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Washington’s hybrid war on Venezuela – a very 21st-century attempt at regime change
Rather than carry out conventional war, over recent months US officials have sought to promote internal divisions, sabotage, and economic collapse within Venezuela. Here’s the full story of Washington’s hybrid war on the country.
Recent destabilization
At the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on 7 March, senator (R-FL) Marco Rubio pledged that Venezuelans “were about to experience the most dramatic shortages they have ever faced.” Five hours later, the first blackout hit. Mysterious breakdowns and explosions at electric plants became increasingly frequent, in turn knocking out water pumps. In early March, storage tanks holding diluent (needed in the country’s heavy oil refineries) mysteriously combusted, and in early April an oil pipeline suddenly exploded.
US (and US-allied) intelligence agencies and local operatives have numerous capabilities to cause chaos in countries around the world. For decades, US intelligence agencies have prepared for cybernetic warfare, with blueprints having leaked in the past. And reports indicate that the recent electricity blackouts in Venezuela may have been the result of both saboteurs and long-planned US cybernetic attacks, worsened by debilitating sanctions and a lack of replacement parts.
For nearly two decades, US officials have sought to oust the left-leaning government in Venezuela, a country with the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. But recent events need to be seen as the latest and most intensified round of this destabilization campaign.
Numerous US tactics
Different methods have been used. They’ve ranged from promoting the country’s diplomatic isolation and financial instability to the sponsoring of internal opposition and attempts to block off the country from its oil export markets.
Noam Chomsky says ‘there is not much time’ to avert global catastrophe
John McEvoy, 12th July 2019
UN human rights report on Venezuela ‘fundamentally flawed and disappointing’
John McEvoy, 8th July 2019
Corporate media hosts let their masks slip, showing how they’re simply cheerleaders for Trump
Peter Bolton, 5th July 2019
Washington has also been involved with other recent defeats for progressive movements in the region, such as the 2004 coup in Haiti, the 2009 coup in Honduras, the 2016 ouster of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, and the dramatic rightward shift of Ecuador’s government under Lenin Moreno.
In late 2017, seeking to undermine warming relations with Cuba (that had begun under Obama), Donald Trump’s government began to claim that Cuba had targeted US embassy staff in Havana with a “sonic weapons attack”. Recordings of the “sonic attack”, as CNN later reported, were thought to be the mating calls of a loud cricket species.
Today’s hybrid war, meant to psychologically wear down Venezuela’s population, needs to be seen in light of years of US aggression and soft power targeting the country.
To be clear…
Venezuela is certainly a polarized society. And there are plenty of valid criticisms of the country’s constitutional government.
Multiple factors, meanwhile, have led up to the present situation. Venezuela is now facing a severe economic depression intensified greatly by barbaric US sanctions and sabotage. To make matters worse, the country’s economy continues to suffer from a lack of diversification.
This occurs as the government has faced low global oil prices (over the last five years) and has struggled to clamp down on currency speculation driven by groups seeking to profit off the crisis situation in the nation. A partially self-imposed inflationary crisis, meanwhile, has turned into a hyper-inflationary crisis under the US economic war.
The political context
Facing a disunited opposition, however, Venezuela’s incumbent president Nicolás Maduro defeated former Lara State governor Henri Falcón in the country’s presidential elections in May of 2018.
Nearly 9.4 million people voted in the election, with Maduro receiving more than 6.2 million votes, putting voter turnout at 46% of the total voting age population.
Election observers sent by the African Union and CARICOM, as well as many notable figures such as former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, witnessed and recognized the legitimacy of the election.
Seeking regime change and refusing dialogue, the US and its close allies had urged the opposition to boycott the election, a decision that cost Falcón many votes. Public attacks on Falcón by hardline sectors of the opposition, in particular, the right-wing opposition party Voluntad Popular, also damaged his campaign.
Contrary to the media attacks on Venezuela’s democracy, the country’s electoral system has a long positive track record. In 2012, speaking at an annual event of the Carter Center Foundation, former US president Jimmy Carter stated:
As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.
Media and other governments getting behind Trump’s assault on Venezuela
In amplifying its aggression against Venezuela in recent months, the Trump administration has been able to mobilize a bipartisan foreign policy consensus. This would not have been possible if it were not for how the corporate media for two decades has painted such a one-sided story of developments in the country, with a constant forecast of doom.
In early January, many neoliberal and conservative governments across the western hemisphere and western Europe joined the Trump government in recognizing the right-wing (and widely unknown) head of Venezuela’s national assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the self-proclaimed president of Venezuela. Yet the vast majority of the world’s governments have refused to recognize Guaidó.
Mainstream media outlets in the US have since recycled an intensive propaganda campaign aimed at undermining Maduro’s legitimacy while boosting Guaidó’s.
It is estimated that over $30bn in Venezuelan assets (from US-based but Venezuelan-owned oil company CITGO to gold reserves and other holdings) have been frozen by Washington and its allies, and many third parties and companies are being pressured to stop doing business in the country.
A blatantly coercive and violent strategy pushed by Trump regime warhawks
Neo-conservatives under Trump appear to see this as an opportune time for a more blatantly coercive and violent strategy. This became especially clear with the appointment of Elliott Abrams on 25 January 2019 as Washington’s point man on Venezuela.
