” who aided and abetted the conquests of King Charles XII of Sweden, and the longhaired figure that supposedly showed George Washington the “birth, growth and destiny of the United States?” These unknown parties bestowed crucial information that benefited, or provided encouragement, to these historical figures at critical moment.
Brad Steiger, the master chronicler of the unknown, gives us added insight into the specifics of these meetings in his book Atlantis Rising (NY: Dell, 1973). The headstrong Napoleon was admonished by the “Red Man” to desist from his efforts to conquer Egypt, predicting the expedition’s failure. “True to the Red Man’s predictions,” writes Steiger, “the Egyptian campaign failed. In 1809, after the Battle of Wagram, Napoleon made his headquarters at Schonbrunn, where again he received the mysterious visitor.” The Red Man would grace the Little Corporal with his presence once more, in 1814, when beset by his enemies, the emperor was forced to consider abdication. “It is said that Napoleon beseeched the Red Man for time to complete the execution of certain proposals, but the prophetic messenger gave him only three months to achieve a general peace or it would all be over for him.” The emperor was unable to do this, opting instead for a renewed military option, and was forced to abdicate and withdraw to his first place of exile – the Italian island of Elba.
Our friends at IIEE Chile have recently posted to their blog an article written by one of the forgotten giants of South American paranormal studies – Prof. Francisco Aniceto Lugo, whose essays appeared magazines and journals on both sides of the Atlantic and whose speculative works, such as Las Cuatro Grandes Catastrofes Cosmicas Mundiales (Mexico: Editorial Orión, 1978) are highly sought by collectors.
Professor Lugo’s article bears the title “Bolivar y los Extraterrestres” (Bolivar and the Extraterrestrials) -- referring to the General Simon Bolivar, who won the independence of five South American countries from Spain – and it issue No. 56 of Revista Kabala, dated June 1981. The article goes on to include General Bolivar among the illustrious personages to have face-to-face encounters with these beings, and we translate his article below with sincere thanks to Raul Nuñez of the IIEE.
Bolivar and the Extraterrestrials
By Francisco Aniceto Lugo
It must seem very strange to our readers to see me state that the Liberator had contact with aliens and received information from them. In saying this, I am basing myself upon the very important historical research of Don Luis Beltrán Reyes, which are rather well documented and therefore worthy of trust. At no point does he suggest that the three strange men that mysteriously interviewed the Liberator were aliens, but the characteristics of these beings, as described, are sufficient for me to sustain, as I do now, that they were in fact aliens without question. During the course of his famous military campaigns, Bolivar would meet with three mysterious men, very strange in their appearance, and whose arrival and departure, or no man knew the means through which this was achieved. According to the description given by Luis Beltrán Reyes, these three men were tall and distinguished in their manner. They wore white uniforms with white dress coats and golden cuffs, with the extraordinary detail that [the uniforms] were emblazoned with golden spikes that gave off a strange luminescence. They also wore Wellington-style boots, but the strangest feature was that their footsteps could not be heard as they walked. Moreover, some witnesses say that they were endowed with magical powers, such as the ability to become invisible whenever they deemed it necessary.
These strange men practically followed the Liberator everywhere and conferred with him, especially when critical situations arose in military situations or great battles, to insure the success of Bolivar's troops. Surely, these interviews were far from being common knowledge among the combatants. They took place in great secrecy and confidence. Nonetheless, the fact that they were taking place filtered down to events frequented by the high command, and these officers began wondering the role being played by these strange people. The intrusion – to give it a name – of these three strange beings, fostered by the Liberator, became more noticeable every day and Bolivar’s staff became increasingly concerned, in the belief that these people were being apprised of the plans of the independence movement, thus jeopardizing its triumph through the alleged disclosure of important secrets. But it could not be further from the truth, since it was these “extraterrestrials” that surely displayed the true progress of events to the Liberator, all the while finding the best way to counteract the military progress of the Royalists and obtain a resounding victory as soon as possible. Of course, the information exchanged between the extraterrestrials and the Liberator was the greatest secret; only a few people were aware of this, and only then indirectly.
Day after day, the presence of these three unknown individuals causes increasing concern among members of Bolivar’s staff and his closest friends, who believed that the affair could have disastrous consequences for the Patriots, to the extent that Santander [Gen. Francisco de Paula Santander, 1792-1840] was moved to address a letter to the Liberator: “There is nothing that grieves me more than to contradict your thoughts, but see, My General, that I’m a sincere and honest man. I further suppose that Your Excellency shall make good use of his new friends, given the power they profess to have. But I repeat, My General, that no one knows them or their true intentions...”
One of Bolivar’s closest friends, Don Pepe Paris, wrote about the matter to a friend in Santa Marta three years after the Liberator’s death: “I believe they were the Liberator’s advisors. On my part, I was glad for it, as you know how much I loved Bolivar and how it pained me to see him surrounded by ingrates and enemies...” This also goes to show that some of the Liberator’s nearest and dearest believed that the three unknown men he met with could have an unfavorable influence on the War of Independence. However, they were never seen to have had any kind of untoward effect on the matters of the great armed encounters of the Revolution.
Before the battle of Carabobo, for example, Bolivar met at Tinaquillo with the three enigmatic characters, and as is well known, this tremendous feat of arms (in which nearly the entire Venezuelan nation took part, young men, teenagers and the elderly, along with women of all ages and even the infirm) was the decisive engagement of the struggle for independence. It can therefore be said that the influence exerted by the three unknown characters was evidently a positive one.
The fact that the golden spikes emblazoned on their uniforms gave off a strange luminescence, the fact that their footsteps could not be heard, the no less important fact that they had certain magical powers, even to become “invisible” when circumstances dictated the need, along with other details, make it clear that these enigmatic beings could have been aliens. On the other hand, General Santander himself confirms this characteristic when he writes in his letters of “the powers they profess to have...” Moreover, Manuelita Sáenz [Bolivar’s influential mistress] remarked about these significant characteristics in later years, after the Liberator’s death, when answering questions put to her by the eminent figures that visited her in Paita.
Not a few great men who have changed the course of History have had the protection of the gods. Bolivar, bent on carrying out the most astonishing adventure of all times, could not be the exception. This thrills us, stimulates us, and tells us at the same time that our people are not alone. We have, without question, aside from the protection afforded to all by Divine Providence, the protection of the gods.
* * *
Professor Lugo ends his article by employing – twice – the suggestive term “the gods” to refer to these elusive presences. In doing so, he hearkens back to the much-too-human gods of antiquity and their penchant for sometimes directing, or meddling, with the course of human events. Arrayed in unsubtle white uniforms with golden facings, emitting light from the rayed emblem on their chests, Simon Bolivar’s secret “war cabinet” could have stumbled out of a contactee chronicle of the 1950s...or Faucius Cardan’s 15th century description of the elemental or angelic beings that visited him. The interest evinced by these entities in human warfare has been picked up by other authors, such as the late Andreas Faber Kaiser, who mentions the manifestations of angelic and/or saintly figures throughout the conquest of the Inca and Aztec empires by the enterprising Spanish conquistadores. These beings sought to terrify the native resistance, assuring them that all efforts at fighting the invaders were fruitless. Strategic matters are also of interest to them, if we believe the legend that the Emperor Constantine, while tracing out the walls of his “New Rome”, said that an invisible being was guiding him in delineating the walls – aided by a spear – on the soft soil of the Bosphorus. The city of Constantinople would stand for a thousand years as the final redoubt of the Roman tradition, and endures today as Istanbul.
Readers with more than just a casual interest in ufology and high strangeness are surely reminded by all this of how “groups of three” appear to be prevalent in non-human manifestations of which we have records in the 20th century: the notorious Men in Black tend to appear in threes, some classic encounters with “ufonauts” in the Fifties and Sixties involved landing parties (for want of a better term) of three beings. Christian researchers have seen in this the possible demonic nature of such presences, which seek to mock the Trinity. But regardless of their origin or activities in the past, the more fitting question would perhaps be: are any contemporary world leaders receiving advice or solace from such shadowy figures, and if so, what outcome might this have for our times? A distressing thought.
By Scott Corrales
(with thanks to Raul Núñez)
A number of books and magazine features have been written, over the years, about the presence of strange non-human “counselors” or “advisors” whose presence has weighed heavily upon some of the most important figures in world history. The exact nature of these shadowy beings has always been a matter of controversy: some have associated them with space aliens, time travelers, envoys from the court of the King of the World in legendary, subterranean Aghartha, tutelary spirits, ascended masters. As these entities never present their credentials, and the gulf of centuries separates us from their activities, these accounts are safely circumscribed to myth and hearsay. These visits, while usually reserved for individuals endowed with political or military power, have sometimes been bestowed upon others, as in the case of the resplendent beings who visited the alchemist Facius Cardan in August, 1491, and who discussed the nature of the universe and the immortality of the soul. These entities, appearing before the befuddled alchemist, were arrayed in gold and purple armor with glittering boots. One of them, the foremost among them, was described as having “the most commanding air...and a face that was dark red in color.”
Might this red-faced elemental have been the “Red Man” who appeared on three separate occasions to Napoleon Bonaparte? And what of the “Grey Man” who aided and abetted the conquests of King Charles XII of Sweden, and the longhaired figure that supposedly showed George Washington the “birth, growth and destiny of the United States?” These unknown parties bestowed crucial information that benefited, or provided encouragement, to these historical figures at critical moment.
Brad Steiger, the master chronicler of the unknown, gives us added insight into the specifics of these meetings in his book Atlantis Rising (NY: Dell, 1973). The headstrong Napoleon was admonished by the “Red Man” to desist from his efforts to conquer Egypt, predicting the expedition’s failure. “True to the Red Man’s predictions,” writes Steiger, “the Egyptian campaign failed. In 1809, after the Battle of Wagram, Napoleon made his headquarters at Schonbrunn, where again he received the mysterious visitor.” The Red Man would grace the Little Corporal with his presence once more, in 1814, when beset by his enemies, the emperor was forced to consider abdication. “It is said that Napoleon beseeched the Red Man for time to complete the execution of certain proposals, but the prophetic messenger gave him only three months to achieve a general peace or it would all be over for him.” The emperor was unable to do this, opting instead for a renewed military option, and was forced to abdicate and withdraw to his first place of exile – the Italian island of Elba.
Our friends at IIEE Chile have recently posted to their blog an article written by one of the forgotten giants of South American paranormal studies – Prof. Francisco Aniceto Lugo, whose essays appeared magazines and journals on both sides of the Atlantic and whose speculative works, such as Las Cuatro Grandes Catastrofes Cosmicas Mundiales (Mexico: Editorial Orión, 1978) are highly sought by collectors.
