Saturday, July 25, 2009

[death on the nile] quite a reasonable version



This is one of those which supposedly automatically switches to parts 2, 3 and so on. I read one of the comments which said, 'Why doesn't Linnet have a British accent? It's really bothering me for some reason.' It does me too and there are other anomalies. Linnet is outwardly not charming here whereas she gave the appearance of nice in the original. Jacqueline is not French enough here and a few of the others don't seem quite right but David Suchet is excellent as usual. The settings are exotic and the score appropriate. It grows on you, this version.




[silent saturday] march of man

[prod polls] equivocal result or what?

While on Prodicus, here are his current polls:

Question: Is the Labour government lying about future public spending?


Yes
86
100%
No
0
0%

86 Responses in 25 days.

Question: Is Ed Balls a liar?


Yes
105
100%
No
0
0%

105 Responses in 25 days.

Had to chuckle.
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[prodicus question] what was your first grown-up book?

This was mine.
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[washing] ruined on the line, teen sex and swine flu


Wasn't it Aesop who wrote a fable where one set of animals brought in a law which benefited them but the other group said that, for them, it meant certain death? Well, this is not life or death but it does show how Britain's summer affects us differently.

Posh Totty [great name] decries a summer which can act in this manner:

I get up in the morning and the sun is shining, so rather than use the tumble dryer, I hang the washing in the garden to dry, I much prefer line dried washing. But before it has had chance to dry properly, it rains, and it rains hard. So out I run frantically un-pegging various items from the line while getting soaked myself in an attempt to save my clean washing from getting an extra rinse.

Yes, PT but look at my situation. I was living in Russia where the continental summer gives temperatures of 35 or 36 Celsius day in, day out and the buildings built for the Russian winter are heat boxes. Then I went down to Sicily, where the temperature every day, high up on a rock, was 41 or 42 degrees. I've lived many years in Australia where the heatwaves last days and can be 44 to 46 degrees. In Western Australia, I walked through 52 degrees for a minute.

Therefore, the rain we had yesterday was a dream and has kept the British summer this year down to tolerable levels, not to mention what it has done to all the greenery around. :)

In other news, Prodicus asks the quite reasonable question: "What was the first adult book you read?" Nick reminds us that today is United4Iran Day and North Northwester thinks he only has his son's flu and not that nasty other one. One can only hope so.

Lastly, Letters from a Tory is concerning himself with the religious aspects of teen sex and pregnancy, exploring the idea that sex is to be avoided.
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[mass secession] or just a nice day out at a tea party?


Theo's original article on Americans standing up to the Federal Government had some interesting links:

Part of a series of moves by states seeking to utilize the Tenth Amendment as a limit on Federal Power, the Tennessee State Senate approved Senate Bill 1610 (SB1610), the Tennesse Firearms Freedom Act, by a vote of 22-7. The House companion bill, HB1796 previously passed the House by a vote of 87-1. Governor Breseden allowed the bill to become law without signing.

The law states that “federal laws and regulations do not apply to personal firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition that is manufactured in Tennessee and remains in Tennessee. The limitation on federal law and regulation stated in this bill applies to a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured using basic materials and that can be manufactured without the inclusion of any significant parts imported into this state.”

The Federal Government, by way of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms expressed its own view of the Tenth Amendment this week when it issued an open letter to ‘all Tennessee Federal Firearms Licensees’ in which it denounced the opinion of Beavers and the Tennessee legislature. ATF assistant director Carson W. Carroll wrote that ‘Federal law supersedes the Act’, and thus the ATF considers it meaningless.

Constitutional historian Kevin R.C. Gutzman sees this as something far removed from the founders’ vision of constitutional government:“The letter says, in part, ‘because the Act conflicts with Federal firearms laws and regulations, Federal law supersedes the Act, and all provisions of the Gun Control Act and the National Firearms Act, and their corresponding regulations, continue to apply.’


That is precisely what I predicted the Federal Government’s response to the Tennessee act would be. As I told Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox News’s Glenn Beck Program on June 5, 2009, federal officials don’t care about a good historical argument concerning the meaning of the Constitution.”

That's serious stuff.

Via Etheric Warriors, the move in New Hampshire:

That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, -- delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself ....

It goes on and on. Those boys mean business.

Oregon's draft letter:

Preamble -

Oregon does not wish break its relationship of Statehood with the union between itself and the other 49 Sovereign Nation States under the Constitution for the united States of America..

Let this be abundantly clear; Oregon's Intent to Secede is based on the usurpations of power and infringements of Rights, and the putting upon the Citizens of Oregon "legislation and Acts", "mandates", "rules", "regulations", debt and taxation that are not granted to the Federal Government by the States..

A draft letter with exactly the same wording, apart from the state name, is proposed for South Carolina. 36 states are apparently speaking of this thing - will their letters all have the same wording? Whose wording?

Perry's reply to a question from the floor at the tea party did not say Texas was going to secede but that it could.

What this is all about and what the tea parties were all about was money, especially taxation. What is the root of the secessionist movement?

The driving force at the grass roots level is of course money. Many Americans are rightly disturbed by the transfer of their wealth, and the wealth of their children, to companies that made risky investments, or were poorly managed. This is new territory for the government.

The transfer started under George W. Bush with his bank bailout and auto makers bailouts, and the Obama administration has really poured on the spending with additional bailouts and stimulus packages. Citizens of more fiscally conservative states are finding that there money is being redirected from their pockets, and sent to other states.

The mechanism is the 10th Amendment. I can't see how far any of this is genuinely about secession but it seems more about stopping the federal tax onslaught and the arrogant attitude of the Federal Government to states rights, a stupid attitude, given America's history. Not to mention the trillion dollar spending plans and rake-offs to the banks.

Obama is one of Them, with eyes squarely on the multi-trillion spending blowout and sealing his place in history. His eyes are global but meanwhile, the states, the pillars of his own position are moving about under him, grumbling loudly.

Via Vox:

Glenn Reynolds has a summary in the Wall Street Journal:

The good news for Republicans is that, while the Republican Party flounders in its response to the Obama presidency and its programs, millions of Americans are getting organized on their own. The bad news is that those Americans, despite their opposition to President Obama's policies, aren't especially friendly to the GOP.

Via Michelle Malkin :

Hogberg’s IBD piece to get your motors running:

As unemployment soars and anger over Wall Street bailouts mounts, public outrage will seek an outlet. Populism could go in many directions — and could easily ebb when the economy revives. But if it takes shape as an anti-spending movement, it could revive conservatives much as the 1970s tax protests did.

