Do you remember a few years ago the US Government threatened Microsoft under antitrust laws?
Funny how that interest sort of faded. But only for a while. Like they were regrouping somewhere in the cellars of the Pentagon or the NSA or the White House. Down there in the dark among the lizards.
Then the Government came charging back with a fury and threatened to dismantle Microsoft into three separate companies. They feared Microsoft had way too much power because of their monopolistic position in the computer market? That is bad, they said.
But wait, someone might have exclaimed, wouldn't a monopoly be a GOOD thing if a government could use it to control people and identify where they were and what they were saying and doing and thinking? And the road was headed to everyone owning a computer? And wouldn’t those puters most likely have the Windows Operating System? Isn't Windows on 98% of all computers with XP, Vista or now Windows 7 OS?
Have you noticed that when you go to a website, and then delete or clear all your cookies, and then go back to that website some time later, they seem to know who you are?
Didn't Microsoft put a unique number into your operating system under the hype that it was a good thing to control piracy of their software? Then under waves of protest from the public they said they wouldn't TURN ON that unique identifying number? Or at least YOU could turn it off? And doesn't your hard drive have a unique number too? Did you know that even your CD burner imprints a unique number onto every CD you burn identifying the actual burner? And your digital camera does the same thing. Even if you steal it from the web, someone can find out who TOOK that picture. And when and where?
Didn't the FBI come out with a sneaky computer spy system called Carnivore a few years ago, that could read the contents of any computer it wanted through your server? Then they changed the name because it seemed too ominous and scary and 1984ish? Funny how the past can scare us.
Carnivore could see every single email you sent to whomever and every word you typed into your hard drive or internet browser? Mostly Microsoft’s Internet Explorer of course.
Including every password and user name you ever used in a chat room or discussion forum? And didn't all this happen at about the same time as Microsoft introduced Windows XP? And didn't the US hold these server companies hostage by threatening to shut them down unless they installed Carnivore into their systems without telling anyone? Without telling their customers? You.
Sorry for all these rhetorical questions, but ….
Doesn't Homeland Security and the Patriot Act give the government pitbulls the power to do anything they want without telling anyone about what they are doing? To fight terrorism they say? Hmm.
Isn't Microsoft starting to add things now to updates of its software without making it clear to technical people exactly what those updates are or what they are supposed to do? In Windows Media player some technicians have compared the guts of Media Player 9.0 with Media Player 10.0 and can't find the differences? So why the update?
Would the US government and Bill Gates have made a secret deal somewhere in the shadowy bowels of the Pentagon with all those Gila Monsters to allow Microsoft to continue as one company, so long as the Justice department had access to the Windows Operating System? Wouldn’t proud papa Bill Gates have done anything to avoid the Sophie’s choice decision about his company? His precious family. His birth child.
After all, we all know that starting a company becomes your googly baby, your loving family and you nurture it along the way until it becomes something to be proud of like your son growing up to be famous? And wouldn’t any worried parent have done what he had to do to keep it all together? Bill Gates being no exception?
I don't know ... wouldn’t he?
Er ... would the US government be that sneaky as to threaten Bill Gates into a deal that allowed them to monitor the masses through the most used computer system in the world? Oops, sorry for yet another rhetorical question, but I was there in the sixties.
I have not lost faith. I still believe in the sneakiness of certain humans who want their way. And I understand the vulnerability of parents who fear for their children. And I still know that stealthy power-mongering forces attempt to run the world from the dark side.
They say that when a venomous Gila Monster bites you, he doesn’t let go until sunset. I may even start believing in reptilian shape-shifters.
As the poetic prophet Bob Dylan once said, ‘It ain’t dark yet, but it’s gettin’ there.’
Monday, March 15, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Social sites
I wonder how many of you belong to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, etc? If you are already a member it is probably too late for you. If you have not signed up yet, you need to consider the future for your ilk and offspring.
Right now there are probably millions of people in North America who are basically unaccounted for. Illegal immigrants of course, but many more who might have been here for years and never bothered to sign up for anything. Farmers, hunters living in the bush, hermits, the homeless, drifters, hoboes riding the rails, hidden in boxcars from the prying eyes of the rulesmakers, people who just disappeared. However these seem to be mostly older folk who have somehow been excluded from society and just became loners. But they'll die off soon, they're not the targets.
Today's youth are up to their pierced ears in the computer generation. And you KNOW you have an ISP number that identifies some things about you. And the hard drive within your computer has a unique ID number too.
Of course everyone is into the computer age. Including people who just might, sometime, want to know what you are doing out there in broad band land. Like what are you texting from your cellphone, sending on your Blackberry or commenting from your iPod? And to who? The governments in North America at least, and one suspects Britain and Euro countries are the same, have wonderful computers that can keep track of BILLIONS of facts and figures easily. Billions of course, meaning every single person on Earth. Many billions also meaning all those people AND every other single person that THEY know or have known. Six degrees of separation compressed into one nanosecond flash. More like six bytes now.
If you have signed up for facebook, for instance, you've already told someone everything about yourself. Including DOB, date of birth, which is used mainly for all police identification, and you even gave them your mother's maiden name! Your long dead dog who got run over when you were six, where you lived before now and before that. Where your Grandpaw came from. What you ate for breakfast, your fave foods, stores, cars, people, books, art. Your user name. Tatoos too, proud of that high flying trapezium? Almost as good as DNA for identifying you.
Sheeez it is endless.
But it is so much fun for the youth of today. Tweat your daily activities. Twitter your plans. Bleat your intentions, Blab your past. Write on your Wall. Message me, message all.
Not unlike those scribbles on washroom walls that used to say, 'for a good time call Gloria at 555-IM1-RU12'. And you wrote it down on a square of toilet paper. Today that square could hold your family history with a millennium to go.
And once you've entered all your pertinent info. You'll be into the broad band of fun fun fun and have .... ahem .... 'friends'. They promise.
Have you noticed how many governments are now embracing the internet? They are beginning to love it. The CIA, NSA, FBI, CSIS, MI5-6 and maybe even the KGB don't even have to go looking for you anymore in order to find out things about you. And if you suspect stuff like I do, then you KNOW that a windfall of information is there for the taking. Electronic surveillance with little effort. They simply set up their own social site, promote the hell out of it and have those millions of clickers come to simply donate the information needed to keep track of you.
Click to add a friend. Click to add government watchers.
But would government do such a thing? They monitored international telegrams before WWII. David Sarnoff, the head of Radio Corporation of America gave copies of Japanese RCA telegrams to Naval Intelligence. The CIA had its own airline in the sixties, Air America used for whatever nefarious purposes. They probably used taxpayer's cash to finance propaganda movies like United 93 and write totally fictitious dialogue to make themselves heroes. Google Gulf of Tonkin and see what you get. And using their own form of Google in their own computers will bring results on you too.
Click - add keywords - click - search database - click -refine search - click - area - click - click click .......
Oh, so THAT's who you know. Is it the same person who knew your mother in Mississippi? And the same guy who likes Mustang cars and casaba melon and wears orange and was in Texas when .... ? Aha, got it! You must be Freddie Zimmerman. Didn't you have trouble with porn once? We'll check your library card to see what books you took out. Your gas card to see where you went. Credit card to see what you bought.
You get the disquieting idea.
So maybe you can lie about the whole thing when you sign up? Don't tell your Internet Service Provider where you live. And not be in the system. Hmm, already suspicious activity. Not likely to be connected at all. So the ISP number betrays you. That sneaky little hard drive number defines it closer. I even had to supply my modem serial number for tech support from my new cable internet provider. You know of course, that literally everything you do goes through your modem. And consequently your emails and chat room conversations can be monitored and recorded. And you once had that argument on a forum about gun control and the NWO. Remember? At the risk of breaking the laws of the Patriot Act, your ISP MUST provide information to Homeland Security and cannot even tell YOU that you are being watched.
Oh yes, you are THAT guy or girl? The one who keeps asking for friends from British Columbia who went to school in East Vancouver in 1982.
We might need to watch you, 82 was a convulsive year. We might want to eliminate all 1982 people someday. The planets align people's genes in a certain way at certain times and they're all threats.
Yes, those old drifters in and out of reality are harmless. Huddled at the back of the boxcar amid the cowchips. Barely seen through the slats. They've learned how to be invisible. Forgotten. But the young who sign up for fun and good times are the ones at risk. And their children. And in their future, a genome lottery might determine whether your family line even continues in humanity.
And I have not even mentioned RFID chips. Or the fact that Google Earth now has a street view of every street in North America and almost everywhere else! But that's a whole 'nuther subject.
Your friends are close .... but your enemies may be closer.
Try not to let it get under your skin.
Right now there are probably millions of people in North America who are basically unaccounted for. Illegal immigrants of course, but many more who might have been here for years and never bothered to sign up for anything. Farmers, hunters living in the bush, hermits, the homeless, drifters, hoboes riding the rails, hidden in boxcars from the prying eyes of the rulesmakers, people who just disappeared. However these seem to be mostly older folk who have somehow been excluded from society and just became loners. But they'll die off soon, they're not the targets.
Today's youth are up to their pierced ears in the computer generation. And you KNOW you have an ISP number that identifies some things about you. And the hard drive within your computer has a unique ID number too.
Of course everyone is into the computer age. Including people who just might, sometime, want to know what you are doing out there in broad band land. Like what are you texting from your cellphone, sending on your Blackberry or commenting from your iPod? And to who? The governments in North America at least, and one suspects Britain and Euro countries are the same, have wonderful computers that can keep track of BILLIONS of facts and figures easily. Billions of course, meaning every single person on Earth. Many billions also meaning all those people AND every other single person that THEY know or have known. Six degrees of separation compressed into one nanosecond flash. More like six bytes now.
If you have signed up for facebook, for instance, you've already told someone everything about yourself. Including DOB, date of birth, which is used mainly for all police identification, and you even gave them your mother's maiden name! Your long dead dog who got run over when you were six, where you lived before now and before that. Where your Grandpaw came from. What you ate for breakfast, your fave foods, stores, cars, people, books, art. Your user name. Tatoos too, proud of that high flying trapezium? Almost as good as DNA for identifying you.
Sheeez it is endless.
But it is so much fun for the youth of today. Tweat your daily activities. Twitter your plans. Bleat your intentions, Blab your past. Write on your Wall. Message me, message all.
Not unlike those scribbles on washroom walls that used to say, 'for a good time call Gloria at 555-IM1-RU12'. And you wrote it down on a square of toilet paper. Today that square could hold your family history with a millennium to go.
