Lets hope in 2011 the sheeple wake up and the National Revolution begins.
Then we bring back the guillotene for all the traitors that have betrayed this nation and we begin the Great Levelling of the Land and restore liberty to Britain.
Friday, 31 December 2010
Happy New Year Folks
Happy New Year to all Nationalists.
Lets hope in 2011 the sheeple wake up and the National Revolution begins.
Then we bring back the guillotene for all the traitors that have betrayed this nation and we begin the Great Levelling of the Land and restore liberty to Britain.
Lets hope in 2011 the sheeple wake up and the National Revolution begins.
Then we bring back the guillotene for all the traitors that have betrayed this nation and we begin the Great Levelling of the Land and restore liberty to Britain.
The Real Reason for Downloading Laws
The American organised crusade against downloading of films and movies from the internet has nothing to do with the law on copyright - its all about protecting the last American export industry and the toxic filth and depravity it exports to the rest of the world.
America no longer produces Hard Goods like cars or other goods for sale to the world.
The last profitable industries left for America to export to the world are the degenerate cultural poisons of Hollywood and pornography.
America is a nation of toxic filth.
Its role in the world is to act as the primary disseminator of pornography, culturally polluting movies, to peddle music to the planet that erodes traditional cultures and to transform national cultures into copies of the degenerate sink hole that is America itself.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/29/sarkozy-internet-police-warn-downloaders
Nicolas Sarkozy's internet police warn 100,000 illegal downloadersSurveillance body dubbed Big Brother aims to stop France's huge culture of illegally accessing films and music online
Share205 Angelique Chrisafis in Paris guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 December 2010 18.03 GMT Article history
A portrait of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, by Pal Sarkozy, President Sarkozy's father. She strongly supports the crackdown on illegal downloading. Photograph: Ed Alcock
Nicolas Sarkozy's war on illegal downloading has begun in earnest, with the state internet surveillance body dubbed "Big Brother" warning more than 100,000 French internet-users that they have been caught accessing pirate material.
The controversial anti-piracy law is one of Sarkozy's pet projects, backed by his singer wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The couple argue that artists must be protected from the nation's massive illegal download culture – France is thought to be the world number one in illegally accessing film and music online.
The internet policing system, known under its acronym Hadopi, investigates specific incidents of illegal downloading reported by music and film companies. It obtains web-users' details from internet service providers and issues a series of warnings by email and letter. Repeat offenders risk one month's suspension from all internet access. Those accused of counterfeiting can be fined and cut off from the internet for one year. At least 100,000 warning emails have been sent since early October.
The French left has attacked the law as draconian and against civil liberties. But it is also criticised as ineffective and out of date. The law targets peer-to-peer sites, but not streaming and direct download sites. A study by the University of Rennes earlier this year reported an increase in illegal downloading as web-users turned to new ways of accessing material not covered by the law.
US TV series, such as Grey's Anatomy and House which are increasingly popular in France, are thought to be a key target of illegal downloads.
One magistrate working for the internet surveillance body this week revealed to Le Figaro the pleading letters from illegal downloaders who had received warnings. "It's true, I downloaded an episode of this [unnamed] series. I had no choice, I'd followed the whole season, I was hooked … I won't do it again, but please just let me download the last episode of the series," wrote one man, who had in fact been spotted downloading music.
One woman – told she had illegally downloaded music by the former tennis-star turned singer Yannick Noah – wrote: "I hate that singer. When he played tennis I quite liked him, but his music gets on my nerves." She said an advert flickering across her screen had made her download a track without realising.
One young man said he set his alarm for 6am to download music believing the surveillance system wouldn't be up and running before dawn.
America no longer produces Hard Goods like cars or other goods for sale to the world.
The last profitable industries left for America to export to the world are the degenerate cultural poisons of Hollywood and pornography.
America is a nation of toxic filth.
Its role in the world is to act as the primary disseminator of pornography, culturally polluting movies, to peddle music to the planet that erodes traditional cultures and to transform national cultures into copies of the degenerate sink hole that is America itself.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/29/sarkozy-internet-police-warn-downloaders
Nicolas Sarkozy's internet police warn 100,000 illegal downloadersSurveillance body dubbed Big Brother aims to stop France's huge culture of illegally accessing films and music online
Share205 Angelique Chrisafis in Paris guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 December 2010 18.03 GMT Article history
A portrait of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, by Pal Sarkozy, President Sarkozy's father. She strongly supports the crackdown on illegal downloading. Photograph: Ed Alcock
Nicolas Sarkozy's war on illegal downloading has begun in earnest, with the state internet surveillance body dubbed "Big Brother" warning more than 100,000 French internet-users that they have been caught accessing pirate material.
The controversial anti-piracy law is one of Sarkozy's pet projects, backed by his singer wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The couple argue that artists must be protected from the nation's massive illegal download culture – France is thought to be the world number one in illegally accessing film and music online.
The internet policing system, known under its acronym Hadopi, investigates specific incidents of illegal downloading reported by music and film companies. It obtains web-users' details from internet service providers and issues a series of warnings by email and letter. Repeat offenders risk one month's suspension from all internet access. Those accused of counterfeiting can be fined and cut off from the internet for one year. At least 100,000 warning emails have been sent since early October.
The French left has attacked the law as draconian and against civil liberties. But it is also criticised as ineffective and out of date. The law targets peer-to-peer sites, but not streaming and direct download sites. A study by the University of Rennes earlier this year reported an increase in illegal downloading as web-users turned to new ways of accessing material not covered by the law.
US TV series, such as Grey's Anatomy and House which are increasingly popular in France, are thought to be a key target of illegal downloads.
One magistrate working for the internet surveillance body this week revealed to Le Figaro the pleading letters from illegal downloaders who had received warnings. "It's true, I downloaded an episode of this [unnamed] series. I had no choice, I'd followed the whole season, I was hooked … I won't do it again, but please just let me download the last episode of the series," wrote one man, who had in fact been spotted downloading music.
One woman – told she had illegally downloaded music by the former tennis-star turned singer Yannick Noah – wrote: "I hate that singer. When he played tennis I quite liked him, but his music gets on my nerves." She said an advert flickering across her screen had made her download a track without realising.
One young man said he set his alarm for 6am to download music believing the surveillance system wouldn't be up and running before dawn.
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Boycott Microsoft Racists
I think we need to start a Boycott Racist Microsoft Campaign.
I shall not buy anymore microsoft software or technology.
Its Apple or Linux all the way for me from now on.
http://www.rense.com/general92/gates.htm
Gates' Racist Scholarship Giveaway
From Tom Buyea
12-30-10
The people who voted for Bill Gates must not know he is an admitted self-hating,
anti-White man and offers college grants to Blacks, Hispanics, Asians & Native Americans but NOT WHITES as listed clearly on his college grants website below.
Gates College Grants To All But Whites!
Why ?
The Gates Millennium Scholars
GMSP.org
( See highlight area below)
THE GATES MILLENNIUM SCHOLARS PROGRAM ANNOUNCES
2011 Scholarship Application is Now Available
The 2011 Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) scholarship application is now available. GMS will select 1,000 talented students to receive a good-through-graduation scholarship to use at any college or university of their choice. We provide Gates Millennium Scholars with personal and professional development through our leadership programs along with academic support throughout their college career.
Our program is more than a scholarship - it's an opportunity to change your life! Putting in the effort now to apply can be a worthwhile experience for super special students like you! Just ask Deonte Bridges how much the GMS scholarship means to him. To start your application, simply click on any of the links labelled GMS Application. Please take the time to read all of the eligibility criteria and instructions before beginning your application. Click below on "read more" to continue the list of eligibility criteria on the next page.
================================
Students are eligible to be considered for a Gates MS scholarship if they are African American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian Pacific Islander American or Hispanic American.
(In simpler language Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans Only?)
Have attained a cumulative high school GPA of 3.3 on an unweighted 4.0 scale or have earned....
Read the whole story here... http://www.gmsp.org
I shall not buy anymore microsoft software or technology.
Its Apple or Linux all the way for me from now on.
http://www.rense.com/general92/gates.htm
Gates' Racist Scholarship Giveaway
From Tom Buyea
12-30-10
The people who voted for Bill Gates must not know he is an admitted self-hating,
anti-White man and offers college grants to Blacks, Hispanics, Asians & Native Americans but NOT WHITES as listed clearly on his college grants website below.
Gates College Grants To All But Whites!
Why ?
The Gates Millennium Scholars
GMSP.org
( See highlight area below)
THE GATES MILLENNIUM SCHOLARS PROGRAM ANNOUNCES
2011 Scholarship Application is Now Available
The 2011 Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) scholarship application is now available. GMS will select 1,000 talented students to receive a good-through-graduation scholarship to use at any college or university of their choice. We provide Gates Millennium Scholars with personal and professional development through our leadership programs along with academic support throughout their college career.
Our program is more than a scholarship - it's an opportunity to change your life! Putting in the effort now to apply can be a worthwhile experience for super special students like you! Just ask Deonte Bridges how much the GMS scholarship means to him. To start your application, simply click on any of the links labelled GMS Application. Please take the time to read all of the eligibility criteria and instructions before beginning your application. Click below on "read more" to continue the list of eligibility criteria on the next page.
================================
Students are eligible to be considered for a Gates MS scholarship if they are African American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian Pacific Islander American or Hispanic American.
(In simpler language Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans Only?)
Have attained a cumulative high school GPA of 3.3 on an unweighted 4.0 scale or have earned....
Read the whole story here... http://www.gmsp.org
Merry Xmas - war is almost here
WW3 starts soon in the Middle East.
Stock up on food folks.
http://www.sify.com/news/uk-forms-plans-for-brit-residents-evacuation-from-gulf-cities-in-event-of-war-with-iran-news-international-km3qEgfaadg.html
UK forms plans for Brit residents' evacuation from Gulf cities in event of war with Iran
2010-12-29 16:40:00
Free C# code generatorAds by GoogleCreate database & reporting apps straight from your database! Try it www.ironspeed.com
The British armed forces are reportedly drawing up contingency plans to evacuate thousands of British residents and tourists from Dubai and other Gulf cities over fears of war with Iran.
Plans are being made to evacuate Britons to Oman, which is not currently in Iran's sights, and other neighbouring countries.
The Coalition government under Prime Minister David Cameron had reportedly ordered an immediate review of British military planning in the Gulf after the election last May.
According to The Telegraph, new proposals are being drawn up to coordinate military activity in the region with local allies hostile to Iran, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Since the previous review in the 1990s, the British population has grown to more than 100,000 in the UAE alone. Besides, a million British tourists, from businessmen on stopovers to England footballers with marital problems, come to Dubai every year.
It is feared they might be at risk ifIran retaliates for any military strikes on its nuclear sites with missile attacks on "western interests" in the Gulf, the paper said.
Last year, the United Nations, the US and Europe have all imposed heavy sanctions on Iran. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, was one of a number of regional Arab leaders revealed in Wikileaks cables to have been pressing for even tougher action.
According to diplomats, he has also been the key mover, along with William Hague, the foreign secretary, in demanding an upgrading of Britain's traditional military ties with its former colonial protectorates in the Gulf. He has also personally raised the issue of the safety of the foreign population, which makes up 70 per cent of the UAE's 4.5 million residents.
The new military co-operation plan, whose full terms remain secret, would reportedly be signed in the first half of 2011, during Cameron's expected visit to that country.
The plan is also expected to include an offer from Britain to help to keep vital infrastructure such as electricity and water desalination plants running in the event of war. (ANI)
SEARCH
Stock up on food folks.
http://www.sify.com/news/uk-forms-plans-for-brit-residents-evacuation-from-gulf-cities-in-event-of-war-with-iran-news-international-km3qEgfaadg.html
UK forms plans for Brit residents' evacuation from Gulf cities in event of war with Iran
2010-12-29 16:40:00
Free C# code generatorAds by GoogleCreate database & reporting apps straight from your database! Try it www.ironspeed.com
The British armed forces are reportedly drawing up contingency plans to evacuate thousands of British residents and tourists from Dubai and other Gulf cities over fears of war with Iran.
Plans are being made to evacuate Britons to Oman, which is not currently in Iran's sights, and other neighbouring countries.
The Coalition government under Prime Minister David Cameron had reportedly ordered an immediate review of British military planning in the Gulf after the election last May.
According to The Telegraph, new proposals are being drawn up to coordinate military activity in the region with local allies hostile to Iran, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Since the previous review in the 1990s, the British population has grown to more than 100,000 in the UAE alone. Besides, a million British tourists, from businessmen on stopovers to England footballers with marital problems, come to Dubai every year.
It is feared they might be at risk ifIran retaliates for any military strikes on its nuclear sites with missile attacks on "western interests" in the Gulf, the paper said.
Last year, the United Nations, the US and Europe have all imposed heavy sanctions on Iran. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, was one of a number of regional Arab leaders revealed in Wikileaks cables to have been pressing for even tougher action.
According to diplomats, he has also been the key mover, along with William Hague, the foreign secretary, in demanding an upgrading of Britain's traditional military ties with its former colonial protectorates in the Gulf. He has also personally raised the issue of the safety of the foreign population, which makes up 70 per cent of the UAE's 4.5 million residents.
The new military co-operation plan, whose full terms remain secret, would reportedly be signed in the first half of 2011, during Cameron's expected visit to that country.
The plan is also expected to include an offer from Britain to help to keep vital infrastructure such as electricity and water desalination plants running in the event of war. (ANI)
SEARCH
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Muslim Demographics
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life estimates that there are 2,869,000 Muslims in Britain, an increase of 74 per cent on its previous figure of 1,647,000, which was based on the 2001 census. No demographic statistics are reliable in an era of open borders, but such an expansion is unprecedented.
= the takeover is well underway.
= the takeover is well underway.
Wake Up All You Idiot Slaves -RESIST !
As the United States edges closer to becoming a third world country; anger, frustration, and cynicism continue to mount in the minds of the American population. In fact, a recent Pew Research poll showed that 80% of baby boomers are pessimistic about America's future. This pessimism seems warranted as authentic political solutions appear to be in short supply in our corporate state.