So, there's a whole lot of anger out there and as usual, it is being seized on by those pushing their own agendas while people are genuinely hurting in the pocket and expressing it. It seems logical that if everything bounces back, the movement for secession might stall but if it goes as it seems it must go - downhill, then America is in for a very interesting late 2009/early 2010.


My question is - who benefits by secession? Clearly the sudden drop in Federal taxation and impositions on the states helps but how much of that filters through to the people themselves without the states raking off a percentage? Do the states still expect the Federal government to apply their Defense budget to the states who semi-seceded?

Another worry is the move to deconstruct the United States of America by means of encroachment on its powers via the NAAC and other bodies, without specifically stating that sovereignty has been lost. With Washington acting as it has, in tandem with the Fed, Goldman Sachs et al, the prime movers have a three-pronged attack:

1. Subsume the following powers under a new advisory body:

a. defense

b. the judiciary

c. education

d. social security

e. opens the borders and creates access and egress via the state constructed NAFTA Superhighways

f. creates a free economic zone within NA shores

g is advised by the North American Advisory Council [CFR appointees - p53]
2. Create such anger with Washington by means of the bailouts, the economic crash and Obama's spendthrift policies that people would entertain the idea of secession, thus destabilizing the U.S.A. and allowing China and Russian open slather in the markets and on the world stage.

3. Pick off the rogue states and subsume them, undefended as they are, into a new superstate controlled by Them.

That's the plan of the CFR et al and you can read the doc at the end of the link above. As can be seen in all the unrest across the nation, not known since the Vietnam years [leave Monicagate out of it], the melting pot is envisaged.

Who was it said:

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

... ?

In Britain, the same process is well underway - people deeply disgruntled, the UK about to be broken up [it already partially is] post October 10 and desire to remove all pollies from Westminster, just as there is a desire to cull Washington over there.

The solution is simple - don't break up the union. Cull the politicians. Actually remove them, by the will of the people and create a far smaller, more constrained legislature, executive and judiciary, within the Constitution, retaining and maintaining the Constitution, your only bulwark against the coming tyranny and reasserting the rule of law and states rights, as was originally envisaged.

[And while you're at it, guys, support HR Resolution 615.]
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Friday, July 24, 2009

[nourissante obscurite] et l'homme dans un hangar


Well, I never.

Apparently, at least one person is reading this blog, Nourissante Obscurite en français. This post seems to have been written on Vendredi, le 13 avril 2007 and in the top of the left sidebar, I've [currently] advised you:

Pour ceux qui cherchent PISTOLET POUR LE POST-CONTROL ... C'EST ICI Pour ceux qui cherchent LA GAUCHE, DROITE ET LEUR POSTE ... C'EST ICI.

Intéressant, non? It seems I have also put out a request to all good people:

S'IL VOUS PLAÎT SUPPORT cette noble cause la semaine prochaine: Homme dans un hangar de SEMAINE # SILLY.

So do get behind this , s'il vous plaît. Aussi, ajouter votre opinion, people - should I blog in English ou en français?
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Friday quiz

Jailhouse Lawyer gets in on the island quiz act too.

The English teacher said that no man is an island. I replied, save for the Isle of Man. Very good, said the English teacher.

I have since found another example.

Can you guess what it is? I am thinking of a specific example. Therefore, does John Johnson ring any bells?

[know your islands] five questions


1. The bailwick is divided into twelve parishes, all bar two being saints.

2. It has Teide and had a bad aircrash many years ago.

3. It's known for black sand beaches and the Transit of Venus.

4. Large deposits of ore on this island gave the Latin name cuprum.

5. Blown to smithereens by the French.

Answers


Jersey, Tenerife, Tahiti, Cyprus, Mururoa Atoll

[weekend poll] favourite landscapes


1. Ancient building scape

2. Atmospheric scape

3. Beach sea scape

4. City scape

5. Desert scape

6. Field and garden

7. Forest scape

8. Lake and river

9. Mountain scape

10. Snow scape

Which three do you love most? Vote at the top of the right sidebar.
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[the three political stances] left, right and them

Brussels

There is an issue looming over this way and that is between the left wing and centre-right bloggers [the majority of the political bloggers in the blogosphere].

By and large, if you skip round the political blogs, the centre-right gets stuck into the left and puts difficult questions [because these are easier to find] and scorns when the left avoids them and calls for everyone to be nice to one another instead.

The centre-right interprets this to mean that the left has no answers for their curly questions because their philosophy doesn’t stand the light of day and the left “know” in their hearts that they are correct in their ideals. So they say nothing and think their ideals are slowly being realized, if only they keep up the struggle.

Two left wingers recently suggested that one should be careful flinging around epithets – presumably they meant the epithet of socialist. The problem with epithets was alluded to in the post on the Crusades which was more a political than a religious post, i.e. that groups and individuals adopt a label to project an image and align themselves with a certain desirable [in most people’s minds] stance, when in fact their true stance is anything but benign.

The Democratic Republic of Germany was the example I used.

There are three major thrusts in political life but most people see only two and that’s why the terms left wing/right wing are so convenient and comfortable to use.

Almost no one identifies the third discrete political thrust, which I label Them, for want of a better term. Them includes what is generally accepted as communists, extreme nationalists [in terms of their methods], global socialists, anarchists, Gore-nutters, monopolists [aligned anyway with the State – see the Morgan Fed], higher degree Masons and a rag tag of other extreme views which wish to see the complete transformation of society resembling 1984.

The greatest problem for those who can only see left wing/right wing is that Them cut across all political spectra. The [alleged] worst capital monopolists, e.g. Goldman Sachs, are in the same trough as the Trotskyites and Maoists. Skargill and Mandelson are of the same ilk, all attached to a world view which is anything but benign.