And once you've entered all your pertinent info. You'll be into the broad band of fun fun fun and have .... ahem .... 'friends'. They promise.
Have you noticed how many governments are now embracing the internet? They are beginning to love it. The CIA, NSA, FBI, CSIS, MI5-6 and maybe even the KGB don't even have to go looking for you anymore in order to find out things about you. And if you suspect stuff like I do, then you KNOW that a windfall of information is there for the taking. Electronic surveillance with little effort. They simply set up their own social site, promote the hell out of it and have those millions of clickers come to simply donate the information needed to keep track of you.
Click to add a friend. Click to add government watchers.
But would government do such a thing? They monitored international telegrams before WWII. David Sarnoff, the head of Radio Corporation of America gave copies of Japanese RCA telegrams to Naval Intelligence. The CIA had its own airline in the sixties, Air America used for whatever nefarious purposes. They probably used taxpayer's cash to finance propaganda movies like United 93 and write totally fictitious dialogue to make themselves heroes. Google Gulf of Tonkin and see what you get. And using their own form of Google in their own computers will bring results on you too.
Click - add keywords - click - search database - click -refine search - click - area - click - click click .......
Oh, so THAT's who you know. Is it the same person who knew your mother in Mississippi? And the same guy who likes Mustang cars and casaba melon and wears orange and was in Texas when .... ? Aha, got it! You must be Freddie Zimmerman. Didn't you have trouble with porn once? We'll check your library card to see what books you took out. Your gas card to see where you went. Credit card to see what you bought.
You get the disquieting idea.
So maybe you can lie about the whole thing when you sign up? Don't tell your Internet Service Provider where you live. And not be in the system. Hmm, already suspicious activity. Not likely to be connected at all. So the ISP number betrays you. That sneaky little hard drive number defines it closer. I even had to supply my modem serial number for tech support from my new cable internet provider. You know of course, that literally everything you do goes through your modem. And consequently your emails and chat room conversations can be monitored and recorded. And you once had that argument on a forum about gun control and the NWO. Remember? At the risk of breaking the laws of the Patriot Act, your ISP MUST provide information to Homeland Security and cannot even tell YOU that you are being watched.
Oh yes, you are THAT guy or girl? The one who keeps asking for friends from British Columbia who went to school in East Vancouver in 1982.
We might need to watch you, 82 was a convulsive year. We might want to eliminate all 1982 people someday. The planets align people's genes in a certain way at certain times and they're all threats.
Yes, those old drifters in and out of reality are harmless. Huddled at the back of the boxcar amid the cowchips. Barely seen through the slats. They've learned how to be invisible. Forgotten. But the young who sign up for fun and good times are the ones at risk. And their children. And in their future, a genome lottery might determine whether your family line even continues in humanity.
And I have not even mentioned RFID chips. Or the fact that Google Earth now has a street view of every street in North America and almost everywhere else! But that's a whole 'nuther subject.
Your friends are close .... but your enemies may be closer.
Try not to let it get under your skin.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Conspiracy theory ... 2 - Dag Hammarskjold
Sweden's Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 10 April 1953 until 18 September 1961 when he met his death in a plane accident while on a peace mission in the Congo.
An accident.
In 1960, when President Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of the Congo sent a cable on 12 July asking 'urgent dispatch' of United Nations military assistance to the Congo, Secretary-General Hammarskjöld addressed the Security Council at a night meeting on 13 July and asked the Council to act 'with utmost speed' on the request. Following Security Council actions the United Nations Force in the Congo was established and the Secretary-General himself made four trips to the Congo in connection with the United Nations operations there. The first two trips were made in July and August 1960 and January 1961. The fourth began on 12 September 1961 and terminated with the fatal plane accident.
Natural resources of the Congo: petroleum, timber, potash, lead, zinc, uranium, copper, phosphates, natural gas, hydropower.
Patrice Lumumba helped found the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) in 1958. Lumumba and the MNC formed the first government on June 23, 1960, with Lumumba as Prime Minister.
Upon independence in 1960, the former French region of Middle Congo became the Republic of the Congo and began a flirtation with Marxism.
Hammarskjöld’s most dangerous problem of the newly liberated Congo arose in July, 1960, when the new government, faced with mutiny in its army, secession of its province of Katanga, under Moise Tshombe, and intervention of Belgian troops, asked the United Nations for help. The UN responded by sending a peace-keeping force, with Hammarskjöld in charge of operations.
Despite the arrival of UN troops, unrest continued as the USA had interest to see the Belgians remain in the country. And Patrice Lamumba sought Soviet aid. But in September Lumumba was dismissed from the government by Kasavubu, an act of dubious legality. On September 14 a coup d'état headed by Colonel Joseph Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko) and supported by Kasavubu gained power. Lumumba was captured in Port Francqui on December 1, 1960 by troops of Mobutu, arrested and flown to Leopoldville in handcuffs. Mobutu said Lumumba would be tried for inciting the army to rebellion and other crimes.
United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld made an appeal to Kasavubu asking that Lumumba be treated according to due process of law. The USSR denounced Hammarskjöld and the Western Powers as responsible for Lumumba's arrest and demanded his release.
When the situation deteriorated during the year that followed, Hammarskjöld had to deal with almost insuperable difficulties in the Congo and with criticism in the UN. The last crisis for him came in September, 1961, when, arriving in Leopoldville to discuss details of UN aid with the Congolese government, he learned that fighting had erupted between Katanga troops and the noncombatant forces of the UN.
Sometime in the night of September 17-18, Dag Hammarskjöld and fifteen others perished when their plane crashed close to Ndola airport, near the border between Katanga and North Rhodesia. The details of that crash are still unknown.
A plane crash was an easy thing to engineer and accomplish in those days of naivity among Western nations. The Soviet bloc was after uranium. The USA was trying to keep them away from a source of supply. Hammarskjöld was working toward a democratic republic for the Congo and became a stumbling block for Soviet domination of the resource rich region, especially that all important uranium.
The quarter century of experimentation with Marxism was abandoned in 1990 and a democratically elected government was installed in 1992. The Republic of Congo is one of Africa's largest petroleum producers with significant potential for offshore development.
In July 2002, documents released by the United States government revealed that the CIA had played a role in Lumumba's assassination, aiding his opponents with money and political support, and – in the case of Mobutu – with weapons and military training. Did the USA actually supply Katanga troops with weapons with which to fight against the UN peace keeping forces?
The former USSR has never released any documents saying they or the KGB engineered Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane crash. Perhaps they’re buried somewhere within the permafrost depths of the Kremlin or Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow?
The Cold War was not always cold.
An accident.
In 1960, when President Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of the Congo sent a cable on 12 July asking 'urgent dispatch' of United Nations military assistance to the Congo, Secretary-General Hammarskjöld addressed the Security Council at a night meeting on 13 July and asked the Council to act 'with utmost speed' on the request. Following Security Council actions the United Nations Force in the Congo was established and the Secretary-General himself made four trips to the Congo in connection with the United Nations operations there. The first two trips were made in July and August 1960 and January 1961. The fourth began on 12 September 1961 and terminated with the fatal plane accident.
Natural resources of the Congo: petroleum, timber, potash, lead, zinc, uranium, copper, phosphates, natural gas, hydropower.
Patrice Lumumba helped found the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) in 1958. Lumumba and the MNC formed the first government on June 23, 1960, with Lumumba as Prime Minister.
Upon independence in 1960, the former French region of Middle Congo became the Republic of the Congo and began a flirtation with Marxism.
Hammarskjöld’s most dangerous problem of the newly liberated Congo arose in July, 1960, when the new government, faced with mutiny in its army, secession of its province of Katanga, under Moise Tshombe, and intervention of Belgian troops, asked the United Nations for help. The UN responded by sending a peace-keeping force, with Hammarskjöld in charge of operations.
Despite the arrival of UN troops, unrest continued as the USA had interest to see the Belgians remain in the country. And Patrice Lamumba sought Soviet aid. But in September Lumumba was dismissed from the government by Kasavubu, an act of dubious legality. On September 14 a coup d'état headed by Colonel Joseph Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko) and supported by Kasavubu gained power. Lumumba was captured in Port Francqui on December 1, 1960 by troops of Mobutu, arrested and flown to Leopoldville in handcuffs. Mobutu said Lumumba would be tried for inciting the army to rebellion and other crimes.
United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld made an appeal to Kasavubu asking that Lumumba be treated according to due process of law. The USSR denounced Hammarskjöld and the Western Powers as responsible for Lumumba's arrest and demanded his release.
When the situation deteriorated during the year that followed, Hammarskjöld had to deal with almost insuperable difficulties in the Congo and with criticism in the UN. The last crisis for him came in September, 1961, when, arriving in Leopoldville to discuss details of UN aid with the Congolese government, he learned that fighting had erupted between Katanga troops and the noncombatant forces of the UN.
Sometime in the night of September 17-18, Dag Hammarskjöld and fifteen others perished when their plane crashed close to Ndola airport, near the border between Katanga and North Rhodesia. The details of that crash are still unknown.
A plane crash was an easy thing to engineer and accomplish in those days of naivity among Western nations. The Soviet bloc was after uranium. The USA was trying to keep them away from a source of supply. Hammarskjöld was working toward a democratic republic for the Congo and became a stumbling block for Soviet domination of the resource rich region, especially that all important uranium.
The quarter century of experimentation with Marxism was abandoned in 1990 and a democratically elected government was installed in 1992. The Republic of Congo is one of Africa's largest petroleum producers with significant potential for offshore development.
In July 2002, documents released by the United States government revealed that the CIA had played a role in Lumumba's assassination, aiding his opponents with money and political support, and – in the case of Mobutu – with weapons and military training. Did the USA actually supply Katanga troops with weapons with which to fight against the UN peace keeping forces?
The former USSR has never released any documents saying they or the KGB engineered Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane crash. Perhaps they’re buried somewhere within the permafrost depths of the Kremlin or Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow?
The Cold War was not always cold.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Protest messengers
Many people are angry at the protesters who appeared on day one of the Olympic games up in Vancouver, and rightly so. A few protesters who could not organize enough to put out a cohesive effort and make a point, (whatever it was) was subject to an attention grabbing cadre of violent thugs. The police and public pushed back and the protesters were diminished and the point was lost. However the impression of violence remained.
As we all know deep down, walking the streets with signs, writing letters, shouting and screaming just doesn't work. The powers that be, meaning most corporations and banks, find that laughable and it has NO influence on their plans. The fact is that corporations are now basically running the world, including many governments. Scruffy characters walking the streets with signs just doesn't cut it. However, lobbyists in expensive suits with secret agendas is working.