The democratic political system is now clearly run by crony cartelism. The multinational banks have hijacked the economy and are openly looting the public. Mounting and impossible-to-pay off debt is crippling local governments. The entire spectrum of our rights continues to degrade. Crimes that would land regular citizens in jail are now openly being committed by the elite and their organizations with no justice. And perhaps most telling, the power structure is establishing a control grid to eliminate due process for the Internet and beyond to stifle any dissent.
Given the current situation, it can seem impossible to affect real change. However, the exact opposite is the case. The only reason the system is maintained is because the majority still acquiesce to it. However, change won't come by electing new establishment politicians, because no matter how noble they may be they still must play the corrupt game. Change won't come through violent protests or offensive cyber hacktivism, as that only invites and justifies the creeping police state. We must stop accepting and supporting the system, individually, in order to change it.
Because our representative democracy has become a fraud, and the media and courts are clearly shills for the oligarchs, our only action appears to be non-violent rebellion; one person and community at a time. We can expose the crimes and immorality of the corporate state through civil disobedience and conscientious objection. We can punish multinational companies who commit flagrant fouls on humanity and the environment by boycotting them. Additionally, we can peacefully regain our liberty by becoming less dependent on the system for our basic needs.
Here are ten solutions through non-violent activism:
1. Buy Local Food: One of the most powerful cartels that has their tentacles into government is the food cartel. Their agenda has been to control the basic resources of food (corn, wheat, soy, rice). The best way to conquer this cartel is by eating local; produce your own food, join and contribute to local cooperatives, and engage your neighbors and community for more local food solutions. Local co-ops are also a great place to trade locally crafted goods and even services. Obviously, do your best to avoid GMO food and eat organically when you can. Finally, be vocal and active in your opposition to GMO foods and the cartel control of the FDA.
2. Become More Self-Sufficient: Our modern society has made us dependent on something or someone other than ourselves for most necessities such as electricity, food, water, medicine, security, and education. This dependence puts us at the direction or disposal of the cartel state. Therefore, the only entity that has the power to grant us liberty is ourselves; and we can take back our independence through self-sufficiency. Being self-sufficient means learning skills that will help you and your family survive economic downturns or other emergencies. These skills may also help you to be less dependent on your job as they'll make you a useful independent producer. Lead your neighborhood and community toward production and away from dependence.
3. Get Healthier: The increasing pace of life seems to offer a wealth of distractions from the importance of living a truly healthy and free life. Our modern world offers easy choices like fast-food in place of fresh produce; TV in place of reading, exercise, or meditation; Internet social networks in place of meaningful personal relationships, etc. Identify the areas lacking in your own life and resolve to make the necessary changes that will increase your physical fitness, mental acuity, and your spiritual evolution. These three areas are what truly sustain us in both good times and bad -- not smart phones, computer games, and the virtual world.
4. Buy Silver and Gold: America desperately needs a monetary revolution before the dollar experiment completely collapses. Like all revolutions this must start from a groundswell of rebellious action. A good place to start is to convert your devaluing dollars to physical gold and silver. This will punish the banks, especially JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve, as well as protect your assets. Furthermore, if the dollar continues to collapse, silver and gold may well become a viable currency in society once again, as it already is in some parts of Michigan. Buying junk silver is something anyone can afford to do and is highly recommended.
5. Expose the Agenda: The "agenda" is one of consolidation of wealth, power, and control in every facet imaginable. The international elite are approaching near one-world control, which they call full spectrum dominance of economies and societies. In other words; national, local, and individual sovereignty is all but gone. It is extremely important to engage your local community, especially community leaders and police, to reiterate their obligation to serve the local community under the Constitution, and not to follow illegal Federal demands. Above all, do not give in to the temptation of apathy as you begin to learn more about the systems of control. These systems first count on your ignorance, then they count on laziness. Finally, say what you stand for such as peace, liberty, and genuine justice with even more force than shouting about what you oppose.
6. Boycott: In the U.S. it has become obvious that a system has taken hold which is economically designed for one thing: consumption. This is the value that each person has been given from birth. So, one key way to assert your power and value in such a system is to vote with your wallet. Every purchase you make either contributes to, or boycotts this corporatist structure. Become aware of who the real owners are and what inhumane practices are behind the products you purchase, so that you can make intelligent choices that support your health and promote justice. Additionally, it is important to learn the true contents of the products you buy, so that you don't fall prey to slick advertising and corporate misdirection. Join or create campaigns to educate shoppers and force better labeling of products so it is easier for others to consciously boycott them.
7. Local Politics: Forget wasting any of your energy and resources on Federal politics -- they have sold out long ago to the higher authorities that fund their multi-million dollar campaigns. Instead, get involved in small town politics and community initiatives. The future will be built from the ground up, starting right in your own neighborhood. Local politics is where you can affect tangible changes. Everything from removing chemicals from public water, to throwing the TSA out of your local airport, or refusing military recruitment or fusion centers in protest of the war on terror, can be accomplished at the local level. Each minor victory will send shock waves to other small communities and the country as a whole, so be sure to document the steps you have taken to achieve victory, then share your story for others to emulate.
8. Military refusal: Do not contribute to fraudulent wars, and do not succumb to the pressure of feeling "unpatriotic." There are countless groups of veterans who have seen through the government lies that have led to unnecessary deaths, as well as the financial destruction of the country. There is, in fact, no more patriotic action that can be taken than to demand that our military be used properly to strengthen the country, rather than to weaken it. For some, there is absolutely no excuse for war, ever, and merely the act of showing up contributes to this affliction. It is a profound resolution of courage to live by your convictions. So, if opposing the fraudulent wars is your main issue, file as a conscientious objector and contribute to peace instead of war. As Gandhi said, "There is no path to peace; peace is the path."
9. Don't Use Banks: The banks have proven to be some of the most immoral, dare we say "evil," institutions on the planet. Besides their Ponzi-style Wall Street casino and mortgage/foreclosure fraud, they also profit heavily from wars, Mexican drug gangs, and fleecing the public. Some are finding their actions so horrific that they'd prefer to default on their debts rather than give them another dime. That may be extreme given the consequences; however, we can at least vow not to take on any new bank financing of any kind -- mortgages, credit cards, or car loans, etc. Where possible, bank with local credit unions instead of the big banks that make up the cartel. Another powerful action is to start or support a regional competing currency. On the Federal level, we can tell our Congress reps to support Ron Paul's effort to legalize competing currencies nationwide.
10. Tax Resistance: Becoming a tax resister is a hardcore action of civil disobedience that comes with serious consequences -- unless of course you're Tim Geithner who gets to say "oops, my bad" in order to qualify as the head of collecting said taxes. However, when the electoral process and two-party system proves to be a farce, corporations clearly win on every issue, and the will of the people is no longer represented in the media or the courts, people are left with little choice but non-violent rebellion in all its forms. Tax rebellion is often cited by conscientious objectors who oppose how the government uses taxpayer dollars to fund immoral deeds such as war, authorizing torture, building the police state, and fraudulent bank bailouts. A second group of tax protesters refuse to file because they don't believe income taxes to be lawful under the Constitution
The democratic political system is now clearly run by crony cartelism. The multinational banks have hijacked the economy and are openly looting the public. Mounting and impossible-to-pay off debt is crippling local governments. The entire spectrum of our rights continues to degrade. Crimes that would land regular citizens in jail are now openly being committed by the elite and their organizations with no justice. And perhaps most telling, the power structure is establishing a control grid to eliminate due process for the Internet and beyond to stifle any dissent.
Given the current situation, it can seem impossible to affect real change. However, the exact opposite is the case. The only reason the system is maintained is because the majority still acquiesce to it. However, change won't come by electing new establishment politicians, because no matter how noble they may be they still must play the corrupt game. Change won't come through violent protests or offensive cyber hacktivism, as that only invites and justifies the creeping police state. We must stop accepting and supporting the system, individually, in order to change it.
Because our representative democracy has become a fraud, and the media and courts are clearly shills for the oligarchs, our only action appears to be non-violent rebellion; one person and community at a time. We can expose the crimes and immorality of the corporate state through civil disobedience and conscientious objection. We can punish multinational companies who commit flagrant fouls on humanity and the environment by boycotting them. Additionally, we can peacefully regain our liberty by becoming less dependent on the system for our basic needs.
Here are ten solutions through non-violent activism:
1. Buy Local Food: One of the most powerful cartels that has their tentacles into government is the food cartel. Their agenda has been to control the basic resources of food (corn, wheat, soy, rice). The best way to conquer this cartel is by eating local; produce your own food, join and contribute to local cooperatives, and engage your neighbors and community for more local food solutions. Local co-ops are also a great place to trade locally crafted goods and even services. Obviously, do your best to avoid GMO food and eat organically when you can. Finally, be vocal and active in your opposition to GMO foods and the cartel control of the FDA.
2. Become More Self-Sufficient: Our modern society has made us dependent on something or someone other than ourselves for most necessities such as electricity, food, water, medicine, security, and education. This dependence puts us at the direction or disposal of the cartel state. Therefore, the only entity that has the power to grant us liberty is ourselves; and we can take back our independence through self-sufficiency. Being self-sufficient means learning skills that will help you and your family survive economic downturns or other emergencies. These skills may also help you to be less dependent on your job as they'll make you a useful independent producer. Lead your neighborhood and community toward production and away from dependence.
3. Get Healthier: The increasing pace of life seems to offer a wealth of distractions from the importance of living a truly healthy and free life. Our modern world offers easy choices like fast-food in place of fresh produce; TV in place of reading, exercise, or meditation; Internet social networks in place of meaningful personal relationships, etc. Identify the areas lacking in your own life and resolve to make the necessary changes that will increase your physical fitness, mental acuity, and your spiritual evolution. These three areas are what truly sustain us in both good times and bad -- not smart phones, computer games, and the virtual world.
4. Buy Silver and Gold: America desperately needs a monetary revolution before the dollar experiment completely collapses. Like all revolutions this must start from a groundswell of rebellious action. A good place to start is to convert your devaluing dollars to physical gold and silver. This will punish the banks, especially JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve, as well as protect your assets. Furthermore, if the dollar continues to collapse, silver and gold may well become a viable currency in society once again, as it already is in some parts of Michigan. Buying junk silver is something anyone can afford to do and is highly recommended.
5. Expose the Agenda: The "agenda" is one of consolidation of wealth, power, and control in every facet imaginable. The international elite are approaching near one-world control, which they call full spectrum dominance of economies and societies. In other words; national, local, and individual sovereignty is all but gone. It is extremely important to engage your local community, especially community leaders and police, to reiterate their obligation to serve the local community under the Constitution, and not to follow illegal Federal demands. Above all, do not give in to the temptation of apathy as you begin to learn more about the systems of control. These systems first count on your ignorance, then they count on laziness. Finally, say what you stand for such as peace, liberty, and genuine justice with even more force than shouting about what you oppose.
6. Boycott: In the U.S. it has become obvious that a system has taken hold which is economically designed for one thing: consumption. This is the value that each person has been given from birth. So, one key way to assert your power and value in such a system is to vote with your wallet. Every purchase you make either contributes to, or boycotts this corporatist structure. Become aware of who the real owners are and what inhumane practices are behind the products you purchase, so that you can make intelligent choices that support your health and promote justice. Additionally, it is important to learn the true contents of the products you buy, so that you don't fall prey to slick advertising and corporate misdirection. Join or create campaigns to educate shoppers and force better labeling of products so it is easier for others to consciously boycott them.
7. Local Politics: Forget wasting any of your energy and resources on Federal politics -- they have sold out long ago to the higher authorities that fund their multi-million dollar campaigns. Instead, get involved in small town politics and community initiatives. The future will be built from the ground up, starting right in your own neighborhood. Local politics is where you can affect tangible changes. Everything from removing chemicals from public water, to throwing the TSA out of your local airport, or refusing military recruitment or fusion centers in protest of the war on terror, can be accomplished at the local level. Each minor victory will send shock waves to other small communities and the country as a whole, so be sure to document the steps you have taken to achieve victory, then share your story for others to emulate.
8. Military refusal: Do not contribute to fraudulent wars, and do not succumb to the pressure of feeling "unpatriotic." There are countless groups of veterans who have seen through the government lies that have led to unnecessary deaths, as well as the financial destruction of the country. There is, in fact, no more patriotic action that can be taken than to demand that our military be used properly to strengthen the country, rather than to weaken it. For some, there is absolutely no excuse for war, ever, and merely the act of showing up contributes to this affliction. It is a profound resolution of courage to live by your convictions. So, if opposing the fraudulent wars is your main issue, file as a conscientious objector and contribute to peace instead of war. As Gandhi said, "There is no path to peace; peace is the path."
9. Don't Use Banks: The banks have proven to be some of the most immoral, dare we say "evil," institutions on the planet. Besides their Ponzi-style Wall Street casino and mortgage/foreclosure fraud, they also profit heavily from wars, Mexican drug gangs, and fleecing the public. Some are finding their actions so horrific that they'd prefer to default on their debts rather than give them another dime. That may be extreme given the consequences; however, we can at least vow not to take on any new bank financing of any kind -- mortgages, credit cards, or car loans, etc. Where possible, bank with local credit unions instead of the big banks that make up the cartel. Another powerful action is to start or support a regional competing currency. On the Federal level, we can tell our Congress reps to support Ron Paul's effort to legalize competing currencies nationwide.
10. Tax Resistance: Becoming a tax resister is a hardcore action of civil disobedience that comes with serious consequences -- unless of course you're Tim Geithner who gets to say "oops, my bad" in order to qualify as the head of collecting said taxes. However, when the electoral process and two-party system proves to be a farce, corporations clearly win on every issue, and the will of the people is no longer represented in the media or the courts, people are left with little choice but non-violent rebellion in all its forms. Tax rebellion is often cited by conscientious objectors who oppose how the government uses taxpayer dollars to fund immoral deeds such as war, authorizing torture, building the police state, and fraudulent bank bailouts. A second group of tax protesters refuse to file because they don't believe income taxes to be lawful under the Constitution
Globalism = the death of the middle class
The aim of Globalism is not to help the poor of the developing world, it is to make the rich in the West even richer.
