Wednesday, November 21, 2007

[which handgun] the old dilemma


I understood that all America had the right:
The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would decide whether the Constitution grants individuals the right to keep guns in their homes for private use, plunging the justices headlong into a divisive and long-running debate over how to interpret the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
Been thinking on this since Bob G's post here and now he quotes Jefferson:
"No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
Yep, I've been thinking hard which is better to go for - the Mark XIX Desert Eagle point five oh or the good old M1911 point four five?

The thing is, when somone comes at you with a banana, you have to feel SURE!

Desert Eagle

The students seem pretty clear on the gun issue.

[lizard queen] george and laura love her

What's going down here?

Most unusual on Tuesday was the intervention of Bush and his wife in the Democratic contest. Calling Clinton a “very formidable candidate,” the president told ABC News: “There is no question that Senator Clinton understands pressure better than any of the candidates, you know, in the race.”

Laura Bush underscored a key rationale for Clinton’s White House run, saying her predecessor’s experience as first lady would be “very helpful” in the Oval Office. “You certainly know what it’s like,” she said. “You know the pressure there is. You know the difficulties.”

Any ideas what's behind this?

Latest - Huckabee appears to be the big mover in Iowa.

[french rail] at the crossroads


The French crisis is a real litmus test:

Analysts said Mr. Sarkozy may propose cuts in labor taxes to boost the dented morale of consumers.

"He is playing public opinion against the transport workers who prevent the population from going to work," said Maryse Pogodzinski, an economist with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Both sides are at a crossroad.
Where are your sympathies? On the issue of the EU and Common Purpose, strange bedfellows are combining forces but on this issue, straight left/right divisions prevail and our true colours are showing.

Naturally, I'm for Sarko to prevail against those holding France to ransom.

[country quiz] five more revisited


1] … began in 496AD, has the Vosges in the north-east, has a non-capitalist tradition amongst the populace, doesn't like Muslims but does love a woman named Marianne and has territorial disputes with Madagascar and Europa Island

2] … lies between two rivers, was for the Axis in the early part of WW2, has 13% arable land, has an eagle in the coat of arms, had much to do with the Sassanids and musicians play the oud and rebab and has five cultural areas.

3] … has a coastline ragged with fjords and channels, has various provinces and territories, took over the Sverdrup Islands in 1931, main natural resource is iron ore, named for Stadacona and is currently in Afghanistan.

4] … is the scene of largely unreported genocide on a grand scale, 85% is uninhabited, the most destructive earthquake in two decades struck near the capital on May 21, 2003, the Tell area is fertile and the major trading partner is the US.

5] … has a white, black and blue flag, is a lowland country with numerous lakes, forests and rivers, European Union and NATO member, Mr. Ilves is the new president, is 14% Evangelical Lutheran and does not speak an Indo-European native language.

Answers [no early peeking now]

France, Iraq, Canada, Algeria, Estonia

[blogfocus wednesday] bit of everything today

1. Ellee has tried her Echinacea experiment and ... well ... read on:
Every October, I start dosing myself up on Echinacea to prevent colds and take it every day until February. I have never had more than one or two poorly days throughout the winter.

This year I thought I would wait and see what happened if I didn’t take the herbal medicine. So is it a coincidence that I now have the shivers, jelly legs and a sore throat?
2. Guthrum is shipping money offshore but why?
So why do HMRC need to keep personal banking details anyway ? For what purpose ? Every month I transfer 1000€ to my French Bank account, every month I am asked the same question, what is this money to be used for ?

Every month I am pathetic enough to say 'household expenses', rather than 'and what business is it of yours' or'I am financing a terrorist organisation aimed at the otherthrow of a State that pays good money to 'officials'who want to know what I am spending my money on.
3. Bryan Appleyard takes us back to yesteryear with Tylers:
Yesterday I wanted something rather complicated - basically a bolt, the ends of which had to be sawn off. One of the staff waited patiently for my faltering explanation to end.

He first offered me a length of threaded steel about three feet long, changed his mind, opened a packet of bolts, took out one, checked the size, took it to a vice, sawed, cleaned up, checked, laughed amiably at my lack of the correct expert vocabulary and charged me £1.25.