Professor Lugo’s article bears the title “Bolivar y los Extraterrestres” (Bolivar and the Extraterrestrials) -- referring to the General Simon Bolivar, who won the independence of five South American countries from Spain – and it issue No. 56 of Revista Kabala, dated June 1981. The article goes on to include General Bolivar among the illustrious personages to have face-to-face encounters with these beings, and we translate his article below with sincere thanks to Raul Nuñez of the IIEE.
Bolivar and the Extraterrestrials
By Francisco Aniceto Lugo
It must seem very strange to our readers to see me state that the Liberator had contact with aliens and received information from them. In saying this, I am basing myself upon the very important historical research of Don Luis Beltrán Reyes, which are rather well documented and therefore worthy of trust. At no point does he suggest that the three strange men that mysteriously interviewed the Liberator were aliens, but the characteristics of these beings, as described, are sufficient for me to sustain, as I do now, that they were in fact aliens without question. During the course of his famous military campaigns, Bolivar would meet with three mysterious men, very strange in their appearance, and whose arrival and departure, or no man knew the means through which this was achieved. According to the description given by Luis Beltrán Reyes, these three men were tall and distinguished in their manner. They wore white uniforms with white dress coats and golden cuffs, with the extraordinary detail that [the uniforms] were emblazoned with golden spikes that gave off a strange luminescence. They also wore Wellington-style boots, but the strangest feature was that their footsteps could not be heard as they walked. Moreover, some witnesses say that they were endowed with magical powers, such as the ability to become invisible whenever they deemed it necessary.
These strange men practically followed the Liberator everywhere and conferred with him, especially when critical situations arose in military situations or great battles, to insure the success of Bolivar's troops. Surely, these interviews were far from being common knowledge among the combatants. They took place in great secrecy and confidence. Nonetheless, the fact that they were taking place filtered down to events frequented by the high command, and these officers began wondering the role being played by these strange people. The intrusion – to give it a name – of these three strange beings, fostered by the Liberator, became more noticeable every day and Bolivar’s staff became increasingly concerned, in the belief that these people were being apprised of the plans of the independence movement, thus jeopardizing its triumph through the alleged disclosure of important secrets. But it could not be further from the truth, since it was these “extraterrestrials” that surely displayed the true progress of events to the Liberator, all the while finding the best way to counteract the military progress of the Royalists and obtain a resounding victory as soon as possible. Of course, the information exchanged between the extraterrestrials and the Liberator was the greatest secret; only a few people were aware of this, and only then indirectly.
Day after day, the presence of these three unknown individuals causes increasing concern among members of Bolivar’s staff and his closest friends, who believed that the affair could have disastrous consequences for the Patriots, to the extent that Santander [Gen. Francisco de Paula Santander, 1792-1840] was moved to address a letter to the Liberator: “There is nothing that grieves me more than to contradict your thoughts, but see, My General, that I’m a sincere and honest man. I further suppose that Your Excellency shall make good use of his new friends, given the power they profess to have. But I repeat, My General, that no one knows them or their true intentions...”
One of Bolivar’s closest friends, Don Pepe Paris, wrote about the matter to a friend in Santa Marta three years after the Liberator’s death: “I believe they were the Liberator’s advisors. On my part, I was glad for it, as you know how much I loved Bolivar and how it pained me to see him surrounded by ingrates and enemies...” This also goes to show that some of the Liberator’s nearest and dearest believed that the three unknown men he met with could have an unfavorable influence on the War of Independence. However, they were never seen to have had any kind of untoward effect on the matters of the great armed encounters of the Revolution.
Before the battle of Carabobo, for example, Bolivar met at Tinaquillo with the three enigmatic characters, and as is well known, this tremendous feat of arms (in which nearly the entire Venezuelan nation took part, young men, teenagers and the elderly, along with women of all ages and even the infirm) was the decisive engagement of the struggle for independence. It can therefore be said that the influence exerted by the three unknown characters was evidently a positive one.
The fact that the golden spikes emblazoned on their uniforms gave off a strange luminescence, the fact that their footsteps could not be heard, the no less important fact that they had certain magical powers, even to become “invisible” when circumstances dictated the need, along with other details, make it clear that these enigmatic beings could have been aliens. On the other hand, General Santander himself confirms this characteristic when he writes in his letters of “the powers they profess to have...” Moreover, Manuelita Sáenz [Bolivar’s influential mistress] remarked about these significant characteristics in later years, after the Liberator’s death, when answering questions put to her by the eminent figures that visited her in Paita.
Not a few great men who have changed the course of History have had the protection of the gods. Bolivar, bent on carrying out the most astonishing adventure of all times, could not be the exception. This thrills us, stimulates us, and tells us at the same time that our people are not alone. We have, without question, aside from the protection afforded to all by Divine Providence, the protection of the gods.
* * *
Professor Lugo ends his article by employing – twice – the suggestive term “the gods” to refer to these elusive presences. In doing so, he hearkens back to the much-too-human gods of antiquity and their penchant for sometimes directing, or meddling, with the course of human events. Arrayed in unsubtle white uniforms with golden facings, emitting light from the rayed emblem on their chests, Simon Bolivar’s secret “war cabinet” could have stumbled out of a contactee chronicle of the 1950s...or Faucius Cardan’s 15th century description of the elemental or angelic beings that visited him. The interest evinced by these entities in human warfare has been picked up by other authors, such as the late Andreas Faber Kaiser, who mentions the manifestations of angelic and/or saintly figures throughout the conquest of the Inca and Aztec empires by the enterprising Spanish conquistadores. These beings sought to terrify the native resistance, assuring them that all efforts at fighting the invaders were fruitless. Strategic matters are also of interest to them, if we believe the legend that the Emperor Constantine, while tracing out the walls of his “New Rome”, said that an invisible being was guiding him in delineating the walls – aided by a spear – on the soft soil of the Bosphorus. The city of Constantinople would stand for a thousand years as the final redoubt of the Roman tradition, and endures today as Istanbul.
Readers with more than just a casual interest in ufology and high strangeness are surely reminded by all this of how “groups of three” appear to be prevalent in non-human manifestations of which we have records in the 20th century: the notorious Men in Black tend to appear in threes, some classic encounters with “ufonauts” in the Fifties and Sixties involved landing parties (for want of a better term) of three beings. Christian researchers have seen in this the possible demonic nature of such presences, which seek to mock the Trinity. But regardless of their origin or activities in the past, the more fitting question would perhaps be: are any contemporary world leaders receiving advice or solace from such shadowy figures, and if so, what outcome might this have for our times? A distressing thought.
Many Predict US Financial Collapse in September
by Charles (A Reader)
Let us contemplate the day in the near future when the consequences of financial chicanery finally outpace the ability of the governments, central banks and big media to cover up and obfuscate the truth. Many respected voices have now gone on record that September 30 or thereabouts will be that day.
Bob Chapman [Internationalforecaster.com] revealed that the US State Dept has advised embassies worldwide to stock up on a year's worth of the local currency in anticipation of collapse of the US dollar. Look for a temporary banking shutdown timed for around September 2009. As under Roosevelt, some banks won't reopen. 96% of bank reserves are currently held with the Federal Reserve who tells the banks not to loan the money, but rather to save it for further banking acquisition and consolidation. Chapman foresees a bank holiday lasting 4-5 days. Chapman thinks this first bank holiday presages a much more significant bank holiday months to years later which will involve simultaneous devaluations of multiple currencies as well as other significant changes in the banking system.
Harry Shultz [as quoted in marketwatch.com] says "Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. Inside the State Dept., there is a sense of sadness and foreboding that 'something' is about to happen ... within 180 days, but could be 120-150 days."
Benjamin Fulford [http://benjaminfulford.typepad.com/benjaminfulford/] states that for almost a century the US Treasury Dept has been issuing specialized debt instruments to countries with which the US has had a trade surplus. These complex debt instruments are tailored by complex treaties. Unfortunately, the recent US Treasury funding needs exceed the willingness of these creditor nations to extend additional credit. Fulford writes, "The problem is that after nearly a century of issuing these debt instruments, the chickens are coming home to roost. President Obama tried at the recent G8 plus 5 meeting in Italy to borrow more money than George Bush junior did in 8 years. He was told a resounding no. The result should be total economic chaos in the U.S. by September 30th . "
Jim Willie [goldenjackass.com] writes of an Asian led initiative ending dollar hegemony beginning this weekend. Willie suspects that the Fed/Treasury is covertly loaning foreign central banks the money with which the central banks are now using to buy US debt. Increasingly, US debt is being bought by foreign central banks taking up the slack of investors abandoning US Treasury debt. Willie confirms Chapman's comments and says he solicited and received "multiple confirmations." He adds, "CHAOS WILL PREVAIL WITHIN SEVERAL MONTHS, PERHAPS A YEAR AT MOST{his emphasis}."
Jim Sinclair [jsmineset.com] has recently visited China meeting with its leaders. He states that China is increasingly more willing to take on the United States in its apparent maneuvers to inflate its way out of its debt crisis. In early July Sinclair started a 120 day countdown till breakdown of the US dollar ends market manipulation and all those sour economic chickens come home to roost.
OUT OF TRICKS
Seemingly the Federal Reserve/US Treasury have exhausted their bag of tricks. The Fed is fighting rising interest rates, a difficult task given the hyperinflationary debt financing it is now doing. Once rising pressure on interest rates become too much for the Fed to control, there will probably be several sudden economic and financial surprises cascading with currently known dilemmas: crashing dollar; increasing home mortgage defaults; commercial mortgage defaults reaching critical mass; falling bond and stock markets extending insolvency of pension funds; defaults on debt by state and local governments. And don't forget derivatives and further exposure of corruption and criminality on Wall Street. Bernie Madoff may soon have lots of company.
Unable to produce any more financial wizardry, the cynical federal government is arrayed in full battle dress uniform: 1] Mass forced swine flu vaccinations scheduled this fall performed under the specter of martial law; 2] Rumblings of extending the wars in Asia into Iran and Pakistan; 3] Rekindling the Korean conflict may also be in the cards. Of course, don't forget that both Iran and North Korea are client states of the British World Order. All the recent saber rattling involving Iran and North Korea is wholly orchestrated. We need the distractions from the economic crisis, so our clients Ahmadinejad and Kim provide us with the necessary theater. So what will come first, further banner headlines of dollar collapse and market crashes or the distracting theater of more war or 911 type events?
What will this fall really bring? It is not too far away so we shall soon know. Unfortunately, it may make last fall look pretty tame. When the government answers economic distress by preparing for the worst, then the worst may very well be what happens.
Continue reading
http://www.henrymakow.com/perhaps_we_should_prepare_for.html
Let us contemplate the day in the near future when the consequences of financial chicanery finally outpace the ability of the governments, central banks and big media to cover up and obfuscate the truth. Many respected voices have now gone on record that September 30 or thereabouts will be that day.