The left wing and liberal mugs that think Globalism is about helping the developing poor are fools.
The rise in the foreign aid budget in Britain is paid by the British state to the poor of the developing world and hence is taken from the poorest of the British people.
The British state takes taxes paid by British people to give to foreign nations as aid, whilst the incomes of the poorest people in Britain drops and the rich in Britain grow richer.
At the same time the rich in Britain grow richer as they dodge paying their taxes with coporate tax avoidance schemes.
Globalism is a scheme to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
At the same time the morons in the middle classes are voting for the same political parties that are throwing them and their children into unemployment and poverty.
Never in human history have so many fucking idiots voted for their own impoverishment.
Even slaves rebel.
Now the middle class simply vote for their own extinction.
The 22 statistics that you are about to read prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.
See proof of the Middle Class extermination -->
So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.
The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker ten times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.
What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are "less attractive" than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States.
So corporations are moving operations out of the U.S. at breathtaking speed. Since the U.S. government does not penalize them for doing so, there really is no incentive for them to stay.
What has developed is a situation where the people at the top are doing quite well, while most Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to make it. There are now about 6 unemployed Americans for every new job opening in the United States, and the number of "chronically unemployed" is absolutely soaring. There simply are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.
Many of those who are able to get jobs are finding that they are making less money than they used to. In fact, an increasingly large percentage of Americans are working at low wage retail and service jobs.
But you can't raise a family on what you make flipping burgers at McDonald's or on what you bring in from greeting customers down at the local Wal-Mart.
The truth is that the middle class in America is dying -- and once it is gone it will be incredibly difficult to rebuild.
83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
Source: ACS, Lending Report via Financemymoney.com
61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
Image: Flickr User orphanjones (www.flickr.com
Source: Careerbuilder.com poll via CNBC
66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
Image: Flickr User Itzafineday (www.flickr.com
Source: Harvard Magazine
36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
Image: Flickr User Algo (www.flickr.com
Source: Careerbuilder.com poll via CNBC
A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
Image: Flickr User Alancleaver 2000 (www.flickr.com
Source: Employment Benefit Research Institute via CNN
24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
Image: Flickr User Thomas Hawk (www.flickr.com
Source: Employment Benefit Research Institute via CNN
Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
Source: mybudget360.com
Note: 2005 spike preceded tougher bankruptcy filing laws
Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
Image: Flickr User Smittenkittenorig (www.flickr.com
Source: Dailyfinance.com
For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
Source: Federal Reserve Board via endoftheamericandream.com
In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
Image: Flickr User Zepfanman.com (www.flickr.com
Source: Smirkingchimp.com
As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
Source: Dailyfinance.com
Source: Institute for Policy Studies
The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
Source: UN via informationclearinghouse.info
Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
Image: Flickr User Tony The Misfit (www.flickr.com
Source: Washington Times
In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
Image: Flickr User Stuck in Customs (www.flickr.com
Source: USA Today
[Author's statistic altered to provide valid source.]
The top 1% of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
Image: Flickr User AMagill (www.flickr.com
Source: CBO via MSN
In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
Image: Flickr User deanmeyersnet (www.flickr.com
Source: Telegraph
More than 40% of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
Image: Flickr User H Dragon (www.flickr.com
Source: CNN
For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
Image: Flickr User Clementine Gallot (www.flickr.com
Source: Boston Globe
This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
Image: Flickr User NeilsPhotography (www.flickr.com
Source: World Socialist Web Site via axisoflogic.com
Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
Image: Flickr User D'Arcy Norman (www.flickr.com
Source: Reuters
Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
Image: Flickr User cambodia4kidsorg (www.flickr.com
Source: Foundation for Child Development via CNN
The top 10% of Americans now earn around 50% of our national income.
Image: Flickr User greggoconnell (www.flickr.com
Source: Professor Emmanuel Saez of the UC Berkeley
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/22-statistics-that-prove-the-middle-class-is-being-systematically-wiped-out-of-existence-in-america-2010-7?slop=1#slideshow-start#ixzz19UloYEno
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Why Cultures Die
With the breakdown of sexual morality, the blood ties that unite a nation are dissolved as the people treat sexual reproduction as an aspect of simple pleasure and breed with immigrants and strangers - and thereby the nation and culture is destroyed.
Sexual Restraint and Social Energy in Diverse Cultures:
The Findings of J.D. Unwin
Scholar J.D. Unwin, Ph.D., in his seminal work Sex and Culture,* draws a connection between the flourishing of cultures and the sexual norms present at the time those cultures flourished. He studied over 80 different societies and repeatedly came to the same conclusion: When a society limited sexual freedom for an extended period of time, the society flourished; it expanded its territory, thrived intellectually, advanced technologically and progressed architecturally. When few or no regulations were placed on sexuality for an extended period of time, societies made little technological, intellectual and architectural advancement, ceased to expand and were at times even conquered. In short, sexually lax societies lacked what Unwin calls social energy.
The term social energy is important for understanding Unwin's work. He refers to two types: expansive social energy and productive social energy. The first includes "territorial expansion, conquest, colonization and the foundation of a widely flung commerce" (p. 315). This type of energy is directed not simply to what is going on within society - the energy is extended outside of the very country in which it originates. Productive social energy, on the other hand, 'develops the resources of its habitat and by increasing its knowledge of the material univers bends nature to its will" (p. 315). Productive social energy measures advancement within society. "Productive social energy was displayed . . . by the Moors when they invented algebra and the compass, and by the Western Europeans who discovered the use first of steam, then electricity, then of wireless communication" (p. 316). Societies that possessed social energy were said to "flourish." Hence, the flourishing of the Roman Empire is descriptive of its social energy.
It is important to understand that inquiry into the sciences, development of technology, accomplishments in art and the advancement of architecture are things which only men achieve. Animals do not boast of solving problems in calculus; they do not have computers; they do not paint masterpieces; they do not build cathedrals. The reason for this is that men possess the ability to reason, whereas animals do not. Natural impulses, such as the desire to eat, sleep and have sex, are desires that both men and animals share. Men, however, also possess a rational intellect (the ability to reason) and a will (the ability to act according to reason). Animals, because they have no ability to reason, act always upon impulse. When they are hungry, they hunt. When they are thirsty, they drink. There is nothing internal that can dissuade them from acting upon impulse. Men, because they have reason, can make a decision to reject an impulse that arises in order to do something which they perceive as more important. The doctor will put off sleeping in order to study for his exam; a man will fast from eating in order to have his colon examined.
If men never did these things, that is, if they immediately acted upon every arising impulse or desire, there would be little to differentiate them from the animals. When men do not place any restraint on their impulses, they spend a great deal of their time indulging in pleasure for its own sake, and their societies tend to be built solely around the activities of eating, drinking, sleeping and having sex.
However, if society discourages the immediate satisfaction of these impulses through strict sexual norms, men will have energy and time to work on other goals which they would not have had if they had expended this energy on their own useless pleasure. Anyone who has played on a sports team recognizes that discipline of these natural desires is key to achieving great things. Men must refrain from taking breaks whenever they please and show up for practice even when their bodies simply want to sleep. To achieve things as a community, it is generally acknowledged that men must deny themselves some individual pleasures.
Unwin refers to Freud to explain this connection between sexual restraint and the flourishing of societies. Freud says that with natural impulses and desires comes energy to satisfy those desires. Freud says, however, that rather than always satisfying their impulses, men can “sublimate” those desires, which means they can direct their “sexual energy” in some other way than just sexually. In other words, they redirect the energy. Since the sexual urge, according to Freud, contains the most energy of all the impulses, sublimation of a sexual desire would allow for the use of greater energy in another sphere of life.
(Note: While we do not accept all of Freud’s psychological theories concerning man’s nature, his ideas concerning sublimation of sexual energy still contain merit.)
What do these men do, then, when they refrain from satisfying their sexual urges whenever and with whomever they please? History repeatedly shows that they use this energy to achieve more distinctly human goals. They further the sciences, produce artistically, accomplish architectural feats and conquer nations.
Presented for your consideration is the infamous society of the Romans. The Roman Empire is especially important in Unwin’s work, due to the fact that its history is generally known and accessible to the public. When the plebeians rose to power in the 3rd century B.C., they implemented strict sexual principles (p. 393). Following this political change, Unwin calls the energy of the Romans “tremendous.” They took hold of Italy and conquered the entire Mediterranean area. As a distinction has already been made regarding different types of social energy, the reader will recognize this as expansive social energy. Unwin further acknowledges that it is frequently posited that the Roman Empire was “at its strongest” in the second century A.D. (p. 398). “Then in their turn,” Unwin states, “the provincials reversed the habits of their fathers by extending their sexual opportunity” (p. 398-399). Following these changes he asserts that the energy of the empire declined, and that this is clear in 3rd century A.D accounts. Not long after, the Western Empire fell, and we are left to ponder its remains.
This pattern exhibited in the Roman empire is not unique. As regards the Sumerians, Babylonians, Athenians, Anglo-Saxons, and Protestant English, Unwin states:
These societies lived in different geographical environments; they belonged to different racial stocks; but the history of their marriage customs is the same. In the beginning each society had the same ideas in regard to sexual regulations. Then the same struggles took place; the same sentiments were expressed; the same changes were made; the same results ensued. Each society reduced its sexual opportunity to a minimum and displaying great social energy, flourished greatly. Then it extended its sexual opportunity; its energy decreased, and faded away. The one outstanding feature of the whole story is its unrelieved monotony.
The idea that the sexual act is purely private and has little to do with anyone other than the individuals involved is, quite frankly, false. Unwin’s work is sociological proof that the “free love” mentality is detrimental to society in every sphere. Aside from the private repercussions to individuals who sleep around at whim, sexual laxity produces social laziness, which eventually puts a society as a whole at risk.
Abstinence and marriage education, which seeks to re-instill a sexual norm of restraint, is not religious propaganda; even from a merely sociological view, this type of education has the society’s best interest in mind. Indeed, when societies uphold norms which elevate the sexual act to its proper place in marriage, they benefit in ways that reach far beyond the sexual fulfillment of its citizens.
Sexual Restraint and Social Energy in Diverse Cultures:
The Findings of J.D. Unwin
Scholar J.D. Unwin, Ph.D., in his seminal work Sex and Culture,* draws a connection between the flourishing of cultures and the sexual norms present at the time those cultures flourished. He studied over 80 different societies and repeatedly came to the same conclusion: When a society limited sexual freedom for an extended period of time, the society flourished; it expanded its territory, thrived intellectually, advanced technologically and progressed architecturally. When few or no regulations were placed on sexuality for an extended period of time, societies made little technological, intellectual and architectural advancement, ceased to expand and were at times even conquered. In short, sexually lax societies lacked what Unwin calls social energy.
The term social energy is important for understanding Unwin's work. He refers to two types: expansive social energy and productive social energy. The first includes "territorial expansion, conquest, colonization and the foundation of a widely flung commerce" (p. 315). This type of energy is directed not simply to what is going on within society - the energy is extended outside of the very country in which it originates. Productive social energy, on the other hand, 'develops the resources of its habitat and by increasing its knowledge of the material univers bends nature to its will" (p. 315). Productive social energy measures advancement within society. "Productive social energy was displayed . . . by the Moors when they invented algebra and the compass, and by the Western Europeans who discovered the use first of steam, then electricity, then of wireless communication" (p. 316). Societies that possessed social energy were said to "flourish." Hence, the flourishing of the Roman Empire is descriptive of its social energy.
It is important to understand that inquiry into the sciences, development of technology, accomplishments in art and the advancement of architecture are things which only men achieve. Animals do not boast of solving problems in calculus; they do not have computers; they do not paint masterpieces; they do not build cathedrals. The reason for this is that men possess the ability to reason, whereas animals do not. Natural impulses, such as the desire to eat, sleep and have sex, are desires that both men and animals share. Men, however, also possess a rational intellect (the ability to reason) and a will (the ability to act according to reason). Animals, because they have no ability to reason, act always upon impulse. When they are hungry, they hunt. When they are thirsty, they drink. There is nothing internal that can dissuade them from acting upon impulse. Men, because they have reason, can make a decision to reject an impulse that arises in order to do something which they perceive as more important. The doctor will put off sleeping in order to study for his exam; a man will fast from eating in order to have his colon examined.
If men never did these things, that is, if they immediately acted upon every arising impulse or desire, there would be little to differentiate them from the animals. When men do not place any restraint on their impulses, they spend a great deal of their time indulging in pleasure for its own sake, and their societies tend to be built solely around the activities of eating, drinking, sleeping and having sex.
However, if society discourages the immediate satisfaction of these impulses through strict sexual norms, men will have energy and time to work on other goals which they would not have had if they had expended this energy on their own useless pleasure. Anyone who has played on a sports team recognizes that discipline of these natural desires is key to achieving great things. Men must refrain from taking breaks whenever they please and show up for practice even when their bodies simply want to sleep. To achieve things as a community, it is generally acknowledged that men must deny themselves some individual pleasures.
Unwin refers to Freud to explain this connection between sexual restraint and the flourishing of societies. Freud says that with natural impulses and desires comes energy to satisfy those desires. Freud says, however, that rather than always satisfying their impulses, men can “sublimate” those desires, which means they can direct their “sexual energy” in some other way than just sexually. In other words, they redirect the energy. Since the sexual urge, according to Freud, contains the most energy of all the impulses, sublimation of a sexual desire would allow for the use of greater energy in another sphere of life.
(Note: While we do not accept all of Freud’s psychological theories concerning man’s nature, his ideas concerning sublimation of sexual energy still contain merit.)
What do these men do, then, when they refrain from satisfying their sexual urges whenever and with whomever they please? History repeatedly shows that they use this energy to achieve more distinctly human goals. They further the sciences, produce artistically, accomplish architectural feats and conquer nations.