Everywhere else in over-rich London, people snarl at me and try to gouge me for every penny I own. But Tylers is a shop from the past, a shop undiscovered by management insultants and marketing swine. It is a shop with ethos.
4. Finally, a cautionary tale from Mousy, about a certain wife:
I was walking down the street this morning when I was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked me for some spare change so she could buy some dinner.

I took out my purse, got out five pounds and asked her "If I give you this money, will you buy wine with it instead of dinner?"

"No, I had to stop drinking years ago" the homeless woman told me.


"Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?" I asked.

"No, I don't waste time shopping," the homeless woman said. "I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive."


"Will you spend this on a beauty salon instead of food?" asked.

"Are you NUTS!" replied the homeless woman. " I haven't had my hair done in 20 years!"


"Well," I said, "I'm not going to give you the money. Instead, I'm going to take you out for dinner with my husband and me tonight."

The homeless woman was shocked. "Won't your husband be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm dirty and I probably smell pretty disgusting."


"That's OK" I said. "It's important for him to see what a woman looks like after she has given up shopping, hair appointments and wine."

[mindset] you'll know them by their motifs


This is a personal statement.

Those who know Golding's Lord of the Flies will recognize Jack, the boy most likely to go wrong, the ultimate pragmatist who is susceptible to self-power and self-aggrandizement.

While we're all susceptible to flattery, there are two main types for whom it is more than this – those who need it like a drug and those who need to give it to score “brownie points”.

Julia Middleton is of the latter type, not a natural leader but still highly ambitious and highly driven, willing, like Chippy, to sell her master down the drain in her eagerness to get on. What her group's modus operandi represents is a giant, Europe wide talent quest – a quest for flawed talent, such as the Emperor saw in Anakin Skywalker [and this type likes that sort of imagery as well – Lords of Time strutting the Imperial Cosmos, gliding effortlessly in dark robed splendour, crushing the skeletons of the slain foe who had the temerity to oppose The Power].

It's this hunger to be someone special over and above the common throng which allows Ralph to become a brownshirt in the Sound of Music. It's this constant talent spotting by those above, this search for “leadership”, from the Bilderbergers commented on by Etienne Davignon in this exchange:
Additionally, [the journalist] says, "all the recent presidents of the European Commission attended Bilderberg meetings before they were appointed." Davignon's response: He and his colleagues are "excellent talent spotters."
... to the Campaigning in Schools programme [with its Deutsche Bankfunding] which quotes this as an example of how to campaign:
The energy and violence of the women’s campaign confounded the politicians. Many thought that the Pankhursts’ violence, arson, window smashing, picture slashing and hunger strikes made men even more hateful of women. In 1928, the year Emmeline died, women were granted the right to vote.
... this being taught to children, mind.

Two decades back I saw campaigning in full flight and I'll name the boy – Heinrich Zepter – whose mother was so driven she asked permission of the then Principal to hold a meeting for “mothers of gifted children”. About fourteen or fifteen attended and what became apparent early was that this woman was dominating the agenda.

Driven by deep resentment of her own son's non-recognition within the school as “gifted”, well-justified non-recognition as was universally acknowledged, even by the boy himself who wasn't a bad lad, she wasn't satisfied. The teachers were fools not to see the boy's hidden, latent talent. She could clearly see it and he'd shown his genius to her from an early age at home.

She'd force fed him reading, cranked up his home education and turned him into a highly brittle mummy's boy.

It's not the only susceptible type. The wrong 'un in society who's walked on the shady side of the law and wants to be lifted by the Great Hand to higher things, the ne'er-do-well, the simply ambitious – all are driven by the same motivation which is essentially different to a natural ambition to rise in one's profession.

There's a missing element here to the child the Campaigning in Schools programme are looking for, who displays the “leadership” required by Julia and her accolytes. And her vision? The vision of the Change they're forever rabbiting on about? What motifs run constantly through this vision, are to be found at every turn?

Top-down hierarchical structure and a militarized society

There is a long tradition in Britain of separation of the state and the military though they work hand in glove at the upper echelons. But you know that Britain is not a militarized society in peacetime – Orwell's quote sums this up [end of Chapter 14].

