US Hegemony Exposed: The War on Democracy

Sulphur, bottom of page.

You may by now be familiar with my pathological aversion to hypocrisy. Well it abounds throughout John Pilger's 2007 film, The War on Democracy (Wiki) and from all the usual sources, those sources being, unsurprisingly, every US President and every US politician that has been within living memory.

The same can't be said however, for the CIA operatives charged with the task of undermining democratically elected governments in South America during the same period. No, not a hint of hypocrisy, other than of course, playing down the death toll resulting from US backed coup d'etats or US trained death squads that operated throughout Latin America.

No, from the CIA, only arrogance, sheer bloody arrogance, and on a scale that truly boggles the mind. There are other CIA talking heads throughout the film, but pride of place in the arrogance stakes has to go to Duane Clarridge, CIA operations officer and supervisor for thirty years. (Wiki)

There being no need to embrace my opinion on this, you will no doubt form your own after watching just three minutes of this arrogant turd spout his American exceptionalist shite. Having watched this performance, I think you might find it hard to disagree me, but you may also experience that which I did, the overwhelming desire to grab the murdering little cocksucker by the collar and punch his lights out. Such fucking arrogance!





Before leaving the US side of things, I would be greatly remiss if I didn't make mention of Roger Noriega. (Haiti Action) I have watched many shabby pols lie through there teeth over the years, nobody, but nobody, can hold a candle to this fellow when it comes to, not just lying, but unadulterated barefaced lying as displayed by Noriega in an interview with Pilger, of all people.

Having supported and funded the 2002 attempted coup against Hugo Chavez through such organisations as USAID and the much misnamed, National Endowment for Democracy, Noriega gives such a performance that I think even John Pilger had a problem getting his head round it.

A more indepth profile/bio of Roger Noriega can be found at Right Web. And if ever there was a must read about what I could only describe as Washington's man from hell, then it has to be this article.



Hugo Chavez: I saw nothing in Pilger's film that gave me reason to change any of my previous held beliefs regarding Hugo Chavez. Quite the opposite in fact, what I witnessed during Pilger's interview with Chavez only strengthened and endorsed those beliefs.

Chavez came across as a genuine man, a genuine statesman in fact, that enjoys the undeniable support and affection from the majority of Venezuela's people. As Pilger notes, little wonder Chavez is hated by Washington, implementing as he has, free full time schooling for all children, free health care for all, adult literacy classes throughout the country and many more things beside.

For those that may not have the bandwidth, I'm going to take the captions from the sub titles and post that part of the interview between Pilger and Chavez.

Starting off in English, though soon turning to Spanish, Chavez has a bit of craic with John Pilger.

HC: You want a cup of coffee?

JP: Yes, Yes,

HC: That was one of my English lessons in secondary school. Do you want a cup of coffee? Do you want a glass of milk? Do you want a glass of water? English lesson one!

JP: Let me ask about you,,,personally, I mean, travelling with you for the last couple of days, I've seen a man who's clearly deeply committed to what you want for the Venezuelan people. Could you describe where that came from?

HC: I was born in a very poor home,a peasant home, so I experienced poverty. I was a poor child, barefoot. My father was a teacher at a rural school, and my mother too.I had a beautiful grandmother, she was Indian, she filled me with love.

My grandmother taught me a lot, and I learned from her about solidarity with other people, about sharing the bread even when there's little to eat.

Later, I went into the army,the military academy, and I became a soldier. And there I found out about Bolivar and started to realise what the truth was. Simon Bolivar is venerated in Latin America as the liberator from Spanish colonialism.

Bolivar believed that freedom only came when people united against all invaders,
no matter their disguise. Today the people of Latin America are again rising up against an empire built on an extreme form of capitalism known as the Washington Consensus

Whole countries have been privatized put up for sale their natural wealth sold
too foreign companies for peanuts. In Venezuela they said "No more"

Program cuts. It was this below that really impressed me with Chavez. In his talking about giving dignity to the people, Chavez displayed a dignity of his own that I have seldom, if ever, seen in any political leader of any country.

JP: When you drive in from the airport at Caracas, the one thing that shocks a first-time visitor are the barrios, the numbers of poor people. Why is it, in Venezuela, which earns so many billions of dollars in oil money, that there still is this poverty, in spite of all the changes you've made?

HC: The poor of Venezuela carry on being poor, yes, I always say that we don't want to be rich, our aim is not material wealth, it is to live with dignity, of course to come out of poverty, and to come out of extreme poverty above all, And to live, to live with dignity, this is the objective.

Not to become millionaires, the American way of life, No, that is stupid, I'm telling you this because the issue of poverty affects us deeply, it's most of our daily struggle.

Program cuts. And here, Chavez displays a dignity combined with humility that the likes of it I have never witnessed before. And I beg you, don't think me naive, I'm far too cynical a bloke to be accused of that. But on this occasion, how nice to leave that cynicism behind.

HC: I think the supreme test was the coup d’état of 2002, I was made a prisoner, they took me away and I thought I was going to die.

Now, the Venezuelan people, the poor without weapons, went in, hundreds and thousands went onto the street to ask for my life, asking for Chavez to return.

And so, I have nothing left to do, especially after that, but dedicate all the life I have left to those people, and above all the most deprived, the poorest.

The film does move on from Chavez and Venezuela to cover other American involved coups and the mass murders, resulting therefrom.

And finally, before we get to the video and links and things, the media in Venezuela.

Having watched the program, the section covering the media (pre-coup) is no less an eye opener than any other chosen part of the film. And having watched it, I'm not surprised Chavez put the mockers on the media, it was truly outrageous. I think I would have done the same, as you might have done, if you witness it yourself.


Below then, the blurb and a pretty average embedded video, or see below for file links.

Award winning journalist John Pilger examines the role of Washington in America's manipulation of Latin American politics during the last 50 years leading up to the struggle by ordinary people to free themselves from poverty and racism. Since the mid 19th Century Latin America has been the 'backyard' of the US, a collection of mostly vassal states whose compliant and often brutal regimes have reinforced the 'invisibility' of their majority peoples. The film reveals similar CIA policies to be continuing in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon. The rise of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez despite ongoing Washington backed efforts to unseat him in spite of his overwhelming mass popularity, is democratic in a way that we have forgotten or abandoned in the west. True Democracy being a solid 80% voter turnout in support of Chavez in over 6 elections.