Presented for your consideration is the infamous society of the Romans. The Roman Empire is especially important in Unwin’s work, due to the fact that its history is generally known and accessible to the public. When the plebeians rose to power in the 3rd century B.C., they implemented strict sexual principles (p. 393). Following this political change, Unwin calls the energy of the Romans “tremendous.” They took hold of Italy and conquered the entire Mediterranean area. As a distinction has already been made regarding different types of social energy, the reader will recognize this as expansive social energy. Unwin further acknowledges that it is frequently posited that the Roman Empire was “at its strongest” in the second century A.D. (p. 398). “Then in their turn,” Unwin states, “the provincials reversed the habits of their fathers by extending their sexual opportunity” (p. 398-399). Following these changes he asserts that the energy of the empire declined, and that this is clear in 3rd century A.D accounts. Not long after, the Western Empire fell, and we are left to ponder its remains.
This pattern exhibited in the Roman empire is not unique. As regards the Sumerians, Babylonians, Athenians, Anglo-Saxons, and Protestant English, Unwin states:
These societies lived in different geographical environments; they belonged to different racial stocks; but the history of their marriage customs is the same. In the beginning each society had the same ideas in regard to sexual regulations. Then the same struggles took place; the same sentiments were expressed; the same changes were made; the same results ensued. Each society reduced its sexual opportunity to a minimum and displaying great social energy, flourished greatly. Then it extended its sexual opportunity; its energy decreased, and faded away. The one outstanding feature of the whole story is its unrelieved monotony.
The idea that the sexual act is purely private and has little to do with anyone other than the individuals involved is, quite frankly, false. Unwin’s work is sociological proof that the “free love” mentality is detrimental to society in every sphere. Aside from the private repercussions to individuals who sleep around at whim, sexual laxity produces social laziness, which eventually puts a society as a whole at risk.
Abstinence and marriage education, which seeks to re-instill a sexual norm of restraint, is not religious propaganda; even from a merely sociological view, this type of education has the society’s best interest in mind. Indeed, when societies uphold norms which elevate the sexual act to its proper place in marriage, they benefit in ways that reach far beyond the sexual fulfillment of its citizens.
The Comment Has It
A writer posted this comment on another site.
It says it all ;
British anthropologist J. D. Unwin, whose 1934 book, Sex and Culture, chronicled the historical decline of numerous cultures. Unwin studied 86 different cultures throughout history and discovered a surprising fact: No nation that rejected monogamy in marriage and pre-marital sexual chastity lasted longer than a generation after it embraced sexual hedonism. Unwin stated it this way, "In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on prenuptial and post-nuptial continence."
Unwin also said that it takes three generations for this phenomenon to occur, so if we start counting from 1960, and a generation is twenty five years, we end up with 2035 as being the end of our civilization. Something to ponder as we enter 2011.
It says it all ;
British anthropologist J. D. Unwin, whose 1934 book, Sex and Culture, chronicled the historical decline of numerous cultures. Unwin studied 86 different cultures throughout history and discovered a surprising fact: No nation that rejected monogamy in marriage and pre-marital sexual chastity lasted longer than a generation after it embraced sexual hedonism. Unwin stated it this way, "In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on prenuptial and post-nuptial continence."
Unwin also said that it takes three generations for this phenomenon to occur, so if we start counting from 1960, and a generation is twenty five years, we end up with 2035 as being the end of our civilization. Something to ponder as we enter 2011.
OUT OF AFRICA = Wrong
The entire history of humanity and the basis of race has been re-written over the last year.
Those who say there is no such thing as race or that we are all from Africa are propagandists not scientists.
Did first humans come out of Middle East and not Africa? Israeli discovery forces scientists to re-examine evolution of modern man
By Matthew Kalman
Last updated at 7:51 AM on 28th December 2010
* Comments (127)
* Add to My Stories
Scientists could be forced to re-write the history of the evolution of modern man after the discovery of 400,000-year-old human remains.
Until now, researchers believed that homo sapiens, the direct descendants of modern man, evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago and gradually migrated north, through the Middle East, to Europe and Asia.
Recently, discoveries of early human remains in China and Spain have cast doubt on the 'Out of Africa' theory, but no-one was certain.
Professor Avi Gopher, a researcher from Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology, holds a pre-historic tooth at Qesem cave, an excavation site near the town of Rosh Ha'ayin
Professor Avi Gopher, a researcher from Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology, holds a pre-historic tooth at Qesem cave, an excavation site near the town of Rosh Ha'ayin
The new discovery of pre-historic human remains by Israeli university explorers in a cave near Ben-Gurion airport could force scientists to re-think earlier theories.
Early humans: Middle Awash Aramis, Ethiopia, where the first 'modern' human beings were thought to have been discovered
Early humans: Middle Awash Aramis, Ethiopia, where the first 'modern' human beings were thought to have been discovered
Archeologists from Tel Aviv University say eight human-like teeth found in the Qesem cave near Rosh Ha’Ayin - 10 miles from Israel’s international airport - are 400,000 years old, from the Middle Pleistocene Age, making them the earliest remains of homo sapiens yet discovered anywhere in the world.
The size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern man. Until now, the earliest examples found were in Africa, dating back only 200,000 years.
Other scientists have argued that human beings originated in Africa before moving to other regions 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.
Homo sapiens discovered in Middle Awash, Ethiopia, from 160,000 years ago were believed to be the oldest 'modern' human beings.
Other remains previously found in Israeli caves are thought to have been more recent and 80,000 to 100,000 years old.
A group of international and Israeli researchers have discovered pre-historic artefacts and human remains at the site that may prove the earliest existence of modern man was about 400,000 years ago
A group of international and Israeli researchers have discovered pre-historic artefacts and human remains at the site that may prove the earliest existence of modern man was about 400,000 years ago
The findings of Professor Avi Gopher and Dr Ran Barkai of the Institute of Archeology at Tel Aviv University, published last week in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggest that modern man did not originate in Africa as previously believed, but in the Middle East.
The Qesem cave was discovered in 2000 and has been the focus of intense study ever since.
Along with the teeth – the parts of the human skeleton that survive the longest – the researchers found evidence of a sophisticated early human society that used sharpened flakes of stone to cut meat and other impressive prehistoric tools.
Locator map - The Qesem cave near Rosh Ha Ayin, 10 miles from Israel's international airport, and Ethiopia, where man was thought to have originated
The Israeli scientists said the remains found in the cave suggested the systematic production of flint blades, the habitual use of fire, evidence of hunting, cutting and sharing of animal meat, and mining raw materials to produce flint tools from rocks below ground.
'A diversified assemblage of flint blades was manufactured and used,' the Tel Aviv scientists wrote, describing the tools they found in the cave.
'Thick-edged blades, shaped through retouch, were used for scraping semi-hard materials such as wood or hide, whereas blades with straight, sharp working edges were used to cut soft tissues.'
The explorers said they were continuing to investigate the cave and its contents, expecting to make more discoveries that would shed further light on
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1341973/Did-humans-come-Middle-East-Africa-Scientists-forced-write-evolution-modern-man.html#ixzz19OtiAi7J
Those who say there is no such thing as race or that we are all from Africa are propagandists not scientists.
Did first humans come out of Middle East and not Africa? Israeli discovery forces scientists to re-examine evolution of modern man
By Matthew Kalman
Last updated at 7:51 AM on 28th December 2010
* Comments (127)
* Add to My Stories
Scientists could be forced to re-write the history of the evolution of modern man after the discovery of 400,000-year-old human remains.
Until now, researchers believed that homo sapiens, the direct descendants of modern man, evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago and gradually migrated north, through the Middle East, to Europe and Asia.
Recently, discoveries of early human remains in China and Spain have cast doubt on the 'Out of Africa' theory, but no-one was certain.
Professor Avi Gopher, a researcher from Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology, holds a pre-historic tooth at Qesem cave, an excavation site near the town of Rosh Ha'ayin
Professor Avi Gopher, a researcher from Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology, holds a pre-historic tooth at Qesem cave, an excavation site near the town of Rosh Ha'ayin
The new discovery of pre-historic human remains by Israeli university explorers in a cave near Ben-Gurion airport could force scientists to re-think earlier theories.
Early humans: Middle Awash Aramis, Ethiopia, where the first 'modern' human beings were thought to have been discovered
Early humans: Middle Awash Aramis, Ethiopia, where the first 'modern' human beings were thought to have been discovered
Archeologists from Tel Aviv University say eight human-like teeth found in the Qesem cave near Rosh Ha’Ayin - 10 miles from Israel’s international airport - are 400,000 years old, from the Middle Pleistocene Age, making them the earliest remains of homo sapiens yet discovered anywhere in the world.
The size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern man. Until now, the earliest examples found were in Africa, dating back only 200,000 years.
Other scientists have argued that human beings originated in Africa before moving to other regions 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.
Homo sapiens discovered in Middle Awash, Ethiopia, from 160,000 years ago were believed to be the oldest 'modern' human beings.
Other remains previously found in Israeli caves are thought to have been more recent and 80,000 to 100,000 years old.
A group of international and Israeli researchers have discovered pre-historic artefacts and human remains at the site that may prove the earliest existence of modern man was about 400,000 years ago
A group of international and Israeli researchers have discovered pre-historic artefacts and human remains at the site that may prove the earliest existence of modern man was about 400,000 years ago
The findings of Professor Avi Gopher and Dr Ran Barkai of the Institute of Archeology at Tel Aviv University, published last week in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggest that modern man did not originate in Africa as previously believed, but in the Middle East.
The Qesem cave was discovered in 2000 and has been the focus of intense study ever since.
Along with the teeth – the parts of the human skeleton that survive the longest – the researchers found evidence of a sophisticated early human society that used sharpened flakes of stone to cut meat and other impressive prehistoric tools.
Locator map - The Qesem cave near Rosh Ha Ayin, 10 miles from Israel's international airport, and Ethiopia, where man was thought to have originated
The Israeli scientists said the remains found in the cave suggested the systematic production of flint blades, the habitual use of fire, evidence of hunting, cutting and sharing of animal meat, and mining raw materials to produce flint tools from rocks below ground.
'A diversified assemblage of flint blades was manufactured and used,' the Tel Aviv scientists wrote, describing the tools they found in the cave.
'Thick-edged blades, shaped through retouch, were used for scraping semi-hard materials such as wood or hide, whereas blades with straight, sharp working edges were used to cut soft tissues.'
The explorers said they were continuing to investigate the cave and its contents, expecting to make more discoveries that would shed further light on
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1341973/Did-humans-come-Middle-East-Africa-Scientists-forced-write-evolution-modern-man.html#ixzz19OtiAi7J
Monday, 27 December 2010
The SHUT UP HELEN MIRREN Campaign
I hate actors and actresses.
Their job is to play dress up and get paid for it.
Yet people take them seriously.
It is a sign of just how stupid people are and how debased our culture that anyone takes any actor or actress seriously.
I am starting a SHUT UP HELEN MIRREN Campaign.
I am sick of reading her sanctimonious luvvie bullshit plastered all over the papers where she pontificates from her luxury hotel suite about how the poor of the world need help.
Shut up you selfish hypocritical old woman.
If the rich useless arseholes of the world like Mirren, Bob Geldoff and Bono gave 99 % of their hundreds of millions away to the poor, then hundreds of millions of people could be lifted out of poverty.
Instead these arseholes lecture us all whilst living like parasites off the poor of the world.
Poverty is caused by economic inequality and actors and pop stars are as much guilty as bankers. Their vast wealth obtained for dressing up or singing silly meaningless songs disgraces human civilisation.
We need to shut up Angelina Jolie and all those others actors and actresses that go on TV and put on the crocodile tears for the latest trendy fucked up nation, cause, disaster or idiotic people that cannot build a civic society.
Its time we held footballers, actors and actresses and pop stars in the contempt and loathing they all deserve.
Only a dickhead takes anything seriously some over paid ponce who gets paid millions to play dress up says.
Stephen Fry, Bono, Geldoff and Helen Mirren are the most sanctimonious hypocrites this country has ever vomited up.
Their job is to play dress up and get paid for it.
Yet people take them seriously.
It is a sign of just how stupid people are and how debased our culture that anyone takes any actor or actress seriously.
I am starting a SHUT UP HELEN MIRREN Campaign.
I am sick of reading her sanctimonious luvvie bullshit plastered all over the papers where she pontificates from her luxury hotel suite about how the poor of the world need help.
Shut up you selfish hypocritical old woman.
If the rich useless arseholes of the world like Mirren, Bob Geldoff and Bono gave 99 % of their hundreds of millions away to the poor, then hundreds of millions of people could be lifted out of poverty.
Instead these arseholes lecture us all whilst living like parasites off the poor of the world.
Poverty is caused by economic inequality and actors and pop stars are as much guilty as bankers. Their vast wealth obtained for dressing up or singing silly meaningless songs disgraces human civilisation.
We need to shut up Angelina Jolie and all those others actors and actresses that go on TV and put on the crocodile tears for the latest trendy fucked up nation, cause, disaster or idiotic people that cannot build a civic society.
Its time we held footballers, actors and actresses and pop stars in the contempt and loathing they all deserve.
Only a dickhead takes anything seriously some over paid ponce who gets paid millions to play dress up says.
Stephen Fry, Bono, Geldoff and Helen Mirren are the most sanctimonious hypocrites this country has ever vomited up.
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Bop It Extreme 2 High Score
Just been playing Bop It Extreme 2 and when I reached a score of 160 the machine stopped the game.
Is that the highest score you can get on the British version when you play solo ?
Anyone beaten that score ?
The American sites say that you can get to 250, but the game stopped when I hit 160 - anyone know why ?
Is that the highest score you can get on the British version when you play solo ?
Anyone beaten that score ?
The American sites say that you can get to 250, but the game stopped when I hit 160 - anyone know why ?
New UK Immigration Laws
This can also be applied to this country ;
New US Immigration Laws?