These people wish to alter the fundamental paradigm of society, to have in place hierarchical structures - for without them, there can be no ambition of the type they envisage. Their society is based on power and privilege, of a hand extended from above to lift up if the liftee will comply, will show “aptitude”.

And this aptitude includes selling one's own grandmother if necessary. There is more than one way to secure obedience to “the cause”:
1. promise of entry to and conditional continued membership of The Club;

2. promise of power and personal glory;

3. promise of personal comfort for self and family;


4. fear and intimidation;


5. trauma conditioning [MK Ultra type].
Arrogance

Again top down, you too can enjoy Lord of Time struttability, just as your superiors show you how to do – the General Douglas MacArthur demeanou, the great man, entourage in tow, deigning to visit the plebs, minimal wave in passing. You too can enjoy “respect” in which you confuse recognition of the held position with respect for your person, for you yourself.

For a person with the personality traits already outlined, a flawed personality which craves deference to an abnormal degree, the top down structure is like a home, a dog-eat-dog home where one is constantly clawing one's way up and “doing what's necessary” along the way. Clyde Barrow was one of these. He'd have fitted into 30s Germany quite neatly, had he been given the opening.

And it is disdainful and employs low vernacular - look at Middleton's "jerk in the corner" references. This is Goering again, this is all the lowlifes who see themselves as "the elite", as distinct from the genuine elite. These are, as DK said, a bunch of amateurs but they can still do enormous damage because their propaganda works them into positions of influence.

Warped vision and change for the sake of change

Christie's words put in the mouth of her Inspector Grant [N or M] are apt:
We want to do away with muddle and inefficiency. With bribery and corruption. With self-seeking and money-grubbing — and in this new state we want people like you and your husband — brave and resourceful — enemies that that have been, friends to be.

You would be surprised if you knew how many there are in this country, as in others, who have sympathy with and belief in our aims.
Among us all we will create a new Europe — a Europe of peace and progress. Try and see it that way — because, I assure you — it is that way... His voice was compelling, magnetic.
And this feeling of being part of a New History, a New Dawn, a Brave New World, where, as Guy Burgess quoted to Philby's wife – the whole sordid, fetid mess of inefficiency, muddling and corruption will be swept away and the new society can take its place.

But the reality of this is, in Christie's words again:
"You do not know the force of the ... propaganda. It appeals to something in man, some desire or lust for power. These people were ready to betray their country not for money, but in a kind of megalomaniacal pride in what they, they themselves, were going to achieve for that country. In every land it has been the same. It is the Cult of Lucifer — Lucifer, Son of the Morning. Pride and a desire for personal glory!"
Christie's words, not mine.

This is a key motif and includes the suppression of Christianity or any other mode of thought which emphasizes people's inner spirituality. As Goering famously said about culture and it could well be said about spirituality:
“When I hear the word culture - I release the safety-catch of my Browning”.
Watch out for the keywords “superstition”, “suppressed”, “eliminated”, “eradicated”, “catering for all faiths” in this context. The Christian faith becomes mere superstition which is interesting because many of the pagan rites are based on this as well.

The Pseudo-Hegelian Nietzschean Modus Operandi

Man must be struggling at all times. Peace breeds stagnation, inefficiency, corruption and must be resisted. The greatest lie of all must be perpetuated – the “balance' between good and evil, the need for despicable acts of violence to “balance” those of altruism. Manichaeism re-interpreted and revised.

If there is no crisis, one must be created. If there is no natural enemy, then go into the Middle-East and deeply offend Muslim sensibilities with unnatural acts [in their eyes].

Create terrorism which allows, as John Redwood observed, curtailment of personal liberty and freedom to speak, coupled with crimes against the earth and huge sludge heaps like the Canadian tar sands. Lord of the Rings and the surroundings of Saruman's tower and his subsequent blighting of the Shire are good indicators of the Masters of Desolation mentality.