So how does the messenger get the word out without being shot?
Perhaps it is all in who shoots first?
Years ago when the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) needed to assert itself they realized they needed drastic action. They kidnapped Pierre Laporte and murdered him, causing the October Crisis and attention on their cause. A clear and attention demanding message as to what it was.
The Squamish Five, basically environmental activists, began by engaging in vandalism, spurred by special environmental exemptions given to mining companies by government. This quickly became bombing attacks, to get the cognizance of the people. Concentration of the mind through ultra violence worked again.
There are many more instances since of taking extreme measures to make the point which some activists need to expose. They are labeled terrorists today. And that's what they are.
The roving tear-gas filled protests in Seattle at the WTO conference did eventually center the public's attention through the smoke on the ramifications of trade agreements that don't consider humans in the corporate mix. People did begin to ask, 'What are they protesting?' and the message seeped out.
So the protesters at the Vancouver Olympics breaking store windows was more of an act of disjointed hoodlumism than a real protest, but it did occupy the media for a few days. Any serious communication by the original paraders was missed, stolen by those few visuals of violence.
And it seems that as the weeks and months pass on, the corporations, governments, New World Order, and criminal organizations will take a little more power. And the populace will lose a few more freedoms.
In today's world, the event of note needs to be desperate and violent to capture attention. But is the action negated without a clear and simple understandable message which appeals to the people? Preaching anarchy for it's own sake doesn't work. And anyone who brings that message will be shot down before the purpose can be expressed. Shot down literally as in Kent State 1970.
It seems the message has to read like a movie script to work. What is wrong? Why is it wrong? And who is responsible for making it wrong. And most important, proof of what they have done to cause the problem. Michael Moore has the formula but then he is rich enough to produce it. And a solution must be offered.
It's not quite a plutocracy, not quite an oligarchy, and not quite anarchy, even though they the small group within a group display that graphic a on their black banner. It seems what they are really protesting is the corporate enslavement of the people.
And we know from decades long campaigns against cigarette companies, for instance, by governments and organized activists, that deflecting the terrifying consequence of corporate greed with huge money works, and protest through peaceful, legal means does not.
What we remember in the theater of the Olympic Games is that shocking image of black-clad masked thugs smashing chairs through windows. If there HAD been a true message there, we would now know it. Right or wrong. However uneasy the thought, we know that violence works, from the Mafia to the Hell's Angels to the suicide bombers in Iraq, we know.
So what is left for the messenger? Shoot first and answer questions later?
As we all know deep down, walking the streets with signs, writing letters, shouting and screaming just doesn't work. The powers that be, meaning most corporations and banks, find that laughable and it has NO influence on their plans. The fact is that corporations are now basically running the world, including many governments. Scruffy characters walking the streets with signs just doesn't cut it. However, lobbyists in expensive suits with secret agendas is working.
So how does the messenger get the word out without being shot?
Perhaps it is all in who shoots first?
Years ago when the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) needed to assert itself they realized they needed drastic action. They kidnapped Pierre Laporte and murdered him, causing the October Crisis and attention on their cause. A clear and attention demanding message as to what it was.
The Squamish Five, basically environmental activists, began by engaging in vandalism, spurred by special environmental exemptions given to mining companies by government. This quickly became bombing attacks, to get the cognizance of the people. Concentration of the mind through ultra violence worked again.
There are many more instances since of taking extreme measures to make the point which some activists need to expose. They are labeled terrorists today. And that's what they are.
The roving tear-gas filled protests in Seattle at the WTO conference did eventually center the public's attention through the smoke on the ramifications of trade agreements that don't consider humans in the corporate mix. People did begin to ask, 'What are they protesting?' and the message seeped out.
So the protesters at the Vancouver Olympics breaking store windows was more of an act of disjointed hoodlumism than a real protest, but it did occupy the media for a few days. Any serious communication by the original paraders was missed, stolen by those few visuals of violence.
And it seems that as the weeks and months pass on, the corporations, governments, New World Order, and criminal organizations will take a little more power. And the populace will lose a few more freedoms.
In today's world, the event of note needs to be desperate and violent to capture attention. But is the action negated without a clear and simple understandable message which appeals to the people? Preaching anarchy for it's own sake doesn't work. And anyone who brings that message will be shot down before the purpose can be expressed. Shot down literally as in Kent State 1970.
It seems the message has to read like a movie script to work. What is wrong? Why is it wrong? And who is responsible for making it wrong. And most important, proof of what they have done to cause the problem. Michael Moore has the formula but then he is rich enough to produce it. And a solution must be offered.
It's not quite a plutocracy, not quite an oligarchy, and not quite anarchy, even though they the small group within a group display that graphic a on their black banner. It seems what they are really protesting is the corporate enslavement of the people.
And we know from decades long campaigns against cigarette companies, for instance, by governments and organized activists, that deflecting the terrifying consequence of corporate greed with huge money works, and protest through peaceful, legal means does not.
What we remember in the theater of the Olympic Games is that shocking image of black-clad masked thugs smashing chairs through windows. If there HAD been a true message there, we would now know it. Right or wrong. However uneasy the thought, we know that violence works, from the Mafia to the Hell's Angels to the suicide bombers in Iraq, we know.
So what is left for the messenger? Shoot first and answer questions later?
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Red Maple Leaf
Today in 1965 the emblem of the red maple was chosen for Canada's national flag. Now a bright beacon and welcome sight for Canadian travelers everywhere.
Two vertical bands of red (hoist and fly side, half width),
with a single white square between them;
11-pointed red maple leaf is centered in the white square.
The official colors of Canada are red and white.
Two vertical bands of red (hoist and fly side, half width),
with a single white square between them;
11-pointed red maple leaf is centered in the white square.
The official colors of Canada are red and white.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Conspiracy theory ... 1 - General George S. Patton
Unlike many war heroes who had no intention of ever becoming famous, George S. Patton decided during childhood that his goal in life was to be a hero. This noble aim was first inspired by listening to his father read aloud for hours about the exploits of the heroes of ancient Greece.
We are aware of General Patton’s accomplishments during World War II. But there are niggling factors after the war in 1945 which are also interesting;
Patton was not about to slow down or shut up after his military successes in Europe. No one knew quite what to do with him. He was a true hawk. One congressman even proposed that he be made Secretary of War, but Patton's lack of diplomacy guaranteed the suggestion was never taken seriously.
In Germany, while on occupation duty after a visit to the States during which he was welcomed with parades as a conquering hero, Patton's outspokenness got him into trouble yet again when he tried justifying the use of ex-Nazis in important administrative positions during the occupation of Bavaria. (In Sun Tzu's ancient treatise, The Art of War, he proposes, 'The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept. This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one's own strength. Of course General Patton read it.)
Patton had also been willing to make known his view that the United States and Britain should re-arm the Germans and fight the Russians. He had great respect for German soldiers. Patton knew, along with many others, who the real enemy was going to be. And he was credited with saying, “We ought to keep going.”
Other comments that set alertness and esoteric interest among his enemies were that he had expressed his views to reporters that U.S. plans for post-war Germany were "foolish and stupid" and would lead to Soviet attempts to take over Western Europe. "I was intentionally direct because I believed that it was time for the people to know what was going on," he recalled before his death. Those enemies might not have all been Russians.
These comments and beliefs however, showed that Patton's temperament was somewhat of a liability in peacetime. In many ways, it would have been fitting for Patton the warrior to have died on the battlefield, but that was not to be. Despite the fact that throughout his military career he had constantly exposed himself to danger, it was a traffic accident, not a bullet, which took Patton's life. In December 1945, one day before he was due to return to the United States, Patton was severely injured in a road accident when his car was hit by a truck near Mannheim, Germany. Paralyzed from the neck down, George Patton died of an embolism on 21st December 1945.
Emboli are caused by clots from the venous circulation, from the right side of the heart, from tumors that have invaded the circulatory system, or from other sources such as amniotic fluid, air, fat, bone marrow, and foreign substances. Sudden death can occur as a result of embolism. Injecting AIR into a vein or artery is easily done.
He was buried in Luxembourg, a country which still considers George S. Patton its liberator.
Did the emerging USSR deem Patton to be far too dangerous to live? What if he returned to the US and countered his detractors by seeking political power? Was it possible that he, now a national hero, could become president of the United States? Patton was a student of war history and it’s generals, including Hannibal, the Carthaginian had been defeated by the Romans at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC after ransacking Italy for 14 years. Hannibal became a diplomatic force and a skilled trader in peacetime and guided Carthage to pay off the war reparations too quickly, and the Romans considered him such an ominous threat as to hunt him down and kill him. Could Patton have followed that idea? We’ll never know.
Surely a President Patton would have meant war against the USSR. When would agents of the Russians have better means and opportunity to murder him than in Europe? He would be unreachable back in the States. But was someone ELSE afraid of Patton? His murder would be unexplainable back in the States and not readily accountable to foreign agents. Was the USA also afraid of George S. Patton?
But then it was a simple car accident, wasn't it?
Addenda - April 2009
Robert Wilcox has written a book Target Patten, that feeds this particular theory; that Patton's sudden death was a planned assassination. One would suspect that the book is a result of constant conspiracy theories about Patton, and collusion between the Soviet union, the Communist Left in America and the US Government at the highest levels.
We are aware of General Patton’s accomplishments during World War II. But there are niggling factors after the war in 1945 which are also interesting;
Patton was not about to slow down or shut up after his military successes in Europe. No one knew quite what to do with him. He was a true hawk. One congressman even proposed that he be made Secretary of War, but Patton's lack of diplomacy guaranteed the suggestion was never taken seriously.
In Germany, while on occupation duty after a visit to the States during which he was welcomed with parades as a conquering hero, Patton's outspokenness got him into trouble yet again when he tried justifying the use of ex-Nazis in important administrative positions during the occupation of Bavaria. (In Sun Tzu's ancient treatise, The Art of War, he proposes, 'The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept. This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one's own strength. Of course General Patton read it.)
Patton had also been willing to make known his view that the United States and Britain should re-arm the Germans and fight the Russians. He had great respect for German soldiers. Patton knew, along with many others, who the real enemy was going to be. And he was credited with saying, “We ought to keep going.”
Other comments that set alertness and esoteric interest among his enemies were that he had expressed his views to reporters that U.S. plans for post-war Germany were "foolish and stupid" and would lead to Soviet attempts to take over Western Europe. "I was intentionally direct because I believed that it was time for the people to know what was going on," he recalled before his death. Those enemies might not have all been Russians.