12-26-10
1 There will be no special bilingual programs in the schools.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
2. All ballots will be in this nation's language.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
3. All government business will be conducted in our language.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
4. Non-residents will NOT have the right to vote no matter how long they are here.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
5. Non-citizens will NEVER be able to hold political office
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
6. Foreigners will not be a burden to the taxpayers. No welfare, no food stamps, no health care, or other government assistance programmes. Any burden will be deported.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
7. Foreigners can invest in this country, but it must be an amount at least equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
8. If foreigners come here and buy land... Options will be restricted. Certain parcels including waterfront property are reserved for citizens naturally born into this country.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
9.. Foreigners may have no protests; no demonstrations, no waving of a foreign flag, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our prime minister or his policies. These will lead to imprisonment and deportation.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
10. If you do come to this country illegally, you will be actively hunted &, when caught, sent to jail until your deportation can be arranged. All assets will be taken from you.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Too strict?......
The above laws are the current immigration laws of most Muslim countries!
New US Immigration Laws?
12-26-10
1 There will be no special bilingual programs in the schools.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
2. All ballots will be in this nation's language.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
3. All government business will be conducted in our language.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
4. Non-residents will NOT have the right to vote no matter how long they are here.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
5. Non-citizens will NEVER be able to hold political office
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
6. Foreigners will not be a burden to the taxpayers. No welfare, no food stamps, no health care, or other government assistance programmes. Any burden will be deported.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
7. Foreigners can invest in this country, but it must be an amount at least equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
8. If foreigners come here and buy land... Options will be restricted. Certain parcels including waterfront property are reserved for citizens naturally born into this country.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
9.. Foreigners may have no protests; no demonstrations, no waving of a foreign flag, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our prime minister or his policies. These will lead to imprisonment and deportation.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
10. If you do come to this country illegally, you will be actively hunted &, when caught, sent to jail until your deportation can be arranged. All assets will be taken from you.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Too strict?......
The above laws are the current immigration laws of most Muslim countries!
The Plastic Aristocracy of a Degenerate Nation
In a degenerate nation run by money, the aristocracy are merely establishment whores.
Secretive lobbying firm that says it can get you a knighthood or peerage for as little as £3,500
By Glen Owen
Last updated at 11:36 AM on 26th December 2010
* Comments (1)
* Add to My Stories
Boasts: Mark Llwellwyn Slade claimed his company had drafted more honours nominations than anyone else when he spoke to an undercover reporter
Boasts: Mark Llwellwyn Slade claimed his company had drafted more honours nominations than anyone else when he spoke to an undercover reporter
Public figures are paying a secretive lobbying outfit to help them win honours such as OBEs, knighthoods and even peerages.
The firm – which says that its DIY honours service has been successfully used by dozens of household names – cites a success rate of more than 40 per cent, and even offers a ‘no-win, no-fee’ guarantee for some awards.
But its actions in discreetly orchestrating nominations have angered the Government, which said it was ‘monitoring’ the company. A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: ‘We treat any potential abuse of the UK honours system very seriously.’
Awards Intelligence charges honours-chasing clients £3,000 each, plus an extra £500 if their bid is successful. Footballer Steven Gerrard (MBE) and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones (CBE) are ¬mentioned in its promotional literature as ¬examples of recent recipients – although ¬neither celebrity used its services.
Speaking days before the latest New Year Honours List is announced, the company’s owner, Mark Llewellyn Slade, denied that his activities amounted to an abuse of the 650-year-old system.
But he admitted that the Government had ‘no idea’ whether the nominations they received had been prepared by his company, which says its guiding principle is the National Lottery slogan: ‘You have to be in it to win it.’
He said veteran entertainer Bruce Forsyth, who remains unknighted at the age of 82 despite seven decades in showbusiness, was a good example of someone ‘who could do with our help’.
To discover how the company operates, a Mail on Sunday journalist posed as an intermediary for a ‘major business figure’ who wanted to secure himself ‘a knighthood or a peerage’.
Mr Llewellyn Slade, a public-relations expert, advised the undercover reporter that the unidentified financier could be put forward for an award by anyone, although he suggested that ‘the more prominent the proposer, the better the chances’.
Good example: Mr Llwellwyn Slade said that Bruce Forsyth, pictured here collecting his CBE, could use his firm's help in order to receive a knighthood
Good example: Mr Llwellwyn Slade said that Bruce Forsyth, pictured here collecting his CBE, could use his firm's help in order to receive a knighthood
The company would fill in a nomination form and draft at least two letters of support from third parties, which would then be sent to the Cabinet Office’s Honours and Appointments Secretariat.
Mr Llewellyn Slade suggested that the client should ‘emphasise his links to charitable activities or City fundraising’ – although he added: ‘Sometimes, if they have made enough money for the country they can be honoured simply for their services to business.’
The letters would stress that the nominee had demonstrated achievements such as ‘bringing distinction to British life and enhancing its reputation’ and ‘carrying the respect of their peers’.
Mr Llewellyn Slade boasted: ‘We have probably drafted more honours nominations than anyone else in the world.’
And, asked if the Government honours committees knew that they were receiving professionally prepared nominations, he said: ‘They have absolutely no idea that we are behind them.’
He claimed that clients included dozens of public figures who wanted to have their case for an award made confidentially because they wished the public to think they had won their honours without help.
When individuals are nominated, their names are sifted by civil servants and outside experts before going before an honours committee that makes recommendations to the Prime Minister. He then submits the names to the Queen.
Claims: Despite neither celebrity using the service, literature produced by the company mentions footballer Steven Gerrard and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones
Awards Intelligence, which includes in its promotional material a tribute from Sir Richard Branson to the work of one of its consultants, also promises to help clients to win business prizes.
It ‘guarantees to win you a minimum of two awards from 12 entries or one award from eight entries, or your money back’ and even offers a no-win, no-fee service ‘for clients who want to enter for one or maybe two awards and only pay us if they win’.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘The Cabinet Office does not endorse any service offering advice on how to make and complete an honours nomination.
‘The Cabinet Office treats any potential abuse of the UK honours system very seriously and we would take legal advice if there is any suggestion of misuse or exploitation of the UK honours system.
‘Anyone can nominate someone for an award, and anyone can receive an award, if they reach the required standard of merit or ser¬vice.
‘The Cabinet Office believes this service is unnecessary.’
When The Mail on Sunday approached Mr Llewellyn Slade for a comment, he defended his activities. ‘Our job is to increase our clients’ chances of success,’ he said.
‘I am sure the honours committees know we exist – but the more nominations they receive from good people, then the better it is for them.
‘If the Cabinet Office thought we had crossed the line in any way, then they would have said something about it. People think that they just have to sit there and wait for a call from Buckingham Palace, but they don’t. They can be more proactive.’
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: ‘This is a matter for the Cabinet Office.’
‘Our job is to increase the chances of success’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1341613/Secretive-lobbying-firm-claims-peerage.html#ixzz19DgiQe9D
Secretive lobbying firm that says it can get you a knighthood or peerage for as little as £3,500
By Glen Owen
Last updated at 11:36 AM on 26th December 2010
* Comments (1)
* Add to My Stories
Boasts: Mark Llwellwyn Slade claimed his company had drafted more honours nominations than anyone else when he spoke to an undercover reporter
Boasts: Mark Llwellwyn Slade claimed his company had drafted more honours nominations than anyone else when he spoke to an undercover reporter
Public figures are paying a secretive lobbying outfit to help them win honours such as OBEs, knighthoods and even peerages.
The firm – which says that its DIY honours service has been successfully used by dozens of household names – cites a success rate of more than 40 per cent, and even offers a ‘no-win, no-fee’ guarantee for some awards.
But its actions in discreetly orchestrating nominations have angered the Government, which said it was ‘monitoring’ the company. A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: ‘We treat any potential abuse of the UK honours system very seriously.’
Awards Intelligence charges honours-chasing clients £3,000 each, plus an extra £500 if their bid is successful. Footballer Steven Gerrard (MBE) and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones (CBE) are ¬mentioned in its promotional literature as ¬examples of recent recipients – although ¬neither celebrity used its services.
Speaking days before the latest New Year Honours List is announced, the company’s owner, Mark Llewellyn Slade, denied that his activities amounted to an abuse of the 650-year-old system.
But he admitted that the Government had ‘no idea’ whether the nominations they received had been prepared by his company, which says its guiding principle is the National Lottery slogan: ‘You have to be in it to win it.’
He said veteran entertainer Bruce Forsyth, who remains unknighted at the age of 82 despite seven decades in showbusiness, was a good example of someone ‘who could do with our help’.
To discover how the company operates, a Mail on Sunday journalist posed as an intermediary for a ‘major business figure’ who wanted to secure himself ‘a knighthood or a peerage’.
Mr Llewellyn Slade, a public-relations expert, advised the undercover reporter that the unidentified financier could be put forward for an award by anyone, although he suggested that ‘the more prominent the proposer, the better the chances’.
Good example: Mr Llwellwyn Slade said that Bruce Forsyth, pictured here collecting his CBE, could use his firm's help in order to receive a knighthood
Good example: Mr Llwellwyn Slade said that Bruce Forsyth, pictured here collecting his CBE, could use his firm's help in order to receive a knighthood
The company would fill in a nomination form and draft at least two letters of support from third parties, which would then be sent to the Cabinet Office’s Honours and Appointments Secretariat.
Mr Llewellyn Slade suggested that the client should ‘emphasise his links to charitable activities or City fundraising’ – although he added: ‘Sometimes, if they have made enough money for the country they can be honoured simply for their services to business.’
The letters would stress that the nominee had demonstrated achievements such as ‘bringing distinction to British life and enhancing its reputation’ and ‘carrying the respect of their peers’.
Mr Llewellyn Slade boasted: ‘We have probably drafted more honours nominations than anyone else in the world.’
And, asked if the Government honours committees knew that they were receiving professionally prepared nominations, he said: ‘They have absolutely no idea that we are behind them.’
He claimed that clients included dozens of public figures who wanted to have their case for an award made confidentially because they wished the public to think they had won their honours without help.
When individuals are nominated, their names are sifted by civil servants and outside experts before going before an honours committee that makes recommendations to the Prime Minister. He then submits the names to the Queen.
Claims: Despite neither celebrity using the service, literature produced by the company mentions footballer Steven Gerrard and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones
Awards Intelligence, which includes in its promotional material a tribute from Sir Richard Branson to the work of one of its consultants, also promises to help clients to win business prizes.
It ‘guarantees to win you a minimum of two awards from 12 entries or one award from eight entries, or your money back’ and even offers a no-win, no-fee service ‘for clients who want to enter for one or maybe two awards and only pay us if they win’.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘The Cabinet Office does not endorse any service offering advice on how to make and complete an honours nomination.
‘The Cabinet Office treats any potential abuse of the UK honours system very seriously and we would take legal advice if there is any suggestion of misuse or exploitation of the UK honours system.
‘Anyone can nominate someone for an award, and anyone can receive an award, if they reach the required standard of merit or ser¬vice.
‘The Cabinet Office believes this service is unnecessary.’
When The Mail on Sunday approached Mr Llewellyn Slade for a comment, he defended his activities. ‘Our job is to increase our clients’ chances of success,’ he said.
‘I am sure the honours committees know we exist – but the more nominations they receive from good people, then the better it is for them.
‘If the Cabinet Office thought we had crossed the line in any way, then they would have said something about it. People think that they just have to sit there and wait for a call from Buckingham Palace, but they don’t. They can be more proactive.’
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: ‘This is a matter for the Cabinet Office.’
‘Our job is to increase the chances of success’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1341613/Secretive-lobbying-firm-claims-peerage.html#ixzz19DgiQe9D
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Snow
The true beauty of snow,
Is its silence,
Which slips,
softly,
Betwixt gaps,
Of sky and cloud,
Feathering and fluttering,
With furious flakes,
And powerful powder shakes,
Countless in their complexity,
Biting on the groaning wind,
Until the streets that used to bustle,
Are still,
And empty,
Transforming their brute utility,
Into a sacred unity,
Where traffic becalmed, surrenders.
Only when cars and trains refrain,
From haste and chase,
Of timetables and appointments,
And the way ahead abates,
Into a myriad abandoned journeys,
Do we take the time to see,
What truly matters most to us,
Home and hearth,
And the other half,
Who awaits with warming arms,
The wanderer who returns,
White as winters heart,
And the fragile sunlight that slants,
In moments of warm lucidity,
That arrive as an epiphany,
Through the bars of empty buildings,
As strangers drift and dance,
Slipping home on unfamiliar paths.
Is its silence,
Which slips,
softly,
Betwixt gaps,
Of sky and cloud,
Feathering and fluttering,
With furious flakes,
And powerful powder shakes,
Countless in their complexity,
Biting on the groaning wind,
Until the streets that used to bustle,
Are still,
And empty,
Transforming their brute utility,
Into a sacred unity,
Where traffic becalmed, surrenders.
Only when cars and trains refrain,
From haste and chase,
Of timetables and appointments,
And the way ahead abates,
Into a myriad abandoned journeys,
Do we take the time to see,
What truly matters most to us,
Home and hearth,
And the other half,
Who awaits with warming arms,
The wanderer who returns,
White as winters heart,
And the fragile sunlight that slants,
In moments of warm lucidity,
That arrive as an epiphany,
Through the bars of empty buildings,
As strangers drift and dance,
Slipping home on unfamiliar paths.
Change Is Coming
http://www.rense.com/general92/goodbye.htm
Changes Are Coming - Things
We'll Be Saying Goodbye To
From Clark McClelland
12-25-10
This is long, but most frightening...
CHANGES ARE COMING
Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come.
1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.
3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.
5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.
6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."
7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.
8. The "Things" That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider.
In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again. All we will have that can't be changed are memories.
19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind
The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.
But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America . Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us.
The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?
Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.
So, what happens when the debt bubble pops?
The deindustrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.
For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them. Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.
Here are 19 stunning facts about the deindustrialization of America :
#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.
#2 Dell Inc., one of America 's largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.
#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem , North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.
#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States ? Zero.
#5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.
#6 As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.