Bob Chapman [Internationalforecaster.com] revealed that the US State Dept has advised embassies worldwide to stock up on a year's worth of the local currency in anticipation of collapse of the US dollar. Look for a temporary banking shutdown timed for around September 2009. As under Roosevelt, some banks won't reopen. 96% of bank reserves are currently held with the Federal Reserve who tells the banks not to loan the money, but rather to save it for further banking acquisition and consolidation. Chapman foresees a bank holiday lasting 4-5 days. Chapman thinks this first bank holiday presages a much more significant bank holiday months to years later which will involve simultaneous devaluations of multiple currencies as well as other significant changes in the banking system.
Harry Shultz [as quoted in marketwatch.com] says "Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. Inside the State Dept., there is a sense of sadness and foreboding that 'something' is about to happen ... within 180 days, but could be 120-150 days."
Benjamin Fulford [http://benjaminfulford.typepad.com/benjaminfulford/] states that for almost a century the US Treasury Dept has been issuing specialized debt instruments to countries with which the US has had a trade surplus. These complex debt instruments are tailored by complex treaties. Unfortunately, the recent US Treasury funding needs exceed the willingness of these creditor nations to extend additional credit. Fulford writes, "The problem is that after nearly a century of issuing these debt instruments, the chickens are coming home to roost. President Obama tried at the recent G8 plus 5 meeting in Italy to borrow more money than George Bush junior did in 8 years. He was told a resounding no. The result should be total economic chaos in the U.S. by September 30th . "
Jim Willie [goldenjackass.com] writes of an Asian led initiative ending dollar hegemony beginning this weekend. Willie suspects that the Fed/Treasury is covertly loaning foreign central banks the money with which the central banks are now using to buy US debt. Increasingly, US debt is being bought by foreign central banks taking up the slack of investors abandoning US Treasury debt. Willie confirms Chapman's comments and says he solicited and received "multiple confirmations." He adds, "CHAOS WILL PREVAIL WITHIN SEVERAL MONTHS, PERHAPS A YEAR AT MOST{his emphasis}."
Jim Sinclair [jsmineset.com] has recently visited China meeting with its leaders. He states that China is increasingly more willing to take on the United States in its apparent maneuvers to inflate its way out of its debt crisis. In early July Sinclair started a 120 day countdown till breakdown of the US dollar ends market manipulation and all those sour economic chickens come home to roost.
OUT OF TRICKS
Seemingly the Federal Reserve/US Treasury have exhausted their bag of tricks. The Fed is fighting rising interest rates, a difficult task given the hyperinflationary debt financing it is now doing. Once rising pressure on interest rates become too much for the Fed to control, there will probably be several sudden economic and financial surprises cascading with currently known dilemmas: crashing dollar; increasing home mortgage defaults; commercial mortgage defaults reaching critical mass; falling bond and stock markets extending insolvency of pension funds; defaults on debt by state and local governments. And don't forget derivatives and further exposure of corruption and criminality on Wall Street. Bernie Madoff may soon have lots of company.
Unable to produce any more financial wizardry, the cynical federal government is arrayed in full battle dress uniform: 1] Mass forced swine flu vaccinations scheduled this fall performed under the specter of martial law; 2] Rumblings of extending the wars in Asia into Iran and Pakistan; 3] Rekindling the Korean conflict may also be in the cards. Of course, don't forget that both Iran and North Korea are client states of the British World Order. All the recent saber rattling involving Iran and North Korea is wholly orchestrated. We need the distractions from the economic crisis, so our clients Ahmadinejad and Kim provide us with the necessary theater. So what will come first, further banner headlines of dollar collapse and market crashes or the distracting theater of more war or 911 type events?
What will this fall really bring? It is not too far away so we shall soon know. Unfortunately, it may make last fall look pretty tame. When the government answers economic distress by preparing for the worst, then the worst may very well be what happens.
Continue reading
http://www.henrymakow.com/perhaps_we_should_prepare_for.html
24 July, 2009
Jimmy Carter says: stop abusing women in the name of god
By D.M. Murdock, Freethought Examiner
Last week, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter released a widely disseminated statement concerning the global mistreatment of women based on religious texts and doctrines. Mr. Carter was so disturbed by the sexism within his own church that he left it after 60 years. In his commentary, Carter quoted the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and the Bible (Gal 3:28) to demonstrate his own integrity as concerns race, religion and gender. He then remarked:
This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths... The male interpretation of religious texts and the way they interact with, and reinforce, traditional practices justify some of the most pervasive, persistent, flagrant and damaging examples of human rights abuses."
Carter is to be commended for having the daring—a sad statement in itself that it is "daring" to speak out on behalf of women—to take on the religious tyranny that has ruled this planet for too long. As he says, he is in a later stage of his life and as part of a mysterious group of "Elders" he has been selected to publicize this very enlightened view concerning women and religion. Further displaying this vital courage, Carter declares:
The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."
We wholeheartedly agree, and we thank Mr. Carter and the Elders for taking this sorely overdue step—let us hope that others will follow suit and that those individuals still engaging in misogyny and sexism, religiously based or otherwise, will feel ashamed of themselves.
"Holy Scriptures" themselves are sexist
Unfortunately, Carter's closing contention concerning the traditional establishers of the three Abrahamic religions, Christ, Paul, Moses and Muhammad, all calling for "proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God" stumbles, for, while it is diplomatic, it is certainly not true. According to the Bible, Moses was responsible for an atrocious amount of genocide, such as at Numbers 31:15-18, where, after his Israelites slaughter thousands of Midianites, Moses asks, "Have you let all the women live?" The great Jewish prophet next gives an ethnocentric reason to murder them all and then remarks:
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
What this last line means, naturally, is that the Israelite warriors get to kidnap the young virgin girls and use them as sex slaves.
In the meantime, the "Prince of Peace" Jesus Christ stated he was not here to bring peace but a sword (Mt 10:34), and made other remarks that create enmity:
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these [are] the beginnings of sorrows." (Mk 13:18)
If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." (Lk 14:26)
Paul, of course, repeatedly made derogatory remarks about women, such as:
But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. (1 Cor 11:3)
Sounding very proto-Islamic Paul follows this sexist commentary with a diatribe against women's hair and an exhortation for women praying or prophesying to cover their heads. (1 Cor 11:5ff) After these comments, Paul says that men were not created for women, but women were made for men. (1 Cor 11:8).
There's more woman-dominating speech at Ephesians 5:22-24:
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands."
At 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Paul goes on a rant that women should be quiet and submissive, because Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, dictating that all women—who are by their mere gender guilty by association—can redeem themselves by bearing children and being modest:
Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty."
Continue reading:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-17009-Freethought-Examiner~y2009m7d24-Jimmy-Carter-Stop-abusing-women-in-the-name-of-God
Last week, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter released a widely disseminated statement concerning the global mistreatment of women based on religious texts and doctrines. Mr. Carter was so disturbed by the sexism within his own church that he left it after 60 years. In his commentary, Carter quoted the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and the Bible (Gal 3:28) to demonstrate his own integrity as concerns race, religion and gender. He then remarked:
This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths... The male interpretation of religious texts and the way they interact with, and reinforce, traditional practices justify some of the most pervasive, persistent, flagrant and damaging examples of human rights abuses."
Carter is to be commended for having the daring—a sad statement in itself that it is "daring" to speak out on behalf of women—to take on the religious tyranny that has ruled this planet for too long. As he says, he is in a later stage of his life and as part of a mysterious group of "Elders" he has been selected to publicize this very enlightened view concerning women and religion. Further displaying this vital courage, Carter declares:
The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."
We wholeheartedly agree, and we thank Mr. Carter and the Elders for taking this sorely overdue step—let us hope that others will follow suit and that those individuals still engaging in misogyny and sexism, religiously based or otherwise, will feel ashamed of themselves.
"Holy Scriptures" themselves are sexist
Unfortunately, Carter's closing contention concerning the traditional establishers of the three Abrahamic religions, Christ, Paul, Moses and Muhammad, all calling for "proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God" stumbles, for, while it is diplomatic, it is certainly not true. According to the Bible, Moses was responsible for an atrocious amount of genocide, such as at Numbers 31:15-18, where, after his Israelites slaughter thousands of Midianites, Moses asks, "Have you let all the women live?" The great Jewish prophet next gives an ethnocentric reason to murder them all and then remarks:
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
What this last line means, naturally, is that the Israelite warriors get to kidnap the young virgin girls and use them as sex slaves.
In the meantime, the "Prince of Peace" Jesus Christ stated he was not here to bring peace but a sword (Mt 10:34), and made other remarks that create enmity:
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these [are] the beginnings of sorrows." (Mk 13:18)
If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." (Lk 14:26)
Paul, of course, repeatedly made derogatory remarks about women, such as:
But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. (1 Cor 11:3)
Sounding very proto-Islamic Paul follows this sexist commentary with a diatribe against women's hair and an exhortation for women praying or prophesying to cover their heads. (1 Cor 11:5ff) After these comments, Paul says that men were not created for women, but women were made for men. (1 Cor 11:8).
There's more woman-dominating speech at Ephesians 5:22-24:
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands."
At 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Paul goes on a rant that women should be quiet and submissive, because Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, dictating that all women—who are by their mere gender guilty by association—can redeem themselves by bearing children and being modest:
Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty."
Continue reading:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-17009-Freethought-Examiner~y2009m7d24-Jimmy-Carter-Stop-abusing-women-in-the-name-of-God
23 July, 2009
Obama’s Nuclear free future?
Who’s kidding who? Nuclear submarine (the SSBN-X) in the works for 2029 for U.S. and Britain.
From Inside the Ring: Washington times:
The only new weapon system authorized by this year's fiscal 2010 Defense Authorization bill is a new class of strategic ballistic missile submarines, dubbed the SSBN-X.
According to a defense source familiar with internal deliberations on weapons systems, Obama administration budget officials were anxious about adding the nearly $700 million for the new strategic submarine because it runs counter to the president's strategy of seeking the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, as outlined in a speech the president gave in Prague earlier this year.
The SSBN-X money is the first sign in pending law that the administration's nuclear free world is not likely until after 2029, when the new missile submarine will be deployed.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called the new submarine "a little-noticed initiative" in his speech in Chicago on July 16 that focused mainly on the hotly debated issue of whether to produce more than 187 advanced F-22 jets. The SSBN-X is needed to "sustain and continually improve our specialized strategic deterrent to ensure that our allies' security is always protected against nuclear-armed adversaries," he said.