The War on Democracy

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a documentary about the 2002 coup and well worth watching. Unfortunately I can only find poor quality versions on Youtube, but I thought it worth a mention anyway.

A couple of Hugo and Polly pics from past posts.

Full speech here: It Still Smells of Sulphur Polly

The Arrow of Time

This may come across as a funny kind of post, not least because it started out as an observation on the future of America but has ended up as much about Professor Brian Cox as it has about about the doomed United States of America.

Why the focus Brian Cox then? Perhaps because he is infinitely more interesting than the alternative, the inevitable demise of the United States as a functioning society, and when it finally goes broke, as the world's number one super power.

For the life of me, I couldn't remember the law of physics that Cox had quoted recently in one of his Wonders of the Universe programs. However, after a mighty search, and gathering much Brian Cox material on the way, I managed to come up trumps. Not only finding the reference that I wanted, but two clips that were custom made as it were.

Although they apply to all things and all nations, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Arrow of Time, I thought particularly applicable to the situation in America.

All of its own making, and heading as it is, lemming like towards the precipice, the United States of America is, just like the proverbial lemming, doomed.

One only has to read the article below to realise this, there is no hope for America because there is no saviour for her. It's certainly not another five years of the failed Obama that will reverse the decline, nor is it the batshit crazies of the Republican Party, and it's certainly not going to be Jesus, no matter how much prayin' is done by the ultra batshit hucksters of the South.

I don't know if I would have ever posted on this AlterNet article, had it not been for a Bill Maher clip. Mahers clip wasn't in reply to the article, but it could just has well have. In fact, as outlandish as Maher's clip is, it's almost a tailor made response to the crazies. And by virtue, that is the frightening thing about it.

6 Reasons the Tea Party Is More Dangerous Than McCarthyism

The Tea Party rebellion brings together six major political and economic trends of the last 20 years that are distinct from the anticommunism powering the McCarthy age.
August 4, 2011 |

The power of the Tea Partiers, who refused to raise the US government's debt ceiling this past week despite the pleading of Republican pundits and the powerful, echoes the 1950s when Sen. Joe McCarthy, Fighting Joe, went after those who thought themselves his masters.

It's true; the right-wing lobbies Club for Growth and FreedomWorks both cheered on the 25 or so Tea Partiers who sabotaged an already reactionary bill from passing in the House.

Conservative journalists tell us South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint flexed his Tea Party cred and convinced the South Carolina House delegation to buck House Leader John Boehner and his bill.

But all of this strum and drang had other bankrollers of the Tea Party takeover like the US Chamber of Commerce unhappy. A House aide described the Tea Party freshman as "buckets of crazy" to conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin.

All this reminds me of 1952. more

A picture paints a thousand words.

eta:

America In Decline

By Noam Chomsky

August 06, 2011 "Information Clearing House" --“It is a common theme” that the United States, which “only a few years ago was hailed to stride the world as a colossus with unparalleled power and unmatched appeal is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay,” Giacomo Chiozza writes in the current Political Science Quarterly.

The theme is indeed widely believed. And with some reason, though a number of qualifications are in order. To start with, the decline has proceeded since the high point of U.S. power after World War II, and the remarkable triumphalism of the post-Gulf War '90s was mostly self-delusion.

Another common theme, at least among those who are not willfully blind, is that American decline is in no small measure self-inflicted. The comic opera in Washington this summer, which disgusts the country and bewilders the world, may have no analogue in the annals of parliamentary democracy. more

Have a piece of Bill Maher and then we can apply the Arrow of Time and the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the situation in the US, (or universally) courtesy of Brian Cox.

''The arrow of time dictates that as each moment passes things change, and once these changes have happened, they are never undone.''

Now the program below wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea, it's ninety minutes long for one thing, just as Brian Cox isn't everybody's favourite beverage, but I might be inclined to put that down to a touch of the green eyed. Nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed this Professor Al-Khalili (Jim meets) Brian Cox.

Update: Not any more I don't.

Learning as I did along the way, among other things of course, that Coxy, by his own admission, has a foul mouth on him. Which is always nice to know, having a bit of a gob on me myself.





That gob, his not mine, confirmed in this very readable article from the Telegraph. Only unlike the Telegraph, sans censorship.

Brian Cox: 'I'm not anti-religion. I'm anti-maniac'

....He also has an infectious enthusiasm for his subject, an impression compounded by a quirk of his physiognomy: he always seems to be smiling as he talks. There is a wonderful spoof of him on YouTube. It uses footage from Wonders of the Solar System, the critically acclaimed series he made for the BBC last year. It shows him looking up into the night sky and musing: “Sometimes I look at the stars and I wonder: what the fuck is going on?”

Has he seen it? “Yeah, and actually that is not far from the truth. You should see some of the out-takes from our new series. They have one out-takes film which is just me swearing. Five minutes. It would be great to get it out there, but the BBC will never allow it.”

He does have a reputation for plain speaking. The Creationist belief that the world is 6,000 years old is dismissed as “bollocks”, anyone who believes the world is going to end next year because of the Mayan calendar is “a moron”. And people who believe Cern’s Large Hadron Collider will suck the universe into a black hole are “twats”. more

Day One Fundamental Flaws

NPIA That'll Do Nicely - £6.5m Credit Card Bill

Blaggers, they're not all in jail are they?

NPIA, you might remember them better for this, The McCann Connection: Now I See or NPIA Just Another Year To Go?

Police efficiency agency 'has £6.5m credit card bill'

A credit card bill of £6.5m was run up by staff at a quango tasked with making police forces in England and Wales more efficient, disclosures after a freedom of information request have revealed.

The National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) incurred the costs in the financial years 2008-9 and 2009-10.

Spending on commemorative coins and karaoke equipment was revealed.

The NPIA said it is "bearing down" on spending but there was a "perception of wastefulness" in its "early days".

It said it had "significantly reduced" the amount spent through the use of credit cards by 33%, from £3.6m in 2009-10 to £2.48m in 2010-11.

Ministers plan to phase out the quango, which was set up in 2007 to help forces in England and Wales to save money.

Its functions will be transferred elsewhere.