These comments and beliefs however, showed that Patton's temperament was somewhat of a liability in peacetime. In many ways, it would have been fitting for Patton the warrior to have died on the battlefield, but that was not to be. Despite the fact that throughout his military career he had constantly exposed himself to danger, it was a traffic accident, not a bullet, which took Patton's life. In December 1945, one day before he was due to return to the United States, Patton was severely injured in a road accident when his car was hit by a truck near Mannheim, Germany. Paralyzed from the neck down, George Patton died of an embolism on 21st December 1945.
Emboli are caused by clots from the venous circulation, from the right side of the heart, from tumors that have invaded the circulatory system, or from other sources such as amniotic fluid, air, fat, bone marrow, and foreign substances. Sudden death can occur as a result of embolism. Injecting AIR into a vein or artery is easily done.
He was buried in Luxembourg, a country which still considers George S. Patton its liberator.
Did the emerging USSR deem Patton to be far too dangerous to live? What if he returned to the US and countered his detractors by seeking political power? Was it possible that he, now a national hero, could become president of the United States? Patton was a student of war history and it’s generals, including Hannibal, the Carthaginian had been defeated by the Romans at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC after ransacking Italy for 14 years. Hannibal became a diplomatic force and a skilled trader in peacetime and guided Carthage to pay off the war reparations too quickly, and the Romans considered him such an ominous threat as to hunt him down and kill him. Could Patton have followed that idea? We’ll never know.
Surely a President Patton would have meant war against the USSR. When would agents of the Russians have better means and opportunity to murder him than in Europe? He would be unreachable back in the States. But was someone ELSE afraid of Patton? His murder would be unexplainable back in the States and not readily accountable to foreign agents. Was the USA also afraid of George S. Patton?
But then it was a simple car accident, wasn't it?
Addenda - April 2009
Robert Wilcox has written a book Target Patten, that feeds this particular theory; that Patton's sudden death was a planned assassination. One would suspect that the book is a result of constant conspiracy theories about Patton, and collusion between the Soviet union, the Communist Left in America and the US Government at the highest levels.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Today in History . . . February 05, 1958
The US Air Force loses a hydrogen bomb off the US east coast of Georgia.
This broken arrow event is known as the 1958 Tybee Island B-47 crash and was an incident on February 5, 1958 in which the United States Air Force lost a 7,600 pound, twelve foot long, Mark 15 nuclear bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah. The Tybee Bomb as it is now called was jettisoned to save the aircrew during a practice exercise after the B-47 bomber carrying it collided in midair with an F-86 fighter plane. Following several unsuccessful searches, it was presumed lost somewhere in Wassow Sound off the shores of Tybee Island and is thought to be buried under 15 feet of silt. . . . . ... Tick tick tick.
If it was only a training exercise, couldn't they have loaded 4 tons of sandbags on board instead?
To date, some 14 nuclear weapons are known to be missing from the US arsenal alone. And we're supposed to be worried about Russian bombs missing?
Suntanning anyone? You might be glowing if you do on Tybee Island, but not with health. It is said that local residents can cook chicken without even turning their ovens on.
Are you worried yet? Mad? Or just plain scared?
This broken arrow event is known as the 1958 Tybee Island B-47 crash and was an incident on February 5, 1958 in which the United States Air Force lost a 7,600 pound, twelve foot long, Mark 15 nuclear bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah. The Tybee Bomb as it is now called was jettisoned to save the aircrew during a practice exercise after the B-47 bomber carrying it collided in midair with an F-86 fighter plane. Following several unsuccessful searches, it was presumed lost somewhere in Wassow Sound off the shores of Tybee Island and is thought to be buried under 15 feet of silt. . . . . ... Tick tick tick.
If it was only a training exercise, couldn't they have loaded 4 tons of sandbags on board instead?
To date, some 14 nuclear weapons are known to be missing from the US arsenal alone. And we're supposed to be worried about Russian bombs missing?
Suntanning anyone? You might be glowing if you do on Tybee Island, but not with health. It is said that local residents can cook chicken without even turning their ovens on.
Are you worried yet? Mad? Or just plain scared?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Price fixing?
Can you do price fixing in a free market?
Of course you can, just make it LOOK like you are competing normally and we can all gouge the public. Of course we all know that fixing prices is illegal, against the Canada Competition Act.
The Competition Act is a federal law governing most business conduct in Canada. It contains both criminal and civil provisions aimed at preventing anti-competitive practices in the marketplace.
Let me tell you how the act it is gotten around - funny how I noticed this and the thousands of women who shop for these products are quite content to pay the full retail price without even a whimper. (perhaps tears would solidify like caulk)
So let's say we have a few competing department stores that sell, say a cosmetic product to women. Maybe a lotion, something like what they are calling 'Night Recovery Skin Rebirth.' I just made that up. And let's say the names of these stores are The Bar, Dolt Ranfroo and Cleatons.
For whatever reasons, the cosmetic perfume companies lease space within these department stores. You know them, all classy and white marble, always on the ground floor with svelte dressed women wearing black and more makeup than an Aunt Jemima bag. I believe that Chanel, Dior, Elizabeth Arden etc etc at all do this everywhere.
I knew a young woman who worked at one of these counters once, she had just gotten the job as manager of a cosmetics perfume department. Let's call OUR cosmetics company,
Jemima
Youth Products International. JYPI for short. (fictitious of course) And I, coming from the hard and fast retail competition of a store like London Drugs, advised her on how to compete against the competition. Like when your neighboring competitor advertises a product, you meet or better that price, so as to not lose customers who can simply cross the street for the bargain.
What she explained to me shriveled my ears. She told me she would get fired if she did that. She said that, although Store A was having their promotion for JYPI this week, in two weeks she would have hers.
So here's the trick: The 'competitor' Store A, (hereafter in quotations for obvious reasons) has the 10 oz bottle of JIPY Liquid Refresher Night Balm on sale at $50. and you get a free velvet bag with it.
Now comes my friend's 'promotion' two weeks later, in her Store B. For $52 dollars, you get the JYPI 9 oz Cream Night Refresher Balm and now get a free leather pouch bag!
Next week the promo for 'competitor' Store C is advertising JYPI 11 oz Evening Balm Fresh Rub with gifty glitter box for $51 dollars.
You get the point? None of these products is exactly like the 'competition's' product, each package is manufactured for one store chain only, so Store A NEVER gets the exact same product as Store B and so on, therefore it can be sold without any consideration of competitiveness. Or suspicions about the JYPI Corporation breaking the Competition Act! And because our JYPI Corporation really controls ALL of the marble counters offering their product, they also control the management, staff and price of that JYPI product, even though many unrelated stores actually sell it.
Hence, NO one will actually compete the product on price. The Jemima Youth Products International company makes their product markup exactly as planned. Profits attained. Nothing at all to do with the actual creme of the product only costing $1 and the packaging maybe $2. Handshakes and grins from sly CEOs all around. And the poor women shopping for something to mortar the depths of their age wrinkles pay full price for everything, all the time, everywhere. And basically ALL these cosmetic companies do exactly the same thing.
This IS anti-competitive conduct. This is sneaky marketing at its best. This is price fixing.
Of course you can, just make it LOOK like you are competing normally and we can all gouge the public. Of course we all know that fixing prices is illegal, against the Canada Competition Act.
The Competition Act is a federal law governing most business conduct in Canada. It contains both criminal and civil provisions aimed at preventing anti-competitive practices in the marketplace.
Let me tell you how the act it is gotten around - funny how I noticed this and the thousands of women who shop for these products are quite content to pay the full retail price without even a whimper. (perhaps tears would solidify like caulk)
So let's say we have a few competing department stores that sell, say a cosmetic product to women. Maybe a lotion, something like what they are calling 'Night Recovery Skin Rebirth.' I just made that up. And let's say the names of these stores are The Bar, Dolt Ranfroo and Cleatons.
For whatever reasons, the cosmetic perfume companies lease space within these department stores. You know them, all classy and white marble, always on the ground floor with svelte dressed women wearing black and more makeup than an Aunt Jemima bag. I believe that Chanel, Dior, Elizabeth Arden etc etc at all do this everywhere.
I knew a young woman who worked at one of these counters once, she had just gotten the job as manager of a cosmetics perfume department. Let's call OUR cosmetics company,
Jemima
Youth Products International. JYPI for short. (fictitious of course) And I, coming from the hard and fast retail competition of a store like London Drugs, advised her on how to compete against the competition. Like when your neighboring competitor advertises a product, you meet or better that price, so as to not lose customers who can simply cross the street for the bargain.What she explained to me shriveled my ears. She told me she would get fired if she did that. She said that, although Store A was having their promotion for JYPI this week, in two weeks she would have hers.
So here's the trick: The 'competitor' Store A, (hereafter in quotations for obvious reasons) has the 10 oz bottle of JIPY Liquid Refresher Night Balm on sale at $50. and you get a free velvet bag with it.
Now comes my friend's 'promotion' two weeks later, in her Store B. For $52 dollars, you get the JYPI 9 oz Cream Night Refresher Balm and now get a free leather pouch bag!
Next week the promo for 'competitor' Store C is advertising JYPI 11 oz Evening Balm Fresh Rub with gifty glitter box for $51 dollars.
You get the point? None of these products is exactly like the 'competition's' product, each package is manufactured for one store chain only, so Store A NEVER gets the exact same product as Store B and so on, therefore it can be sold without any consideration of competitiveness. Or suspicions about the JYPI Corporation breaking the Competition Act! And because our JYPI Corporation really controls ALL of the marble counters offering their product, they also control the management, staff and price of that JYPI product, even though many unrelated stores actually sell it.
Hence, NO one will actually compete the product on price. The Jemima Youth Products International company makes their product markup exactly as planned. Profits attained. Nothing at all to do with the actual creme of the product only costing $1 and the packaging maybe $2. Handshakes and grins from sly CEOs all around. And the poor women shopping for something to mortar the depths of their age wrinkles pay full price for everything, all the time, everywhere. And basically ALL these cosmetic companies do exactly the same thing.
This IS anti-competitive conduct. This is sneaky marketing at its best. This is price fixing.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Conspiracies - Business as usual?
Why is it there are so many questions unanswered about terrorism?
9/11 has expanded itself into a huge ongoing controversy over the years simply because of unanswered questions. (if you want to know what they are because you've been in a cave for 10 years, refer to the link two posts below - Believe what you will ... but ... it goes to the now famous "Loose Change" video)
So now we have Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas day, flying from Amsterdam to Chicago. An attempted bombing and even though it seems someone has been arrested, there are many questions emerging from the incident.