They suck in the left through its do-gooder, nicy-nicy idealism where everyone loves everyone else and everything’s in the great melting pot and they cynically play on that. The result is the way all socialist movements which have ever gained a foothold have gone – it always ends up the same way:

# inflation, followed by great unemployment;

# massive and crushing debt, such as Maggie inherited from the Wilson era and passed on to Blair who made it many times worse again;

# vast bureaucracy, most administering the administrators or chasing people up for things which it was entirely unnecessary for the State to involve itself in in the first place;

# nannyism – the view that people cannot make do or get on in life unguided or without social engineering;

# social engineering, multiculturalism, relativism, moral equivalence, the denial of moral absolutes, political correctness and its stablemate – revisionism, the proliferation of human degradation – drugs, child sex etc., breakdown of the family unit;

# the move to the police state, ID cards, data bases, CCTV, Health and Safety procrusteanism, the hemming in of people into their own homes and the need for passes to go anywhere or find work, all in the name of making us happier and safer;

# procrusteanism, forcing all into impossible equality and yet demanding of each according to his/her expertise for no difference in remuneration;

# the elimination of incentive to try, to set up a new business, to try a new idea and the slow blanketing of the nation, the snuffing out of life and joy, in a malaise of weariness and resignation to the inevitable.

When Them work on the ambitious, the young capitalist trying to make good in a “free market”, we get the Billionnaire Boys Club, the Nick Leesons, the Royal Scottish, the greed, the belief that one is above the riff-raff stuck in their employee status. These people are the movers and shakers, so Them lead them to believe, playing on vanity, indifferent to others’ suffering, narrowly selfish and adoring, nay, fixated on that comfort that only riches can bring, free of any inevitable social consequences [or so they believe].

Common Purpose is semi-governmental and yet it plays on this Elite motif, the feeling that one is above the common herd who are expendable via warfare or even swine flu. The Elite don’t travel on public transport by and large, they don’t mix with the common herd, they become immune from humanitarian considerations although they believe they are the true humanitarians, re-ordering society for the better – the yahoos ruled by the wise, the adepts, of which they are part.

So when Cherie says that Gordon Brown is right wing, she doesn’t see what is really happening. Them work on the left and right equally. Brown is one of Them, a believer in The Great Work of Ages, the grand plan, the re-ordering of society in line with global considerations. Cherie is correct in this respect - he is not of the movement she thought they were all part of - idealistically desiring to raise the living standards of the poor, wanting to reorder society so that everyone is equal and has a fair chance – the impossible dream.

The cynical Them know it is a dream for two reasons:

# they’d never allow it to come about – they never have allowed it throughout history, with the stakes so high;

# it is the way they can get their hooks into the agenda, through the portal of leftish people’s essential niceness and failure to understand the politcal process in all its nastiness.

Any attack on Them can be easily deflected by appealing to the do-gooder leftist’s natural disinclination for the cold-hearted, aggressive approach and by appealing to the conservative's rationalist view on most issues.

The reason society is in such trouble is the simple fact that it cannot recognize the presence, the existence of Them, its true enemy though the stateless, non-party political Sutherlands and Mandelsons are right before their eyes, the simple fact that people instantly label any attempt to expose Them as conspiracy theory without ever delving into the matter, the simple fact that Them keep a super-low profile and operate within Round Tables and Inner Circles, far away from the milling hordes, making it triply impossible to get people to see what is happening.

Here is The Club in operation:



All very chummy, great entertainment but precious little to do with undoing the damage done to the nation.

Them laugh when a leftist suggests that capitalism caused the current woes or when the free enterprise advocate blames socialism for Britain’s current ills. Though the latter is undoubtedly true and the greed of the monopolist capitalists knows no bounds, both left and right miss the point that it is the machinations of Them which is behind all major social upheavals – these monopolist capitalists are part of Them. They are not the average free-marketeer.

For those who doubt the presence and the conniving of Them, I ask the doubter to explain Colonel House. It's a good starting point. Read not only the bowdlerized and sanitized potted biography but the documentation of the time, including congressional papers and there you see Them in all their arrogant ignominy.

The hope for this part of the world is that these people are so dog-eat-dog that should Irish Lisbon 2 be passed and Cameron gets in, he will be forced by pressure into a position of holding an EU Referendum and the EU will be severely damaged. With the other bloodsucking states in the EU feeding off Germany, France and Britain, with Britain essentially gone over to the U.S., Germany and France will be at each other’s throats and the whole Sauronesque Mordor might just tumble to the ground.

It’s a small hope, a tiny flicker and not yet forlorn.

Here's a little video on some of the ways Them operates:


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[preferential voting] consider it, britain

This blog did run a post, in passing, on the last Australian election result, admittedly not hugely interesting to most readers and as I spoke yesterday, in conversation, of the system of Preferential Voting used downunder, it became apparent that Brits don't really understand how it operates.

The Brits know about First Past the Post and they are aware of Proportional Representation but this Preferential Voting seems a mystery.

The main problem with First Past the Post is that it encourages minority governments and makes small parties unimportant in the political landscape. So though the BNP, LPUK and UKIP may poll well, they are not going to take the seat, except in rare circumstances and therefore their only value is as a pressure group.

Preferential works as follows.

I've invented a card for a mythical constituency called Griddlesham and let's say that our voter doesn't like the major parties, voted them down the list and also placed the Monster Loonies last because they're too frivolous for our voter's tastes. I've left out the British smaller parties for the sake of the exercise _ I'm not the BBC, remember. Let's also not quibble over the names of the parties, whether they'd be on the card in reality or whether the names would be done that way or not.

So our man filled in his slip this way:

Right, so after the first round of votes have been counted, according to 1st preferences, the results are as follows:

Airley, W.M. ................8, 432
Barnes, G.S. .............. 18, 422
Farrier, N.L. ................2, 003
Long, G.K. .......................878
Roland, B.R. ........................2
Tennant, L.B. ..............3, 401
Vincent, T.L. ............. 19, 456
Informal ..........................682

TOTAL........................53, 276

Labour leads and now the lowest scoring candidate is dropped off the list and the papers of the 2 people who voted for the Loonies are now looked at for their 2nd preferences, which turned out to be for the Pensioners and the Free Parking, so the actual voting slips are placed on the piles of those parties' candidates, as if they were a 1st preference ... and the 2nd round begins.

After this, Free Parking is eliminated and all votes in the Free Parking candidate's pile are scrutinized for 2nd preferences and so it goes through the 3rd and subsequent rounds until, let's say, there are 3 candidates left:

Airley, W.M. ................8, 432
Barnes, G.S. ............... 21, 912
Vincent, T.L. ............. 22, 250
Informal ..........................682

Labour leads but now the LibDem will be eliminated and his preferences distributed. This is where it gets interesting. If the Lib Dems have a strong tradition of directing their preferences, then it will go the way the party wants but not all parties can control their supporters that much. Pundits in this hypothetical say that the Lib Dems will probably 65% direct preferences the Tories' way and 35% to Labour.