The real reason for the new submarine funds is more prosaic, according to the source who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information. Development of the new submarine class, the first of which will not be built until 2029, is being slightly speeded up because it will be needed not just for the U.S. Navy, but it will also be adapted for use by Britain as a replacement for its four aging Vanguard-class missile submarines.
The British government announced in 2006 that it would spend $32.9 billion to modernize its nuclear arsenal with up to three new missile submarines that can launch Trident nuclear missiles. The new class of the Navy's boomer, as missile submarines are called, is expected to cost between $3.3 billion and $6.3 billion per submarine, and they will replaced the 14 Ohio-class nuclear missile submarines.
From: Inside the Ring:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/23/inside-the-ring-78640126
From Inside the Ring: Washington times:
The only new weapon system authorized by this year's fiscal 2010 Defense Authorization bill is a new class of strategic ballistic missile submarines, dubbed the SSBN-X.
According to a defense source familiar with internal deliberations on weapons systems, Obama administration budget officials were anxious about adding the nearly $700 million for the new strategic submarine because it runs counter to the president's strategy of seeking the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, as outlined in a speech the president gave in Prague earlier this year.
The SSBN-X money is the first sign in pending law that the administration's nuclear free world is not likely until after 2029, when the new missile submarine will be deployed.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called the new submarine "a little-noticed initiative" in his speech in Chicago on July 16 that focused mainly on the hotly debated issue of whether to produce more than 187 advanced F-22 jets. The SSBN-X is needed to "sustain and continually improve our specialized strategic deterrent to ensure that our allies' security is always protected against nuclear-armed adversaries," he said.
The real reason for the new submarine funds is more prosaic, according to the source who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information. Development of the new submarine class, the first of which will not be built until 2029, is being slightly speeded up because it will be needed not just for the U.S. Navy, but it will also be adapted for use by Britain as a replacement for its four aging Vanguard-class missile submarines.
The British government announced in 2006 that it would spend $32.9 billion to modernize its nuclear arsenal with up to three new missile submarines that can launch Trident nuclear missiles. The new class of the Navy's boomer, as missile submarines are called, is expected to cost between $3.3 billion and $6.3 billion per submarine, and they will replaced the 14 Ohio-class nuclear missile submarines.
From: Inside the Ring:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/23/inside-the-ring-78640126
18 July, 2009
Argentina: A Roundup of UFO Sightings
Argentina: A Roundup of UFO Sightings
Source: El Norte en Movimiento
http://www.elnorteenmovimiento.com.ar/sitio/index.php?edicion_id=144&articulo_id=5203
Date: July 15, 2009
15 December 2008: A Pampan pilot photographs two strange objects in different positions at the border between the provinces of Buenos Aires and La Pampa using a cellphone.
8 December 2008: Witnesses at Ataliva Roca see a powerful red light toward the west, oscilating under cloudy skies.
16 December 2008: A luminous triangle flies over Santa Rosa in a SE-NW heading. Object was sizeable and well-defined.
16 March 2008: UFO photographed in seen in Santa Rosa and photographed over General Pico.
10 January 2008: Several residents of Santa Rosa see a UFO in broad daylight, amidst a storm.
6 June 2009: Oscar "Chango" Guitierrez, a television producer, photographs a strange object as he travels along Rt. 35 from north to south, pulling over to take a photo of the sunrise shortly before driving into the town of Peru.
24 June 2009: Members of CEUFO photograph two strange luminous objects over Laguna Don Tomás in Santa Rosa.
Strange Beings
13 April 2007: A photograph is taken of an entity near an airplane parked at the Macachín Aerodrome. Entity is nearly 80 centimeters tall; image was enlarged and subjected to analysis, revealing such details as parts of the body, consisiting of head (with frontal eyes), upper extremities (arms or wings), torso and lower extremeties. The photo was taken by Fabian Romano, a photographer of that locality under optimal lighting conditions (noon) using a Minolta digital camera with 135mm and a 1/1000 speed. The image was only noticed when scrutinized on a computre.
September 2008: A hunter spotted a "critter" in the Pampan wilderness. "It gave me the sensation that it arrived floating, and it stopped near the stream," he said. [The entity] cause a horse to whinny and the ranch's dogs to bark desperately. The strange animal stood on four legs and the back of its neck was white, with protuberances in its head and ears the same color as the neck. The rest of the body was dark. The hunter opened fire with a 30.06 rifle, but only a small puddle of blood was found the next day.
At the same place on the following day, another hunter witnessed the presence of two strange "red-eyed" beings that approached the area, making a strange sound that he compared with that of a dog's whine. It rained heavily over the area, making the recovery of blood samples impossible.
Crop Circles
January 2007: During the aerial fumigation, strange marks were seen on a corn-planted lot in the rural area of Miguel Riglos. Attention was drawn to the fact that the missing foiliage within it showed odd characters similar to rectangles and circles where other irregular figures were also in evidence. Over 20 drawings could be seen, characterized by a suggestive alignment. An initial evaluation of these marks suggests a failure of the harvesting equipment in several areas.
However, some of the the figures do not contain straight-line incisions, and those resembling circles are predominant. There are also isolated irregualr shapes. The grouping of these alleged drawings is on the southwestern edge of the lot that borders the 33 KW line belonging to the provincial interconnected system. Curiously, the dispersion of these symbols corresponds to alleged and imaginary horizontal "axis lines" running from East to West or vice-versa, in the same direction as the cultivation.
Cattle Mutilations
April 2002: The entire country was shaken by the hundreds of animals found mutilated in the fields. Despite talk of the "red-muzzled mouse", the explanation did not convince many. Furthermore, strange lights had been seen around the phenomenon.
Over 700 mutilations were reported to the authorities during the first months of 2002. The majority of these cases involved bovines, althought to a lesser extent, they also included horses, hogs, wild boar, sheep and deer. The attacks became sporadic later on. Another attack occurred in September 2008 at Colonia El Indio, 20 Km from Santa Rosa. On March 28, 2009, a calf was mutilated but not killed -- an unheard-of occurence in this phenomenon.
26 June 2009: A Hereford cow is found slain in the Puelches area. Lights had been previously reported in the area and not even dogs would approach the dead animal.
21 June 2009: A mutilated dog was found by an official of the Agustoni commune. The animal's head and some vital organs were missing, but no trace of blood whatsoever was found.
Abductions
There are people who speak of attempted abductions. However, this case involves a policeman who vanished for 18 hours and was found later in a state of shock, lying in a fetal position some 40 km away from the place he was last seen.
"Tests were performed, and he was evaluated by psychiatrists from Santa Rosa and Cordoba, who ascertained that the young man had undergone a powerful experience," said Quique Mario. "During part of his testimony, he said that he could see the country side from above and in little squares, giving the impression that he had been flying aboard something that flew over the area. He described things that we later ascertained were real. For example, he described parts of the La Barrancosa ranch that can only be seen from above. He remained idle for a year, but later rejoined the police force in the Communications area. His poor health prompted authorities to grant him early retirement.
The event resulted in a court case that was given to Criminal Court No. 4, under Judge Luis Abraham. "The judge is willing to discuss the subject from a legal standpoint, as there are details that still lack an explanation. The Judge's openness is essential when it comes to documenting and making an increasingly more detailed investigation," noted Quique Mario.
Missing Water
Another of the notorious events of the year 2002 was the missing water from the "Australian Tanks" at the mutilation areas. Aside from the water absconded from these cattle watering tanks, there are incidents of water extracted from swimming pools in suburban communities such as Ugarte, Trenque, Lauquen, Toay, Parera, Miguel Riglos, Macachín and others.
In all cases, it was determined that the water tanks did not show any abnormalities that would have caused the losses. Nor were any spills detected in the areas surrounding the tanks.
In most cases, mutilated animals were found in the vicinity. And in several cases, local cattlemen reported seen "strange lights" nearby.
(Translation (c) 2009, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez)
Source: El Norte en Movimiento
http://www.elnorteenmovimiento.com.ar/sitio/index.php?edicion_id=144&articulo_id=5203
Date: July 15, 2009
15 December 2008: A Pampan pilot photographs two strange objects in different positions at the border between the provinces of Buenos Aires and La Pampa using a cellphone.
8 December 2008: Witnesses at Ataliva Roca see a powerful red light toward the west, oscilating under cloudy skies.
16 December 2008: A luminous triangle flies over Santa Rosa in a SE-NW heading. Object was sizeable and well-defined.
16 March 2008: UFO photographed in seen in Santa Rosa and photographed over General Pico.
10 January 2008: Several residents of Santa Rosa see a UFO in broad daylight, amidst a storm.
6 June 2009: Oscar "Chango" Guitierrez, a television producer, photographs a strange object as he travels along Rt. 35 from north to south, pulling over to take a photo of the sunrise shortly before driving into the town of Peru.
24 June 2009: Members of CEUFO photograph two strange luminous objects over Laguna Don Tomás in Santa Rosa.
Strange Beings
13 April 2007: A photograph is taken of an entity near an airplane parked at the Macachín Aerodrome. Entity is nearly 80 centimeters tall; image was enlarged and subjected to analysis, revealing such details as parts of the body, consisiting of head (with frontal eyes), upper extremities (arms or wings), torso and lower extremeties. The photo was taken by Fabian Romano, a photographer of that locality under optimal lighting conditions (noon) using a Minolta digital camera with 135mm and a 1/1000 speed. The image was only noticed when scrutinized on a computre.
September 2008: A hunter spotted a "critter" in the Pampan wilderness. "It gave me the sensation that it arrived floating, and it stopped near the stream," he said. [The entity] cause a horse to whinny and the ranch's dogs to bark desperately. The strange animal stood on four legs and the back of its neck was white, with protuberances in its head and ears the same color as the neck. The rest of the body was dark. The hunter opened fire with a 30.06 rifle, but only a small puddle of blood was found the next day.
At the same place on the following day, another hunter witnessed the presence of two strange "red-eyed" beings that approached the area, making a strange sound that he compared with that of a dog's whine. It rained heavily over the area, making the recovery of blood samples impossible.
Crop Circles
January 2007: During the aerial fumigation, strange marks were seen on a corn-planted lot in the rural area of Miguel Riglos. Attention was drawn to the fact that the missing foiliage within it showed odd characters similar to rectangles and circles where other irregular figures were also in evidence. Over 20 drawings could be seen, characterized by a suggestive alignment. An initial evaluation of these marks suggests a failure of the harvesting equipment in several areas.
However, some of the the figures do not contain straight-line incisions, and those resembling circles are predominant. There are also isolated irregualr shapes. The grouping of these alleged drawings is on the southwestern edge of the lot that borders the 33 KW line belonging to the provincial interconnected system. Curiously, the dispersion of these symbols corresponds to alleged and imaginary horizontal "axis lines" running from East to West or vice-versa, in the same direction as the cultivation.