1 - Some passengers (including Attorney Kurt Haskell) saw a well dressed man pressuring the ticket agent in Schiphol airport to allow another man (bomb man) onto the plane without a passport.
................ No one has released airport video to accept or refute this observation? Why not? You can be sure ALL ticket booths are constantly filmed and these two are recorded. Or not.
2 - The well dressed man and the bomb man went to a 'manager's office at the airport.
................ Why no info about this 'manager' or confirmation that the two were queried? Why isn't anyone answering how bomb man was able to board the aircraft?
3 - Someone sprang into action immediately that a fire emerged to subdue the bomb man and he was evidently taken to first class and handcuffed there.
................ No one seems to know who it was or who took charge of the fire bomb man? They say he was a Dutchman, but was he an Air marshal? If so why not tell the public? If not, where did the handcuffs come from?
4 - Once the plane landed, passengers were kept on the plane for 20 minutes but then allowed to get off with their carry-on baggage.
................ No one hurried the passengers off suspecting another bomb might have been on board? Or to protect a crime scene. And no one inspected the carry-on until hours later.
5 - While in the quarantined area, another man's bag was sniffed out by a bomb sniffing dog and taken to a separate room, then later led away in handcuffs.
................ Why did the FBI deny there even was another man questioned and then change their story five times after publicly aired comments by witnesses?
6 - Some man several rows back of the incident in the plane, was seen operating a video cam recording the whole action.
................ Why has this not come out about who he was or where that video might be?
7 - Another witness confirming Kurt Haskell's view of the Schiphol man says she is afraid to come forward.
................ Why?
8 - The well dressed man in Schiphol said his friend was from Sudan, when we now know he was from Nigeria and already identified by his own father to the CIA as a potential terrorist.
................ Why was no action taken in this regard?
9 - The media has seemingly expressed no desire to investigate, or even query anything about this event, except for a few independent websites and known instigators.
............... Why is mainstream media so reluctant to report on the biggest terrorism scare in 8 years?
Well, there are more questions emerging every day. And fewer answers. If the FBI had an air marshal on board, wouldn't they admit it? Even to reassure the public and inform other potential terrorists?
The problem emerging here, is that the conspiracy theorists get huge erections over stuff like this. And begin to sense a plan. All of these events seem to fit nicely into the idea that everything was known ahead of time. Hmm? Like another false flag operation?
If you knew there was no other bomb aboard, why even bother to search the plane? And letting the passengers sit for 20 minutes is okay too if there was no danger. Then letting them off with their carry-on is okay as well because it was all known ahead of time what was going down? And changing a story from the FBI almost every other day to counter what witnesses were saying is ... just odd.
So one conspiracy theorist told me that 'they' are wanting to keep terrorism front and centered in the minds of the populace to allow further restrictions to freedom. And that this young bomb man may be part of it all and will simply disappear somewhere into some prearranged protection system. Like, do this for us and you'll get American citizenship?
Why do these conspiracy ideas seems to nestle nicely into each other while the official stories fumble about? Is it just because truth is stranger than fiction?
Perhaps it is a natural suspicion in the subliminal minds of people based on a history of machiavellian intrigue going back to the beginnings of recorded secrets. And conspiracy theories are sometimes defined as an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people who have also managed to conceal their role.
It seems like business as usual in the conspiracy - counter conspiracy trade. I'm just watching for the next one.
Kurt Haskell's account of the Christmas Day, Northwest flight 253 ....
http://haskellfamily.blogspot.com/2010/01/latest-story-by-kurt-haskell.html
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Real Comparison
Babe Ruth, in 1927, in 151 games, hit 60 home runs. 714 lifetime.
Barry Bonds, in 2001, in 153 games, hit 73 home runs. 762 lifetime. Beating The Bambino's long held records.
Or did he?
How can we compare like achievements without like comparison?
Let's look at the Babe for a moment. He lived a 'reckless' lifestyle, no monk-like training here. He drank often and too much. Smoked cigars. Ate way too much. Had sex with multiple women, stayed out late in spite of team curfews. Drove his car way too fast and crashed many times. Not exactly a dedicated training regimen. In spite of this, he is often celebrated as the greatest baseball player who ever lived. He also often visited sick children in hospitals and even dedicated a home run to one, before that famous game!
One would think with modern training methods and equipment, seventy years later, someone would break the Sultan of Swat's record anyway. Yet players like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds et al, had to use strength enhancing drugs to attain their exalted status.
What if we changed each players life style to mimic the other? Thereby sort of equalizing them.
Without even a push, we see Ruth as a robust man. Able to smack a baseball over center field any day any game with an old heavy, solid ash Louisville Slugger. So without a smoking, drinking carousing lifestyle, and a little attention to his health through better nutrition and paying attention to his game, and with modern equipment, what could we prorate his home run hitting to? Can we add at least 10 more homers while being realistic? Yes.
So the score is Ruth 70 - Bonds 73.
And now can we take away something from Barry Bonds? Perhaps that needle in his rear every so often and think what that might mean. He hit 16 homers his first year, and looking at his rookie photo, you can see he is a lithe and strong athlete. Can we expect he would average 25 homers a season for his career? Yet if we gave him cigarettes and booze and an unhealthy lifestyle? Maybe even made him eat those ballpark hotdogs? Would it change that greatest year for Bonds to being only a 50 hitter? I have doubled Bonds allowance, while just adding ten to Ruth's. (Hank Aaron topped at 44 in three different seasons, and he never had a suspicion of cheating)
So the score is now Ruth 70 - Bonds 50.
Yes okay, the record is in the books, Bonds blew away Ruth by 13 runs in that one season.
But would Ruth have been the Gretsky of baseball if we transported him into year 2001? And gave him dedication, good health and made him squeaky clean? Might he have put that season record out of reach like Gretsky did? Not 50 goals in 50 games, but 50 goals in 39 games and a total 92 for a season. Might the Bambino have got a hundred homers? His record works out to a home run every two and a half games in 1927. Could we realistically expect a blast over the fence every ONE and a half games in a 151 game season in 2001? Yes.
That's the 100 folks.
So now my score is The Babe 100 - Barry Bonds 50.
By the way, at 25 a season average with one 50, that's still only 600 homers lifetime for Bonds.
Jack Clark, a former St, Louis Cardinals slugger and four-time All-Star said recently, "A lot of them should be banned from baseball, including Mark McGwire." Clark was referencing McGwire's return to baseball for the 2010 season. "All those guys are cheaters — A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez). Fake, phony. Rafael Palmeiro. Fake, a phony. (Roger) Clemens, (Barry) Bonds. (Sammy) Sosa. Fakes. Phonies. They don't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. They should all be in the Hall of Shame." Some call it creepy baseball.
Bonds - 18 million dollars a season.
Ruth made 80 thousand in 1930 - lifetime 785 thousand. Ruth died at 53 with his own self respect and the integrity of being what he was. Nothing hidden.
And it's is all about respect and integrity, isn't it.
Was it a real comparison?
The age of respect is gone from baseball, but we can still hang on to those days that were.
Can't we?
Barry Bonds, in 2001, in 153 games, hit 73 home runs. 762 lifetime. Beating The Bambino's long held records.
Or did he?
How can we compare like achievements without like comparison?
Let's look at the Babe for a moment. He lived a 'reckless' lifestyle, no monk-like training here. He drank often and too much. Smoked cigars. Ate way too much. Had sex with multiple women, stayed out late in spite of team curfews. Drove his car way too fast and crashed many times. Not exactly a dedicated training regimen. In spite of this, he is often celebrated as the greatest baseball player who ever lived. He also often visited sick children in hospitals and even dedicated a home run to one, before that famous game!
One would think with modern training methods and equipment, seventy years later, someone would break the Sultan of Swat's record anyway. Yet players like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds et al, had to use strength enhancing drugs to attain their exalted status.
What if we changed each players life style to mimic the other? Thereby sort of equalizing them.
Without even a push, we see Ruth as a robust man. Able to smack a baseball over center field any day any game with an old heavy, solid ash Louisville Slugger. So without a smoking, drinking carousing lifestyle, and a little attention to his health through better nutrition and paying attention to his game, and with modern equipment, what could we prorate his home run hitting to? Can we add at least 10 more homers while being realistic? Yes.
So the score is Ruth 70 - Bonds 73.
And now can we take away something from Barry Bonds? Perhaps that needle in his rear every so often and think what that might mean. He hit 16 homers his first year, and looking at his rookie photo, you can see he is a lithe and strong athlete. Can we expect he would average 25 homers a season for his career? Yet if we gave him cigarettes and booze and an unhealthy lifestyle? Maybe even made him eat those ballpark hotdogs? Would it change that greatest year for Bonds to being only a 50 hitter? I have doubled Bonds allowance, while just adding ten to Ruth's. (Hank Aaron topped at 44 in three different seasons, and he never had a suspicion of cheating)So the score is now Ruth 70 - Bonds 50.
Yes okay, the record is in the books, Bonds blew away Ruth by 13 runs in that one season.
But would Ruth have been the Gretsky of baseball if we transported him into year 2001? And gave him dedication, good health and made him squeaky clean? Might he have put that season record out of reach like Gretsky did? Not 50 goals in 50 games, but 50 goals in 39 games and a total 92 for a season. Might the Bambino have got a hundred homers? His record works out to a home run every two and a half games in 1927. Could we realistically expect a blast over the fence every ONE and a half games in a 151 game season in 2001? Yes.
That's the 100 folks.
So now my score is The Babe 100 - Barry Bonds 50.
By the way, at 25 a season average with one 50, that's still only 600 homers lifetime for Bonds.
Jack Clark, a former St, Louis Cardinals slugger and four-time All-Star said recently, "A lot of them should be banned from baseball, including Mark McGwire." Clark was referencing McGwire's return to baseball for the 2010 season. "All those guys are cheaters — A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez). Fake, phony. Rafael Palmeiro. Fake, a phony. (Roger) Clemens, (Barry) Bonds. (Sammy) Sosa. Fakes. Phonies. They don't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. They should all be in the Hall of Shame." Some call it creepy baseball.
Bonds - 18 million dollars a season.
Ruth made 80 thousand in 1930 - lifetime 785 thousand. Ruth died at 53 with his own self respect and the integrity of being what he was. Nothing hidden.
And it's is all about respect and integrity, isn't it.
Was it a real comparison?
The age of respect is gone from baseball, but we can still hang on to those days that were.