#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.
#8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.
#9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.
#10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul , Minnesota . Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing strategy.
#11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.
#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.
#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.
#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.
#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States .
#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.
#19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.
So, how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?
How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?
How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?
How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?
The deindustrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.
And to underscore the above: 11/9/10: The largest private employer in Saginaw, Michigan will soon be the city government of Beijing, as a 104-year-old unit of General Motors will be sold to new owners from China. The $450M purchase received little attention this summer, but it is a landmark deal - the first time Chinese investors have bought a U.S. industrial operation of such scale and history.
Changes Are Coming - Things
We'll Be Saying Goodbye To
From Clark McClelland
12-25-10
This is long, but most frightening...
CHANGES ARE COMING
Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come.
1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.
3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.
5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.
6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."
7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.
8. The "Things" That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider.
In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again. All we will have that can't be changed are memories.
19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind
The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.
But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America . Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us.
The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?
Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.
So, what happens when the debt bubble pops?
The deindustrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.
For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them. Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.
Here are 19 stunning facts about the deindustrialization of America :
#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.
#2 Dell Inc., one of America 's largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.
#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem , North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.
#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States ? Zero.
#5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.
#6 As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.
#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.
#8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.
#9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.
#10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul , Minnesota . Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing strategy.
#11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.
#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.
#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.
#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.
#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States .
#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.
#19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.
So, how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?
How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?
How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?
How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?
The deindustrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.
And to underscore the above: 11/9/10: The largest private employer in Saginaw, Michigan will soon be the city government of Beijing, as a 104-year-old unit of General Motors will be sold to new owners from China. The $450M purchase received little attention this summer, but it is a landmark deal - the first time Chinese investors have bought a U.S. industrial operation of such scale and history.
Wikileaks, Israel and the UFO'S
The problem is not Wikileaks, it is the Zionist controlled media that refuse to publish the documents that relate to Israel.
Thanks to this censorship, we now know the media are a Zionist controlled entity.
As for the UFO's - Assange has released a heavily encrypted file on the internet as a torrent which will only be given the unlock codes via his lawyers if he has an 'accident'. This is a massive file.
There are only two subjects that the US government are afraid to admit - the existence of UFO's and their role in the 911 attacks.
This is why Assange had withheld the documents that reveal the reality of UFO's and any documents linked to 911 - as they prove the US government has lied about both.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/12/23/gordon-duff-julian-assange-wikileaks-a-fraud-run-by-press-for-israel/
“FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU, FOOL ME TWICE….”
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/SeniorEditor
“it is one thing for the New York Times to edit their own stories but you let them censor everything for all of us”
Today, Julian Assange admitted that Wikileak material had been chosen by the press, not an independent organization after all. Wikileaks, in effect, admitted that it has always been a front for what Helen Thomas refers to as the Zionist controlled media. Assange, in a childish attempt at “spin” blamed the press for having too many “sensitivities ” to Israel and making Wikileaks look bad.
HELLO!
The only reason we needed Wikileaks in the first place is that the press failed so utterly. Is it any secret that Assange turned total control of Wikileaks over to the press, the people who gave him “rock star” status? How utterly sick.
CHICKENFEED ONCE MORE
Now Assange is telling us he has 3700 cables from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, documents covering an Israeli assassination and the tail kicking they got when they last invaded Lebanon. Anyone who thinks they can expect to hear the embassy communications outlining American outrage at Israeli actions will die waiting. Expect the same “media sensitivities” we have seen all along.
By “media sensitivities” we are simply saying that Israel controls Wikileaks and uses it to bash their enemies, the United States and their neighbors, some we now learn have been their friends all along.
SHAMEFUL ADMISSION DISGUISED AS SPIN
Wikileaks had promised the press thousands of documents about a “UFO War over the Southern Ocean.” I couldn’t wait for this one. Instead, seemingly clever Julian Assange in his most apologetic manner is now telling us that he has sinned. Where did the mysterious UFO story go? Who told you to withhold it? Are we sitting on that story because President Obama is now drumbeating for war with Iran full time?
WIKILEAKS ADMITS TO BEING A FRAUD
He let the press control Wikileaks.
Julian, if we wanted to read the New York Times, we would go out and get one. Now you are telling us that the Times, a worthless rag of a newspaper, has been running Wikileaks all along? Do you know what “fraud” means?
If we wanted to hear what Israel wanted us to hear, we simply would have turned on our televisions. We have had nothing else for decades. Now you admit you have been a part of it. Are we supposed to be surprised?
You weren’t that hard to figure out. Every day, a new photograph in hundreds of newspapers, always posed, always thoughtful. You spend 9 days waiting for bail and we find out that you have been working for the press, working for Israel, working for the most powerful and devious forces known to mankind all along? You needed 240,000 pounds for bail? This wouldn’t be a one month retainer for your lawyer or publicists. The people you work for use money like that for lighting cigars.
We know it was all an act, just like this is part of that act, more drama brought on because some of us caught you early on and have “outed” you. What I find amazing is your chutzpah. You admit to using us all, defrauding us, being a disinformation agent.
Now you are taking a second shot at deceiving us all. What we expect is the same press that you are now accusing, now supposedly “distancing” yourself from will be the lead on this new story. What we are going to get is the New York Times, the Guardian, der Spiegel, the same triumvirate of baloney, your partners in crime, spreading the same old Wikileaks chickenfeed mixed in with Israeli disinformation and leaks designed to hurt the US government and discredit your Islamic neighbors.
Yes, Julian. They are your Islamic neighbors. If you don’t have Israeli citizenship yet, you soon will. They need another comedian and that seems to be your only real talent. I do so love your choice of words.
“SENSITIVITIES”
What you call “sensitivities,” a word that undoubtedly came from a committee of advisors juggling emails between New York and Tel Aviv is simply lying and cheating to the rest of us. You lied to us all, not once but continually and now you think we are going to take more of your lies simply because they are delivered with a half hearted apology?
Chutzpah
Thanks to this censorship, we now know the media are a Zionist controlled entity.
As for the UFO's - Assange has released a heavily encrypted file on the internet as a torrent which will only be given the unlock codes via his lawyers if he has an 'accident'. This is a massive file.
There are only two subjects that the US government are afraid to admit - the existence of UFO's and their role in the 911 attacks.
This is why Assange had withheld the documents that reveal the reality of UFO's and any documents linked to 911 - as they prove the US government has lied about both.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/12/23/gordon-duff-julian-assange-wikileaks-a-fraud-run-by-press-for-israel/
“FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU, FOOL ME TWICE….”
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/SeniorEditor
“it is one thing for the New York Times to edit their own stories but you let them censor everything for all of us”
Today, Julian Assange admitted that Wikileak material had been chosen by the press, not an independent organization after all. Wikileaks, in effect, admitted that it has always been a front for what Helen Thomas refers to as the Zionist controlled media. Assange, in a childish attempt at “spin” blamed the press for having too many “sensitivities ” to Israel and making Wikileaks look bad.
HELLO!
The only reason we needed Wikileaks in the first place is that the press failed so utterly. Is it any secret that Assange turned total control of Wikileaks over to the press, the people who gave him “rock star” status? How utterly sick.
CHICKENFEED ONCE MORE
Now Assange is telling us he has 3700 cables from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, documents covering an Israeli assassination and the tail kicking they got when they last invaded Lebanon. Anyone who thinks they can expect to hear the embassy communications outlining American outrage at Israeli actions will die waiting. Expect the same “media sensitivities” we have seen all along.
By “media sensitivities” we are simply saying that Israel controls Wikileaks and uses it to bash their enemies, the United States and their neighbors, some we now learn have been their friends all along.
SHAMEFUL ADMISSION DISGUISED AS SPIN
Wikileaks had promised the press thousands of documents about a “UFO War over the Southern Ocean.” I couldn’t wait for this one. Instead, seemingly clever Julian Assange in his most apologetic manner is now telling us that he has sinned. Where did the mysterious UFO story go? Who told you to withhold it? Are we sitting on that story because President Obama is now drumbeating for war with Iran full time?
WIKILEAKS ADMITS TO BEING A FRAUD
He let the press control Wikileaks.
Julian, if we wanted to read the New York Times, we would go out and get one. Now you are telling us that the Times, a worthless rag of a newspaper, has been running Wikileaks all along? Do you know what “fraud” means?
If we wanted to hear what Israel wanted us to hear, we simply would have turned on our televisions. We have had nothing else for decades. Now you admit you have been a part of it. Are we supposed to be surprised?
You weren’t that hard to figure out. Every day, a new photograph in hundreds of newspapers, always posed, always thoughtful. You spend 9 days waiting for bail and we find out that you have been working for the press, working for Israel, working for the most powerful and devious forces known to mankind all along? You needed 240,000 pounds for bail? This wouldn’t be a one month retainer for your lawyer or publicists. The people you work for use money like that for lighting cigars.
We know it was all an act, just like this is part of that act, more drama brought on because some of us caught you early on and have “outed” you. What I find amazing is your chutzpah. You admit to using us all, defrauding us, being a disinformation agent.
Now you are taking a second shot at deceiving us all. What we expect is the same press that you are now accusing, now supposedly “distancing” yourself from will be the lead on this new story. What we are going to get is the New York Times, the Guardian, der Spiegel, the same triumvirate of baloney, your partners in crime, spreading the same old Wikileaks chickenfeed mixed in with Israeli disinformation and leaks designed to hurt the US government and discredit your Islamic neighbors.
Yes, Julian. They are your Islamic neighbors. If you don’t have Israeli citizenship yet, you soon will. They need another comedian and that seems to be your only real talent. I do so love your choice of words.
“SENSITIVITIES”
What you call “sensitivities,” a word that undoubtedly came from a committee of advisors juggling emails between New York and Tel Aviv is simply lying and cheating to the rest of us. You lied to us all, not once but continually and now you think we are going to take more of your lies simply because they are delivered with a half hearted apology?
Chutzpah
Friday, 24 December 2010
The Police and CPS In Britain are Mad
Hanging the Cross of St.George on a fence in England is now racism.
Those the gods wish to destroy, they first drive mad.
This country is being destroyed by the lunatics in the police and CPS.
http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/roundup/articles/2010/12/23/49936-st-georges-flag-protest-lands-in-court
St George's flag protest lands in court
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THE English Defence League staged a protest in Reading today (Thursday) in support of a man arrested after hanging a St George’s flag outside a mosque.
Around 20 members of the controversial campaign group came from across the South East to demonstrate outside Reading Magistrates’ Court monitored by a heavy police presence.
Among them was co-founder Tommy Robinson, who told The Chronicle: “Our argument is with militant Islam. What’s far right about protecting women’s rights and gay people’s rights? The problem is the teachers of Islam, it’s got nothing to do with your colour. It all comes back to the Koran.”
Inside the court 37-year-old Tilehurst man Ronald Peterson was on trial for religiously aggravated harassment. The court heard he went to the partially built mosque in Oxford Road, west Reading, on May 30 to protest over the way its planning application was handled by the borough council.
Peterson, with two other men, draped the St George’s flag on a fence, posed for pictures and chanted “E, E, E.D.L” and “England”.
Witness Urfan Azad, 32, told the court he was in the nearby Reading Tea House and went outside after hearing the chanting.
He said he dialled 999 because he was concerned the situation could escalate, and added: “My concern was the flag needed to be taken off the fence because it might be seen by Muslims as a religious symbol. I felt upset about the whole incident. I’m British myself, I was born in Reading. It’s made me feel a bit socially excluded.”
Police arrived on the scene within minutes and, without warning him or giving him a chance to move on, arrested Peterson on the spot. Sgt Lee Barnham said he spoke to Mr Azad, and added: “He was offended by the use of what he considered to be a religious cross against the site of worship.
“It was clear he was upset and felt intimidated. I was satisfied an offence under the public order act had been committed.”
Peterson, who described the mosque as an “eyesore” and “monstrosity”, told the court he was unhappy because it had not been built in the required time but instead had planning permission re-granted and was given council funding.
Peterson denied being a racist but said he had a problem with the ideology of Islam. He added: “Go and see countries that are run by that ideology, it’s oppressive.”
District Judge Andrew Vickers reserved his verdict and the case was adjourned until January 13.
Those the gods wish to destroy, they first drive mad.
This country is being destroyed by the lunatics in the police and CPS.
http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/roundup/articles/2010/12/23/49936-st-georges-flag-protest-lands-in-court
St George's flag protest lands in court
Print | Email
THE English Defence League staged a protest in Reading today (Thursday) in support of a man arrested after hanging a St George’s flag outside a mosque.
Around 20 members of the controversial campaign group came from across the South East to demonstrate outside Reading Magistrates’ Court monitored by a heavy police presence.
Among them was co-founder Tommy Robinson, who told The Chronicle: “Our argument is with militant Islam. What’s far right about protecting women’s rights and gay people’s rights? The problem is the teachers of Islam, it’s got nothing to do with your colour. It all comes back to the Koran.”
Inside the court 37-year-old Tilehurst man Ronald Peterson was on trial for religiously aggravated harassment. The court heard he went to the partially built mosque in Oxford Road, west Reading, on May 30 to protest over the way its planning application was handled by the borough council.
Peterson, with two other men, draped the St George’s flag on a fence, posed for pictures and chanted “E, E, E.D.L” and “England”.
Witness Urfan Azad, 32, told the court he was in the nearby Reading Tea House and went outside after hearing the chanting.
He said he dialled 999 because he was concerned the situation could escalate, and added: “My concern was the flag needed to be taken off the fence because it might be seen by Muslims as a religious symbol. I felt upset about the whole incident. I’m British myself, I was born in Reading. It’s made me feel a bit socially excluded.”
Police arrived on the scene within minutes and, without warning him or giving him a chance to move on, arrested Peterson on the spot. Sgt Lee Barnham said he spoke to Mr Azad, and added: “He was offended by the use of what he considered to be a religious cross against the site of worship.
“It was clear he was upset and felt intimidated. I was satisfied an offence under the public order act had been committed.”