It happens that way and the final result is:

Barnes, G.S. ...............27, 393
Vincent, T.L. ............. 25, 201
Informal ..........................682

This was how the PM, John Howard lost his seat in the last Australian Federal Election. He was leading the vote but was pipped on preferences.

The good thing about Preferential is that the wishes of the smaller parties count for far more than in First Past the Post in that they have a direct bearing on the result and therefore need to be seriously considered in the run up to the election.

Not as fair as in Proportional Representation but fair to a goodish extent plus the results are usually known the same night plus it still returns one member per constituency, maintaining more directly representative government, as far as the electoral system goes at least.

The downside is its apparent complexity but it is not as complex in practice as it sounds and the result is usually known in each constituency within 4 to 12 hours. Some point to the unfairness - that if Howard had the most votes, he should have won. Against that, he did not have a majority - 50% plus 1 vote, whereas, under Preferential, those who did not vote for him on the first preference have their other preferences considered, once their candidate is eliminated.

So when the victor ends up with 50% plus 1, it is a majority of people who want him [or her].
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Thursday, July 23, 2009

[sadness] music from the other side



Reading people's comments on these youtubes, ranging from "relaxing" to "mysterious" - in order to understand the music and the use of their version of the Gregorian chant, one needs to know that Era stemmed from Enigma [one track which will be posted in a few days] and Sadeness Pt 1 makes it clear it's about despair, desolation, lost souls, people turning their backs on the Voice [a motif running through their music], walking about alone inside and condemned to fill the void with sex and whatever else comes to hand.

That comes out more clearly in Sadeness than in this track, which is quite nice in its own way and shows that there can be a stark beauty to melancholy.

Music from the other side.
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[artificial islands] how would you design them


Crooked Brains has an interesting post on artificial islands. He mentions The Pearl-Qatar in Doha, The Palm Islands off Dubai and Durrat Al Bahrain, among others.

Given that you could raise the money and putting certain criteria in place in that it is owned by you but under the auspices of some national government which decrees that it is not to be used for commercial purposes, that the island must accommodate twenty families and that there is natural fresh water from a spring, trees, some soil, it is a warm temperate climate and there are no immediate hazards, either natural or man-related, then I have some questions.

If you could choose between five such islands on offer form the government, all different in aspect but at the same price:

1. What would you look for as natural features of the island?
2. How would you build the infrastructure and in which order?
3. How would you stock it?
4. What defence provisions would you make?
5. What would be the social structure and how would you ensure that?
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[quite good] this one

[contrasting styles] u.s. and russian air forces


There are posts outside my 'remit' and this is one of them, so I come to learn, not to lecture. If I'm in error, please just set me straight. I have to admit I was in error over the f22 post but the result was a nice learning curve and certain things came out as a result.

Basically, I confused the British situation where the government has consistently underfunded and underequipped the armed forces with the American situation, where the issue is defense contracts and less than 100% technical quality, e.g. the dragon skins.

Anyway, Bob B pointed me in the direction of this youtube below, which compared the F22 with the Russian SU47. The first thing which worried me were the words "a scientific analysis" becasue people who usually trot that expression out are either amateurs or people with a barrow to push who think the word "scientific" is an automatic trump card, which of course is rubbish.

However, the main arguments were that the F22 had four main things going for it - stealth, service altitude, internal weapons capability and supercruise, whereas the SU47 had speed, manoeuvrability [forward pointing wings], range and wing loading.

The arguments then started in the comments section and once we got past the gung-ho stupidity such as, "We Americans will kick your a--e every time, Russkie," and the retort that, "You're talking through your a--e - a good Russian will beat a good American every time for these reasons ... yada, yada" - once we were past that, we got down to the real comparison.

The F22 would not be detected and could fire from 25 miles away, negating any need for manoeuvrability, air to air dogfighting or pilot skill. The sophisiticated technology, as long as it worked and wasn't disabled, can detect and disable ahead of time. That's the F22 line.



The Russian line and one my mate here put forward was that where the Americans favour the all-in-one fighter that can do everything you could think up, the Russians tend to the design of single purpose craft and would not go into this theatre alone - there'd be some Ilyushins sitting back out of the firing line and they'd be doing all the radar and stealth work required. They'd advise the SU47 when to fire and where and the Russian "hive mentality" would come into play. That's the SU47 line.

I'd imagine the same argument would apply to the F15 and Mig 29 or whatever number is a better comparison. There was also a good argument made that the SU47 is not in production anyway and this is in line with the "Concorde" sitting, rusting outside Kazan, Russia and a young man once telling me - our plane is technically superior to the Concorde. True, it doesn't fly but it is technically superior.

My mate says the question is not how the top pilots would fare but how the average pilot would fare. Russians tend to "seat of the pants" flying, with everything manual and therefore non-controlled turning circles etc., whereas the American average pilot is supported by technology and therefore should prevail. An interesting head-to-head.

This tendency of the west and Russia can be seen in cameras, where the west tends to fully automatic, with everything which opens and shuts, whereas the Russian is still using manual aperture and shutter by preference. I'm not Russian but my blog runs this way - the template is a case in point. Still in classic, I do my own html and produce the effect I want, rather than take it off the shelf as a widget.


[crusades] wolves in doves’ clothing


There are a few lines in that much-misinterpreted, misused [by devotees] and maligned [by detractors] document, that chronicle of tales of yesteryear gathered together in two volumes and called the Bible, which concerns whom one can trust.

In the 7th chapter of Matthew, in the course of a lecture given [as far as any historical source can determine] on a hill on the north end of the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum, a fine place to address a gathering I should have thought – in the course of that lecture, the following words were uttered by the Nazarene carpenter’s son:

16: Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17: Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18: A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19: Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20: Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

What often escapes both the maniacally abusive fanatic and the most blindly sceptical atheist is that there is a lot of good common sense in there, as witnessed in what we’ve just read.

It’s a good rule of thumb which one does not need to be religious to accept and it does explain an awful lot of what’s happened in the world in the millennia preceding that lecture and subsequently.

In the best [or worst] Cromwellian manner, let me beseech thee, “Think it possible you may be mistaken,” those who attribute the Crusades and the Inquisitions to any form of Christianity. For a summary of the precepts of that faith, see Matthew chapters 5-7.