Much of the costs by staff at the quango were incurred as a result of train or airline tickets and hotel accommodation for staff who travelled on business.
Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

We accept that, in the early days of the NPIA,

here was a perception of wastefulness”

Nick Gargan NPIA chief executive

However, a taxi bill of nearly £100,000 has been revealed along with expenditure on a diverse range of items including £828 on judo apparatus, £105 on pottery, £55 on karaoke equipment - and £28 on lingerie.

The government is reviewing the use of so called "procurement cards" in Whitehall.

It plans to publish all expenditure incurred on them above £500 from next month.

Nick Gargan, the NPIA's chief executive, said: "We have controls in place to ensure that the cards are only used where there is a business need and they have been properly authorised.

"The NPIA is a national policy agency which means getting out and about to forces, which will involve incurring business expenditure.

"Nevertheless, we accept that, in the early days of the NPIA, there was a perception of wastefulness."

Mr Gargan went on: "We have been bearing down on this and continue to scrutinise our spending carefully in the context of sharp budget reductions."

He said the agency would deliver £30m savings in the current financial year, adding that it delivered £54.5m savings in the previous year. BBC

The McCann Archive - Trucks

Boogity Boogity Boogity Prayin' Over Let's Go Racing Boys

I'll admit to watching NASCAR on quite a regular basis. My reasons for doing so can be found throughout my various posts under the NASCAR tag in the side bar.

If you have never watched NASCAR, or more specifically the pre-race build up, it more than likely will be a bit of a culture shock, putting it somewhat mildly.

Dripping as it does, with nauseating degrees of Jesus, jingoism and hypocrisy, the pre-race build up is truly, bring your barf bag. Perhaps you might like to click the link to get a better understanding of both NASCAR and the post below.

God and NASCAR is just one of the many links to be found under my own NASCAR tag. Others can be found there covering that other equally nauseating NASCAR phenomenon, the US Military.

There is always a strong military presence at a race meet, (1st & 2nd clips) no better highlighted than at this previous post: It's The Cannon Fodder Don't You See? Complete with one more Youtube video and its relative comments, here but the one.

What a disgusting & garish display of religious kitsch and hillbilly / jingoist nonsense. I hope the tax payer did not have to pay for this inbred, mountain dew display.

I have to say though, that in all three clips you are spared the ''and protecting freedom around the world'' crap, uttered in the mandatory invocation. Because frankly, I have listened to these words of hypocritical shite more times than I care to admit to.

So having gotten all the merde out of the way, NASCAR on a lighter note.

Thank you God for a smokin’ hot wife … oh, and Dodges, Toyotas and Fords

ONLY 52 percent of Americans, according to a new poll, think that the Almighty is doing a good job as CEO of the universe.

But at the weekend one man – a Baptist preacher in Tennessee – appeared to give God unqualified approval when he thanked the deity for providing him with a “smokin’ hot wife”.

Joe Nelms, pastor at the Family Baptist Church in Lebanon, had been invited to pray at a motor racing event – the NASCAR Nationwide Federated Auto Parts 300 on Saturday in Nashville.

He also thanked God:

For the Dodges and the Toyotas. Thank you for the Fords. Thank you for Sunoco racing fuels and Goodyear tires.

He ended his prayer with the words:

In Jesus’ name. Boogity, boogity, boogity. Amen.

The track erupted in applause and laughter, with some folks in the stadium even tipping their hat to the man – but not everyone was impressed with Nelms’ choice of colourful words.

The pastor, who has done the invocation at the Nashville event three times before, said he has received plenty of emails since the invocation and although most of them are positive, quite a few have been negative.

Critics have blasted the Tennessee pastor for being “disgraceful”, “disrespectful” and even “blasphemous” – but Nelms said he was just making a break from tradition. more

H/T AgentCormac Follow up, Youtube

I said on a lighter note, this from Remigus in the comments section.

bj + AgentC. NASCAR is really big among the bible-belters. In a poll I just made up by the Poe Foundation it came second to The Lord Hisself in the list of the most important things that make Southern USAer’s lives worth living.

1 Jeebus
2 NASCAR
3 Shootin’
4 Incest
5 Corn dogs/chilli dogs/weiners
6 Lynchin’ negroes
7 Grits (whatever the fuck they are)
8 County
9 Western
10 Chewin’ tabaccy
…
73 Education

Islam: Not of Our Time Not of Our Culture

I'll wager these two sad bastards aren't quite so critical when it comes down to their own personal jerk off material. Because as we all know, there are only two kinds of people in this world, wankers or liars.

Two guys called Mo fined for spraying burqas on billboard models in London

THE Mos – short for teenage morons Mohammed Hasnath and Muhammed Tahir – have earned themselves convictions for criminal damage after they did a cover-up job on scantily-clad models featured in poster ads.

According to this report, the two 18-year-old Muslims from east London were caught defacing advertisements when members of the public called police.

They had been spotted painting over a Lynx advert which showed Kelly Brook as an angel, as well as painting over the other side of the hoarding, which was an ad for the film Drive Angry.

When police arrived, they admitted what they had done.

The numpties admitted the offence, saying they were acting in the greater good because women should not be uncovered.

Taiwo Akinrowo, prosecuting in their recent court case, said:

They told them [the police] that the way the women had been photographed was against their religion and said it was a sin in Islam for a male to look twice at a woman who is not covered. Both have admitted painting over them. At first, they did not think it was a bad thing to do but they accept that it was not legal because it was not their property.

Hasnath – who had earlier been fined £100 for posting stickers which declared Tower Hamlets a “gay-free zone” – declared:

If someone was to look at our wife or mother or daughter with a bad intention we would not like it, so we were just trying to do good.

They were each told to pay costs of £283 and were released on a 12-month conditional discharge.

Last month, posters were found in Tower Hamlets, Newham and Waltham Forest declaring the boroughs to be “Sharia-controlled zones”.

The posters said:

You are entering a Sharia controlled zone. Islamic rules enforced.

Underneath, images indicate that smoking, alcohol and music are banned.

Islamic hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who said in 2008 that gays should be stoned to death, has claimed responsibility for the campaign. Source and mugshot.

http://www.jesusandmo.net/

What Can You Expect From an Arsehole But a Trump

In a nutshell.