Abrams, a former official in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, helped oversee the dirty wars in Central America that cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the 1980s. In one gruesome event, the Mozote massacre, that occurred under Abrams’ watch, US-trained and armed Salvadorian soldiers and paramilitary forces murdered 800 civilians. There were horrific reports of mutilation and rape.
Under Abrams’ watch, it was common for US intelligence operations to use front companies and cut deals with private firms to illegally ship weapons into Latin America to arm death squads.
Abrams’ new appointment under Trump clearly signals that the US is seeking to spark a new low-intensity conflict in Venezuela. And since Abrams’ appointment, events have moved quickly.
Secret CIA arms shipments?
On 3 February, Venezuelan authorities discovered a secret cache of weapons and equipment on board a Boeing 767. The shipment included 19 assault weapons (mostly AR-15s) and “90 military grade radio antennas”. The flight had flown from Miami to Valencia in the Venezuelan province of Carabobo. Venezuelan authorities accused US authorities and far-right groups in Miami of smuggling the weapons into the country to spark a civil war.
Days later, DC-based media outlet McClatchy reported that the plane had usually been flying between Philadelphia and Miami and across the continental US. However, McClatchy discovered that, in early January, the plane started making constant trips – 40 in total – to Colombia and Venezuela, sometimes multiple times a day. The flights began immediately following the swearing into office of Venezuela’s incumbent president Nicolás Maduro.
After the weapons were seized in Valencia in early February, more news emerged. As McClatchy’s DC Bureau reported, the plane was the property of 21 Air LLC, an air charter firm based out of Greensboro, North Carolina. According to an Amnesty International report, the chairman and majority owner of 21 Air, Adolfo Moreno, and the director of quality control, Michael Steinke, have had ties to Gemini Air Cargo – a company that was involved in more than 30 air charter services used for CIA rendition. This is when individuals suspected of terrorism by US authorities were tortured and interrogated at CIA ‘black sites’ around the world.
McClatchy journalist Tim Johnson has added that:
If you look on social media and dig into the backgrounds of employees at 21 Air and associated companies you’ll see that there are many accounts of employees who follow the Venezuelan opposition, and opposition accounts who follow them as well. There is certainly some sympathy from employees within the company for the opposition to Maduro in Venezuela.
21 Air has denied allegations of being a CIA front company or being involved in the illegal shipment of arms into Latin America.
A visit to 21 Air
In February, I located the office of 21 Air, just days after the McClatchy report appeared. As I discovered, the Greensboro, North Carolina-based company had moved to a new office on the other side of the business park in which it is located. Adjacent to its listed office was a small office of Lockheed Martin with a locked door.
Douglas Hoggatt, an ex-Navy signals intelligence officer, explained to me that US intelligence agencies have deep roots in North Carolina and that the Lockheed Martin office clearly serves as a SCIF support office (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility). Through SCIF offices, government intelligence and subcontracted-out operations can co-operate and maintain secure communications.
As this author discusses in the video below, the US national security state and its intelligence apparatuses have a long history of subcontracting and using front companies for undercover operations, including the illegal shipment of weapons to proxy forces.
21 Air officials not only refused to speak with me about their operations in Latin America but also suggested they would call the police if I did not leave the premises.
By the end of March, 21 Air had expanded its fleet to two functioning airplanes, purchasing an ex-Korean Air Boeing 747-400F.
The history of US military and covert interventions in the post-cold-war period makes clear that what we are seeing is the unfolding of a hybrid warfare campaign. According to a new book by Andrew McCabe, former acting FBI director, Trump apparently asked in 2017 why the US wasn’t at war with Venezuela, noting that:
they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.
The US campaign now looks likely only to intensify, a twenty-first-century version of the US economic war against Chile under the elected government of Salvador Allende. Venezuelan government officials in March claimed to have uncovered a terror plot by leaders of the far-right opposition party Voluntad Popular (Guaidó’s party). An ultra-right-wing network is believed to have hired paramilitary gunmen (from Colombia) as well as form local cells within the country, to target key infrastructure and assassinate social movement leaders. Similar events have played out in the past.
The latest coup attempt
Yet with repeated attempts by Guaidó and his backers having failed to oust Maduro or spark civil war, their efforts have become more erratic. On 30 April, Guaidó – echoing US vice president Mike Pence’s Twitter support – called for the launching of “Operación Libertad”, what he described as the “final phase” of an uprising. Around Guaidó were thousands of supporters, far-right coup-plotting politician Leopoldo López, and tens of military and police defectors with two APCs.
Western media and social media backers immediately amplified the event meant for mass consumption, apparently seeking to further escalate the situation into a civil war. An attempt at seizing one of the country’s important military installations, the Carlota air base, quickly failed. Corporate media outlets, of course, failed to cover the large pro-government counter-demonstrations and the fact that most Venezuelans went on with their normal daily lives. Many favor neither the opposition nor the government, yet struggle under a mounting crisis.
The regime change plans have failed in the short term, with the country’s military (except for a small handful of defectors) refusing to commit treason against the constitutionally formed government. But US officials cannot back-pedal on a policy that has now received bi-partisan support from the halls of power in DC and mobilized allies abroad and in the media. The heavy wheels of regime change have begun to turn. Thinktank fellows are churning out policy briefs and doing the rounds on CNN and at the Atlantic Council, propping up Washington’s newest regime-change project.