Now compare those to the actions against “wrong thinking people” and dissidents taken in the name of the faith but which actions more closely resemble those of, say, a Walsingham or an Ayatolla. In simple English, this faith does not allow of such actions and it is a slur on all the good people who have read those words and done what they could to keep their nose clean and their powder dry [seeing as we’re mixing metaphors this morning] to attribute subsequent actions of the warring states to Christianity.

Clearly, a number of things went wrong along the way, not least being human nature, which is, in the first place, all that the scripture of this faith tried to address and the reason, if one accepts the presence of the Logos on earth at that time [not necessary in order to support this argument] why this loose collection of precepts for living were delivered to a fractious and malcontented people.

Those precepts, if followed to their logical conclusion by voluntary acceptance and not imposition, can only lead to a natural regulation of society, something which, if you cast your eye over the western world in 2009, is just not happening.

The Crusades

There is much literature [a lot of it on the web too] which supports the contention that it was in no way a “Christian” crusade which saw troops slaughter all. A monk named Fulcher, who was supposedly on the First Crusade, described it thus:

Fulcher claimed that once the Crusaders had managed to get over the walls of Jerusalem, the Muslim defenders there ran away. Fulcher claimed that the Crusaders cut down anybody they could and that the streets of Jerusalem were ankle deep in blood. The rest of the Crusaders got into the city when the gates were opened.
The slaughter continued and the Crusaders killed whomever they wished. Those Muslims who had their lives spared, had to go round and collect the bodies before dumping them outside of the city because they stank so much. The Muslims claimed afterwards that 70,000 people were killed and that the Crusaders took whatever treasure they could from the Dome of the Rock.

Those antipathetic to the Christian faith point to this as one of the crowning arguments against it but anyone who is a Christian in the sense of having committed and received, as promised [a very few in terms of total numbers] know full well that the Crusades were anything but Christian, for the reasons given in the sermon on the mount.

Any student of history knows what happened when Constantine adopted the faith as a useful tool for his plans at that time [that link just now is anything but Christian and yet it holds water] and the Romanization of Christendom then led to other “Christian States”, an oxymoron if ever there was one and inevitably to bloodshed and oppression, not least of women [yes, even that].

Once again, to return to the original document, there is no exhortation in those lines to follow the direction "Christendom" did follow, reaching its lowest point perhaps around the time of Chaucer and in the time of the Borgias although their were many other questionable times along the way as well.

Whether intentional or unintentional, Byron’s view, from Don Juan [1819-24] that:

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the apostles would have done as they did

… contains both a fallacy and a truth. The fallacy is that “Christians” did the burning. No Christian, in the sense of an accepter of the Logos, would ever burn another. The gospels don’t allow it and the gospels are the central tenets of the faith. We’ll come to who did do the burning later.

Thomas Paine, in The Age of Reason, Pt 1 [1794], wrote:

Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system.

By and large he’s right though a child may be shocked by many things, real or imaginary. The point is though, that the precepts of this faith do not allow of such a thing – for example the “turn the other cheek” and the admonition not to seek revenge because “revenge is mine, saith the Lord”.

Now if you stop for one minute and think that last one through, imagine that we no longer seek revenge because we can control the impulse. The person who uttered those words was well aware of the over-riding spell which grips a person once revenge is on his/her mind. A modern allegory is the revenge of Anakin Skywalker when he slaughtered a whole village and thus weakened, he went on to much worse things, having progressively fallen under the influence of the Emperor.

If you give way to your base instincts, then you tend to the bestial and eventually become worse, as we have destructive instincts the other members of the animal world don’t.

So that little system, the Christian precepts, are a damn good platform on which to base a society.

Back to the Crusades

Who then did all the slaughter, the inquisitions, the inhumanity, man on man? Daniel Defoe wrote, in The True Born Englishman [1701]:

Wherever G-d erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And ’twill be found, upon examination,
The latter has the larger congregation.

The twisted version of the faith relied on one thing in particular – no one getting to see the original script and that was achieved by having the Bible chained to the pulpit and written in Latin, the learning of which was denied to the poor and downtrodden in mediaeval and earlier times.

Hence a golden opportunity for the worst excesses, in the name of Christianity.

I ask you to pause once more and be honest. A lie on this scale is no less believable than the giant lie of the Enlightenment, which scholars now know to have been a recipe for the breakdown of society – this point has been made by commenters on at this blog a few times.

It is no less believable than the lie of the Ayatollahs and Mullahs that interprets jihad as a call to slaughter. Let’s not get into that whole religion at this point.

Look – if I put on chainmail in 1097, sharpen my sword to a razor edge and with a gleam in my eye march off to the Holy Land to slaughter infidels, on the strength of the Bishops and Barons [the Christian Druids] telling me I’m doing it for Christ, a fact unable to be attested, due to lack of access to the scripture which supposedly exhorted that, if I work myself up into a fervour, a holy hysteria at their beconing, then what else am I to think and while I stand ankle deep in blood and look down on the deed I’ve just done, if some sort of remorse and feeling that not all is ship shape and Bristol fashion here [love mixing those metaphors] grips me, I sure as hell am not going to complain about it as I’ll be the one lying in the street slaughtered or something even worse in the hands of the fiends at the top.

So, does putting a white robe with a red cross over my chainmail, as I grasp the soon-to-be-bloodied sword convert me to a Christian?

As a Christian, if I get into dark clothing, with balaclava, kidnap an ageing aid worker in Iraq, read him a few lines of the Koran on film, cut his throat and say, “G-d is Great,” does this make me a Muslim terrorist?

Is Voltaire, philosopher in the age of reason, whose influence has been well claimed to have had immense effect on the doings of the Jacobins, on his repution as an Enlightened man - is he actually an enlightened advocate for the peace and happiness of mankind or is he something altogether different?

Just because you dress up in the garb of the enemy and sprout your rhetoric in a semi-biblical manner, does that make you a godly man?

Just because you can fool your party members that you are actually right-wing in your policies, party members believing this because true Labour people would never have wrecked the society as Brown has, does that make you right wing or are you, in reality, a Mandelson type international socialist?

Just because you have convinced the west that the bankers [who have always colluded by the way, Tiberius – read Jackson] who have brought society to its knees, are a prime example of the evils of capitalism when, in fact, there is no free market [the true sign of capitalism in its best form] in operation anywhere in the west [read Tim Worstall and others], then does that make you, Mr. Federal Reserve, capitalists or are you, in fact, globalists of the worst ilk, globalism and its desire for a one world state being socialism in its most extreme form?