Can't we?
Friday, January 15, 2010
Believe what you will .... but ....
.
. . . if you do nothing this year, you owe it to yourself, to at least watch this video sometime . . . .
. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3719259008768610598#
. Even if it is hard to imagine the consequences of believing.
. Even if you believe in the law and order of society.
. Even if you cannot face the ideas presented here.
. Even if you believe in morality.
. Even if you believe in God.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. . . . especially if you believe in God.
.
. . . if you do nothing this year, you owe it to yourself, to at least watch this video sometime . . . .
. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3719259008768610598#
. Even if it is hard to imagine the consequences of believing.
. Even if you believe in the law and order of society.
. Even if you cannot face the ideas presented here.
. Even if you believe in morality.
. Even if you believe in God.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. . . . especially if you believe in God.
.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Arab Justice
YouTube doesn't count in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan was acquitted of charges of the beating and torture of an Afghan grain dealer, even though it was all recorded on a three hour videotape shot in 2004 in the desert outside Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf region.
During the taping the man was shown to be injured by Issa and a security guard; they stuffed sand in his mouth, he was beaten with a nailed board, burned in the genitals with a cigarette lighter, shocked with a cattle prod and led to believe he would be shot. Salt was poured into his wounds and an SUV was repeatedly driven over him.
Sheikh Issa's defence lawyer said 'We deny the incident as it was shown on that videotape,' and added that Issa had be
en given drugs which caused him to be 'deprived from his poise,' and that the whole scene was a plot by the wimpering Afghan to extort Sheikh Issa.
Oh, did I mention? Sheikh Issa is a member of the emirates' ruling family.
Evidently Sharia Law only applies to others and women.
The tape caused outrage among human rights groups in the United States, where senior U.S. officials familiar with the case said it delayed the ratification of a civil nuclear deal between the UAE and the United States.
But the ratification still went ahead. Deals being way more important than people, of course.
Sort of like that deal in 1990 where the Sheikh of Kuwait promised democracy and equality for women in that state if the US would help him by attacking Saddam Hussein.
Look what that got the US into! And has anyone checked the democratic rule in Kuwait lately?
And remember that British couple that faced years in jail for having sex at night on the beach in Dubai? They got away with a minor sentence then were fined and deported but were told when in Dubai, do as we do. No lusty Romans allowed here.
Be careful of deals with arabs, even if you have video recording.
Now where do I go to get to stone a woman?
Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan was acquitted of charges of the beating and torture of an Afghan grain dealer, even though it was all recorded on a three hour videotape shot in 2004 in the desert outside Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf region.
During the taping the man was shown to be injured by Issa and a security guard; they stuffed sand in his mouth, he was beaten with a nailed board, burned in the genitals with a cigarette lighter, shocked with a cattle prod and led to believe he would be shot. Salt was poured into his wounds and an SUV was repeatedly driven over him.
Sheikh Issa's defence lawyer said 'We deny the incident as it was shown on that videotape,' and added that Issa had be
en given drugs which caused him to be 'deprived from his poise,' and that the whole scene was a plot by the wimpering Afghan to extort Sheikh Issa.Oh, did I mention? Sheikh Issa is a member of the emirates' ruling family.
Evidently Sharia Law only applies to others and women.
The tape caused outrage among human rights groups in the United States, where senior U.S. officials familiar with the case said it delayed the ratification of a civil nuclear deal between the UAE and the United States.
But the ratification still went ahead. Deals being way more important than people, of course.
Sort of like that deal in 1990 where the Sheikh of Kuwait promised democracy and equality for women in that state if the US would help him by attacking Saddam Hussein.
Look what that got the US into! And has anyone checked the democratic rule in Kuwait lately?
And remember that British couple that faced years in jail for having sex at night on the beach in Dubai? They got away with a minor sentence then were fined and deported but were told when in Dubai, do as we do. No lusty Romans allowed here.
Be careful of deals with arabs, even if you have video recording.
Now where do I go to get to stone a woman?
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Politically Correct Security
So we have a big furor at airports right now about the new full body scanning machines about to be installed. Many people are accepting them but just as many are against the idea.
I am not sure about them yet, except to say that apparently you must stand inside this full body imaging device scanner for a full minute. They are saying that any radiation you get is harmless. Hmmm. Didn't Phillip Morris tobacco corporation once tell us that about their product?
AND, now they say these scanning devices cannot see into body cavities.
Of course drug smugglers have been doing this for years - Women can insert more than a tampon into their vaginas and men, gay or not, can hide plenty of drugs or whatever in their rears. Not to mention that a common smuggling technique is to load the drugs into a condom, swallow the latex and poop it out later. What's to stop a bomber from going into the aircraft washroom and doing the same? Then combining the chemical elements to implement a mid air explosion?
The reaction so far from people seems just silly.
One person said, the people who scan you will be able to see my naked body, and they will be snickering. What? Pride and a haughty spirit goeth before a fall out of the sky? Another says he doesn't want a 10 dollar an hour person perving over seeing his wife. (Some might say at $10 an hour a guy needs SOME perks!) Invasive they all say. Intrusive. Insensitive.
And we ALL need to get scanned by these $250,000.00 machines because we mustn't offend that nervous, sweating guy with the black beard and wild eyes who doesn't speak English and has a bulky bum!
Of course al Qaida is politically correct too because they bomb everybody who is within range!
But instead of being scanned, we will be given the choice of the 'pat down' by a security officer. Lots of turmoil about that as well. This goes back to my $10 an hour comment too. One man PREcomplained, what if the guy doing the pat down is gay? Or a lesbian touching my wife! OMG what if the wife smiles? Another said, as long as the hand search is done appropriately.
What IS appropriate?
You can pat me down but don't feel anything intimate. Didn't the last guy have a cloth tube of explosive sewn into the inside crotch of his underwear? What's that, Sir? It's my penis, Officer. Okay then. Sure.
And none of this takes into account that a suicide bomber doesn't have to hold the explosives ON his body. The assumption still in effect is that you don't put luggage on a plane and then not get into that plane. Like what happened years ago. Airline staff are fine tuned to watch for that today.
But this guy is a suicide bomber, he's going to his 72 virgins anyway. How well is baggage scanned today? Watch the process as you check in, your luggage goes onto a speeding belt, and by the time you are walking to the plane it is being loaded into the soft, underbelly of the aircraft already! The terrorist just needs to poop out the trigger mechanism.
Or better still and altitude bomb. You know how that works, don't you? The chemicals are set into a piece of your your luggage, when the plane rises through an altitude of say, 10,000 feet, a trigger is set. The plane cruises to it's destination at about 30,000 feet. Then when the aircraft descends below 10,000 feet it will now set off the explosion.
Mind you, all this new concern neglects to mention that the 9/11 bombers and our latest Nigerian had VISAs to enter America. The prerequisite form of security of course, is to be aware way ahead of the boarding date of potential threats; who those passengers are, and what is their history and intent. But as President Obama said, the effort by the CIA was not acceptable.
The passenger on a watch list was not investigated properly, information coordinated or implemented properly. Even as far as to say the CIA was negligent.
So now we have a huge event coming up in Vancouver, Canada, the Olympic Games. And a security cost that started out as about 200 million dollars now seems destined for over a billion. Dollars.
And Canadians, as we all know are polite and easy to get along with, and are also politically correct. Sometimes they don't even sing Oh Canada for fear of offending someone within earshot in Greenland. And they are training their security people right now. Nice Canadians are being instructed to never touch a man's turban. And never EVER scan a man's wooden leg! Really? They said that? Yes really! No mention what to do if a person shows up in a full burqa. Person I said because who knows who is really under there?
And here's the rub - if people in an event line get impatient or irritable, security is instructed to let them through without any checking. Nice Canadians don't want anyone mad at them.
I was anxious when I heard that a foreign security might be working in Canada for these games, but I think I'd just as soon have the American Army checking me into the events.
So who wins?
Al Qaida seems to be ahead so far. The Western world is being hamstrung in spite of it's wonderful billion dollar space technology at the cost of a few brainwashed dupes, a few gallons of chemicals or some plastic explosive.
It seems the only safe way to fly in our future will be on a charter flight with a Krazy-glued nudist club.
I am not sure about them yet, except to say that apparently you must stand inside this full body imaging device scanner for a full minute. They are saying that any radiation you get is harmless. Hmmm. Didn't Phillip Morris tobacco corporation once tell us that about their product?
AND, now they say these scanning devices cannot see into body cavities.
Of course drug smugglers have been doing this for years - Women can insert more than a tampon into their vaginas and men, gay or not, can hide plenty of drugs or whatever in their rears. Not to mention that a common smuggling technique is to load the drugs into a condom, swallow the latex and poop it out later. What's to stop a bomber from going into the aircraft washroom and doing the same? Then combining the chemical elements to implement a mid air explosion?
The reaction so far from people seems just silly.
One person said, the people who scan you will be able to see my naked body, and they will be snickering. What? Pride and a haughty spirit goeth before a fall out of the sky? Another says he doesn't want a 10 dollar an hour person perving over seeing his wife. (Some might say at $10 an hour a guy needs SOME perks!) Invasive they all say. Intrusive. Insensitive.
And we ALL need to get scanned by these $250,000.00 machines because we mustn't offend that nervous, sweating guy with the black beard and wild eyes who doesn't speak English and has a bulky bum!
Of course al Qaida is politically correct too because they bomb everybody who is within range!
But instead of being scanned, we will be given the choice of the 'pat down' by a security officer. Lots of turmoil about that as well. This goes back to my $10 an hour comment too. One man PREcomplained, what if the guy doing the pat down is gay? Or a lesbian touching my wife! OMG what if the wife smiles? Another said, as long as the hand search is done appropriately.
What IS appropriate?
You can pat me down but don't feel anything intimate. Didn't the last guy have a cloth tube of explosive sewn into the inside crotch of his underwear? What's that, Sir? It's my penis, Officer. Okay then. Sure.
And none of this takes into account that a suicide bomber doesn't have to hold the explosives ON his body. The assumption still in effect is that you don't put luggage on a plane and then not get into that plane. Like what happened years ago. Airline staff are fine tuned to watch for that today.
But this guy is a suicide bomber, he's going to his 72 virgins anyway. How well is baggage scanned today? Watch the process as you check in, your luggage goes onto a speeding belt, and by the time you are walking to the plane it is being loaded into the soft, underbelly of the aircraft already! The terrorist just needs to poop out the trigger mechanism.