Washington, its allies, and many of the most powerful transnational business factions active across the region want to see a revamping of Venezuela’s political scene, a complete erasure of the last two decades of progressive ‘Chavismo’ from the country, and an opening up to neoliberal restructuring and IMF loans.
The open-ended future
Venezuelan officials appear to be scrambling to find ways for their country to survive the siege while averting civil war. An intensified rerouting of supply chains, away from the US and its allies, and instead through state enterprises and state-oriented capitalist firms from other parts of the world, such as those based out of China and Russia, appear the only option left. Even so, as CEPR economist Mark Weisbrot and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs explain: Venezuela’s economy will contract greatly over the coming year resulting in great pain and suffering, which will only intensify the ongoing emigration crisis. In a thorough study, the two economists have documented the socio-economic consequences of the US economic war hitting a country already facing a depression. The sanctions, they explain, have already cost the lives of tens of thousands of people.
Sanctions (imposed by the US and its allies) are blocking or slowing everything from international financial activities to the importation of malaria and insulin medicines and even access to antiretroviral treatment for those with HIV. US officials are also considering restricting Visa and Mastercard transactions in the country. These policies targeting Venezuela may eventually seek to mimic the brutal sanctions undertaken against Iraq during the 1990s. A form of collective punishment, a 1999 UNICEF study found that approximately 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of these sanctions, with then US secretary of state Madeleine Albright infamously saying “we think the price is worth it”.
US sanctions against Venezuela are like “going into microsurgery with a kitchen knife” and are holding an entire population hostage, says the UN special rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measureshttps://t.co/d3D2J7euV1
by @MSelbyGreen
— The Grayzone (@GrayzoneProject) April 8, 2019
Cracks in the US regime-change plan are appearing, though. Rather than rally to his putschist cause, during a recent visit to a lower income neighborhood in Caracas, self-appointed president Juan Guaidó was greeted with intense anger by residents. In European capitals, meanwhile, Guaidó appears to have shrinking recognition, and in the Caribbean anti-imperialist movements are boiling to the surface.
As opposition mounts to Trump’s hybrid war targeting Venezuela, more states and institutions may soon back Uruguay and Mexico’s plan for a negotiated settlement. Much will also depend on if Trump gets a second term, or who exactly the Democratic primary nominee is.
Featured image via WikiCommons and WikiCommons
UK court gives Julian Assange ‘shocking and vindictive’ sentence for skipping bail
With Theresa May bracing for a local election wipeout, the media digs up a book from 1902 to sully Corbyn
US imperialism
Venezuela coup
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Even Tom Holland’s Brother Gets Mistaken for Timothée Chalamet
By Zoe Haylock@zoe_alliyah
It’s hard being a skinny white boy. You have to wait your turn to be white boy of the month. No matter how many workout videos you post, they still call you “skinny.” And when it all comes down to it, you’re still just Timothée Chalamet to them. Spider-Man: Far From Home’s Tom Holland has sort of broken the mold by solidifying himself as “the one who can’t keep a secret” and not “the one from New York” (Ansel Elgort and Lucas Hedges can fight for that title). But Holland still can’t escape Timothée Chalamet’s curse. While on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Holland talked about how his 20-year-old brother, Sam, was afflicted while on vacation.
“This girl walks into the sea, she’s gorgeous, she’s walking over,” Holland sets it up. “She breezes right past me. Hello? And she goes over to Sam and goes ‘Oh, my God, are you Timothée Chalamet? And he was like ‘Yes.’”
It’s an epidemic. You don’t even have to have the right accent to be Timothée Chalamet. But since this is how these things go, here’s Sam Holland to obsess over. We’ll pencil him in for August’s WBotM.
Why Are British Soft Boys Taking Over Netflix?
Tom Holland’s Brother Gets Mistaken for Timothée Chalamet
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These Are the 30 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Movies on Netflix
Beyond 'Avengers: Infinity War,' 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,' 'Black Panther,' and 'Thor: Ragnarok,' there are a couple dozen great nerd films in the streaming giant's archive.
by Beckett Mufson
Jan 16 2019, 3:57pm
Screencaps via YouTube, YouTube, YouTube
Nothing pushes today’s worries out of the mind better than a story about the society of tomorrow’s trials and tribulations. Except maybe a tall tale of deep, inhuman—though metaphorically representative of a part of humanity—threat facing an old-timey kingdom. Or an understated character study of someone who lives in a world very much like this one—except for one big, weird difference. With the mundane stress of the everyday, these kinds of movies hit the spot.
Netflix has popped off 2019 by loading a ton of high-octane sci-fi and dreamy fantasy into its chimeric catalog. There's comic book movies like Avengers: Infinity War, Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Black Panther, Hellboy, The Dark Knight, and Watchmen, plus blockbusters like the most recent Star Wars movies. Expired licensing contracts are constantly snuffing out other titles to the point that it’s impossible to keep track of what’s still on the platform, so we scrolled all the way to the bottom of the feed to find the best of the new stuff and the site’s classics that won’t quit all in one place.