Was the Democratic Republic of Germany democratic?

Can people see that the labels claimed by people who perpetrate atoricities and human misery are so vague and inappropriately assumed that entirely different labels might be more fitting?
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[logo time] more governmental squandering


They did it with the 2012 dog's breakfast of a logo for the games, they did it all over the governmental world. Now they're doing it in Australia:

Melbourne, the brand, has been given a $240,000 facelift and the result is a big M. Lord Mayor Robert Doyle has unveiled a new logo for the city, which will replace the previous M and leaf symbol introduced in the early 1990s.

$240 000 for what? On that rubbish? It looks appalling, has government squandering written all over it and does nothing for the city. Plee-ease - outsource it to a primary school next time.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

[wordless wednesday] captions please

[#silly week] july 27th - now official


Right, it's now official!

Man in a Shed's #Silly Week
is from:

July 27th to ... er ... the end of the week probably

Bloggers all, support this worthy cause and I'll ask Bloghounds too if they would get behind the scheme.

Details here.

[pub closures] sad but can we afford to drink now


BBC:

UK pubs closed at a rate of 52 per week in the first half of the year - a third more than the same period in 2008 - the British Beer & Pub Association said ... The association's chief executive, David Long, said that the economic pressures of the recession had been added to by the smoking ban, tax rises on alcohol and "regulatory burdens".

I can't afford to drink. One night out with a friend some time back cost the best part of £20 each including food - fine for a one off when meeting a long lost chum but on a two or three times a week basis, it's right out of the question. In the supermarket, a halway decent wine is £13.

I'd love to support my local pub, the source of community cohesion the Browneans wish to demolish - most might feel this way also if it's not a dive and serves good food. I simply can't afford to now. I can't even afford a train.
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[india] obama's cooling leaves door open - addendum

Thanks, Anon:

Beijing will use its foreign exchange reserves, the largest in the world, to support and accelerate overseas expansion and acquisitions by Chinese companies, Wen Jiabao, the country’s premier, said in comments published on Tuesday.

“We should hasten the implementation of our ‘going out’ strategy and combine the utilisation of foreign exchange reserves with the ‘going out’ of our enterprises,” he told Chinese diplomats late on Monday.

[file sharing] not piracy, not theft but what people want


Lord T has an interesting post up on Amazon deleting Orwell's 1984 from e-readers. The quoted article said:

This is ugly for all kinds of reasons. Amazon says that this sort of thing is “rare,” but that it can happen at all is unsettling; we’ve been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we’ve learned that they’re not really like books, in that once we’re finished reading them, we can’t resell or even donate them. But now we learn that all sales may not even be final.

Lord T commented:

The publishers etc. all insist on having absolute control and will insist that it is built into any platform their media is on. The Music and Film guys have exactly the same issue and it just goes on. You see I’m happy to buy a film, some music or a book but I get a bit miffed if it is cancelled or deleted even if I do get a refund from the publishers. Bearing in mind some people have bought DRM protected music and lost it all when the store closed down so getting a refund is a big step forward.

They need to accept that the world has moved on and people are looking at different things. I don’t want to buy a CD and not be able to play it in my car or on my computer because some rich music executive thinks I’m going to copy and sell it. Hell, I can get a free copy myself that will play anywhere if I want to. Thank you Mr Hacker.

In Russia, Microsoft, for example and other large firms, moved in a few years back and must have paid big bikkies because the next thing, stores were being raided all over the place and pirated copies became like hen's teeth after that. They'll come back again though or go underground in that hacker's paradise and everyone finds lateral solutions to the problems posed by the moguls.

The simple fact is that people like file sharing and don't want to fork out 99p for a download or whatever. That's what people want to do and that's what, despite the attempts made by big business to stop them, they are going to find a way to do. I made the point at Lord T's site [forgive the breach in quoting myself again]:

You’ve touched on a sore point here. I detest the way moguls prevent things. Look, if I like a film or album sufficiently, I’ll buy the DVD or CD because it has extra information and it’s nice to indulge in it.

But if I just want one song, I sure as hell am not going to buy a restricted DRM. It’s a bit like the ridiculous anti-pirate warnings at the beginning of films. I don’t want to sit through that guff and I resent the big brother approach which wastes a few valuable minutes of my life.

Market forces are at work here and people simply will not play the mogul "total control" game - we are not their pawns but people who want a bit of pleasure from life.

And as for draconian lawsuits by billionaire firms and the RIIA against individuals - that is so disproportionate, e.g. in 2008, RIAA suing nineteen-year-old Ciara Sauro for allegedly sharing ten songs online.

As of late 2008 they have announced they will stop their lawsuits and instead are attempting to work with ISPs who will use a three strike warning system for file sharing, and upon the third strike will cut off internet service all together.

This is little better. They should have no recourse in law against anyone who bought the original copy, provided it was not done as a rival commercial venture, nor should anyone benefitting from that be incommoded. If I want to share the album I bought with any number of friends, that is my business.

I don't illegally file share because I'm not enough into music and films and I don't have those sorts of friends - youtube covers my needs. But now I'm seriously thinking that complete civil disobedience over this might just break the stranglehold these moguls have.


All these badges and posters saying that stopping piracy supports the artist is tosh. It actually interests the file sharer in that artist's music and in my case, if I see a discounted copy at ASDA or wherever, I'll buy it. This article reports that:

The royalty rate paid to the artist for CDs and singles is a negotiated rate (called "record rate" or "regular rate"), usually 6-15 percent of the gross receipts. Some superstars will negotiate even higher percentages and often with a guaranteed minimum cash payment.

If the artist[s] were to receive a fair percentage - at least over 50% - of the sale on any one CD or DVD or whatever the new technology is, then fair enough. Knowing that the money was going to the artist, I'd be willing to play ball with the moguls.

But it's not, they're not and so I'm not.
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[male brain] an interesting organ


It might be true after all:

He may be incapable of seeing your shared past the way you do. Brain images have started to show that men and women use their brains in vastly different ways. For example, women use the left part of the amygdala — the part of the brain that creates emotional reactions to events — to put memories in order by emotional strength, meaning that something emotionally important to them (like a great first date a couple of months ago) will be ordered in front of what they ate for breakfast yesterday.

Men, however, use the right part of the amygdala to put memories in order. Traditionally, the right hemisphere of the brain is associated with the central action of an event, while the left hemisphere is associated with finer details. Translation: You’ll both remember your first date, but he might not remember the color of your sweater or the light rain that was falling that night. It doesn’t mean he was checked out; it just means he’s a guy.