Cattle Mutilations
April 2002: The entire country was shaken by the hundreds of animals found mutilated in the fields. Despite talk of the "red-muzzled mouse", the explanation did not convince many. Furthermore, strange lights had been seen around the phenomenon.
Over 700 mutilations were reported to the authorities during the first months of 2002. The majority of these cases involved bovines, althought to a lesser extent, they also included horses, hogs, wild boar, sheep and deer. The attacks became sporadic later on. Another attack occurred in September 2008 at Colonia El Indio, 20 Km from Santa Rosa. On March 28, 2009, a calf was mutilated but not killed -- an unheard-of occurence in this phenomenon.
26 June 2009: A Hereford cow is found slain in the Puelches area. Lights had been previously reported in the area and not even dogs would approach the dead animal.
21 June 2009: A mutilated dog was found by an official of the Agustoni commune. The animal's head and some vital organs were missing, but no trace of blood whatsoever was found.
Abductions
There are people who speak of attempted abductions. However, this case involves a policeman who vanished for 18 hours and was found later in a state of shock, lying in a fetal position some 40 km away from the place he was last seen.
"Tests were performed, and he was evaluated by psychiatrists from Santa Rosa and Cordoba, who ascertained that the young man had undergone a powerful experience," said Quique Mario. "During part of his testimony, he said that he could see the country side from above and in little squares, giving the impression that he had been flying aboard something that flew over the area. He described things that we later ascertained were real. For example, he described parts of the La Barrancosa ranch that can only be seen from above. He remained idle for a year, but later rejoined the police force in the Communications area. His poor health prompted authorities to grant him early retirement.
The event resulted in a court case that was given to Criminal Court No. 4, under Judge Luis Abraham. "The judge is willing to discuss the subject from a legal standpoint, as there are details that still lack an explanation. The Judge's openness is essential when it comes to documenting and making an increasingly more detailed investigation," noted Quique Mario.
Missing Water
Another of the notorious events of the year 2002 was the missing water from the "Australian Tanks" at the mutilation areas. Aside from the water absconded from these cattle watering tanks, there are incidents of water extracted from swimming pools in suburban communities such as Ugarte, Trenque, Lauquen, Toay, Parera, Miguel Riglos, Macachín and others.
In all cases, it was determined that the water tanks did not show any abnormalities that would have caused the losses. Nor were any spills detected in the areas surrounding the tanks.
In most cases, mutilated animals were found in the vicinity. And in several cases, local cattlemen reported seen "strange lights" nearby.
(Translation (c) 2009, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez)
17 July, 2009
16 July, 2009
15 July, 2009
Argentina: Cattle Mutilations on the Rise (CEUFO)
Argentina: Cattle Mutilations on the Rise
By Quique Mario, CEUFO
July 2009: Seven bovines were found mutilated last week in a farm near Puelches, in Southwestern La Pampa. The information was confirmed to CEUFO by local cattlemen who expressed their concern at the new incidents and stated “they did not occur in a single day; rather, they took place throughout the week” while one woman, a ranch owner, added that “strange lights were seen maneuvering over the area for several nights throughout the region.”
It should be noted that throughout this area, the presence of “lights” and “vehicles” is so common that on several occasion, local residents contacted CEUFO to witness the maneuvers of “strange vehicles” that are even visible over the area during the daytime hours – a region that is being scourged by a remarkable drought.
The eyewitness accounts include those by police officers and community authorities of the southern communities, who have come to consider the phenomenon as folklore.
Cattle mutilations have re-entered the conversations of livestock producers and residents of various regions of La Pampa and central Argentina in general.
Every so often, almost cyclically, the subject of mutilated animals, slain with alarming precision, appears once more in the media, especially in the nation’s heartland. La Pampa takes center stage and a wide array of comments emerge from discussions at coffeehouses, cattlemen’s’ associations, and all the towns in Argentina’s central region.
Memories of the “rodents” in the absurd essay produced by SENASA are a source of amusement among seasoned laborers, knowledgeable of the strange manifestations in their area. And within this framework, the term “extraterrestrial” causes an uncomfortable sensation among those who have witnessed the maneuvers of strange lights in the darkness, generally associated to the mysterious and unknown.
Long-time rural residents marvel at the precision of the cuts, and are even more startled that other creatures refuse to approach animals slain in this fashion. It is only now that carrion animals are timidly starting to approach a carcass that has lain exposed for ten to twelve days.
A veteran farmer stated, “The lacerations are not normal. There are no signs that the animal even tried to fend off an assailant. Rather, it appears to have fallen asleep on the ground.
An officer of the Cattle Theft Division of the La Pampa Police has said: “Although no reports are called in when the events occur, police officers act on their own whenever news of these events becomes known,” adding that “our eyes only look for strictly police-related material”, making it understood that the cases are subsequently reviewed by experts that are better versed in the subject at senior levels. “They tend to find details such as the animals’ apparent proximity to high voltage wires, the fact that there are always water deposits nearby, and that some trees show signs of incisions and other marks.”
Within this framework of hundreds of episodes taking place over a vast central region of the country, some agencies endeavored to prove that the events were “natural” and blamed the “red-muzzled mouse”, but were unaware that scientists know the region well by virtue of living in it, and also know all of its nooks and crannies and each species that occupies them. These scientists vehemently dismissed the laboratory-confected assays. Finally, the DEFINITIVE report, which was not circulated at all, was the one furnished to CEUFO by an official with the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of La Pampa. After a year of experiments and comparisons, they ruled that THE INCISIONS WERE MECHANICAL – that is to say, produced by an element having nothing to do with the teeth of rodents or carrion animals.
In one of many forays conducted by CEUFO in the rural areas, we obtained an eyewitness account in March 2007 from a cattleman in the community of Embajador Martini, Province of La Pampa, who added an interesting fact to be kept in mind within comparative parameters. He said: “At 14:00 hours, I witnessed a stampede produced by a circular beam of light, measuring 2 meters in diameter approximately, issued by an object that traveled at a normal altitude and speed, shaped like two soup-bowls joined at their edges.”
The question arose immediately – Was this what caused the animals to stampede? Was it in any way connected with the mutilations?
We can draw our own conclusions with all of this information.
(Translation (c) 2009, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Quique Mario, CEUFO, and Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)
13 July, 2009
Hieronymus Bosch - Life in Hell
The opposite of happy people dancing is ...
Hieronymus Bosch come to life. Music by Buckethead.
Life in Hell, are we already there?
Hieronymus Bosch come to life. Music by Buckethead.
Life in Hell, are we already there?
12 July, 2009
Happy People Dancing
Time out from being paranoid and grouchy.
What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious -- few people are able to watch the video without smiling.
BTW, This is a viral marketing campaign done with Photoshop.
What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious -- few people are able to watch the video without smiling.
BTW, This is a viral marketing campaign done with Photoshop.
11 July, 2009
10 July, 2009
Escalation Scam: Troops in Afghanistan
By Norman Solomon
The president has set a limit on the number of US troops in Afghanistan. For now. That's how escalation works. Ceilings become floors. Gradually.
A few times since last fall, the Obama team has floated rising numbers for how many additional US soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan. Now, deployment of 21,000 more is a done deal, with a new total cap of 68,000 US troops in that country.
But "escalation" isn't mere jargon. And it doesn't just refer to what's happening outside the United States. "Escalation" is a word for a methodical process of acclimating people at home to the idea of more military intervention abroad - nothing too sudden, just a step-by-step process of turning even more war into media wallpaper - nothing too abrupt or jarring, while thousands more soldiers and billions more dollars funnel into what Martin Luther King Jr. called a "demonic suction tube," complete with massive violence, mayhem, terror and killing on a grander scale than ever.
As war policies unfold, the news accounts and dominant media discourse rarely disrupt the trajectory of events. From high places, the authorized extent of candor is a matter of timing.
Lots of recent spin from Washington has promoted the assumption that President Obama wants to stick with the current limit on deployments to Afghanistan. Soon after pushing supplemental war funds through Congress, he's hardly eager to proclaim that 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan may not be enough after all.
But no amount of spin can change the fact that the US military situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. It would be astonishing if plans for add-on deployments weren't already far along at the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the White House is re-enacting a macabre ritual - a repetition compulsion of the warfare state - carefully timing and titrating each dose of public information to ease the process of escalation. The basic technique is far from new.
In the spring and early summer of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson decided to send 100,000 additional US troops to Vietnam, more than doubling the number there. But at a July 28 news conference, he announced that he'd decided to send an additional 50,000 soldiers.
Why did President Johnson say 50,000 instead of 100,000? Because he was heeding the advice from something called a "Special National Security Estimate" - a secret document, issued days earlier about the already-approved new deployment, urging that "in order to mitigate somewhat the crisis atmosphere that would result from this major US action ... announcements about it be made piecemeal with no more high-level emphasis than necessary."
Forty-four years later, something similar is underway with deployments of US troops to Afghanistan.
Continue reading here
http://www.truthout.org/070909R?n
The president has set a limit on the number of US troops in Afghanistan. For now. That's how escalation works. Ceilings become floors. Gradually.
A few times since last fall, the Obama team has floated rising numbers for how many additional US soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan. Now, deployment of 21,000 more is a done deal, with a new total cap of 68,000 US troops in that country.
But "escalation" isn't mere jargon. And it doesn't just refer to what's happening outside the United States. "Escalation" is a word for a methodical process of acclimating people at home to the idea of more military intervention abroad - nothing too sudden, just a step-by-step process of turning even more war into media wallpaper - nothing too abrupt or jarring, while thousands more soldiers and billions more dollars funnel into what Martin Luther King Jr. called a "demonic suction tube," complete with massive violence, mayhem, terror and killing on a grander scale than ever.
As war policies unfold, the news accounts and dominant media discourse rarely disrupt the trajectory of events. From high places, the authorized extent of candor is a matter of timing.
Lots of recent spin from Washington has promoted the assumption that President Obama wants to stick with the current limit on deployments to Afghanistan. Soon after pushing supplemental war funds through Congress, he's hardly eager to proclaim that 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan may not be enough after all.
But no amount of spin can change the fact that the US military situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. It would be astonishing if plans for add-on deployments weren't already far along at the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the White House is re-enacting a macabre ritual - a repetition compulsion of the warfare state - carefully timing and titrating each dose of public information to ease the process of escalation. The basic technique is far from new.
In the spring and early summer of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson decided to send 100,000 additional US troops to Vietnam, more than doubling the number there. But at a July 28 news conference, he announced that he'd decided to send an additional 50,000 soldiers.
Why did President Johnson say 50,000 instead of 100,000? Because he was heeding the advice from something called a "Special National Security Estimate" - a secret document, issued days earlier about the already-approved new deployment, urging that "in order to mitigate somewhat the crisis atmosphere that would result from this major US action ... announcements about it be made piecemeal with no more high-level emphasis than necessary."