There’s also all four Indiana Jones movies, which swung into Netflix’s archives in January as if hanging from an inexplicably prehensile whip. While these 80s movies are almost unavoidably a problematic fave, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg’s action serials inspired series has always been a cooler sibling to their Star Wars franchise. Even seeing the picture can trigger John Williams’ infectious do do doodoo, do do doooo theme and inspire shouting about what does and doesn’t belong in a museum.
Spielberg's dramatic first contact story kicked off a trend in Hollywood of films imagining aliens that are truly foreign to humanity, yet approachable with effort and empathy. These extra-terrestrials aren’t merely humans with fur or scales or odd head protrusions, they’re the precursors to films like Denis Villeneuve's Arrival that really examine how differently life might develop on other worlds. Even though its climax is like fanfic written by the president of the A/V club, that music still slaps.
For some reason, the first is the only available installment of Peter Jackson’s J.R.R. Tolkien adaptations is the first one, but it’s also the chillest. Pack your pipe with some Old Toby and enjoy.
The Mummy Trilogy
Brendan Fraser’s disappearance from the silver screen is all the more tragic when you look back and remember how great he is in the original Mummy from 1999. Watching his facial expressions as he sees the cursed pharaoh for the first time and then blasts it with his shotgun is *chef’s kiss.*
The Original Ghostbusters
If there's somethin' strange in your neighborhood...
(Ghostbusters II is also on the platform. The female reboot dipshit men's rights activists were mad about is not.)
There have been 34 Godzilla films since the mother of all monster movies debuted in 1954. Netflix has four stories about the giant mutant dinosaur, including TriStar’s incredibly campy 1998 adaptation starring Matthew Broderick and an awesome futuristic computer-generated anime trilogy.
Yorgos Lanthimos most recently turned heads with his baroque drama The Favourite, but The Lobster was the movie that put him on the map. It’s a romantic drama that ups the ante over your typical rom-com with drastic stakes for those who don’t fall in love: they turn into animals forever. Despite the absurd sci-fi element, it's an earnest story about very real emotions and represents the best of what sci-fi fantasy has to offer.
Before he won an Oscar for the fish sex movie, but after he directed the first Hellboy film starring Ron Perlman, Guillermo del Toro made Pan's Labyrinth. The guy with the eyes on his hands in this movie is one of the freakiest things ever put on screen. It's in Spanish, but the language of shit this scary is universal.
Duncan Jones still hasn’t managed to recreate the introspective beauty of his character study about Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) coping with the loneliness of being sealed away in a tin can on the moon, appropriately and simply titled Moon. It’s made even more perturbing in 2019, since his robot companion GERTY is voiced by Kevin Spacey, who is in the midst of legal proceedings around a slew of alleged assaults that came to light in 2017. If his vocals were dubbed over with, say, Christopher Plummer’s, the film would be perfect.
How will humans respond to computers that can think and act just like us? That’s the question director Alex Garland’s stunning and claustrophobic dig at artificial intelligence and tech industry hubris asks. Oscar Isaac is hypnotic as a Zuckerberg-like social media billionaire who has created as a life-like android by parsing countless online reactions. Alica Vikander is transfixing as his alluring Frankenstein’s monster, and Domhall Gleeson is a joy as the hapless programmer Isaac has lured to his remote estate to test his creation. Ex Machina is a must watch.
Every few years Spike Jonez seems to make a soulful feature film that cuts to the uncanny heart of human relationships. His foray into science fiction is a romance between a man and an artificially intelligent operating system that is so utterly convincing that it feels hopeful about the future. It’s a great antidote to the paranoia-inducing Ex-Machina, with tearjerking performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johannson’s voice, and Amy Adams.
Arguably, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is Jim Carrey’s last great dramatic performance. After meeting Michel Gondry and making the experimental short Pecan Pie, they teamed up with Charlie Kaufman and Kate Winslet to make one of the most devastating and surreal stories about star-crossed lovers since Romeo and Juliet. It isn’t familial friction that keeps young Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski apart. It’s a new technology that lets them erase each other from their minds with a simple procedure. It turns out, however, that breakups aren’t that simple.
Humans have stopped being able to have kids, and society has predictably collapsed as nobody has any reason to plan for the future in Alfonso Cuaron’s devastating epic about climate change, immigration, terrorism, activism, Children of Men. The hope for a future of humanity is expertly performed by Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It also has more than one of the greatest long shots in the history of the game.
This fun, action-y fantasy with really big swords is a welcome reprieve from the dark predictions of social sci-fi. Based on the Japanese manga and anime of the same name, Bleach is director Shinsuke Sato’s latest in a string of live-action anime adaptations that capture the spirit of the medium in the way that big budget flops like 2016’s Ghost in the Shell adaptation do not. Bleach is an earnest tale of friendship and beating the shit out of giant ghosts with samurai swords. It’s like dunking the brain in feel-good juice.
Advantageous
Would you undergo experimental surgery that could make you look young forever? How do you explain it to your family? What does your choice say about the values of the society you’re in? Advantageous is a plucky, low-budget conceptual film that tackles these issues, in a dreamy, thought-provoking, and occasionally disjointed emotional tale. The joint project of writer-director Jennifer Phang and writer-actress Jacqueline Kim is unlike almost anything else Netflix has to offer.
