I went to Office Max today and had a good laugh. I immediately went and grabbed my camera from my car. Notice anything interesting in this photo. Click to zoom in.
General
08
Sep 02
With all the hypocritical crowing…
…over Iraq’s weapons program. It’s important to bear in mind that most nations develop so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’. In fact, only one nation has used them to great effect and that was the use of nukes against Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the humanitarian U.S. It is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy for the U.S. to attempt to justify an invasion of Iraq with such nonsense.
Israel’s nuclear weapons program: no angry west, no inspectors, no sanctions, just more aid:
Justifying the US’s double standards, according to Mr. al-Baz, is irrational, although Egypt has all the right in the world to protest such an injustice. If saying that the Arab-Israeli conflict is a convincing argument for Israel to have 300 warheads, then the same argument can be used by any country in military conflict with its neighbors. If Iran, Iraq and Libya are demonized for mere allegations of attempting to manufacture such weapons, shouldn’t Israel be forced to destroy its arsenal, which is suspected to have already manufactured these weapons? And because the US’s perception of Israel’s nuclear arms is evidently not based on Israel’s power of rational persuasion, there are no guarantees that the US position will change even after final ‘peace’ accords are signed between Arabs states and Israel. …
Iraq is now lacking not only weapons to defend itself from daily aggression, but is also failing to feed its children and to care for its sick. However the US, Britain and others have vowed to continue their genocide against the people of Iraq. In the Israeli case, nothing is mentioned, save an occasional cry for justice from an Arab state, an activist or a sincere politician, although Israel is suspected of having a fully operational nuclear stockpile.
08
Sep 02
The New World Order: Is Iran next?
The next target for a US-led ‘regime change’ may well be Iran. The US is intent on completely taking over the Mideast and deposing governments who don’t do as they’re told. The US government has become the muscle behind international capital. The world must be made safe for the Enrons, Exxons, and Halliburtons of the world. Freedom, humanity, and national sovereignity be damned. Instead of thoughtful stewards of the public good our ‘leaders’ are blind acolytes of Mammon.
US using Afghanistan as anti-Iran launch-pad: minister:
“We have information that the Americans, in collaboration with bandits and terrorist groups, are organizing actions contrary to the interests of Iran on our eastern borders,” Kharazi told a press conference.
The minister did not elaborate on his accusation. Officials here commonly refer to drug smugglers on its eastern borders with Iran and Pakistan as “bandits”.
“Iran is in the process of examining how to lodge a complaint against the United States before international bodies, as these actions violate the (1980) Algiers Agreement,” Kharazi said, referring to the mutual non-interference deal that ended the post-revolution embassy hostage crisis.
08
Sep 02
THE ORIGINS OF PEACE AND VIOLENCE
Deprivation of Physical Affection as a Main Cause of Depression, Aggression and Drug Abuse. A good website. I read some things like this when I was into Wilhelm Reich. I like his stuff but I still don’t know what to make of his orgone theory.
This site also has the famous Time-Life documentary Rock a Bye Baby (1970):
The Time Life documentary “Rock A Bye Baby” describes the influence of different practices in infant treatment and child rearing on emotional development, both in humans and in monkeys.
In the beginning, it is noted that the contact of the child to the mother represents the first socio-emotional interaction the child experiences and lays the fundamentals for its later behaviors. We learn that social animals isolated from their mothers and receiving no nurturing physical affection develop severe depression and can die from such deprivation. In addition, maternal-infant isolation that leads to sensory deprivation can cause developmental brain damage. These facts show that mother love has a neurobiological basis that is essential for life.
Next we are introduced to Harry Harlow’s experiments with surrogate mothers which have shown that monkeys raised alone in an environment without mother and peers prefer to be with a cloth-covered mother surrogate without a milk bottle rather than with a wire-cage surrogate mother that provides a milk bottle, even when hungry.
They even cling to their cloth-covered wooden dolls when they are frightened and they experience the same emotional stress other social animals experience when isolated from their surrogate mothers. These experiments show that the need for a loving relationship (percepted, in this case, by the “fur”) is stronger than the mere need for food even when hungry. Thus, love-hunger is stronger than food-hunger.
08
Sep 02
Put one of these on your local gas pump
These are great! Thanks to Prentiss Riddle:
‘THANK YOU FOR FINANCING GLOBAL TERROR’
Make a subtle-but-powerful statement about the connection between rampant fuel consumption in the United States, and the financing of terrorists (and their families) by oil-producing nations.
The ‘Thank You’ sticker is designed to be a subtle attention-getter. It is a ‘word-virus’ that will infect the mind of the gas consumer, and force them to think – then, and the next time they pull up to the pump.
07
Sep 02
Unarmed man gunned down by ‘officer friendlies’
Remember, children. The police are there for your protection.
Protests build around police shooting: Video shows unarmed man killed after raising hands:
Gonzalo Martinez had no criminal record.
His mother says he was a hard-working young man in an import-export business who supported her while helping to put his brother through college.
But on Feb. 15 he was shot dead after being pulled over for a traffic violation by Downey, Calif., police. A video, shown last night on “The O’Reilly Factor,” appears to show the young man raising his hands on the orders of the police before being shot repeatedly by a police officer wielding an assault rifle.
07
Sep 02
1984
Have you ever read George Orwell’s1984? Too poor to buy it? Too lazy to trek to the library? Now you can read the whole thing online! I know, I was surprised too. I’m pretty sure it’s still manacled under copyright, so I’m not quite sure how this site is getting away with this. Enjoy it while you can. You could probably read it at work and still look like you’re working.
I enjoyed this comment by a reader written from the point of view of someone who would support ‘The Party’. Hmm. Well, it makes sense if you’ve read the book. I thought it was funny:
So many people are surprised that O’Brien forces Winston to his senses, but that is because they are only led to doubt O’Brien’s loyalty through Winston’s paranoid musings on ‘hope’. O’Brien, of course, is a strong and compassionate member of the Inner Party and could never be capable of such wrongdoings. That is my favorite part of the story, when it is finally proven that O’Brien has not forsaken the Party after all! As for the trespasses of Julia and Winston, hopefully one day such foolish heresy will come to be eradicated from all group behaviour. Of course, 1984 is very outdated — Orwell could not have imagined that North America would eventually find the right word for all these thoughtcrimes, “terrorism”, and use it as an umbrella to stop any opposition to the Party whatsoever. However, one could speculate that the altruistic ‘humanitarianism’ of the last few decades has substantially delayed our progress towards Victory.
07
Sep 02
Taleban ‘warned US of huge attack’
According to this article at the BBC, the Taleban warned the United States that Osama bin Laden was planning an attack on the US. Of course, these warnings and others weren’t heeded and the US answered their own failure by raining death on thousands of innocent people and by seizing Afghanistan for their own machiavellian purposes. And now, one year later, we’re about to engage in an orgy of snot-blowing and self-serving, made-for-tv, faux grief-wallowing. Disgusting. Prepare for more mass emotionalism and chest-thumping as we prepare to martyr young American and Iraqi men and women in the streets of Baghdad.
07
Sep 02
Freedoms we’ve lost…thanks, assholes.
Some of the fundamental changes to Americans’ legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the terror attacks:
* FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation.
* FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests.
* FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
* RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
* FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.
* RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.
* RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press