"How can a man who has just destroyed a site of special scientific interest and is in the process of despoiling an area of outstanding natural beauty with his golf course, comment on the view? It's laughable,"

Donald Trump pledges 'any legal means' fight against windfarm

US tycoon saying proposed offshire turbines will 'compromise' golf resort – and ruin his sea view

Donald Trump's golf resort under construction on the Menie estate, Aberdeenshire, with diggers stripping grasses from the coastal dunes, June 2011. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

Donald Trump has pledged to use "any legal means" to block the building of an offshore windfarm near his championship golf course in Aberdeenshire, claiming the development would spoil his view.

The proposed windfarm in Aberdeen Bay, about 1.5 miles from the golf resort, would install the next generation of offshore wind turbine technology.

The £200m energy scheme has just been formally submitted to Marine Scotland for approval. It has been cut back from up to 33 turbines to a maximum of 11 after safety concerns were raised by shipping agencies and Aberdeen heliport, the world's busiest, which serves the North Sea oil industry.

Trump, who hopes to open his first course at the Menie estate, near Balmedie, next July, in a development spanning about 500 hectares (1,235 acres), has renewed his long-standing complaints about the project. He believes the smaller proposal is still unacceptable: some of the turbines could stand up to 195 metres in the water, more than double the height of the Big Ben clock tower.

George Sorial, managing director of the Trump Organisation, said the windfarm would compromise the golf resort. "We are here to stay and I don't think it's a good idea to interfere with our investment. We are not going to support a project that compromises what we have done. We will use any legal means in our jurisdiction."

David Milne, one of Trump's most critical neighbours, whose house at Hermit Point is next to the golf course now under construction, said the billionaire developer was turning into a "New York clown". Milne's view over the dunes and the North Sea has been blocked by Trump; a 6-metre (20ft) high earth wall came first, later replaced with a row of spruce and pine trees surrounding Milne's property.

"How can a man who has just destroyed a site of special scientific interest and is in the process of despoiling an area of outstanding natural beauty with his golf course, comment on the view? It's laughable," Milne said.

It remains highly unlikely that Trump's objections will succeed. The windfarm is supported by the European commission and the Scottish government, and is one of a number of test centres seen as essential if the UK is to reach its target of 7,000 offshore wind turbines, with an expected investment of £100bn.

Trump is also in conflict with several of his most prominent supporters over the windfarm scheme, known as the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre. The EOWDC project involves Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, a publicly-funded agency part controlled by Aberdeenshire council, which approved Trump's resort, as well as Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, which last year gave the American tycoon an honorary degree, and the Wood Group, founded by the oil services magnate Sir Ian Wood, a cheerleader for Trump's resort.

David Rodger, a spokesman for the wind project, said: "We have been in regular contact with the Trump Organisation and acknowledge the concern raised. We made a strong case for the environmental and economic benefits of the centre [for] global research and development for offshore wind … [which] is of strategic importance to Aberdeen, and Scotland's renewable energy ambitions." Gruniad

Fred Reed: Killing Afghans Matters More Than Feeding Granny in Spokane

Fred Reed is a star, he really is, he has such a way of telling it like it is. And that includes with no small amount of humour.

Slouching Toward Guatamala
Reflections on the Impossibility of Government
By Fred Reed
August 04, 2011

God it's wonderful—really diverting in a macabre sort of way, at least if you have a diseased sense of humor and enough Padre Kino red. Which I do. As I write the world's only delusional superflower, perennially in love with itself, navel-gazing as narcissistically as ever, ignorant, self-indulgent, gurbling like an insane relative in the attic and fondling electro-trinkets from Japan, is broke. Yes, we see a beautiful dive from the high board, two somersaults and a half-twist, into the Third World. And so richly deserved.

Congress, a collection of whores, con-men, and penny-ante sharpers from East Jesus, Nebraska, ponders the Great Question: Default now, and admit manfully to being the economic lepers everyone else already knows we are? Or raise the debt ceiling, keep spending like a spoiled Swarthmore sophomore with daddy's credit card, and collapse a bit later?

It's just lovely. The World’s Greatest Economy holding out the begging bowl to China. “Alms? Alms for the poor?” Maybe I don't have enough Padre Kino after all. Maybe there isn't enough.

On the lobotomy box, congressmen come and go, not talking of Michelangelo, like mayflies but without the brains, calling each other names. They seem to think that they are in an off-year election. I mean, it's only the future of the country. What, me worry? What if a huge cosmic flyswatter came down on Cap Hill and turned them into barely historical smears? How the hell do you start a cosmic flyswatter?

The Republicans want to protect the wars, the rich, and the military companies. The Democrats want to protect the entitlements. Well, ok, I guess killing Afghans matters more than feeding Granny in Spokane. Unless of course you are Granny. Who really cares? I mean, how many “defense” contracts does she have?

But actually the Dems have the best of the argument of national security. Entitlements are our friend. Welfare is the price we pay for not having the cities burn. Mailbox money is our protection, (see below) not gaudy aircraft carriers like the USS Thundertrinket, zooom-kerpow.

It's the Empire, stupid. You want spending cuts? Easy, if you don't want to rule the world for three more years before going down history's cloaca. Pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Japan, and NATO tomorrow. Pull out. Pull out. Coitus interruptus. Stop wasting precious engineering talent and non-existent money on pointless funsy weapons of no utility: the F35, the Airborne Laser.

Come to think of it, don't bother. It's too late. The only sensible answer is cheap Mexican red. The US really is poised to enter Central America. You know, continental drift. It can't be stopped. South Korea and Finland among others are far more advanced in their internets. Health care in America is first-priced and second-rate. The country is thirty-third in infant mortality. Schooling would be pathetic if we could raise it to that level, the universities largely farces. The Russians and Chinese have manned space programs; we don't. Industry flees Gringolandia or has fled. The great moiling gerbiltry out there hasn't figured it out. Wait.

I hear babbling about “the recovery.” Which recovery is that? There ain't none, boys and girls. There won't be one. We are not in a temporary recession or correction or what have you. We are going poor. The last dance just finished, and the band is leaving.

And it is self-inflicted. There is, I grant you, a pleasing monumentality about truly phenomenal stupidity. A certain brilliance is needed to be so witless. In this sense the American political system is a work of genius, relying on the principle of Sufficient Ditz-Rabbitry.