Or better still and altitude bomb. You know how that works, don't you? The chemicals are set into a piece of your your luggage, when the plane rises through an altitude of say, 10,000 feet, a trigger is set. The plane cruises to it's destination at about 30,000 feet. Then when the aircraft descends below 10,000 feet it will now set off the explosion.
Mind you, all this new concern neglects to mention that the 9/11 bombers and our latest Nigerian had VISAs to enter America. The prerequisite form of security of course, is to be aware way ahead of the boarding date of potential threats; who those passengers are, and what is their history and intent. But as President Obama said, the effort by the CIA was not acceptable.
The passenger on a watch list was not investigated properly, information coordinated or implemented properly. Even as far as to say the CIA was negligent.
So now we have a huge event coming up in Vancouver, Canada, the Olympic Games. And a security cost that started out as about 200 million dollars now seems destined for over a billion. Dollars.
And Canadians, as we all know are polite and easy to get along with, and are also politically correct. Sometimes they don't even sing Oh Canada for fear of offending someone within earshot in Greenland. And they are training their security people right now. Nice Canadians are being instructed to never touch a man's turban. And never EVER scan a man's wooden leg! Really? They said that? Yes really! No mention what to do if a person shows up in a full burqa. Person I said because who knows who is really under there?
And here's the rub - if people in an event line get impatient or irritable, security is instructed to let them through without any checking. Nice Canadians don't want anyone mad at them.
I was anxious when I heard that a foreign security might be working in Canada for these games, but I think I'd just as soon have the American Army checking me into the events.
So who wins?
Al Qaida seems to be ahead so far. The Western world is being hamstrung in spite of it's wonderful billion dollar space technology at the cost of a few brainwashed dupes, a few gallons of chemicals or some plastic explosive.
It seems the only safe way to fly in our future will be on a charter flight with a Krazy-glued nudist club.
Monday, January 4, 2010
New World Order
This phrase is gradually getting known.
And beginning to be accepted as something out there that might be happening.
Some attribute the first signs of this to the Bilderberg Group, after a meeting of world leaders and powerful people who met in 1954 in a Netherlands hotel. These secretive but important people are said to have discussed the future of the world and what was needed to sustain our precious blue planet. This sounds like a noble cause actually, because if humanity keeps going unchecked with our waste and carefree attitude, something will break down, if it hasn't started already.
Since that first meeting, many carefully chosen others have attended more of these esoteric meetings around the world. Often world leaders and heads of state. The rich and powerful. Influential magnates and those well connected to the channels of power.
Speculation has become rampant, as happens when you tell little of what you are up to. One of these ideas is that it has been decided, that, although we have six billion people clinging here right now, the optimal population of Earth should be about 500 million. Quite a disparity.
So if that idea has been put forward, then one only has to try to understand how this population decrease could be accomplished.
Ah, there it is then.
If you accept that there are some people over the years who actually could implement such a grandiose plan and might actually be starting on it, other notions begin to purcolate to the surface of the human thinking mind. And as conjecture about something so covert breeds conspiracy theories like nothing else .... one begins to wonder HOW could this be done?
One would need War. Excellent for quick and easy destruction of life. Nuclear tactical weapons have already been approved by America and Britain. Those same weapons already threatened by rogue states.
Disease, many already believe AIDS as a CIA plot to depopulate Africa. Now we have H1N1 going strong, aka Mexican swine flu. Didn't you know that Mexico City is now the most populous city on Earth? Some even distrust the vaccinations!
Chemicals sprayed into our atmosphere (so called chemtrails) with a mixture of mind altering spores to deimmunize and change our personalities to accept a way of life as someone else envisions it?
Genetic engineering? It is possible now to do genetic manipulation to have a cause and effect on certain groups of humans, say, Negroid people can be affected by something that does not affect a Chinese person, etc. And all those ramifications. One could selectively engineer a future population.
HAARP is a military establishment up in the mountains of Alaska. A High Altitude Array Radar Project installation that is studying things like over-the-horizon radar and the ionosphere. However there are suspicions that the ability to boil clouds, change weather and influence human behavior might be part of that stealthy project too. This installation does NOT appear on Google Earth. Hmm?
And the phrase New World Order was brought to the mass attention again in 1990 by George HW Bush in a speech that electrified and sent chills through the conspiracy theorists.
Well this IS mind boggling. isn't it? I'll leave you with that stew for now.
But although maintaining a healthy and minimal population on Earth IS a pure thought, some believe that the purity has become prurient. A siren of sex to those in power. The viagra of their being might now have become another swollen conception manifesting into their elite consciousness. What if .... ( a harsh whisper) ... New World Order became ....
- One World Government -
Yes, a hushed phrase that can fill glimmering eyes with a power induced glaze. An idea that immediately creates Kings, Princes, Emperors and .... um, what else?
.......... Slaves.
And the conspiracy mongers run with it. A noble idea run amok.
Are we heading that way? Destined? Is this the beginning or the end game?
Pay attention to world events with these thoughts in your mind and suddenly the rationale of the happenings becomes more centered. More real. Things make sense. Do research for yourself. Ask questions or at least don't accept answers. Where is the truth? Pay attention.
Movies make stuff like this happen on screen as fiction, which makes it all the harder to envision in the mind as reality.
Pay attention.
And beginning to be accepted as something out there that might be happening.
Some attribute the first signs of this to the Bilderberg Group, after a meeting of world leaders and powerful people who met in 1954 in a Netherlands hotel. These secretive but important people are said to have discussed the future of the world and what was needed to sustain our precious blue planet. This sounds like a noble cause actually, because if humanity keeps going unchecked with our waste and carefree attitude, something will break down, if it hasn't started already.
Since that first meeting, many carefully chosen others have attended more of these esoteric meetings around the world. Often world leaders and heads of state. The rich and powerful. Influential magnates and those well connected to the channels of power.
Speculation has become rampant, as happens when you tell little of what you are up to. One of these ideas is that it has been decided, that, although we have six billion people clinging here right now, the optimal population of Earth should be about 500 million. Quite a disparity.
So if that idea has been put forward, then one only has to try to understand how this population decrease could be accomplished.
Ah, there it is then.
If you accept that there are some people over the years who actually could implement such a grandiose plan and might actually be starting on it, other notions begin to purcolate to the surface of the human thinking mind. And as conjecture about something so covert breeds conspiracy theories like nothing else .... one begins to wonder HOW could this be done?
One would need War. Excellent for quick and easy destruction of life. Nuclear tactical weapons have already been approved by America and Britain. Those same weapons already threatened by rogue states.
Disease, many already believe AIDS as a CIA plot to depopulate Africa. Now we have H1N1 going strong, aka Mexican swine flu. Didn't you know that Mexico City is now the most populous city on Earth? Some even distrust the vaccinations!
Chemicals sprayed into our atmosphere (so called chemtrails) with a mixture of mind altering spores to deimmunize and change our personalities to accept a way of life as someone else envisions it?
Genetic engineering? It is possible now to do genetic manipulation to have a cause and effect on certain groups of humans, say, Negroid people can be affected by something that does not affect a Chinese person, etc. And all those ramifications. One could selectively engineer a future population.
HAARP is a military establishment up in the mountains of Alaska. A High Altitude Array Radar Project installation that is studying things like over-the-horizon radar and the ionosphere. However there are suspicions that the ability to boil clouds, change weather and influence human behavior might be part of that stealthy project too. This installation does NOT appear on Google Earth. Hmm?
And the phrase New World Order was brought to the mass attention again in 1990 by George HW Bush in a speech that electrified and sent chills through the conspiracy theorists.
Well this IS mind boggling. isn't it? I'll leave you with that stew for now.
But although maintaining a healthy and minimal population on Earth IS a pure thought, some believe that the purity has become prurient. A siren of sex to those in power. The viagra of their being might now have become another swollen conception manifesting into their elite consciousness. What if .... ( a harsh whisper) ... New World Order became ....
- One World Government -
Yes, a hushed phrase that can fill glimmering eyes with a power induced glaze. An idea that immediately creates Kings, Princes, Emperors and .... um, what else?
.......... Slaves.
And the conspiracy mongers run with it. A noble idea run amok.
Are we heading that way? Destined? Is this the beginning or the end game?
Pay attention to world events with these thoughts in your mind and suddenly the rationale of the happenings becomes more centered. More real. Things make sense. Do research for yourself. Ask questions or at least don't accept answers. Where is the truth? Pay attention.
Movies make stuff like this happen on screen as fiction, which makes it all the harder to envision in the mind as reality.
Pay attention.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Blackwater wins again
You'd almost think that the Blackwater corporation, now known as Xe, the company that has a controversial private army in Iraq, is being protected by someone.
Remember every single TV cop show you ever watched when they apprehend the bad guy, and they say this? - "Anything you say may be taken down and used against you in a court of law ..."
Evidently that's exactly why a federal judge dismissed manslaughter charges against five Blackwater security guards in the 2007 deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square, finding that prosecutors wrongly used the mens' own statements against them.
Huh?
After the firefight, the Blackwater guards were questioned by government investigators about the incident. And it was construed by the federal judge that they might have been in fear of losing their jobs and therefore their statements were not allowed as evidence.
Each of the former guards faced 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and one count of using a firearm in the commission of a violent crime. A sixth guard pled guilty.
Blackwater/Xe is the same company that, during hurricane Katrina, stopped US citizens at gunpoint, from reaching high ground and safety in the turmoil of that tragic situation.
So, do the writers of TV shows now have to say; "Nothing you say will be used against you, we promise."
Or is this recent ruling only for a company that many think of as a rogue organization protected by the State Dept, NSA and the CIA?
Remember every single TV cop show you ever watched when they apprehend the bad guy, and they say this? - "Anything you say may be taken down and used against you in a court of law ..."
Evidently that's exactly why a federal judge dismissed manslaughter charges against five Blackwater security guards in the 2007 deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square, finding that prosecutors wrongly used the mens' own statements against them.
Huh?
After the firefight, the Blackwater guards were questioned by government investigators about the incident. And it was construed by the federal judge that they might have been in fear of losing their jobs and therefore their statements were not allowed as evidence.
Each of the former guards faced 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and one count of using a firearm in the commission of a violent crime. A sixth guard pled guilty.
Blackwater/Xe is the same company that, during hurricane Katrina, stopped US citizens at gunpoint, from reaching high ground and safety in the turmoil of that tragic situation.
So, do the writers of TV shows now have to say; "Nothing you say will be used against you, we promise."
Or is this recent ruling only for a company that many think of as a rogue organization protected by the State Dept, NSA and the CIA?