Grab a towel, stick up your thumb, and don’t panic. Such is the nonsensical wisdom of Douglas Adams’ surreal comedy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The 2005 film by Garth Jennings convincingly adapts the classic book series into a highly watchable film starring Martin Freeman, Yasiin Bey (then Mos Def), Zooey Deschanel, and Sam Rockwell. It starts with Arthur Dent’s (Freeman) house getting bulldozed just before the planet Earth gets bulldozed. His quirky friend Ford (Bey) turns out to be an alien and saves him from the plight of his homeworld. Together they embark on a journey that leads them to find the meaning of the universe and reconnect with a girl Dent met at a party once and really liked. Cameos by John Malkovich, Bill Nighy, and the voices of Alan Rickman, Helen Mirren, and Stephen Fry, and Mark Gatiss are more than just star power. This movie is some of the most onscreen fun on this planet or any other.
Wait... Is Monty Python and the Holy Grail fantasy? Isn't it black comedy or historical satire or something? The British comedy troupe’s feature length string of somewhat connected sketches does snipe at thousands of years of monarchical rule and religion ingrained in their country’s culture. But it also includes multiple fights with deadly mythical monsters, one of which is dispatched with a magical hand grenade.
Joss Whedon’s short-lived space western Firefly spawned such a devoted fan base that they decided they needed a name for themselves (Browncoats), and they were so persistent on burgeoning online forums the director got a chance to make a movie. Two years after the series ended with a cliffhanger, Serenity was released. The series tells the story of a chosen family trying to make space for themselves while an all-powerful empire grips the solar system in an iron fist. The movie ties up the loose ends left by a hastily-cancelled show. Both are full of pithy dialog and really good character development, aided by inspiring performances from Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau, and the rest of the cast.
The Wachowskis’ action-packed tale of a country ushered into fascism has become a bit cliche, due to Anonymous’s appropriation of the titular character V’s Guy Fawkes mask. Nevertheless, the story based on Frank Miller and Alan Moore’s cult classic graphic novel is as pertinent as ever, though the evil dictators who engineered Britain’s rigid police state were far more competent than America’s current regime. Regardless of political ideology, the action scenes in V for Vendetta are *fire emoji*, and there’s a reason the movie helped to rehabilitate Natalie Portman’s reputation as a world class actress after George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels. It’s good.
Neill Blompkamp’s sci-fi metaphor for Apartheid isn’t subtle in District 9, but it doesn’t need to be. Alien immigrants get stranded in Johannesburg and are treated as second class citizens, living in squalor and poverty in ghettos. Even though they look different, they’re highly intelligent and communication with them isn’t that hard. It follows a low-level bureaucrat who gets embroiled in a conflict at the center of human relations with the “prawns,” as they call the extra-terrestrial race. It’s bold and fun, if a bit gorey, and well worth the watch for those into sci-fi with a blatant political message.
Hardcore Henry
In 2013, Ilya Naishuller used the then-new technology of head-mounted GoPros to film an incredible first person fight scene music video for the Biting Elbows. The young director went on to use the technique for a feature film called Hardcore Henry. This thing is constant violence, and the plot is dubious at best, but there’s really nothing else like it out there. It feels like watching a speedrun of a video game with the best graphics in the world, since they’re real people. If you don’t get nauseous in the first few minutes, you’re good.
Disney’s take on a first contact with aliens story is one of the most adorable. It’s one of the first instances of the company casting indigenous Pacific Islanders in a nuanced, positive, humanizing light, and it has a powerful mix of catchy songs, themes of friendship, and action scenes involving chucking cars at the bad guys’ heads.
Brad Bird is a legend for directing Pixar’s blockbusting Incredibles films, but in 1999 he was making waves for a little story about a huge killer robot and the boy who befriended it. Looking back at The Iron Giant, you realize how messed up that a little kid almost inadvertently sparked World War III, but that in the biz is what they call tension [this reads clunky]. Seriously, though, if you don’t like crying at the plight of an anthropomorphized robot, then skip this movie. But if you do, you’re the monster.
Netflix Original Sci-fi
Netflix itself has produced and distributed a number of original science fiction and fantasy films that are worth a watch. Definitely check out Okja, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, and What Happened to Monday. If you like memes, Bird Box is worth watching to know what everyone is talking about, and if you want to watch scary robot torture, Tau is your title. Bright and The Cloverfield Paradox are textbook straight-to-Netflix hot mess movies, so just be aware of that before smashing the watch button.
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Follow Beckett Mufson on Twitter and Instagram.
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Sim's Park, Coonoor
About Sim's Park, Coonoor
Sim’s Park is an unusual park-cum-botanical garden, which was lay more than a hundred years ago on the natural hill ranges. The garden features ethnic trees along with shrubs and creepers which co-habit with different other trees brought from thought the world. The park is named after Mr. J.D. Sim, former Secretary to Government, and Major Murray, a forge whose efforts helped to set up garden in 1874. The site is positioned in the north side of Coonoor railway station, at an elevation of 1,770 m above sea level. Sprawling over an area of 12 hectares, the garden occupies the of a mind area and base of a ravine.