Forty-four years later, something similar is underway with deployments of US troops to Afghanistan.
Continue reading here
http://www.truthout.org/070909R?n
09 July, 2009
US Not Talking Much About Iraq's Detention Nightmare
So, imagine this happening in America? Where's the outrage?
by Nick Mottern
It is a grim prospect that the US would prefer to leave in the shadows, judging from the unwillingness of US military spokespersons to provide comprehensive responses to email questions on Iraqi detention presented to them over the last six months. The small amount of information that the Pentagon has provided, however, suggests that many if not most in Iraqi prisons are facing harsh conditions with no legal representation - a violation of their rights under international law.
This conclusion is reinforced by a hunger strike of 300 detainees protesting their treatment in Rusafa prison near Baghdad that started over the weekend of June 13-14, 2009, according to a June 16 Associated Press report. Iraq's Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, the report also said, would charge 40 police officers for jailing inmates without warrants and other rights violations.
On June 12, 2009, Harith al-Obaidi, perhaps Iraq's leading campaigner against abuse in Iraqi prisons, a Sunni cleric and deputy chair of the Parliament's human rights committee, was assassinated one day after condemning prison abuse in a fiery debate in Parliament. Mr. Obaidi, the report said, "was fighting against such practices as torture and indefinite detention for prisoners, and was trying to improve their living conditions."
Emails requesting information on what the US military knows about torture in Iraqi prisons have brought no response, with the exception that I was referred by a military press officer in Baghdad to a June 7, 2009, Agence France Presse (AFP) report on torture and prisoner abuse. The article says that the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior investigated the torture of 10 prisoners at a prison in Diwaniyah and that the chief of the prison and interrogators there were transferred to another prison. The AFP report said the ministry also reported that eight prisoners at a prison in Amara, arrested in June 2008, had gone on a hunger strike protesting the delay in processing their cases.
In response to questions about conditions in Iraqi prisons, the Pentagon has taken the position most recently stated in a June 30, 2009, email from a military press officer: "The US does not run prisons, the Iraqis do."
The US is likely to have, however, detailed knowledge of conditions within Iraqi prisons, judging from a December 5, 2008, DoD email saying: "U.S. advisors and trainers are co-located in many of the Iraqi prisons to which Iraqi nationals are transferred. These individuals provide real-time mentoring and training to assist the Government of Iraq in meeting international standards of judicial and human rights."
The Pentagon has failed over the last six months to answer questions about specifics of the prison mentoring program. The Pentagon did provide some insight into Iraqi prison conditions, whether intentionally or not, in the person of David King, a British civil servant working with US forces in Iraq. In answer to questions on conditions in Iraqi prisons during a Pentagon-sponsored phone conference for Internet reporters on April 17, 2009, Mr. King gave what appears to be the most forthcoming description of Iraqi prison conditions provided directly by any Pentagon-connected source:
"I personally engage on issues that arise around detention facilities and the sort of challenge that there is between operational pressure and frankly the rule of law now. And I have been to a number of facilities. So I do have some idea of the issues that face up ... "I would sort of say that, in the round ... it's an uncomfortable place to be, to be in an MOD (Iraqi Ministry of Defense) facility. If you judged it by the standards we hope at our best we'd apply in, say, the US and the UK, we would say that they are very overcrowded ... and they are very poorly equipped. And they are, therefore, uncomfortable.
"But there are some cultural pieces to this about a willingness to accept more people in a smaller space that we might. I make no judgment on that, but overcrowding, and overcrowding is an issue in many facilities; it's not an issue in all of them. "And if I'm specific, again, medical conditions - I do hear often, I do see, issues that result from proximity of people and lack of light and lack of air. You know, as I say, these are not - these are not great places."
Mr. King went on to say that he had also seen good care in Iraq prisons and "some improvements" and that "quite a few of the indicators are the right way ... in terms of getting clean bedding and clean clothing to people, getting visits to detainees, getting family access, getting notification to the families after arrests. These are things which are better than they were. "But there is no disguising the fact that the detention facilities, even in the MOD, are not ideal."
Mr. King said that overcrowding is related to military operations "where people are being picked up for what should be - sometimes is, sometimes isn't - a short period before investigation and either release or processing into the system. So overcrowding tends to be worse in areas where there is - and this is understandable - where there is an intense effort to try to deal with the terrorism in the field."
Continue reading:
http://www.truthout.org/070609A?n
by Nick Mottern
It is a grim prospect that the US would prefer to leave in the shadows, judging from the unwillingness of US military spokespersons to provide comprehensive responses to email questions on Iraqi detention presented to them over the last six months. The small amount of information that the Pentagon has provided, however, suggests that many if not most in Iraqi prisons are facing harsh conditions with no legal representation - a violation of their rights under international law.
This conclusion is reinforced by a hunger strike of 300 detainees protesting their treatment in Rusafa prison near Baghdad that started over the weekend of June 13-14, 2009, according to a June 16 Associated Press report. Iraq's Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, the report also said, would charge 40 police officers for jailing inmates without warrants and other rights violations.
On June 12, 2009, Harith al-Obaidi, perhaps Iraq's leading campaigner against abuse in Iraqi prisons, a Sunni cleric and deputy chair of the Parliament's human rights committee, was assassinated one day after condemning prison abuse in a fiery debate in Parliament. Mr. Obaidi, the report said, "was fighting against such practices as torture and indefinite detention for prisoners, and was trying to improve their living conditions."
Emails requesting information on what the US military knows about torture in Iraqi prisons have brought no response, with the exception that I was referred by a military press officer in Baghdad to a June 7, 2009, Agence France Presse (AFP) report on torture and prisoner abuse. The article says that the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior investigated the torture of 10 prisoners at a prison in Diwaniyah and that the chief of the prison and interrogators there were transferred to another prison. The AFP report said the ministry also reported that eight prisoners at a prison in Amara, arrested in June 2008, had gone on a hunger strike protesting the delay in processing their cases.
In response to questions about conditions in Iraqi prisons, the Pentagon has taken the position most recently stated in a June 30, 2009, email from a military press officer: "The US does not run prisons, the Iraqis do."
The US is likely to have, however, detailed knowledge of conditions within Iraqi prisons, judging from a December 5, 2008, DoD email saying: "U.S. advisors and trainers are co-located in many of the Iraqi prisons to which Iraqi nationals are transferred. These individuals provide real-time mentoring and training to assist the Government of Iraq in meeting international standards of judicial and human rights."
The Pentagon has failed over the last six months to answer questions about specifics of the prison mentoring program. The Pentagon did provide some insight into Iraqi prison conditions, whether intentionally or not, in the person of David King, a British civil servant working with US forces in Iraq. In answer to questions on conditions in Iraqi prisons during a Pentagon-sponsored phone conference for Internet reporters on April 17, 2009, Mr. King gave what appears to be the most forthcoming description of Iraqi prison conditions provided directly by any Pentagon-connected source:
"I personally engage on issues that arise around detention facilities and the sort of challenge that there is between operational pressure and frankly the rule of law now. And I have been to a number of facilities. So I do have some idea of the issues that face up ... "I would sort of say that, in the round ... it's an uncomfortable place to be, to be in an MOD (Iraqi Ministry of Defense) facility. If you judged it by the standards we hope at our best we'd apply in, say, the US and the UK, we would say that they are very overcrowded ... and they are very poorly equipped. And they are, therefore, uncomfortable.
"But there are some cultural pieces to this about a willingness to accept more people in a smaller space that we might. I make no judgment on that, but overcrowding, and overcrowding is an issue in many facilities; it's not an issue in all of them. "And if I'm specific, again, medical conditions - I do hear often, I do see, issues that result from proximity of people and lack of light and lack of air. You know, as I say, these are not - these are not great places."
Mr. King went on to say that he had also seen good care in Iraq prisons and "some improvements" and that "quite a few of the indicators are the right way ... in terms of getting clean bedding and clean clothing to people, getting visits to detainees, getting family access, getting notification to the families after arrests. These are things which are better than they were. "But there is no disguising the fact that the detention facilities, even in the MOD, are not ideal."
Mr. King said that overcrowding is related to military operations "where people are being picked up for what should be - sometimes is, sometimes isn't - a short period before investigation and either release or processing into the system. So overcrowding tends to be worse in areas where there is - and this is understandable - where there is an intense effort to try to deal with the terrorism in the field."
Continue reading:
http://www.truthout.org/070609A?n
The David Bradley Effect
The corrupting effect of his off-the-record salons.
By Jack Shafer
http://www.slate.com/id/2222405/
The off-the-record-for-dollars salon scheme that got Katharine Weymouth and the Washington Post in so much trouble last week prompted TPM Muckraker to flush David Bradley - owner and publisher of the Atlantic - into the open about his salon-happy organization.
In an interoffice memo that he posted to the Web yesterday, Bradley defended the corporately sponsored, off-the-record public-policy dinners that his company has been hosting for "a half-dozen years" in his patented self-effacing manner. He claims that his presence at his sponsored dinners "as to all things - tends to dampen high spirits." Elsewhere in the memo, Bradley writes, "Please forgive me if this runs long." Oh, no, David! It's your blogspace and your defense! Go on as long as you'd like! I'll even hold your coat while you do!
Bradley separates the intimate, off-the-record dinners he throws for policymakers and journalists in which no money changes hands, written about in April by the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, and the buck-raking, targeted ones that he convenes for corporate sponsors such as AstraZeneca, Microsoft, GE, Allstate, and Citi. As TPM Muckraker reported, the topics presented at Bradley's paid sessions have been financially relevant to the sponsors (in order, health care, global trade, energy, the American city, global markets).
There's not much new or wildly controversial about Bradley's noncommercial sessions. In its various incarnations over the decades, the Georgetown journalism establishment has tossed a million off-the-record dinners for the powerful. Former Washington Post Co. Chairman Katharine Graham served so many meals to notables at her Georgetown mansion that the District of Columbia's Food Safety Division could have easily insisted on conducting regular health inspections of her kitchen. You might not like the fact that the journalists and politicians socialize, but you can't do much about it.
It's Bradley's corporate salons and his defense of them that deserve scrutiny. He claims that the sessions are placed off the record to avoid canned remarks. "My own view is that there is a great deal of constructive conversation that can take place only with the promise that no headline is being written," he writes.