Devastated landscapes, Leonard Cohen visions of loneliness, despair, cruelty and human wastage – this is the fruit of the vision. Deviant art, unnatural usages, warped human relations – you need look no further than Nazi Germany's upper echelons – Nazi high society and there is some evidence of the same in other societies – look at Thomas Hamilton, of Dunblane infamy, for example, in Blair's Britain:
"I believe that Hamilton was a major provider of pornographic photographs and videos to a ring of men prominent in Central Scotland, including police officers who protected him from numerous allegations of physical abuse at boys' camps and clubs he ran. They protected themselves after the massacre which conveniently ended in his suicide." [alleged by Sandra Uttley, paramedic, who applied to the European Court of Human Rights]
Jury's out on this one and yet:
* Some sections of the enquiry were subject to a 100 year ban.

* Former Grand Master Lord Burton said that Lord Cullen's official probe suppressed crucial information to protect high-profile legal figures. He said they may have belonged to The Speculative Society. Some had links to Dunblane's Queen Victoria School - where gunman Thomas Hamilton was allowed to roam free before the 1996 atrocity.

And Lord Burton revealed that he was bullied and threatened by other peers when he tried to raise his concerns in the House of Lords.
"There's no escaping the fact that there's something sinister about the whole affair," he was quoted as saying, admittedly to the News of the World.
Soft evidence perhaps on that one.

On the current EU drive and that in the U.S. And Australia, there is always the same motif, the same handbook of instructions:
1. White-ant society and progressively cripple it's ability to fulfil its functions, e.g. JMB's comment that schools are no longer encouraging children to read;

2. Create a crisis, a dire threat to society and “our way of living, our traditions, our roots”, even when there is none;


3. Point to the now dysfunctional society you've worked tirelessly to create and suggest that “what this country needs is firm leadership” to sweep away all this disgrace and to set society to rights. And you just happen to have the very leaders required – Common Purpose graduates – who now quietly assume their destined and rightful positions beyond authority and over us;


4. Of course, society must make sacrifices to set matters to rights. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask rather what you can do for your country and the loss of a few privileges such as freedom of speech, freedom to say no, freedom of self-determination, is surely a small price to pay to be in thrall to the new flawed personalities set over us to assure that we think correctly.
The Quest for Obedience and Elimination of All Dissent

From the psychiatric community to MK Ultra, the motif is the same – to reduce human beings to predictable, robotic units, devoid of free will. This is the ultimate First Goal, the Second Goal being to create a cannibalistic culture where humans turn on humans to do their masters' bidding.

P.G. Wodehouse described this well in his series of wartime radio broadcasts which were anything but unpatriotic if you examine the texts spoken. In particular, his description of the French internment camp guards who were worse than anything the Germans came up with, this motif is seen everywhere – the Croats, the Jews in the concentration camps offered life if they'd do what they did – it never ends.

In this is the final, naked cruelty and ultimate hatred for mankind behind all of this sad situation. That's what it all comes down to – hatred for mankind. Thus we have Rockefeller speaking of reducing the population to 20% of current levels, thus we have the upcoming fresh water crisis, the very elements of life held in the hands of entirely the wrong people.

The point of the UK regionalization thrust was to draw out the opposition, identify them, test out the extent of the opposition and to learn from and re-strategize for the next thrust which is far more subtle. This is what Common Purpose is about – the real agenda, not the political feints to draw out the opposition.

Finally

Why not today, as it was in the late 30s? It's time, in their eyes for another go at the melting pot. It's happening as sure as night follows day and most people are tenaciously clinging to the hope that all will be well, that it couldn't happen in their time.

Look at the evidence, follow the available evidence from every political website and say it's not going this way.

Where is the place for those such as us, voices crying out from our weblogs? Our place is on the scrapheap of history, ignored and forgotten footnotes in a trampled intelligentsia, a trampled graveyard of free-thinkers and libertarians, classic liberals and peace loving, frail humanity.

Savour our last few years whilst we can, as we are progressively picked off by the Brave New World snipers. Hold firm to love, faith, hope, charity, good cheer, festive bonhomie, simple pleasures, family and abundant optimism.

Our descendants might even win through if we do this.
“There's an east wind coming, Watson.”

“I think not, Holmes. It's very warm.”

“Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and biter, Watson and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's G-d's own wind nonetheless and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.