You don't need to fool all of the people all of the time. Enough of the people, enough of the time is entirely adequate. Lincoln knew this but, being a politician, didn't point it out. Here is the basis of what Americans believe to be a democracy. Curious: Mexicans know they have a corrupt government, but Americans don't. In the US, books are written about the scams and cons and rips practiced on the public. Few read them, though, and those who do already know what is in them. Enough of the people, enough of the time. If the talking heads on the blinking hamster-diverter don't talk about the swindles, the rubes never know. more Fred Reed

Graphic from: Chinese Sub Pops Up In Middle Of US Fleet

Socialism In a Caring/Uncaring Society

......It is down to something else that America has no shortage of, the fuck you attitude, and more specifically, the fuck you attitude of the politicos who are feverishly stripping away any kind of safety net, not just of the underprivileged, but of the working Joe, the middle classes. (Look no further than Hartman's news piece, Obama trying to placate the Repubs with his social spending cuts so he can pay for his wars.)

The point I'm trying to make is, just what kind of jungle do the Pols and policy makers is going to result out of this deliberate attempt to return America to a Dickensian society? Isn't the writing on the wall writ large enough already to what a breakdown in society looks like?

What is happening in America today, could quite easily be adopted to compose the first half, if not the first three quarters of a post-apocalyptic movie script. All that is waiting to be scripted is the ''Underprivileged Spring'' when the have nots, raise up en mass and take it all away from the haves. And let's be realistic here, it won't be a sticks and stones uprising, every motherfucker will already be armed, if not, they soon will be. more me

Newsy Dot Com - Agenda?

I am a blogger, so by definition I'm biassed. I'm also staunchly anti-twat, and there is nothing in this world that panders to that most unsophisticated of emotions that lurks within me, that of Schadenfreude, than when the twats of this world get theirs.

Sir Paul, that'll do nicely Stephenson, gone. John, integrity Yates, gone. Andy, dodgy geezer Hayman, about to get his. And Piers, I couldn't lie straight in bed Morgan, also about to get his, in spite of how much CNN try to whitewash the lying fuck.

But this article is not about Piers Morgan per say, rather about some outfit that I have never heard of, Newsy.com.

I first viewed this clip in the wee hours, and not being at my most attentive, my initial thought was, CNN, no matter how much you try to spin this, the outcome is inevitable, Piers Morgan is toast.

The problem with that first impression being, it wasn't CNN doing the spinning, and it is here that I ask you as readers for your opinion, but rather it was said outfit, Newsy.com.

A search of the net didn't bring up an awful lot about the outfit, particularly if there are vested interests lurking in the background, so I could do nothing more than base my own opinion on the content of the clip.

Is it my bias towards the twats of this world that is colouring my judgement, does Newsy.com have an agenda here, is it the bimbo that's presenting the clip, or is it just normal crap American reporting, the standard of which, we have become so inured to over the years?

Any thoughts?

Source HuffPo

Footnote: For an organisation that aspires to be a global player, the Huffington Post blocks more video content to the UK, than any other outfit I have ever come across.

Klaas Hendrikse My Kind of Preacher

Update: For reasons beyond my ken, the pics have disappeared, but they weren't imperative to the post. Follow the links for video.

Some people might think tulips, canals and clogs when they have the Netherlands in mind; I think, pragmatism, coffee shops and speeding tickets.*

"Make the most of life on earth, because it will probably be the only one you get".

And what a different world it would be if only the jesoids, and all the other oids for that matter, could manage to grasp what is patently obvious to the rest of us. And by us, I mean anyone with two neurons bolted together.

Click twice.

Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world
By Robert Pigott Religious affairs correspondent, Amsterdam

The Rev Klaas Hendrikse can offer his congregation little hope of life after death, and he's not the sort of man to sugar the pill.
Exodus Church The Exodus Church is part of the mainstream Dutch Protestan Church

An imposing figure in black robes and white clerical collar, Mr Hendrikse presides over the Sunday service at the Exodus Church in Gorinchem, central Holland.

It is part of the mainstream Dutch Protestant Church, and the service is conventional enough, with hymns, readings from the Bible, and the Lord's Prayer. But the message from Mr Hendrikse's sermon seems bleak - "Make the most of life on earth, because it will probably be the only one you get".

"Personally I have no talent for believing in life after death," Mr Hendrikse says. "No, for me our life, our task, is before death."

Nor does Klaas Hendrikse believe that God exists at all as a supernatural thing.

"When it happens, it happens down to earth, between you and me, between people, that's where it can happen. God is not a being at all... it's a word for experience, or human experience."

Staphorst, in the Dutch Bible belt, has a by-law against swearing

Mr Hendrikse describes the Bible's account of Jesus's life as a mythological story about a man who may never have existed, even if it is a valuable source of wisdom about how to lead a good life.

His book Believing in a Non-Existent God led to calls from more traditionalist Christians for him to be removed. However, a special church meeting decided his views were too widely shared among church thinkers for him to be singled out.

A study by the Free University of Amsterdam found that one-in-six clergy in the Dutch Protestant Church was either agnostic or atheist.

The Rev Kirsten Slattenaar, Exodus Church's regular priest, also rejects the idea - widely considered central to Christianity - that Jesus was divine as well as human.

"I think 'Son of God' is a kind of title," she says. "I don't think he was a god or a half god. I think he was a man, but he was a special man because he was very good in living from out of love, from out of the spirit of God he found inside himself."




Mrs Slattenaar acknowledges that she's changing what the Church has said, but, she insists, not the "real meaning of Christianity".

She says that there "is not only one answer" and complains that "a lot of traditional beliefs are outside people and have grown into rigid things that you can't touch any more".

Bini Von Reingarden, who's been going to Exodus Church for 20 years, is among lay people attracted to such free thinking.

"I think it's very liberating. [Klaas Hendrikse] is using the Bible in a metaphorical way so I can bring it to my own way of thinking, my own way of doing."

Wim De Jong says, "Here you can believe what you want to think for yourself, what you really feel and believe is true."

Churches in Amsterdam were hoping to attract such people with a recent open evening.

At the Old Church "in the hottest part of the red light district", the attractions included "speed-dating".