Has Bradley never attended a function at the Cato Institute, where the repeal of the drug laws, the phasing out of Social Security, the privatization of education, the dismantling of the Cold War war machine, and other contentious topics are discussed openly and cordially on a regular basis? The same can be said for discussions at the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for American Progress, and other think tank venues. Elsewhere in his memo, Bradley applauds his company's ability to attract "authors and activists" representing "all sides of an issue" at its talks: "conservatives and liberals, conservative think tanks and liberal think tanks, corporations and consumer groups, all manner of associations and all manner of environmental, health advocacy and public interest groups. The art here is bringing disparate parties to table for a constructive conversation."
It's fantasy to imagine that there's any "art" to staging constructive conversation in Washington, and Bradley knows it. All that's required is the selection of a topic in the news, the recruitment of a few interesting speakers, the procurement of a small auditorium or hall, the distribution of a few hundred invitations, and the production of an attractive cheese-ball-and-white-wine spread. Hit those marks, and the city's journalists, bureaucrats, office-holders, scholars, lobbyists, activists, policymakers, and freeloaders will storm your event to genially wonk around the clock. It would be easier to get a nap at your average think tank debate than in a soundproof room.
So why Bradley's elaborate defense of the off-the-record rules? Going off the record is what Washingtonians do to make themselves feel important. By placing his paid salons off the record and charging high prices, Bradley makes them appear exclusive, valuable, and daring. The sponsors feel important because they think they're impressing their audience with their frankness and because they're encouraged into thinking that the off-the-record journalists and politicians are sharing electric insights they could never share with their readers. The politicians, well, the politicians live in their own cognitive dissonance bubble. Any audience will do.
The rest of the country knows how badly off-the-record stinks. In 2004, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz's handler invited several regional reporters to meet his boss after he gave a speech in Omaha, Neb. Wolfowitz's comments would have to be attributed to a "senior Defense Department official," the handler said. The reporters replied that they and their editors had no interest in a no-name briefing. Besides, they noted, it was already public knowledge that Wolfowitz was the most senior Defense Department official in the region that day. Why the ridiculous sourcing arrangement? The standoff ended and the interview commenced when Wolfowitz agreed to go on the record.
If paid off-the-record salons are charades, why oppose them? For one thing, I hate to see anybody defrauded, even AstraZeneca. For another, no journalist should serve as an accomplice to fraud. But most important, the off-the-record comfort zones run by Bradley for the benefit of his corporate clients corrupts the business of journalism in deep, fundamental ways. Every new off-the-record venue drives a measurable quantity of political discourse out of the public sphere and into the private. It's in the interests of journalists and the public, as the Omaha press corps demonstrated, to push the powerful onto the record. Establishing safe harbors for them - and charging them for the privilege of anchorage - is not what journalism is about. The erection of such salons says this to corporations and public officials: You owe your candor not to the public but to one another, and journalistic organizations such as the Atlantic and the Washington Post will gladly pocket the cash to help you keep your "secrets."
http://www.slate.com/id/2222405/
By Jack Shafer
http://www.slate.com/id/2222405/
The off-the-record-for-dollars salon scheme that got Katharine Weymouth and the Washington Post in so much trouble last week prompted TPM Muckraker to flush David Bradley - owner and publisher of the Atlantic - into the open about his salon-happy organization.
In an interoffice memo that he posted to the Web yesterday, Bradley defended the corporately sponsored, off-the-record public-policy dinners that his company has been hosting for "a half-dozen years" in his patented self-effacing manner. He claims that his presence at his sponsored dinners "as to all things - tends to dampen high spirits." Elsewhere in the memo, Bradley writes, "Please forgive me if this runs long." Oh, no, David! It's your blogspace and your defense! Go on as long as you'd like! I'll even hold your coat while you do!
Bradley separates the intimate, off-the-record dinners he throws for policymakers and journalists in which no money changes hands, written about in April by the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, and the buck-raking, targeted ones that he convenes for corporate sponsors such as AstraZeneca, Microsoft, GE, Allstate, and Citi. As TPM Muckraker reported, the topics presented at Bradley's paid sessions have been financially relevant to the sponsors (in order, health care, global trade, energy, the American city, global markets).
There's not much new or wildly controversial about Bradley's noncommercial sessions. In its various incarnations over the decades, the Georgetown journalism establishment has tossed a million off-the-record dinners for the powerful. Former Washington Post Co. Chairman Katharine Graham served so many meals to notables at her Georgetown mansion that the District of Columbia's Food Safety Division could have easily insisted on conducting regular health inspections of her kitchen. You might not like the fact that the journalists and politicians socialize, but you can't do much about it.
It's Bradley's corporate salons and his defense of them that deserve scrutiny. He claims that the sessions are placed off the record to avoid canned remarks. "My own view is that there is a great deal of constructive conversation that can take place only with the promise that no headline is being written," he writes.
Has Bradley never attended a function at the Cato Institute, where the repeal of the drug laws, the phasing out of Social Security, the privatization of education, the dismantling of the Cold War war machine, and other contentious topics are discussed openly and cordially on a regular basis? The same can be said for discussions at the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for American Progress, and other think tank venues. Elsewhere in his memo, Bradley applauds his company's ability to attract "authors and activists" representing "all sides of an issue" at its talks: "conservatives and liberals, conservative think tanks and liberal think tanks, corporations and consumer groups, all manner of associations and all manner of environmental, health advocacy and public interest groups. The art here is bringing disparate parties to table for a constructive conversation."
It's fantasy to imagine that there's any "art" to staging constructive conversation in Washington, and Bradley knows it. All that's required is the selection of a topic in the news, the recruitment of a few interesting speakers, the procurement of a small auditorium or hall, the distribution of a few hundred invitations, and the production of an attractive cheese-ball-and-white-wine spread. Hit those marks, and the city's journalists, bureaucrats, office-holders, scholars, lobbyists, activists, policymakers, and freeloaders will storm your event to genially wonk around the clock. It would be easier to get a nap at your average think tank debate than in a soundproof room.
So why Bradley's elaborate defense of the off-the-record rules? Going off the record is what Washingtonians do to make themselves feel important. By placing his paid salons off the record and charging high prices, Bradley makes them appear exclusive, valuable, and daring. The sponsors feel important because they think they're impressing their audience with their frankness and because they're encouraged into thinking that the off-the-record journalists and politicians are sharing electric insights they could never share with their readers. The politicians, well, the politicians live in their own cognitive dissonance bubble. Any audience will do.
The rest of the country knows how badly off-the-record stinks. In 2004, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz's handler invited several regional reporters to meet his boss after he gave a speech in Omaha, Neb. Wolfowitz's comments would have to be attributed to a "senior Defense Department official," the handler said. The reporters replied that they and their editors had no interest in a no-name briefing. Besides, they noted, it was already public knowledge that Wolfowitz was the most senior Defense Department official in the region that day. Why the ridiculous sourcing arrangement? The standoff ended and the interview commenced when Wolfowitz agreed to go on the record.
If paid off-the-record salons are charades, why oppose them? For one thing, I hate to see anybody defrauded, even AstraZeneca. For another, no journalist should serve as an accomplice to fraud. But most important, the off-the-record comfort zones run by Bradley for the benefit of his corporate clients corrupts the business of journalism in deep, fundamental ways. Every new off-the-record venue drives a measurable quantity of political discourse out of the public sphere and into the private. It's in the interests of journalists and the public, as the Omaha press corps demonstrated, to push the powerful onto the record. Establishing safe harbors for them - and charging them for the privilege of anchorage - is not what journalism is about. The erection of such salons says this to corporations and public officials: You owe your candor not to the public but to one another, and journalistic organizations such as the Atlantic and the Washington Post will gladly pocket the cash to help you keep your "secrets."
http://www.slate.com/id/2222405/
08 July, 2009
Updated CIA renditions trial
Obama, NSA, CIA and the Bible, better be getting paranoid ;o) (the title is the link)
06 July, 2009
To damn the torrential rivers of blood . . .
By Jason Miller
Years of introspection and profound soul searching—intrepidly trekking the seemingly infinite number of unexplored, untamed, thorny and treacherous paths winding circuitously through my psyche—led me to naively conclude that I’d sketched out a nearly complete map of who I am, my worldview, and my purpose.
Fortunately a chain of events that began unfolding several months ago, and recently culminated when I immersed myself in the company of some of the most dedicated, knowledgeable, and passionate animal activists with whom I’ve had the privilege to associate,[1] shattered my semi-complacency and ignited my passion to launch yet another thorough and harrowing examination of who I am and what I believe—a “revaluation of all values” if you will–including the inevitable significant growing pains of personal evolution. While I recognize that my core sense of self, general worldview, and essential beliefs are relatively immutable, there’s still plenty of room for discovery and growth.
Steve Best commented to me about a year ago that he wanted to make philosophy dangerous again. With that in mind, I’ve come to some radical conclusions about us humans and our largely reprehensible ways of being as a species. Indulge me as I “philosophize with a hammer,” driving home some ideologies, thoughts, observations, principles, and assertions that will bludgeon some of the sacred tenets of the anthropocentric Judeo-Christian status quo of Western Civilization, evoke the wrath of hardened speciesists who lash out like spoiled children when people challenge their “unassailable right” to torture, murder, and eat other sentient beings, and leave me about as popular as an agitated, unleashed pit bull at a Cat Fanciers’ Association show.
Despite the nearly unanimous anthropocentric belief that we human animals are superior to nonhuman animals, we are equal—AT BEST. In fact, our collective malevolence, greed, apathy, belligerence, arrogance, selfishness and tendency to dominate, exploit, and mutilate the Earth and its other inhabitants, have me convinced that we are inferior to other animals, both morally and, in a perverse way, intellectually. We’re just intelligent enough that we’ve developed a devastatingly destructive superiority complex, believing that our capacity to engage in complex forms of thought and communication endows us with the right to serially abuse the planet and other sentient beings, create artificial barriers to alienate us from the rest of nature, and to litter and contaminate the land-base and waterways with all manner of toxic, putrid, noxious, infectious, and disgusting liquids and solids, many with half-lives that exceed the 10,000 years that the disease we call civilization has existed. Homo sapiens, the “superior species,” has taken “stewardship” of the planet and is careening toward self-destruction and mass extinctions of other species. How intelligent is that?
Nonhuman animals are sentient, and an increasingly impressive body of peer-reviewed research scientifically legitimizes the empirical, common sense observations that many other animals are also ‘subjects of a life’ in that they lead relatively rich and complex intellectual, emotional, and social lives. Intentionally killing them is as much murder as it is to kill a human being. That’s right; I wrote it. “Meat” is murder. As are vivisection, fur, dog-fights, cock-fights, dairy and egg production, and the rest of the myriad monstrous atrocities committed by the animal industrial complex around the globe. While the consumers and end users are complicit, it is the shit-laden toilet of the speciesist capitalism system that we need to smash into a million shards of porcelain by wielding the most massive sledgehammer we can find.