The research might be tosh, it might be right.

If women are supposed to be so emotional, then why are they so calculating in love? Why is it more important that he does love her than in the emotional aspects of the experience, nice though they are? How is it that a woman cries for a week and then moves on to the next partner but the man phones her three months later and says, "I want you to know you ruined my life but we can still get back together if you like."

The love in a cottage question is an interesting one. Would it be more likely to be the man or the woman who'd be happy to live on no money in a cottage in the middle of the countryside, just the two of them forever? Similarly, who writes most of the flowery love poetry, full of protestations of eternal love and how that person would die for the other?

Which gender sees the relationship as a state? Having won the prize, that person can now sit back and relax. Which gender sees the relationship as a growing thing, onwards and upwards? Which gender is supposed to be able to multitask?

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

[silly season] for blogs, not the msm

Man in a Shed proposes that next week we start our blog Silly Season and post on "weird, odd, funny and even scary stuff".

[all or nothing] either fund them or get them out

The Senate Votes Down Funds for F-22s

The legislation rejects authorizing $1.75 billion to support seven additional F-22 jets.

If you're not going to support your troops, then get them out.

[tuesday quiz] five more to annoy you


1. In the New Testament, Zacharias was the father of which major figure?

2. Which 1971 novel written by William Peter Blatty was turned into a classic horror film?

3. Ruritania is an imaginary country which was invented as a setting for two novels. Now the name is used to describe any state where the intrigues of a reactionary court dominate politics. Name either of the two books in which it first appeared.

4. What is Sherlock Holmes' seven percent solution in "The Sign of Four"?

5. What were the "golden apples" of Greek mythology?

Answers
John the Baptist, The Exorcist, The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel: Rupert of Hentzau (1898), by Anthony Hope (1863-1933), Cocaine, Apricots

[navigation] so difficult to decide

[global governance] gore comes out with his new idea

These people have appointed themselves your leaders - did you vote for them?


Oh dear, here it is; it's happening at last. Martin reports:

Al Gore has called for 'global governance'.

Just read the language in that report, if you would, the Gore-speak. He, of course, approaches it from the global warming angle. Global warming = totalitarian world state. Somewhere in the grotesque furniture in his brain, he is sitting comfortably and dreaming this stuff up or rather parroting a very old line.

Note these:

1829 - British illuminist and early feminist Frances "Fanny" Wright gives a series of lectures in the United States. She announces that various subversives and revolutionaries are to be united in a movement that will be called "Communism." She explains that the movement is to be made more acceptable to the public by professing to support "equal opportunity" and "equal rights."

Feb. 5, 1891 - Rhodes joins his group from Oxford with a similar group from Cambridge headed by ardent social reformer William Stead. Rhodes and Stead are members of the inner "Circle of Initiates" of the secret society which they found. There is also an outer circle known as the "Association of Helpers." This moved on to the Round Table Groups.

1909-1913 - Lord Alfred Milner organizes the "Association of Helpers" into various Round Table Groups in the British dependencies and the United States.

This is a possible source
on Milner but from the rhetoric, I'm not sure who the authors are. However, each assertion can be checked out in itself.

1912 - Colonel Edward M. House, a close advisor of President Woodrow Wilson, publishes Phillip Dru: Administrator, in which he promotes "socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx."

1916, Woodrow Wilson:

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

This quote, at least most of it, can be found on page 185 of "The New Freedom" Woodrow Wilson (1913, Doubleday, Page & Co). In the preface, Wilson describes this book as "the result of the literary skill of Mr William Bayard Hale, who has put together here in their right sequences the more suggestive of my campaign speeches.......I have left the sentences in the form in which they were stenographically reported". You can find the quote without the first few sentences in chapter 8. Also chapter 9 has more. You can find a free e-copy on www.gutenberg.org/etext/14811.

May 30, 1919 - Prominent British and American personalities establish the Royal Institute of International Affairs in England and the Institute of International Affairs in the U.S. at a meeting arranged by Col. House; attended by various Fabian socialists, including noted economist John Maynard Keynes [idealist, labelled by free market economists as socialist].

1921 - Col. House reorganizes the American branch of the Institute of International Affairs into the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

December 15, 1922 - The CFR endorses World Government in its magazine "Foreign Affairs." Author Philip Kerr states:

"Obviously there is going to be no peace or prosperity for mankind as long as the earth remains divided into 50 or 60 independent states, until some kind of international system is created. The real problem today is that of world government."

October 28, 1939 - In an address by John Foster Dulles [later U.S. Secretary of State], he proposes that America lead the transition to a new order of less independent, semi-sovereign states bound together by a league or federal union.

1940 - "The New World Order" is published by the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and contains a select list of references on regional and world federation, together with some special plans for world order after the war.

June 28, 1945 - President Truman endorses world government in a speech:

"It will be just as easy for nations to get along in a republic of the world as it is for us to get along in a republic of the United States."

October 24, 1945 - The United Nations Charter becomes effective.

Feb. 7, 1950 - International financier and CFR member James Warburg tells a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee: "We shall have world government whether or not you like it - by conquest or consent."

April 12, 1952 - CFR member John Foster Dulles [who later became Secretary of State, in speaking before the American Bar Association in Louisville, Kentucky, says:

"Treaty law can override the Constitution. Treaties can take powers away from Congress and give them to the President. They can take powers from the States and give them to the Federal Government or to some international body, and they can cut across the rights given to the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights."

The significance of this focus on treaties is especially relevant to China and Russia, the former using treaties as a prime political tool to re-order the world. Treaties have not altered the United States as yet as far as sovereignty goes but when it comes time to change the American Constitution, it will be through a crisis, a melting pot and the necessity to honour existing treaties. That's how World War I got under way.

1953 - Rowan Gaither, President of the Ford Foundation, tells a Congressional commission investigating tax-exempt foundations:

"We at the executive level here were active in either the OSS [forerunner of the CIA], the State Department, or the European Economic Administration. During those times, and without exception, we operated under directives issued by the White House. We are continuing to be guided by just such directives, the substance of which were to the effect that we should make every effort to so alter life in the United States as to make possible a comfortable merger with the Soviet Union."

This White House brought in the Patriot Act.