As skimpily dressed girls began to appear in red-lit windows in the streets outside, visitors to the church moved from table to table to discuss love with a succession of strangers.





Professor Hijme Stoeffels of the Free University in Amsterdam says it is in such concepts as love that people base their diffuse ideas of religion.

"In our society it's called 'somethingism'," he says. "There must be 'something' between heaven and earth, but to call it 'God', and even 'a personal God', for the majority of Dutch is a bridge too far.

"Christian churches are in a market situation. They can offer their ideas to a majority of the population which is interested in spirituality or some kind of religion."

To compete in this market of ideas, some Christian groups seem ready virtually to reinvent Christianity.

They want the Netherlands to be a laboratory for Christianity, experimenting with radical new ways of understanding the faith.

Stroom ("Stream") West is the experiment devised by one church to reach out to the young people.

In an Amsterdam theatre young people contemplate the concept of eternity by spacing out a heap of rice grains individually across the floor.

"The difference from other churches is that we are… experimenting with the contents of the gospel," says Rikko Voorberg, who helps to run Stroom West. "Traditionally we bring a beautiful story and ask people to sit down listen and get convinced. This is the other way around."

Stroom focuses on people's personal search for God, not on the church's traditional black-and-white answers.

Rikko believes traditional Christianity places God in too restricted a box.

He believes that in a post-modern society that no longer has the same belief in certainty, there is an urgent need to "take God out of the box".




"The Church has to be alert to what is going on in society," he says. "It has to change to stay Christian. You can't preach heaven in the same way today as you did 2,000 years ago, and we have to think again what it is. We can use the same words and say something totally different."

When I asked Rikko whether he believed Jesus was the son of God he looked uncomfortable.

"That's a very tough question. I'm not sure what it means," he says.

"People have very strict ideas about what it means. Some ideas I might agree with, some ideas I don't."

Such equivocation is anathema in Holland's Bible Belt, among the large number of people who live according to strict Christian orthodoxy.

In the quiet town of Staphorst about a quarter of the population attends the conservative Dutch Reformed Church every Sunday.

The town even has a by-law against swearing.

Its deputy mayor, Sytse de Jong, accuses progressive groups of trying to change Christianity to fit current social norms.

"When we get people into the Church by throwing Jesus Christ out of the Church, then we lose the core of Christianity. Then we are not reforming the institutions and attitudes but the core of our message."

But many churches are keen to work with anyone who believes in "something".

They believe that only through adaptation can their religion survive.

The young people at Stroom West write on plates the names of those things that prevent earth from being heaven - cancer, war, hunger - and destroy them symbolically.

The new Christianity is already developing its own ritual. videos

*Hamburg bound, and about a kilometre before the Dutch German border, I was just getting my right foot into autobahn mode. Half a click later, the cop in charge of the radar was on the phone to the courthouse to ask how much to spot fine me. £80, and that twenty five years ago. I wasn't going that fast, honestly!

Update, more here. Preaching sense from the pulpit

Japan: Dark Rain Dark Future

Two clips courtesy of Fairewinds Associates, one short one long.

The first shorter clip, deals with the ongoing situation in Japan, both short term and long term.

The second, and longer of the two, is a Nuclear Power 101 kind of thing.

While many radioactive cattle have been discovered large distances from Fukushima, what is more important is where their feed is coming from. "It's not only about the radioactive cattle in Fukushima Prefecture; its also about the radioactive straw the cattle eat that was grown elsewhere". Straw found 45 miles from Fukushima is highly contaminated with radioactive cesium, which is an indication that radiation has contaminated large portions of Northern Japan. More than half a million disintegrations per second in a kilogram of straw are comparable to Chernobyl levels. This proves that the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission was correct when it told Americans to evacuate beyond 50 miles and that the Japanese should have done the same. An Ex-Secretariat of Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission blames this contamination on "Black Rain". Rather than minimize the information the Japanese people receive, Gundersen suggests minimizing their radiation exposure."


Hi, I'm Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds and it is Tuesday, July 19th. Today, I plan to talk about the condition of the reactors at Fukushima. And more importantly, the radiation that has been detected throughout Japan, not just on the site. And finally, I want to talk about a condition that the Japanese are beginning to call Black Rain.

The first thing is the condition of the site itself. All 3 Fukushima reactors that were running, I, II and III, and the fuel pool on Unit 4, continue to release radiation. Now, you do not see it in the day because the days are warm now, but you do see it at night. I have gotten many, many emails about this, where people think that the site is blowing up. In fact, it is steam coming out of these reactors and hitting cold air from the Pacific. So they continue to release radiation. But most of the radiation from Fukushima was released in March and in April. At this point, there is a lot less radiation every day than there was in March and April. About 90-95% of the radiation from Fukushima was released in the first 6 weeks of the accident. While it continues to release radiation, there is nowhere near as much on a daily basis. On the other hand, Fukushima may be continuing to release radiation for a long time.

The Japanese are building large tents to put over each of these reactors. The first tent is in fabrication now and it will cover reactor 1, and then they will move to reactor 2, and reactor 3, and finally reactor 4. Those tents are designed to prevent the steam from getting out and to collect it as water and treat it. So beginning in September, most of the airborne radiation will be eliminated from Fukushima, at least Unit 1. More and more though, we will wind up with the contaminated ground water and the contaminated liquids that are on site. There is nothing in the foreseeable future to eliminate those. As a matter of fact, the Japanese announced that it is going to be 10 years before they begin, begin to remove those cores from the bottom of the containment. There is no technology right now to remove them. Remember they have melted through the nuclear reactor and they are lying on the floor of the nuclear containment.

At Three Mile Island, they had melted onto the bottom of the reactor, but not through the reactor. So this is brand new. It is sort of like trying to peel an egg off the bottom of a frying pan. If it is cooked too long, it is a very, very complicated and difficult process. And that is what we are facing at Fukushima in the long term clean up. So in the meantime, there will be an awful lot of liquid radioactive waste that will have to be processed for 10 or perhaps 20 years.

Well, in my mind, the more concerning thing is the information that has been coming in from off site lately. Some friends of mine are biologists that had worked at Chernobyl and went to Japan to do some scientific work over there. They went anticipating things were going to be bad. I got a call this week from them and they said that things are really, really bad. So these are hardened scientists that are used to dealing with radiation and they believe that conditions at Fukushima are much worse than they had thought.