Peterson, who described the mosque as an “eyesore” and “monstrosity”, told the court he was unhappy because it had not been built in the required time but instead had planning permission re-granted and was given council funding.
Peterson denied being a racist but said he had a problem with the ideology of Islam. He added: “Go and see countries that are run by that ideology, it’s oppressive.”
District Judge Andrew Vickers reserved his verdict and the case was adjourned until January 13.
Roots, Thor and the Race Double Standard
The casting of black actors in Thor the movie is fine - if the media and Hollywood will start casting a white man in the re-make of Roots, a white man in Porgy and Bess and whites taking the role of blacks in the Lion King.
I wonder if that will ever happen.
Merry Xmas Folks
A merry Christmas to everyone - and lets remember that the meaning of Christmas is Christ not consumerism or mammon.
The Oil Age Ends
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/23/reactor-fuel-sunlight
Researchers develop reactor to make fuel from sunlight
Scientists raise hopes for a large-scale renewable source of liquid fuel with a simple reactor that mimics plants
• Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
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Comments (47)
* Damian Carrington
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010 19.00 GMT
* Article history
A simple reactor that mimics plants by turning sunlight into fuel has been demonstrated in the laboratory, boosting hopes for a large-scale renewable source of liquid fuel.
"We have a big energy problem and we have to think big," said Prof Sossina Haile, at the California Institute of Technology, who led the research.
Haile estimates that a rooftop reactor could produce about three gallons of fuel a day. She thinks transport fuels would be the first application of the reactor, if it goes on to commercial use. But she said an equally important use for the renewable fuels would be to store solar energy so it is available at times of peak demand, and overnight. She says the first improvements that will be made to the existing reactor will be to improve the insulation to help stop heat loss, a simple move that she expects to treble the current efficiency.
The key component is made from the metal cerium, which is almost as abundant as copper, unlike other rare and expensive metals frequently used as catalysts, such as platinum. Therefore, said Haile, availability would not limit the use of the device. "There is nothing cost prohibitive in our set-up," she said. "And there is plenty of cerium for this technology to make a major contribution to global gasoline supplies."
The fossil fuels used by vehicles, ships and aeroplanes pose the biggest challenge in the search for low-carbon energy, as they are highly energy-dense and portable, unlike alternatives such as batteries or nuclear reactors. An efficient, large-scale way of converting solar energy into a renewable liquid fuel could play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate change.
The device, reported in the journal Science, uses a standard parabolic mirror to focus the sun's rays into a reaction chamber where the cerium oxide catalyst breaks down water and carbon dioxide. It does this because heating cerium oxide drives oxygen atoms out of its crystal lattice. When cooled the lattice strips oxygen from surrounding chemicals, including water and CO2 in the reactor. That produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be converted to a liquid fuel.
In the experiments the reactor cycled up to 1,600C then down to 800C over 500 times, without damaging the catalyst. "The trick here is the cerium oxide – it's very refractory, it's a rock," said Haile. "But it still has this incredible ability to release oxygen. It can lose one in eight of its oxygen molecules." Caltech has filed patents on this use of cerium oxide.
The use of sunlight to make fuel is being explored by groups around the world, such as that lead by Daniel Nocera at Massachussetts Institute of Technology. His group's technology works at room temperature but is more complex chemically. At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last year researchers found cobalt oxide could help sunlight create fuels, but only as nano-sized crystals. Imperial College in London is also exploring different catalysts.
Other groups are exploring the use of CO2 from power station flues to create liquid fuels, while a related research effort is testing how algae grown in sunlight can be used to create fuels.
Researchers develop reactor to make fuel from sunlight
Scientists raise hopes for a large-scale renewable source of liquid fuel with a simple reactor that mimics plants
• Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
*
o
o Share235
o Reddit
o Buzz up
*
Comments (47)
* Damian Carrington
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010 19.00 GMT
* Article history
A simple reactor that mimics plants by turning sunlight into fuel has been demonstrated in the laboratory, boosting hopes for a large-scale renewable source of liquid fuel.
"We have a big energy problem and we have to think big," said Prof Sossina Haile, at the California Institute of Technology, who led the research.
Haile estimates that a rooftop reactor could produce about three gallons of fuel a day. She thinks transport fuels would be the first application of the reactor, if it goes on to commercial use. But she said an equally important use for the renewable fuels would be to store solar energy so it is available at times of peak demand, and overnight. She says the first improvements that will be made to the existing reactor will be to improve the insulation to help stop heat loss, a simple move that she expects to treble the current efficiency.
The key component is made from the metal cerium, which is almost as abundant as copper, unlike other rare and expensive metals frequently used as catalysts, such as platinum. Therefore, said Haile, availability would not limit the use of the device. "There is nothing cost prohibitive in our set-up," she said. "And there is plenty of cerium for this technology to make a major contribution to global gasoline supplies."
The fossil fuels used by vehicles, ships and aeroplanes pose the biggest challenge in the search for low-carbon energy, as they are highly energy-dense and portable, unlike alternatives such as batteries or nuclear reactors. An efficient, large-scale way of converting solar energy into a renewable liquid fuel could play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate change.
The device, reported in the journal Science, uses a standard parabolic mirror to focus the sun's rays into a reaction chamber where the cerium oxide catalyst breaks down water and carbon dioxide. It does this because heating cerium oxide drives oxygen atoms out of its crystal lattice. When cooled the lattice strips oxygen from surrounding chemicals, including water and CO2 in the reactor. That produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be converted to a liquid fuel.
In the experiments the reactor cycled up to 1,600C then down to 800C over 500 times, without damaging the catalyst. "The trick here is the cerium oxide – it's very refractory, it's a rock," said Haile. "But it still has this incredible ability to release oxygen. It can lose one in eight of its oxygen molecules." Caltech has filed patents on this use of cerium oxide.
The use of sunlight to make fuel is being explored by groups around the world, such as that lead by Daniel Nocera at Massachussetts Institute of Technology. His group's technology works at room temperature but is more complex chemically. At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last year researchers found cobalt oxide could help sunlight create fuels, but only as nano-sized crystals. Imperial College in London is also exploring different catalysts.
Other groups are exploring the use of CO2 from power station flues to create liquid fuels, while a related research effort is testing how algae grown in sunlight can be used to create fuels.
Happy Birthday The State
http://tarpley.net/2010/12/23/december-23-1310-emperor-henry-vii-of-luxemburg-supported-by-dante-arrived-in-milan-and-started-the-process-leading-to-the-modern-state-%E2%80%93-700-years-ago-today/
December 23, 1310: Emperor Henry VII of Luxemburg, Supported by Dante, Arrived in Milan and Started the Process Leading to the Modern State – 700 Years Ago Today
[Translate]
Webster G. Tarpley
TARPLEY.net
December 23, 2010
Henry VII
Henry VII of Luxemburg
Today, December 23, 2010, marks one of the most important world-historical anniversaries of all time. Seven hundred years ago this evening, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII of Luxemburg passed through the city gates of Milan, Italy and set into motion the process leading to the most important political innovation of the past 2,000 years: the modern state.
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Henry VII’s most vocal political supporter and advocate was the Florentine exile Dante Alighieri, by all odds the greatest man of the second millennium AD. Dante’s immediate goal was to end the fratricidal party strife between the Guelf (pro-papal) and Ghibelline (pro-imperial) factions by restoring imperial guidance to the northern Italian city states, which had been gripped by growing anarchy and incipient civil war since the death of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and the end of his southern Italian kingdom 60 years earlier. One of the victims of this anarchy had been Dante himself, who was driven out of Florence in 1303 by the ascendant Black Guelf party, acting with the encouragement of the simonist pope, Boniface VIII.
The Greyhound
Dante’s Divine Comedy, the first sustained poetic effort in Italian and the first masterpiece in a modern language, was written as an ideological handbook and justification for Henry VII’s Italian expedition and the restoration of a balance between pope and emperor in northern and central Italy. In Canto I of the Inferno, when Dante is lost in the dark wood of error, his guide Vergil foretells the coming of “il veltro” — a greyhound who will destroy the wolf of avarice, the source of all depraved desires, thought by some to represent the banking power, especially its Venetian aspect. The greyhound is a figure for Henry VII. The entire “Divine Comedy” is full of references and prophecies about Henry VII, too many to be enumerated here.
In Milan, Henry VII’s modest retinue of a few thousand troops were awaited by the hostile but politically decrepit Guelf regime of the Torriani family, who had driven the Ghibelline opposition out of the city. Henry VII’s general policy was that political exiles should be allowed to return to their homes, and in the case of Milan this included Matteo Visconti and his followers, who had originally come from the Pavia area, between Milan and the Po River. Before long, the Ghibelline Matteo Visconti had ousted the Torriani family from power and established one of the most important family regimes in all of European history.
After being crowned King of Lombardy in the church of St. Ambrose in Milan on January 6, 1310, Henry VII attempted to reconcile the factions of other northern Italian cities. Ghibelline cities like Verona, Pisa, Arezzo, Modena, and Mantua welcomed Henry, but the more numerous Guelf rulers soon formed a league to resist him, including by waging war. The prime mover of this rebellion was Guelf Florence, controlled by Dante’s mortal enemies, the Black Guelfs. Henry VII, despite his inadequate forces, responded by besieging Florence, albeit unsuccessfully.
In Cantos 8 and 9 of the Inferno, Dante and Vergil are for a time prevented from passing through the walls that surround the lower hell or City of Dis by the largest and most aggressive assembly of demons the two wayfarers ever encounter in the underworld. This is a pandemonium of pagan and other monsters, featuring Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera, the three furies of Greek lore, plus the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa, which these infernal guards intend to use to turn Dante into stone. The demonic resistance cannot be put down by human reason as represented by Vergil, who must wait for an angel or heavenly messenger to quell the rebellion against the divine will, which wants Dante to see the lower hell and tell the world what he was seen. This is followed by an admonition to the reader to look below the surface meaning to understand the allegorical message Dante sought to impart. According to Pietrobono and some of the better commentators, the walls of lower hell are to be understood as a metaphor for the walls of Florence during Henry’s siege of that city, with the Black Guelfs as recalcitrant demons. Hell is a city much like Florence under the Black Guelfs, says Dante.
In addition to devoting so much of the Divine Comedy to Henry VII, Dante also wrote about his hopes for the new emperor in three of his few extant Latin letters. Letter V, probably written in the fall of 1310, proclaims the coming of Henry VII as the new Moses and bridegroom of long-suffering Italy. Letter VI is an emphatic prophecy of ruin for Henry VII’s enemies, who will see their cities destroyed as punishment for their resistance, despite their contemptible fortifications (ridiculo cuiquam vallo). Letter VII exhorts Henry VII to stop wasting time with the rebellions fomented in Brescia and other cities, and to strike directly at the heart of the insurrection by launching a new attack on Florence, the stinking vixen of the Arno. Finally, Dante’s treatise on politics and government, De Monarchia, is a theoretical expression of the idea that the temporal rule of the emperor is superior to the political authority of the Roman pope, who needs to focus on spiritual matters.
Henry VII of Luxemburg died in August of 1313, just as he was preparing a new attack on Florence. He is likely to have been poisoned by political adversaries.
Dante’s detractors have never tired of deriding the failure of his attempt to restore civic peace in northern and central Italy with the help or a revivified Holy Roman Empire. But this ignores the two political powers that Henry VII helped to establish. One was Verona under the Scala family; Can Grande della Scala was one of Dante’s benefactors in exile, and for a time seemed likely to dominate northern Italy, perhaps including Venice. The other imperial vicars who became prominent were the Visconti.
By the end of 1313, the Visconti state controlled not just Milan, but also Lombard towns like Piacenza, Lodi, Bobbio, and Novara. In 1314, they added Como, Bergamo, and Tortona. In 1315, Pavia and Cremona were conquered, while Alessandria invited them in to escape the repressive rule of the French-backed Anjou overlords. In 1316, Parma and Vercelli joined the Visconti state. As the leading scholarly study of Henry VII by William M. Bowsky concludes, the Visconti power “owed its start, both militarily and legally, to Henry of Luxemburg.”
Giangaleazzo Visconti
Giangaleazzo Visconti, c. 1400: Architect of the First Prototype of the Modern State
It was a somewhat later Milanese ruler of this line, Giangaleazzo Visconti, who in the years around 1400 created a large northern Italian state which must be considered as the first prototype of the modern state. Giangaleazzo’s state included most of northern Italy, with the key exceptions of Venice and Tuscany. He ruled Verona, Cremona, Brescia, Belluno, Pieve di Cadore, Feltre, Pavia, Novara, Como, Lodi, Vercelli, Alba, Asti, Pontremoli, Tortona, Alessandria, Valenza, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Vicenza, and Vigevano. Another year and Florence would have appeared on the list, and shortly thereafter, probably Venice, making the Kingdom of Italy a viable reality.
Milan was traditionally the richest city in western Europe, and its only serious competitor for first place in Europe as a whole was Constantinople. Giangaleazzo’s political method featured two aspects which have remained indispensable to the modern state. The first was an economic recovery program favoring the middle class: when Giangaleazzo seized control of Milan, he implemented a tax amnesty, cancelling the debts owed by citizens to the tax collector. This would be the modern equivalent of a debt moratorium or cancellation.
Giangaleazzo’s other hallmark was the building of modern infrastructure. For Milan, that meant a very advanced system of canals in and around Milan, and reaching down to the Po and other rivers — the navigli, many of which still exist, covered over with more recent constructions. These canals enabled Giangaleazzo to make rapid progress on the Milanese Duomo, the most ambitious late Gothic cathedral in Europe, and to build the striking Charterhouse of Pavia (Certosa di Pavia), a Carthusian monastery.
Milan was also the European leader in key areas of advanced technology, especially in steel and other metallurgy. The Milanese arms and armor industry was in demand from both England and France, the antagonists in the Hundred Years War of 1337-1453.