Address: Walker's Hill Road, Coonoor, Tamil Nadu 643101, India
Other Places to Visit in Coonoor
Law's Falls, Coonoor
Dolphin's Nose, Coonoor
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Then and now — power and performance
Richard Russell
Updated: Jun 20 at 2:37 p.m.
The 2019 Chevrolet Malibu is available with a turbocharged, 2.0-litre, four-cylinder engine that puts out 250 horsepower, pushing the Malibu to 96 km/h in 6.1 seconds.
‘They don’t make them like they used to’
By the age of five, I could identify the make of cars by the sounds of the engine as they climbed the hill outside our home.
My paper route took me past a GM dealership, and included a couple of homes where the owners parked the latest “hot” muscle or sports car.
I worked part time, pumping gas at a Chrysler-Plymouth-BMC dealership.
Cars have been a major part of my life ever since.
I look back fondly on those years, remembering the cars, roads, races and experiences at the wheel. It was the heyday of the muscle car, with 426 Hemis, 427 Fords, 454 Chevys, 455 Olds, 390 AMCs etc. Then came the seventies and the emasculation of the V8 engine.
Looking back I realize they don’t make them like they used to. Thank goodness!
Sure those babies would haul in a straight line. Even with “posi-traction” they would boil the Goodyears well into second gear.
But they didn’t stop worth a hoot, baulked when asked to tackle turns with any semblance of speed and burned gas like there was no tomorrow. They were also death traps in a severe crash, and let’s not even talk about exhaust emissions!
Those last two factors spelled the end of the muscle car. Regulators, concerned about the death toll on public roads introduced legislation forcing vehicle manufacturers to provide seat belts, crush zones and further protection for occupants. Public health became a concern. \
Gasoline containing lead was discovered to contribute to cancer and for this reason and growing concern about exhaust emissions in general, manufacturers were forced to develop systems that cleaned up the nasty stuff coming out the tailpipes.
I have been driving and reviewing cars since the mid-’70s, at least one every week and in many cases dozens, at manufacturer proving grounds, race tracks and events on public roads in all Canadian provinces and territories. I have driven in all but one state (Iowa is on my bucket list), South Korea, Japan and most European countries — east and west.
I can speak from experience that they don’t make them like they used to.
Just for fun, let’s look at some numbers. I have used Chevrolet as an example in many cases because it dominated the sales charts in those early days making it is easier to find data from that period, from my own and other records.
Chevrolet was so dominant that at one point, the U.S. government threatened to break up General Motors into two companies — Chevrolet in one, and Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile and Cadillac in another. GM had more than 50 per cent of the entire market and even if broken up, Chevrolet would have been the largest player.
1970 was the peak of the muscle car era. A 1970 Chevelle SS with a 350-horsepower, Turbo Jet 396 (6.5 litres) accelerated from rest to 60 miles per hour in 6.4 seconds and covered the quarter mile in 15 seconds flat. It got about 10-12 mpg on the highway.
The equivalent 2019 Chevrolet — the Malibu — has a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, less than one-third that size. It puts out 250 horsepower pushing the new Malibu to 60 mph in 6.1 seconds. It gets 33 mpg on the highway
A 1975 Impala with a 5.7-litre V8 went from 0-60 in 14 seconds and took a whopping 19.4 seconds to reach the end of the quarter mile. The current Impala, with a four-cylinder engine less than half that size (2.5-litres) accomplishes those feats in 8.7 and 16.9 seconds respectively.
That 1975 Impala averaged 19.5 litres per 100 km in the city. The new one, 10.6.
A 1980 Chevette had a 1.6-litre, 70-horsepower four under the hood. It accelerated from rest to 60 miles per hour in 13.8 seconds and the quarter mile in 19.4 seconds. The 2019 equivalent small Chevy, the Spark has a smaller (1.4-litre) engine that puts out 98 horsepower. It does 0-60 in 12 seconds.
The 1980 Chevette had a combined fuel economy average of 11.1 litres/100 km. The Sonic? 6.1 litres
In 1979 the 5.7-litre V8 in the Corvette had 195 horsepower and averaged 17.7 litres/100 km in the city and 13.5 on the highway. The current base Corvette has a 6.2-litre version of the “small block” producing 455 horsepower and averages 13.8 / 8.1
Nope, they don’t make them like they used to.
BEHIND THE WHEEL: Dealing with mechanical failures on the road
Published Jul 13, 2019 at noon
Useful things to know when buying a used car
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141 Bugle Lane, Packwood, WA 98361
MLS # 1376285 | Coldwell Banker Bain
141 Bugle Lane is a $69,700 property on a 0.34 acre lot located in Packwood, WA.
Introducing Packwood's newest neighborhood, Elkhorn. Located less than a quarter mile from town, this gated neighborhood features beautiful level home sites situated among tall evergreens. Home sites are approximately 1/3 acre and offer Southerly exposures and views of the Gifford Pinchot foothills. Less than 30-minutes from White Pass Ski Resort & Mt. Rainier. Water & power are in the street. Owner financing available. Bring your builder and start making memories in Packwood this winter!
I am interested in 141 Bugle Lane, Packwood, WA 98361.
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Check out this property I found on The Satushek Team (Keller Williams Western Realty):
https://www.welovebellingham.com/homes/141-bugle-lane-packwood-wa-98361/29166611
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Alston, W. (1989) 'Irreducible Metaphors in Theology', in W.Alston Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 17-37.