There is some corroborating evidence that has come in on that. The first is that mushrooms between 30-40 miles from the reactor, are found to be contaminated well in excess of what the Japanese are allowing. The interesting part of that is that the mushrooms were grown indoors. So how can a mushroom grown indoors exceed the radiation standards that the Japanese have set? It is a major concern and again, it is 35 miles from the accident.

The second piece of corroborating evidence, is that cattle have been contaminated throughout the Fukushima Prefecture and beyond. In the last week, first it started that 8 cows were contaminated and then it became 40 cows and now it is over 130 cows that are contaminated, and I am sure that number will go up as time goes on. Now there are a couple of interesting things here. First is that the cows were 30-40 miles from the reactor and their cesium levels are well in excess of anything anyone has ever approved for human consumption.

When the cows got to market, the Japanese did not sample the meat, they rubbed the hide of cow to see if there was any contamination. And based on rubbing the hide of the cow, they released it to market. It was only after that, that it was discovered that the meat was contaminated. That is not an acceptable way of measuring beef. But the more important issue here is, how did the cows pick up that contamination when everyone thought the cows were being fed silage, in other words, straw that had been saved from before the accident?

It turns out that the Japanese use the stalks of rice to feed their cows. And farmers out at 45 miles and beyond, were cutting their rice stalks down and shipping it in to the farms that were inside the Fukushima Prefecture. The straw was contaminated to 500,000 disintegrations every second, in a kilogram of straw. Now this is cesium. It has got a 30 year half life. But 30 years from now, it is still going to be disintegrating at 250,000 disintegrations per second. And 30 years after that at 125,000 disintegrations per second. That is what this term half life means.

This occurred out at 45 miles. You will recall that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission suggested evacuation out beyond 50 miles. This appears to indicate that the NRC was right. The Japanese should have evacuated their population out beyond 50 miles and instead stopped at around 12 – 18 miles.

This contamination then has spread beyond the Fukushima Prefecture. Yet, the Prefecture itself seems to be the only place the Japanese are worried about this radioactive exposure.

The last thing I would like to talk with you about today, is what happens outside the 50 miles that we have just been talking about. It is already pretty clear based on the radiation in the straw that we have discovered that radiation, even out as far as 50 miles, is as high in some areas as Chernobyl was.

Well, what about further? Let's take a look at Tokyo and I am concerned there too. First, the sewage treatment plants in Tokyo have contaminated their sewage sludge. Normally, that material is used in building construction material. But it is so radioactive that it has to be stored outside under tarps, until someone can figure out a way to get rid of it.

The second thing is, a Japanese gentleman sent me a lab report. This person took it into his own hands to pay for a lab to analyze data on a street near a playground in Tokyo.

Here is the lab report. It shows that there are 53,000 disintegrations per second in a kilogram, that is 2.2 pounds of material, on the side of a street near a playground in Tokyo.

This person was so concerned that they went to the mayor of that town and the mayor said, I am not worried about it. Here is a citizen that with his own money, paid for a lab report and could get nowhere with his local government.

Well, there is another piece of data. And that comes out of the National Cancer Center hospital near Tokyo as well. It has been on their website since a couple of days after the accident. The report shows that on March 24th, that is 9 days after the accident, the radioactive background outside the hospital was 30 times higher than the radioactive background inside the hospital. There was deposition of hot particles on the soil. And it was significant enough to increase the amount of radiation that the detectors were picking up by a factor of 30. Now a national cancer hospital clearly knows how to measure radiation, so these are experienced scientists.

The last report I want to share with you is every day, I get an email from a prominent Japanese physicist named Dr. Glen Saji. He was their secretariat of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Japan. He wrote two days ago, this. And it has to do with the straw that has been discovered near Fukushima.

"I believe it is due to storing straw in a field at the time the plume passed by during the first week of the accident, in particular, due to the Black Rain."

Now Black Rain is not a term I am sure he uses lightly. But it clearly was experienced in Japan after the accident. What he is referring to there is clouds of radioactive hot particles depositing everywhere in northern Japan.

Well, the Japanese are resourceful people, as evidenced by their world cup win on Sunday. But they need to know the magnitude of the problem they are facing in order to handle it correctly. Rather than limit the information, it is important that they limit the radiation.

Thank you very much and I will get back to you. Fairewinds

Included in this presentation and PowerPoint is a discussion of how nuclear power plants work, how to cool a reactor during an accident, the effect of hot particles when inhaled, and concerns involving the long-term storage of nuclear waste. This presentation took place at the Nuclear Power Conference held at the University of Vermont July 23, 2011. Fairewinds (No transcript)

Steve Irwin Released - A Letter From Paul Watson

The Steve Irwin is Free, Thanks to Thousands of Donations!

Dear Teddy,

Sea Shepherd supporters rock!

Due to the generosity of our supporters around the world, we have raised over USD$735,000 to save our flagship Steve Irwin—less than two weeks after the launch of our SOS! - Save Our Ship fundraising campaign! Thank you to everyone who helped make it possible for us to fund a bond to release the vessel from detainment! Together, we will continue to make a difference.

As many of you are aware, on July 15, our flagship vessel the Steve Irwin was detained in the Scottish Shetland Islands pending our ability to fund a bond we estimated to be in the amount of USD$1,411,692.87. The detainment was ordered by British courts due to a civil lawsuit brought against us by Maltese fishing company Fish and Fish Ltd.

The British court set the bond today at £520,000 (approximately USD$846,290). Thankfully, we were able to post the bond earlier today, and the Steve Irwin will soon depart to the Faeroes for Operation Ferocious Isles. The Steve Irwin will join the vessel Brigitte Bardot and her crew, who are already onsite defending pilot whales.

I sincerely thank everyone who donated to help Save Our Ship. Your help enabled us to Free the Steve. However, despite everyone’s best efforts we didn't quite raise the entire amount and had to cut into our already scarce budget to meet the bond amount and Free the Steve. We face the ongoing costs of Operation Ferocious Isles, the transit of our vessels from the northern hemisphere to the southern for Operation Divine Wind, and then the cost of that Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign as well. We are all on the same crew, despite our different roles and varying locations. We all feel that inner drive to protect innocent lives and ecosystems, and I know many of you have given what you can— but please keep your donations coming in. Without your help, we cannot continue this important work.