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Whatever the Braidwood Inquiry findings ....
it still remains that an RCMP officer, when Robert Dziekanski was down after being tasered 5 times, laid his leg across the side of Dziekanski's throat and cut off the blood supply to his brain. THAT is what killed him. That is what they don't want you to think about. Any school child knows that someone will die in seconds by this. He was not dead from the taser, he died from a policeman's full 
weight across his throat. My opinion and the opinion of many, including Paul Pritchard, the man who actually took the video.
What I would like to know as well, is who was the actually person who INSTRUCTED that security man to go and stand in FRONT of Pritchard's video camera to try to block him gaining evidence. That guy should be charged with something TOO!
All in all an attempted cover up and continued blocking by our RCMP
creating a shame out of an already tragic situation.
weight across his throat. My opinion and the opinion of many, including Paul Pritchard, the man who actually took the video.What I would like to know as well, is who was the actually person who INSTRUCTED that security man to go and stand in FRONT of Pritchard's video camera to try to block him gaining evidence. That guy should be charged with something TOO!
All in all an attempted cover up and continued blocking by our RCMP
creating a shame out of an already tragic situation.
Big Brother at work
Installing the electronic watchers that will keep track of Vancouver people.
What's in YOUR wallet?
Do you have an embedded chip in your credit card? A new driver's license with the chip? Gone to a major sporting event and had YOUR face recorded by face recognition software?
Monday, December 28, 2009
Paranoia
This is a five ring circus. No elephants or unicorned horses. No monkeys riding dogs, but a circus just the same. In the main ring is Gordon Campbell with John Furlong as the Ringleader ... er Ringmaster of VANOC.
He has the whip and chair but has no fear of tigers and lions, because the whip is for the people and the chair is for Gordon to sit in and watch as the people are beaten into submission. These two are so afraid of failure or embarrassment that they sneakily pull away your human rights and overrule the constitution of Canada.
The cameras are going up on buildings, the sensors being tuned, the so called integrated Security Unit wearing the traditionally intimidating black suits is visiting dissenters, legitimate journalists are being harrassed and interrogated, and the freedoms that we take for granted are being removed, all in the name of 'The Games'.
Watch over your shoulder, guard your phone messages, find out the keywords, listen to the voices, tread with care, 1984 is a little late, but it is here right n
He has the whip and chair but has no fear of tigers and lions, because the whip is for the people and the chair is for Gordon to sit in and watch as the people are beaten into submission. These two are so afraid of failure or embarrassment that they sneakily pull away your human rights and overrule the constitution of Canada.
The cameras are going up on buildings, the sensors being tuned, the so called integrated Security Unit wearing the traditionally intimidating black suits is visiting dissenters, legitimate journalists are being harrassed and interrogated, and the freedoms that we take for granted are being removed, all in the name of 'The Games'.
Watch over your shoulder, guard your phone messages, find out the keywords, listen to the voices, tread with care, 1984 is a little late, but it is here right n
Call out the Army!
Bud Mercer, head of the RCMP's Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit, has announced the end of free speech as we know it in Canada.
The budding mercenary said there will be 'Free Speech Zones'. There will be no protests, talks, or placards with anti-Olympics messages allowed outside these designated areas. And the army will be here to enforce it. Is this actually inciting protest? Where would these zones be? In the Central Park forest? The dikes along the Fraser River? Perhaps somewhere in the West Kootenays?
Bud Mercer is the same guy who is sending mysterious men in black to harass anyone now who voices concern. And he has 4500 soldiers coming to make sure no one speaks out. They also plan on herding the homeless out of town. Maybe in boxcars? Oh no, wait, that was in Nazi Germany. How did the Chinese do it in Beijing? Oh wait, that was in Communist China.
This perception of a threat by the ISU is curtailing our rights to free expression and free association. There will be thousands of surveillance cameras watching everything you do. Security officials gathering intelligence on potential threats. Oh wait, this is Canada, a shining example of democracy and freedom. Isn't it? It couldn't be all that bad. Could it?
One wonders if these actions by already heavy handed enforcers will result in some sort of backlash and even some interest by regular people as Vancouver descends into a police state.
And one almost assumes this kind of suppression of democracy in Canada will actually encourage the organization of protest groups. That is if the famously placid Canadians even care about their rights and freedoms.
They don't want protests like Seattle had during the WTO meetings. Well many people began learning about the World Trade Organization because of those protests. And many now believe the WTO has no rights to over rule countries, yet it is now happening.
Who knows what VANOC is starting by over ruling Canadians' fundamental rights?
I think this is going to heat up, perhaps at Army gunpoint.
The budding mercenary said there will be 'Free Speech Zones'. There will be no protests, talks, or placards with anti-Olympics messages allowed outside these designated areas. And the army will be here to enforce it. Is this actually inciting protest? Where would these zones be? In the Central Park forest? The dikes along the Fraser River? Perhaps somewhere in the West Kootenays?
Bud Mercer is the same guy who is sending mysterious men in black to harass anyone now who voices concern. And he has 4500 soldiers coming to make sure no one speaks out. They also plan on herding the homeless out of town. Maybe in boxcars? Oh no, wait, that was in Nazi Germany. How did the Chinese do it in Beijing? Oh wait, that was in Communist China.
This perception of a threat by the ISU is curtailing our rights to free expression and free association. There will be thousands of surveillance cameras watching everything you do. Security officials gathering intelligence on potential threats. Oh wait, this is Canada, a shining example of democracy and freedom. Isn't it? It couldn't be all that bad. Could it?
One wonders if these actions by already heavy handed enforcers will result in some sort of backlash and even some interest by regular people as Vancouver descends into a police state.
And one almost assumes this kind of suppression of democracy in Canada will actually encourage the organization of protest groups. That is if the famously placid Canadians even care about their rights and freedoms.
They don't want protests like Seattle had during the WTO meetings. Well many people began learning about the World Trade Organization because of those protests. And many now believe the WTO has no rights to over rule countries, yet it is now happening.
Who knows what VANOC is starting by over ruling Canadians' fundamental rights?
I think this is going to heat up, perhaps at Army gunpoint.
Journalism 2.0
People are talking about Journalism 2.0 lately.
This is partly a theory that journalism as we knew it is now dead. It has to do with the modern media, TV news, newspapers, radio news. These sources for your information seem to be unreliable and untrusted. The news you get from newspapers is now almost 3 days old when it is printed. And they often quote news from TV or even weblogs! TV news hours fill up with anything but real news. Looking for 'stories' to tell within a time frame. Entertainment at 6.
A recent study of news information revealed that most of the younger generation get their hard news from, of all people, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. Walter Cronkite died and news trust died with him. Journalism 1.0 is no longer supported, like that old Commodore 64 in a land fill somewhere, it is trash.
Most hard news outlets are conglomerates owned by a very few powerful people. A little research will often tell you exactly who owns them, and a little more reading will get you the slant of that owner. A little scrutiny will even tell you HOW the affiliated stations will report news. Do we really need to watch Fox news for their slanted and often doctored views? What is widely viewed to be propaganda! So why do we want to pay attention then? Of course the research this generation is doing is on the World Wide Web.
Aha. That's it isn't it?
The reason people are discussing Journalism 2.0.
News now comes from people posting items on the web; in forums, blogs, Youtube, social networking sites like Facebook. Yes, opinionized it may be and there is a lot of chaff and misinformation, but a keen mind can separate that from DISinformation as practiced by certain organized media. Do we believe the antics of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck masquerading as news commentary? Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert are on the Comedy Network, they go for the laugh, and yet through the humor we discern truth. Salon.com regularly scoops the major news organizations. Wolf Blitzer fumbles through a program trying for seriousness yet seems to be a victim of news technology! CNN ratings have plummeted. Newspapers can no longer take the time to verify their stories in the competition with a Youtube cell phone video of what just happened.
Journalism is freer now that we, the people, can post stories and items and video about what WE saw. Anywhere and anytime in the world! We no longer need the trained reporter who can perhaps write better, or a videographer who gets the better angle and the glistening tear, all edited for a timed segment of the Six O'clock news (entertainment) hour.
The face of journalism has changed and the real eloquence is in the spontaneity of the report, whether it be from a shaky unfocused cell-phone camera or an ungrammatical posting on a blog.
Journalism 2.0 is here and we all have a tremendous new power. We are reporting to each other now.
We need only to expose the truth.
This is partly a theory that journalism as we knew it is now dead. It has to do with the modern media, TV news, newspapers, radio news. These sources for your information seem to be unreliable and untrusted. The news you get from newspapers is now almost 3 days old when it is printed. And they often quote news from TV or even weblogs! TV news hours fill up with anything but real news. Looking for 'stories' to tell within a time frame. Entertainment at 6.
A recent study of news information revealed that most of the younger generation get their hard news from, of all people, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. Walter Cronkite died and news trust died with him. Journalism 1.0 is no longer supported, like that old Commodore 64 in a land fill somewhere, it is trash.
Most hard news outlets are conglomerates owned by a very few powerful people. A little research will often tell you exactly who owns them, and a little more reading will get you the slant of that owner. A little scrutiny will even tell you HOW the affiliated stations will report news. Do we really need to watch Fox news for their slanted and often doctored views? What is widely viewed to be propaganda! So why do we want to pay attention then? Of course the research this generation is doing is on the World Wide Web.
Aha. That's it isn't it?
The reason people are discussing Journalism 2.0.
News now comes from people posting items on the web; in forums, blogs, Youtube, social networking sites like Facebook. Yes, opinionized it may be and there is a lot of chaff and misinformation, but a keen mind can separate that from DISinformation as practiced by certain organized media. Do we believe the antics of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck masquerading as news commentary? Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert are on the Comedy Network, they go for the laugh, and yet through the humor we discern truth. Salon.com regularly scoops the major news organizations. Wolf Blitzer fumbles through a program trying for seriousness yet seems to be a victim of news technology! CNN ratings have plummeted. Newspapers can no longer take the time to verify their stories in the competition with a Youtube cell phone video of what just happened.
Journalism is freer now that we, the people, can post stories and items and video about what WE saw. Anywhere and anytime in the world! We no longer need the trained reporter who can perhaps write better, or a videographer who gets the better angle and the glistening tear, all edited for a timed segment of the Six O'clock news (entertainment) hour.
The face of journalism has changed and the real eloquence is in the spontaneity of the report, whether it be from a shaky unfocused cell-phone camera or an ungrammatical posting on a blog.
Journalism 2.0 is here and we all have a tremendous new power. We are reporting to each other now.
We need only to expose the truth.
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