To continue:

Nov. 25, 1959 - Council on Foreign Relations Study Number 7 calls for a

"...new international order which must be responsive to world aspirations for peace, for social and economic change...an international order...including states labeling themselves as 'socialist' [communist]."

Now note that one - these are the people who have the ear of the White House, e.g. March 23rd, 2005.

To continue:

1959 - "The Mid-Century Challenge to U.S. Foreign Policy" is published, sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers' Fund. It explains that the U.S.:

"cannot escape, and indeed should welcome...the task which history has imposed upon us. This is the task of helping to shape a new world order in all its dimensions - spiritual, economic, political, social."

1961 - The U.S. State Department issues Document 7277, entitled "Freedom From War: The U.S. Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World." It details a three-stage plan to disarm all nations and arm the U.N. with the final stage in which "no state would have the military power to challenge the progressively strengthened U.N. Peace Force."

1962 - "The Future of Federalism" by Nelson Rockefeller claims that current events compellingly demand a "new world order." He says there is:

"A fever of nationalism...but the nation-state is becoming less and less competent to perform its international political tasks...These are some of the reasons pressing us to lead vigorously toward the true building of a new world order...Sooner perhaps than we may realize...there will evolve the bases for a federal structure of the free world."

1968 - Joy Elmer Morgan, former editor of the "NEA Journal," publishes "The American Citizen's Handbook" in which he says:

"The coming of the United Nations and the urgent necessity that it evolve into a more comprehensive form of world government places upon the citizens of the United States an increased obligation to make the most of their citizenship which now widens into active world citizenship."

July 26, 1968 - Nelson Rockefeller pledges that as President, he would work toward international creation of a new world order.

May 18, 1972 - In speaking of the coming world government, Roy M. Ash, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, declares that:

"...within two decades the institutional framework for a world economic community will be in place...and aspects of individual sovereignty will be given over to a supernational authority."

1973 - The Club of Rome issues a report entitled "Regionalized and Adaptive Model of the Global World System," dividing the world into ten kingdoms.

April 1974 - Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Trilateral and CFR member Richard Gardner's article "The Hard Road to World Order" is published in the CFR's "Foreign Affairs," where he states that:

"...the 'house of world order' will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down...but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault."

1975 - In Congress, 32 Senators and 92 Representatives sign "A Declaration of Interdependence," which states that:

"we must join with others to bring forth a new world order...Narrow notions of national sovereignty must not be permitted to curtail that obligation."

Congresswoman Marjorie Holt refuses to sign the Declaration saying:

"It calls for the surrender of our national sovereignty to international organizations. It declares that our economy should be regulated by international authorities. It proposes that we enter a 'new world order' that would redistribute the wealth created by the American people."

1975 - Retired Navy Admiral Chester Ward, former Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy and former CFR member, writes in a critique that the goal of the CFR is the:

"...submergence of U.S. sovereignty and national independence into an all powerful one-world government..."

I'm placing the next quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn here because there is no date to it but much of his work was around this time. He is reported to have said:

...there also exists another alliance — at first glance a strange one, a surprising one—but if you think about it, in fact, one which is well — grounded and easy to understand. This is the alliance between our Communist leaders and your capitalists. This alliance is not new. The very famous Armand Hammer, who is flourishing here today, laid the basis for this when he made the first exploratory trip into Russia, still in Lenin's time, in the very first years of the Revolution.

1977 - "The Third Try at World Order" is published. Author Harlan Cleveland of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies calls for:

"...changing Americans' attitudes and institutions" for "complete disarmament (except for international soldiers)" and "for individual entitlement to food, health and education."

1977 - Carter signs UN charter removing US. sovereignty under UN military command.

1979 - Barry Goldwater, retiring Republican Senator from Arizona, publishes his autobiography "With No Apologies." He writes:

"In my view the Trilateral Commission represents a skilful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power - political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical. All this is to be done in the interest of creating a more peaceful, more productive world community."

Sept. 1980 - At a "Prelude to Victory" party given by Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, Mr. Reagan is photographed with the place of honor, immediately to Reagan's right, given to David Rockefeller, the leader of the CFR and the Trilateral Commission.

1981 - Congressman Larry McDonald calls for comprehensive congressional investigation of the CFR and Trilateral Commission. Congress is urged to investigate these organizations.

1983 - Larry McDonald is killed along with 268 other passengers on Korean Air Lines (KAL) flight 007, shot down over Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Japan.

1987 - "The Secret Constitution and the Need for Constitutional Change" is sponsored in part by the Rockefeller Foundation. In it, author Arthur S. Miller says:

"...a pervasive system of thought control exists in the United States...the citizenry is indoctrinated by employment of the mass media and the system of public education...people are told what to think about...a new vision is required to plan and manage the future, a global vision that will transcend national boundaries and eliminate the poison of nationalistic solutions...a new Constitution is necessary."
How many more quotes are needed?

Before the detractors begin

Please don't trot out 'conspiracy theorist', 'truther', 'right-wingnut' or whatever. You think the above is a theory? That these people didn't say or write those things at that time? Please tell me which of the above were never actually said and quote your sources as to why you think they were not said, as I've done, in saying that they were said.

"Well, it sounds implausible," I'm afraid, just won't wash. I need hard data as to which of the above was not said or written.

As to you yourself, the person saying I'm a right wingnut - what are your own antecents [or are you hiding behind the Anonymous tag]? I'm happy to tell you who I am and what my politics are.

Here ya go.

Question

So, Gore has trotted out his "global governance" again. He is not a man noted for his inventiveness or imagination. He is in with these people and look at their kooky background. Please, please, dear reader - take the time, devote some time to reading just that post if you haven't the time to read any others on this blog.

Gore trots out what he's been spoonfed and is not only a good globalist but he's also a fruitcake, as set out in that post. My question is this:

If I, James Higham, support the Constitution of the United States in its present form, the sovereignty of that nation and the right of its people to self-determination, if I support the right of our own country here to exist without falling under the EU yolk, if I support the right to free enterprise, the right to order my life as I wish within the rule of law, if I support our Christian roots, then what does that make me - a patriot or a subversive traitor?

Now please apply that question to the so-called "leadership" of the so-called "free world", as evidenced in the quotes above. What does that make them - patriots or traitors? What are Gore, Rockefeller, Mandelson and Brown/Blair?

I'll tell you what they are - they're traitors to their nation, if those nations are the United States of America or the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As for the question of England, it's even worse.

I'd also like to call them "vermin" but that would hardly be scholastic, would it?
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