By 1402 Giangaleazzo was thus well on his way to accomplishing the single most important thing needed to consolidate the gains of the Italian renaissance — unifying northern and central Italy into a powerful national state capable of preventing the country from becoming a battlefield between France and Spain, as happened in the years after 1494, with the most tragic consequences. But in 1402, just as Giangaleazzo was about to add Florence and Tuscany to his emerging nation, he died in September 1402 under mysterious circumstances, just like Henry VII in 1313 and Dante in 1321.
After 1402, Giangaleazzo’s new state quickly fell apart, but was largely re-assembled by his second oldest son, Filippo Maria Visconti. After Filippo Maria, the Milanese state passed under the control of Francesco Sforza, a military leader who had married Filippo Maria’s daughter. In this latter form it was closely studied and imitated by King Louis XI of France, who successfully created the world’s first modern state, no longer a prototype, during his reign of 1461-1483.
The importance and positive potential of the Visconti has been obscured for generations of readers by the profoundly misleading work of the late historian Hans Baron, who could only regard the Visconti as tyrants and precursors of Mussolini and Hitler — a total distortion. For Baron, the positive forces were the sleazy pols of the Florentine Guelf Party and their spokesmen, oligarchs who refused to write in Italian and reverted to Latin, lest the plebs gain insight into statecraft. Francesco Petrarca, Dante’s successor in the effort of promote a renaissance out of the shipwreck of late medieval Europe, did not agree with the pedantic Baron: Petrarch thought highly enough of the Visconti to go to work for them as a diplomat for five years during the 1350s.
The Holy Roman Empire (Sacro Romano Impero, or Heiliges Roemisches Reich Deutscher Nation) was the direct descendant of the empire assembled by Charlemagne around 800 AD. It was an amalgam of much of central Europe, including Germany, Bohemia, Holland and the Low Countries, northern and central Italy, and some adjacent areas. Holy Roman Emperors like Henry VII were chosen by an electoral college of seven members, including the King of Bohemia, the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier, plus the rulers of Saxony, the Palatinate along the Rhine, and Brandenburg-Prussia. The newly elected emperor was immediately declared King of the Romans, but he then was supposed to go to Italy to be crowned with the iron crown of Lombardy in Monza near Milan. He was then supposed to go on to Rome to be crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by the pope. This was the traditional itinerary which Henry VII was following, even as he tried to restore imperial authority south of the Alps. Matters were complicated by the fact that the pope in 1310 was the Gascon Clement V, a puppet of Philip the Fair of France (whom Dante called “the French disease”); Clement V lived in Avignon, and never came to Rome. Henry VII was crowned by a cardinal in St. John Lateran, which was controlled by the Ghibelline Colonna family, rather than in St. Peter’s, which was behind the lines of the Guelf Orsini clan.
From Thomas Carlyle and Francesco De Sanctis to the quackademics of today, modern oligarchs have mocked and reviled Dante’s efforts to restore legality to northern and central Italy with the help of Henry VII. The lesson of the story is that Dante failed in the narrow sense of restoring the empire, but succeeded in the larger project launching a process leading to the modern state, and with it modern civilization. Success does not always come in the form we expect, but we must welcome progress nevertheless.
Today, with the modern state under assault by nihilists, anarchists, and barbarians of the extreme left and the reactionary right, proponents of civilization and culture need to recommit themselves to the indispensable institution of the modern state, and to the world-historical geniuses and heroes, starting with Dante, who have worked to create it.
December 23, 1310: Emperor Henry VII of Luxemburg, Supported by Dante, Arrived in Milan and Started the Process Leading to the Modern State – 700 Years Ago Today
[Translate]
Webster G. Tarpley
TARPLEY.net
December 23, 2010
Henry VII
Henry VII of Luxemburg
Today, December 23, 2010, marks one of the most important world-historical anniversaries of all time. Seven hundred years ago this evening, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII of Luxemburg passed through the city gates of Milan, Italy and set into motion the process leading to the most important political innovation of the past 2,000 years: the modern state.
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Henry VII’s most vocal political supporter and advocate was the Florentine exile Dante Alighieri, by all odds the greatest man of the second millennium AD. Dante’s immediate goal was to end the fratricidal party strife between the Guelf (pro-papal) and Ghibelline (pro-imperial) factions by restoring imperial guidance to the northern Italian city states, which had been gripped by growing anarchy and incipient civil war since the death of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and the end of his southern Italian kingdom 60 years earlier. One of the victims of this anarchy had been Dante himself, who was driven out of Florence in 1303 by the ascendant Black Guelf party, acting with the encouragement of the simonist pope, Boniface VIII.
The Greyhound
Dante’s Divine Comedy, the first sustained poetic effort in Italian and the first masterpiece in a modern language, was written as an ideological handbook and justification for Henry VII’s Italian expedition and the restoration of a balance between pope and emperor in northern and central Italy. In Canto I of the Inferno, when Dante is lost in the dark wood of error, his guide Vergil foretells the coming of “il veltro” — a greyhound who will destroy the wolf of avarice, the source of all depraved desires, thought by some to represent the banking power, especially its Venetian aspect. The greyhound is a figure for Henry VII. The entire “Divine Comedy” is full of references and prophecies about Henry VII, too many to be enumerated here.
In Milan, Henry VII’s modest retinue of a few thousand troops were awaited by the hostile but politically decrepit Guelf regime of the Torriani family, who had driven the Ghibelline opposition out of the city. Henry VII’s general policy was that political exiles should be allowed to return to their homes, and in the case of Milan this included Matteo Visconti and his followers, who had originally come from the Pavia area, between Milan and the Po River. Before long, the Ghibelline Matteo Visconti had ousted the Torriani family from power and established one of the most important family regimes in all of European history.
After being crowned King of Lombardy in the church of St. Ambrose in Milan on January 6, 1310, Henry VII attempted to reconcile the factions of other northern Italian cities. Ghibelline cities like Verona, Pisa, Arezzo, Modena, and Mantua welcomed Henry, but the more numerous Guelf rulers soon formed a league to resist him, including by waging war. The prime mover of this rebellion was Guelf Florence, controlled by Dante’s mortal enemies, the Black Guelfs. Henry VII, despite his inadequate forces, responded by besieging Florence, albeit unsuccessfully.
In Cantos 8 and 9 of the Inferno, Dante and Vergil are for a time prevented from passing through the walls that surround the lower hell or City of Dis by the largest and most aggressive assembly of demons the two wayfarers ever encounter in the underworld. This is a pandemonium of pagan and other monsters, featuring Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera, the three furies of Greek lore, plus the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa, which these infernal guards intend to use to turn Dante into stone. The demonic resistance cannot be put down by human reason as represented by Vergil, who must wait for an angel or heavenly messenger to quell the rebellion against the divine will, which wants Dante to see the lower hell and tell the world what he was seen. This is followed by an admonition to the reader to look below the surface meaning to understand the allegorical message Dante sought to impart. According to Pietrobono and some of the better commentators, the walls of lower hell are to be understood as a metaphor for the walls of Florence during Henry’s siege of that city, with the Black Guelfs as recalcitrant demons. Hell is a city much like Florence under the Black Guelfs, says Dante.
In addition to devoting so much of the Divine Comedy to Henry VII, Dante also wrote about his hopes for the new emperor in three of his few extant Latin letters. Letter V, probably written in the fall of 1310, proclaims the coming of Henry VII as the new Moses and bridegroom of long-suffering Italy. Letter VI is an emphatic prophecy of ruin for Henry VII’s enemies, who will see their cities destroyed as punishment for their resistance, despite their contemptible fortifications (ridiculo cuiquam vallo). Letter VII exhorts Henry VII to stop wasting time with the rebellions fomented in Brescia and other cities, and to strike directly at the heart of the insurrection by launching a new attack on Florence, the stinking vixen of the Arno. Finally, Dante’s treatise on politics and government, De Monarchia, is a theoretical expression of the idea that the temporal rule of the emperor is superior to the political authority of the Roman pope, who needs to focus on spiritual matters.
Henry VII of Luxemburg died in August of 1313, just as he was preparing a new attack on Florence. He is likely to have been poisoned by political adversaries.
Dante’s detractors have never tired of deriding the failure of his attempt to restore civic peace in northern and central Italy with the help or a revivified Holy Roman Empire. But this ignores the two political powers that Henry VII helped to establish. One was Verona under the Scala family; Can Grande della Scala was one of Dante’s benefactors in exile, and for a time seemed likely to dominate northern Italy, perhaps including Venice. The other imperial vicars who became prominent were the Visconti.
By the end of 1313, the Visconti state controlled not just Milan, but also Lombard towns like Piacenza, Lodi, Bobbio, and Novara. In 1314, they added Como, Bergamo, and Tortona. In 1315, Pavia and Cremona were conquered, while Alessandria invited them in to escape the repressive rule of the French-backed Anjou overlords. In 1316, Parma and Vercelli joined the Visconti state. As the leading scholarly study of Henry VII by William M. Bowsky concludes, the Visconti power “owed its start, both militarily and legally, to Henry of Luxemburg.”
Giangaleazzo Visconti
Giangaleazzo Visconti, c. 1400: Architect of the First Prototype of the Modern State
It was a somewhat later Milanese ruler of this line, Giangaleazzo Visconti, who in the years around 1400 created a large northern Italian state which must be considered as the first prototype of the modern state. Giangaleazzo’s state included most of northern Italy, with the key exceptions of Venice and Tuscany. He ruled Verona, Cremona, Brescia, Belluno, Pieve di Cadore, Feltre, Pavia, Novara, Como, Lodi, Vercelli, Alba, Asti, Pontremoli, Tortona, Alessandria, Valenza, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Vicenza, and Vigevano. Another year and Florence would have appeared on the list, and shortly thereafter, probably Venice, making the Kingdom of Italy a viable reality.
Milan was traditionally the richest city in western Europe, and its only serious competitor for first place in Europe as a whole was Constantinople. Giangaleazzo’s political method featured two aspects which have remained indispensable to the modern state. The first was an economic recovery program favoring the middle class: when Giangaleazzo seized control of Milan, he implemented a tax amnesty, cancelling the debts owed by citizens to the tax collector. This would be the modern equivalent of a debt moratorium or cancellation.
Giangaleazzo’s other hallmark was the building of modern infrastructure. For Milan, that meant a very advanced system of canals in and around Milan, and reaching down to the Po and other rivers — the navigli, many of which still exist, covered over with more recent constructions. These canals enabled Giangaleazzo to make rapid progress on the Milanese Duomo, the most ambitious late Gothic cathedral in Europe, and to build the striking Charterhouse of Pavia (Certosa di Pavia), a Carthusian monastery.
Milan was also the European leader in key areas of advanced technology, especially in steel and other metallurgy. The Milanese arms and armor industry was in demand from both England and France, the antagonists in the Hundred Years War of 1337-1453.
By 1402 Giangaleazzo was thus well on his way to accomplishing the single most important thing needed to consolidate the gains of the Italian renaissance — unifying northern and central Italy into a powerful national state capable of preventing the country from becoming a battlefield between France and Spain, as happened in the years after 1494, with the most tragic consequences. But in 1402, just as Giangaleazzo was about to add Florence and Tuscany to his emerging nation, he died in September 1402 under mysterious circumstances, just like Henry VII in 1313 and Dante in 1321.
After 1402, Giangaleazzo’s new state quickly fell apart, but was largely re-assembled by his second oldest son, Filippo Maria Visconti. After Filippo Maria, the Milanese state passed under the control of Francesco Sforza, a military leader who had married Filippo Maria’s daughter. In this latter form it was closely studied and imitated by King Louis XI of France, who successfully created the world’s first modern state, no longer a prototype, during his reign of 1461-1483.
The importance and positive potential of the Visconti has been obscured for generations of readers by the profoundly misleading work of the late historian Hans Baron, who could only regard the Visconti as tyrants and precursors of Mussolini and Hitler — a total distortion. For Baron, the positive forces were the sleazy pols of the Florentine Guelf Party and their spokesmen, oligarchs who refused to write in Italian and reverted to Latin, lest the plebs gain insight into statecraft. Francesco Petrarca, Dante’s successor in the effort of promote a renaissance out of the shipwreck of late medieval Europe, did not agree with the pedantic Baron: Petrarch thought highly enough of the Visconti to go to work for them as a diplomat for five years during the 1350s.
The Holy Roman Empire (Sacro Romano Impero, or Heiliges Roemisches Reich Deutscher Nation) was the direct descendant of the empire assembled by Charlemagne around 800 AD. It was an amalgam of much of central Europe, including Germany, Bohemia, Holland and the Low Countries, northern and central Italy, and some adjacent areas. Holy Roman Emperors like Henry VII were chosen by an electoral college of seven members, including the King of Bohemia, the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier, plus the rulers of Saxony, the Palatinate along the Rhine, and Brandenburg-Prussia. The newly elected emperor was immediately declared King of the Romans, but he then was supposed to go to Italy to be crowned with the iron crown of Lombardy in Monza near Milan. He was then supposed to go on to Rome to be crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by the pope. This was the traditional itinerary which Henry VII was following, even as he tried to restore imperial authority south of the Alps. Matters were complicated by the fact that the pope in 1310 was the Gascon Clement V, a puppet of Philip the Fair of France (whom Dante called “the French disease”); Clement V lived in Avignon, and never came to Rome. Henry VII was crowned by a cardinal in St. John Lateran, which was controlled by the Ghibelline Colonna family, rather than in St. Peter’s, which was behind the lines of the Guelf Orsini clan.
From Thomas Carlyle and Francesco De Sanctis to the quackademics of today, modern oligarchs have mocked and reviled Dante’s efforts to restore legality to northern and central Italy with the help of Henry VII. The lesson of the story is that Dante failed in the narrow sense of restoring the empire, but succeeded in the larger project launching a process leading to the modern state, and with it modern civilization. Success does not always come in the form we expect, but we must welcome progress nevertheless.
Today, with the modern state under assault by nihilists, anarchists, and barbarians of the extreme left and the reactionary right, proponents of civilization and culture need to recommit themselves to the indispensable institution of the modern state, and to the world-historical geniuses and heroes, starting with Dante, who have worked to create it.
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