Aquinas, Thomas (1964) Summa Theologiae, vol. III, London: Blackfriars. Ayer, A.J. (1971) Language, Truth and Logic, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Braithwaite, R. (1971) 'An Empiricist's View of the Nature of Religious Belief, in B. Mitchell (ed.) The Philosophy of Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 7291.
Carnap, R. (1974) 'Religious Language is Meaningless', trans. A.Pap, in M.Charles-worth The Problem of Religious Language, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 123-31.
Cupitt, D. (1980) Taking Leave of God, London: SCM Press. Davies, B. (1985) Thinking About God, London: Chapman.
Hare, R.M. (1959) 'Religion and Morals', in B.Mitchell (ed.) Faith and Logic, London:
Allen and Unwin, 176-93. Hare, R.M. et al. (1955) 'The University Discussion', in A.Flew and A.Maclntyre
(eds) New Essays in Philosophical Theology, London: SCM Press, 96-108. Hartshorne, C. (1969) 'The God of Religion and the God of Philosophy', in Talk of
God, London: Macmillan, 152-67. Heimbeck, R.S. (1969) Theology and Meaning: A Critique of Metatheological
Scepticism, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hick, J. (1971) 'Theology and Verification', in B.Mitchell (ed.) The Philosophy of Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 53-71.
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Kant, I. (1933) Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N.Kemp Smith, London: Macmillan.
Kripke, S. (1980) Naming and Necessity, Oxford: Basil Black well.
Leslie, J. (1979) Value and Existence, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Mitchell, B. (1973) The Justification of Religious Belief, London: Macmillan.
Nielsen, K. (1971) Contemporary Critiques of Religion, London: Macmillan.
Phillips, D.Z. (1968) The Concept of Prayer, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
-(1976) Religion Without Explanation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Pike, N. (1970) God and Timelessness, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Sarot, M. (1992) God, Passibility and Incorporeality, Kampen: Kok Pharos.
Searle, J. (1979) 'Metaphor', in A.Ortony (ed.) Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 92-123.
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Soskice, J. (1985) Metaphor and Religious Language, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sutherland, S. (1984) God, Jesus and Belief, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Swinburne, R. (1991) The Existence of God, revised edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Ward, K. (1993) Images of Eternity, New York: Oneworld.
Winch, P. (1977) 'Meaning and Religious Language', in S.Brown (ed.) Reason and Religion, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 193-221.
Wisdom, J. (1953) 'Gods', in J.Wisdom Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, L. (1958) Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M.Anscombe, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
-(1961) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. D.F.Pears and B.F.McGuinness,
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Yob, I.M. (1992) 'Religious Metaphor and Scientific Model: Grounds for Compari— son', Religious Studies, 28:475-85.
Positive Thinking As The Key To Success
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Cosmic Eschatology As A Test Case
Saint Symeon Wall South Syrie
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The Race to Understand Antarctica’s Most Terrifying Glacier
The Thwaites Glacier is collapsing into the sea. Now scientists are scrambling to answer two questions: When will it take the plunge? And what will it take to save our coastal cities?
Jeremy Harbeck/NASA
Author: Jon GertnerJon Gertner
Science season in Antarctica begins in November, when noontime temperatures at McMurdo Station climb to a balmy 18 degrees Fahrenheit and the sun hangs in the sky all day and night. For a researcher traveling there from the United States, the route takes time as well as patience. The easiest way is to fly from Los Angeles to Christchurch, New Zealand—a journey of 17 hours, if you’re lucky—and then to McMurdo, a charmless cluster of buildings that houses most of the southern continent’s thousand or so seasonal residents and both of its ATMs. McMurdo isn’t the end of the line, though. Often it’s just a pass-through for scientists hopping small planes to penguin colonies or meteorological observatories farther afield.
Few places in Antarctica are more difficult to reach than Thwaites Glacier, a Florida-sized hunk of frozen water that meets the Amundsen Sea about 800 miles west of McMurdo. Until a decade ago, barely any scientists had ever set foot there, and the glacier’s remoteness, along with its reputation for bad weather, ensured that it remained poorly understood. Yet within the small community of people who study ice for a living, Thwaites has long been the subject of dark speculation. If this mysterious glacier were to “go bad”—glaciologist-speak for the process by which a glacier breaks down into icebergs and eventually collapses into the ocean—it might be more than a scientific curiosity. Indeed, it might be the kind of event that changes the course of civilization.
January 2019. Subscribe to WIRED.
In December 2008, a Penn State scientist named Sridhar Anandakrishnan and five of his colleagues made the epic journey to Thwaites, two days from McMurdo by plane, tractor, and snowmobile. All glaciers flow, but satellites and airborne radar missions had revealed that something worrisome was happening on Thwaites: The glacier was destabilizing, dumping ever more ice into the sea. On color-coded maps of the region, its flow rate went from stable blue to raise-the-alarms red. As Anandakrishnan puts it, “Thwaites started to pop.”