Continue reading:
http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/to-dam-the-torrential-rivers-of-blood-and-to-silence-the-cacophony-of-their-agonized-cries%e2%80%a6/
Years of introspection and profound soul searching—intrepidly trekking the seemingly infinite number of unexplored, untamed, thorny and treacherous paths winding circuitously through my psyche—led me to naively conclude that I’d sketched out a nearly complete map of who I am, my worldview, and my purpose.
Fortunately a chain of events that began unfolding several months ago, and recently culminated when I immersed myself in the company of some of the most dedicated, knowledgeable, and passionate animal activists with whom I’ve had the privilege to associate,[1] shattered my semi-complacency and ignited my passion to launch yet another thorough and harrowing examination of who I am and what I believe—a “revaluation of all values” if you will–including the inevitable significant growing pains of personal evolution. While I recognize that my core sense of self, general worldview, and essential beliefs are relatively immutable, there’s still plenty of room for discovery and growth.
Steve Best commented to me about a year ago that he wanted to make philosophy dangerous again. With that in mind, I’ve come to some radical conclusions about us humans and our largely reprehensible ways of being as a species. Indulge me as I “philosophize with a hammer,” driving home some ideologies, thoughts, observations, principles, and assertions that will bludgeon some of the sacred tenets of the anthropocentric Judeo-Christian status quo of Western Civilization, evoke the wrath of hardened speciesists who lash out like spoiled children when people challenge their “unassailable right” to torture, murder, and eat other sentient beings, and leave me about as popular as an agitated, unleashed pit bull at a Cat Fanciers’ Association show.
Despite the nearly unanimous anthropocentric belief that we human animals are superior to nonhuman animals, we are equal—AT BEST. In fact, our collective malevolence, greed, apathy, belligerence, arrogance, selfishness and tendency to dominate, exploit, and mutilate the Earth and its other inhabitants, have me convinced that we are inferior to other animals, both morally and, in a perverse way, intellectually. We’re just intelligent enough that we’ve developed a devastatingly destructive superiority complex, believing that our capacity to engage in complex forms of thought and communication endows us with the right to serially abuse the planet and other sentient beings, create artificial barriers to alienate us from the rest of nature, and to litter and contaminate the land-base and waterways with all manner of toxic, putrid, noxious, infectious, and disgusting liquids and solids, many with half-lives that exceed the 10,000 years that the disease we call civilization has existed. Homo sapiens, the “superior species,” has taken “stewardship” of the planet and is careening toward self-destruction and mass extinctions of other species. How intelligent is that?
Nonhuman animals are sentient, and an increasingly impressive body of peer-reviewed research scientifically legitimizes the empirical, common sense observations that many other animals are also ‘subjects of a life’ in that they lead relatively rich and complex intellectual, emotional, and social lives. Intentionally killing them is as much murder as it is to kill a human being. That’s right; I wrote it. “Meat” is murder. As are vivisection, fur, dog-fights, cock-fights, dairy and egg production, and the rest of the myriad monstrous atrocities committed by the animal industrial complex around the globe. While the consumers and end users are complicit, it is the shit-laden toilet of the speciesist capitalism system that we need to smash into a million shards of porcelain by wielding the most massive sledgehammer we can find.
Continue reading:
http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/to-dam-the-torrential-rivers-of-blood-and-to-silence-the-cacophony-of-their-agonized-cries%e2%80%a6/
Universal Declaration of Resistance to Mandatory Vaccinations
We the undersigned, as Freemen and Freewomen, do not recognize the authority of the World Health Organization (WHO) to mandate general forced vaccinations. Our bodies are sovereign territory subject to our exclusive self-determination. Any attempted violation of this trust must be construed as a breach of said right.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/a-universal-declaration-of-resistance-to-mandatory-vaccinations
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/a-universal-declaration-of-resistance-to-mandatory-vaccinations
03 July, 2009
Argentina: "No Rational Explanation" for Cattle Mutes
Source: www.diariovictoria.com.ar
Date: July 1, 2009
Argentina: “No Rational Explanation” Found for Cattle Mutes
The police found four cows whose eyes, uteruses and tongues had been removed. The animals were found dead in the rural area of Nogoyá. The absence of water in a nearby lagoon also drew their attention.
Residents of the rural area known as Crucesita Tercera, in the Department of Nogoyá, are shaken by the strange death of four cows in the interior of two fields and the unforeseen draining of a lagoon. Personnel of the Office of Cattle Theft and the Nogoyá Police ascertained that the cows had succumbed to a mysterious mutilation, but also noted that a nearby lagoon, which a day earlier had been full of water, was now empty.
Once more, fantasy, myth and mystery began to weave themselves over the deaths of these animals. Apparitions of the so-called “Chupacabras” and even a UFO sighting are now part of the comments being made in the heart of the province.
The cows found by police officers were missing their reproductive organs, tongues and eyes. For this reason, the veterinarian attached to the Office of Cattle Theft, a part of the Nogoyá Police force, stated that there is no rational explanation for the animals’ deaths and much less for their strange mutilations.
The dead bovines, according to police, were the property of Gustavo Cabañas, an employee of the Banco de Entre Rios, Nogoyá branch. The man owned the field and the herd of cows and calves within it.
A few days later, Cabañas had surveyed the farm and found that everything was in good order. Even the volume of water of nearby lagoon presented a generous quantity of the vital fluid, considering the drought. But for reasons that remain unclear, the lagoon dried up in a few hours, forcing the field’s owner to transfer the animals. He found the dead animals as he performed the transfer.
Nogoyá’s cattle rustling authorities and agents of the Sheriff’s office confirmed their investigation and the mysteries that surround it. The events cannot be explained scientifically.
Crucesita Tercera is some 50 kilometers from the departmental capital. Due to this event, the Cattle Theft officers spoke to local residents, who gave scant details on elements that could help explain the deaths of these animals.
The subject expanded yesterday when it was learned that Police found another mutilated bovine in an adjacent field. The carcass displayed the same characteristics: it was missing both eyes, its tongue and uterus. The cow belonged to a woman surnamed Sanchez and the incident was discovered only a short distance from the Sheriff’s office.
The Cattle Theft office noted that they had reported the mutilations on the three cows found over the weekend, but that the bones near the mutilated parts were clean, as if death had occurred some time ago, and not a matter of days, either. Furthermore, surgical incisions were confirmed, some of them without scarring or blood on the grass of the animals’ hides.
Three years earlier, a pair of bovines was found lifeless and mutilated only a short distance from this last discovery.
Veterinarian Esteban Puntín, who investigated the events a while ago explained, “while he is aware of these last cases from remarks, he believes that [all of this] is the result of natural action.”
Puntín noted:“due to uncontrolled deforestation, predators began looking for food in smaller and cleaner fields. With the onset of cold weather and the drought, there is very little grass. Therefore, animals are hungry. Bovines look for grass, and they may end up eating “yuyos” (brambles) which are poisonous, such as the Mio Mio. When the animal dies, foxes, weasels, vultures and even mice report to the site, eating the softer parts of the carcass, which are generally the anus or vulva, the udders and the tongue. Carrion animals also eat the eyes. These animals are great feeders, and only stop at bones and harder tissue.”
He added, “If there is no blood to be found, it is due to the cold weather, which dries up all manner of fluids.”
(Translation (c) 2009, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Grupo GABIE: www.grupogabie.blogspot.com)
Date: July 1, 2009
Argentina: “No Rational Explanation” Found for Cattle Mutes
The police found four cows whose eyes, uteruses and tongues had been removed. The animals were found dead in the rural area of Nogoyá. The absence of water in a nearby lagoon also drew their attention.
Residents of the rural area known as Crucesita Tercera, in the Department of Nogoyá, are shaken by the strange death of four cows in the interior of two fields and the unforeseen draining of a lagoon. Personnel of the Office of Cattle Theft and the Nogoyá Police ascertained that the cows had succumbed to a mysterious mutilation, but also noted that a nearby lagoon, which a day earlier had been full of water, was now empty.
Once more, fantasy, myth and mystery began to weave themselves over the deaths of these animals. Apparitions of the so-called “Chupacabras” and even a UFO sighting are now part of the comments being made in the heart of the province.
The cows found by police officers were missing their reproductive organs, tongues and eyes. For this reason, the veterinarian attached to the Office of Cattle Theft, a part of the Nogoyá Police force, stated that there is no rational explanation for the animals’ deaths and much less for their strange mutilations.
The dead bovines, according to police, were the property of Gustavo Cabañas, an employee of the Banco de Entre Rios, Nogoyá branch. The man owned the field and the herd of cows and calves within it.
A few days later, Cabañas had surveyed the farm and found that everything was in good order. Even the volume of water of nearby lagoon presented a generous quantity of the vital fluid, considering the drought. But for reasons that remain unclear, the lagoon dried up in a few hours, forcing the field’s owner to transfer the animals. He found the dead animals as he performed the transfer.
Nogoyá’s cattle rustling authorities and agents of the Sheriff’s office confirmed their investigation and the mysteries that surround it. The events cannot be explained scientifically.
Crucesita Tercera is some 50 kilometers from the departmental capital. Due to this event, the Cattle Theft officers spoke to local residents, who gave scant details on elements that could help explain the deaths of these animals.
The subject expanded yesterday when it was learned that Police found another mutilated bovine in an adjacent field. The carcass displayed the same characteristics: it was missing both eyes, its tongue and uterus. The cow belonged to a woman surnamed Sanchez and the incident was discovered only a short distance from the Sheriff’s office.
The Cattle Theft office noted that they had reported the mutilations on the three cows found over the weekend, but that the bones near the mutilated parts were clean, as if death had occurred some time ago, and not a matter of days, either. Furthermore, surgical incisions were confirmed, some of them without scarring or blood on the grass of the animals’ hides.
Three years earlier, a pair of bovines was found lifeless and mutilated only a short distance from this last discovery.
Veterinarian Esteban Puntín, who investigated the events a while ago explained, “while he is aware of these last cases from remarks, he believes that [all of this] is the result of natural action.”
Puntín noted:“due to uncontrolled deforestation, predators began looking for food in smaller and cleaner fields. With the onset of cold weather and the drought, there is very little grass. Therefore, animals are hungry. Bovines look for grass, and they may end up eating “yuyos” (brambles) which are poisonous, such as the Mio Mio. When the animal dies, foxes, weasels, vultures and even mice report to the site, eating the softer parts of the carcass, which are generally the anus or vulva, the udders and the tongue. Carrion animals also eat the eyes. These animals are great feeders, and only stop at bones and harder tissue.”
He added, “If there is no blood to be found, it is due to the cold weather, which dries up all manner of fluids.”
(Translation (c) 2009, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Grupo GABIE: www.grupogabie.blogspot.com)
02 July, 2009
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