We are in a war to save our oceans from ourselves, and if we lose, we all lose because if the oceans die, we all die – it’s as simple as that. Thank-you!


For Our Oceans and for the Steve Irwin,
Captain Paul Watson
Founder and President

Previous: Steve Irwin Desperately Needs Our Help

Raquel Nelson: American Justice

I reported on this story previously, where I had this to say.

The Only Justice America Has Is That What's Coming To It

A conviction at any price, it doesn't matter matter who, why or what the circumstances are. Let's take this already distraught mother who has suffered probably the greatest loss a mother can, the loss of a child, and let's really fuck her life up.

To what avail?

What an uncaring, vindictive and shitty society. previous

Well it appears the unfortunate woman has been convicted of second-degree vehicular manslaughter, which you might find somewhat hard to believe when you read the details of the case.

I cannot but help ask the question though, would her sentence have been anywhere near as ''lenient'' had there not been the public outrage that there was surrounding this travesty?

“We prosecute people for very low level crimes when there is no actual reason to,” Chettiar said of Nelson’s case. “We put people in prison for public safety, or from a punitive perspective or in an attempt to rehabilitate but she’s already been punished—she lost her son.”

“Putting her in prison isn’t going to make us any safer.”

More Jail Time Than the Man Who Killed Her Son? The Criminalization of Black Mothers

Women of color are being aggressively prosecuted for supposed transgressions they'd committed while trying to raise their children.
July 31, 2011

Raquel Nelson, who was convicted of second-degree vehicular manslaughter after her four-year-old son was killed by a drunk driver, will not be going to jail after all. On Tuesday a judge sentenced Nelson to 12 months of probation and 40 hours of community service, and offered her a new trial, which she’s since decided to pursue. She faced three years in prison.

It was a stunning move in a dramatic case that’s captured national headlines and for criminal justice reform advocates, exemplified the racialized impacts of aggressive prosecutions.

On April 10, 2010 Nelson’s son A.J. Newman was killed by a drunk driver while the family attempted to jaywalk across a busy street. They’d just gotten out at a bus stop and were out later than Nelson would have liked after having missed their first bus. Their home was directly across a four-lane street and like many other passengers, they decided to cross directly to their home. The nearest crosswalk was more than three tenths of a mile away from the bus stop. While waiting at a divider, A.J. slipped out of his mom’s grasp and into the street. Nelson and her other daughter followed, and they were all hit by a drunk driver careening down the road. More, includes a link to 'new trial.'

Utah Tops The Wanking League

I'm still trying to decide the reason for Utah being tops in consuming porn. It couldn't be as simple as porn (and hypocrisy) being directly proportional to how much Jesus you got, surely not?

Perhaps it may be a shortage of young shagable females, they all being married off to church elders on reaching puberty; or thereabouts.

Anyway, it's quite academic really, because this little snippet of information is incidental, it being the result of a link from the main article, entitled, 10 Kinkiest Cities In America.

Nevertheless, when an article starts off with:

America's sexual pastimes have long been at odds with our puritanical roots. One such example of sexual contradiction is conservative Utah, which was found to be the largest consumer of online pornography a few years ago.

A fellow has no choice really other than to click the link.

A little taster from said article, and then on to kinky cities.

....However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.....

....The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. "The differences here are not so stark," Edelman says. More New Scientist.

10 Kinkiest Cities In America
Wish Lonely Planet would stop being such a prude and release a guide to where you can let your inner freak flag fly?

America's sexual pastimes have long been at odds with our puritanical roots. One such example of sexual contradiction is conservative Utah, which was found to be the largest consumer of online pornography a few years ago. Despite America's sometimes shameful misgivings around sex, we can't seem to keep it in our pants. Wish Lonely Planet would stop being such a prude and release a guide to where you can let your inner freak flag fly? Well, look no further. Some cities cater to their constituents' wanton needs with festivals, clubs, or plain ol' randy reputation. Other cities get their sexy on more discreetly, thanks to the phenomenon known as the Internet. Whatever your preferred desire, the following places, in no particular order, can definitely show you a good time.




1. Roselawn, Indiana

Not only does Roselawn maintain a thriving (and family friendly!) nudist resort, the Ponderosa Sun Club also hosts a yearly pageant called “Nudes-A-Poppin,” MC’d by none other than famed porn star Ron Jeremy. It’s not just the strippers and porn stars shaking their money makers on stages and poles that draw thousands to this celebration every year; erotic dancing, public sex, and of course, exhibitionism abound. Located about 50 miles south of Chicago, on 88 acres of rural woodlands, Ponderosa also offers several G-rated recreational activities you never knew would be more awesome naked, like horseshoes, volleyball and chili cook-offs.




2. New Orleans, Louisiana

N’awlins, aka the Big Easy, has long had a reputation for debauchery. Of course, Mardi Gras, the infamous pre-Lent bacchanalian carnival has something to do with that, but New Orleans’ dirty dealings far exceed the typical Girls Gone Wild fare. Over an extended Labor Day weekend (starting the Wednesday prior), New Orleans hosts Southern Decadence, colloquially known as Gay Mardi Gras, but open to all orientations. This festival draws crowds upward of 300,000 from all over the U.S., with non-stop parties, “Big Dick” contests, and, well, sausage fests of the non-andouille variety. The South will rise again, indeed. Eight more.

Previous: Mormonism Madness and Money (What Mormons believe text.)

Below, a few vids, spot the difference.

Abstinence Makes The Blood Flow Stronger

'Abstinence' State Senator Quits After Intern Affair

Pro-abstinence Tennessee State Sen. Paul Stanley has stepped down in the wake of revelations that he had an affair with his 22-year-old intern, reports AP. The 47-year-old married father of two admitted the affair to investigators after his intern's boyfriend allegedly attempted to blackmail Stanley for $10,000. "Due to recent events, I have decided to focus my full attention on my family and resign my Senate seat," Stanley said yesterday.

The GOP politician fought for pro-business measures but also opposed adoption by gay couples and spoke against Planned Parenthood funding because he said he believed unmarried people should not have sex. "Whatever I stood for and advocated, I still believe to be true," he said. Newser