The change wasn’t necessarily cause for alarm. Big glaciers can speed up or slow down for reasons that scientists still don’t completely grasp. But Anandakrishnan knew that Thwaites’ unusual characteristics—it is shaped like a wedge, with the thin front end facing the ocean—left it vulnerable to losing vast quantities of ice quickly. What’s more, its size was something to reckon with. Many glaciers resemble narrow rivers that thread through mountain valleys and move small icebergs leisurely into the sea, like a chute or slide. Thwaites, if it went bad, would behave nothing like that. “Thwaites is a terrifying glacier,” Anandakrishnan says simply. Its front end measures about 100 miles across, and its glacial basin—the thick part of the wedge, extending deep into the West Antarctic interior—runs anywhere from 3,000 to more than 4,000 feet deep. A few years before Anandakrishnan’s first expedition, scientists had begun asking whether warming waters at the front edge could be playing a part in the glacier’s sudden stirring. But he wanted to know what was going on deep below Thwaites, where its ice met the earth.
If the mysterious Thwaites Glacier were to “go bad,” it might change the course of civilization.
During that 2008 expedition and another a year later, Anandakrishnan’s team performed the geologic equivalent of an ultrasound on Thwaites. Each morning they’d wake up in their freezing tents, call McMurdo on the satellite phone to attest that they were still alive, eat a quick breakfast, and move out by snowmobile across the blankness of the ice sheet. At a prearranged point, they’d place an explosive charge at the bottom of a hole—usually between 70 and 100 feet deep—fill the hole with snow, and blow it up. The wave of energy would travel from the charge to the bed of the glacier and back to the surface, where it would be recorded by an array of geophones, exquisitely sensitive seismic instruments. By measuring the time it took for the waves to rebound, and by looking at alterations in the waves’ characteristics, Anandakrishnan’s team could gain clues about the depth and makeup of the glacier’s bed, thousands of feet below. They repeated the process again and again.
By the end of the mission in 2009, Anandakrishnan and his colleagues had collected data from about 150 boreholes. The new information didn’t precisely explain what was hastening Thwaites’ acceleration, but it was a start. Meanwhile, the satellite maps kept getting redder and redder. In 2014, Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA, concluded that Thwaites was entering a state of “unstoppable” collapse. Even worse, scientists were starting to think that its demise could trigger a larger catastrophe in West Antarctica, the way a rotting support beam might lead to the toppling not only of a wall but of an entire house. Already, Thwaites’ losses were responsible for about 4 percent of global sea-level rise every year. When the entire glacier went, the seas would likely rise by a few feet; when the glaciers around it did, too, the seas might rise by more than a dozen feet. And when that happened, well, goodbye, Miami; goodbye, Boston.
No one could say exactly when Thwaites would go bad. But Anandakrishnan and his colleagues now had an even keener sense of the perils that the glacier posed. “We had been walking on the lip of a volcano without knowing it,” he says.
Sridhar Anandakrishnan has been to Antarctica more than 20 times.
Ross Mantle
On a warm afternoon this past September, at a conference at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, just up the Hudson River from Manhattan, Anandakrishnan gave a lecture detailing his plans for returning to Thwaites. All told, there were 120 scientists in attendance, some of whom had been meeting annually to discuss the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. For 25 years, they had debated whether the region’s potential instabilities were cause for alarm and whether Thwaites, which acts as the keystone holding the ice sheet together, was a near-term risk. This year the conference had a larger sense of purpose: The United States and Great Britain had recently announced a more than $50 million joint venture known as the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. Over the course of five years, scientists would probe the glacier in every conceivable manner.
At the conference, it was hard to shake the notion that the situation was urgent. “The question is, what’s going to happen next?” Ted Scambos, the American project coordinator of the Thwaites Collaboration, told me. “Is it going to be 50 years or 200 years before we see a truly large increase in the rate of ice being unloaded into the ocean from that glacier?” As a practical consideration, the world needed to know. Over the past few decades, climatologists have become better and better at modeling how Earth’s atmosphere is responding to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases. But ice-sheet models, which aim to translate various future scenarios into actual impacts, such as changes in sea level, aren’t nearly as reliable. One reason for this is that the physics of glaciers has proven formidably complex, with many factors that influence their behavior still unknown. “There is uncertainty and crudity in these models,” Dave Pollard, an ice-sheet expert from Penn State, told me. The point of the Thwaites Collaboration, he said, is to fill in some of the blanks.
The architects of the collaboration, the National Science Foundation in the US and the Natural Environment Research Council in the UK, selected eight research projects from among 24 proposals. Some will focus on the front end of Thwaites, which extends beyond the shoreline of Antarctica and forms a cantilevered ice shelf that floats on the Amundsen Sea. Ice shelves are a good thing. As glaciologists are fond of saying, they act like corks, preventing upstream ice—the wine in the bottle, so to speak—from pouring into the sea. They also protect the glacier from warming waters. Thwaites’ ice shelf has been crumbling, so one group in the collaboration, calling itself Tarsan (Thwaites-Amundsen Regional Survey and Network), will investigate the local effects of ocean circulation and warm air. Another team, known as Melt (not an acronym), will use submersible robots and seals tagged with satellite transmitters to examine the glacier’s so-called grounding line, the point where its front end rests on the ocean floor.
Anandakrishnan’s seismic experiments will be among the most crucial parts of the collaboration’s work. His group has taken the name Ghost, which stands for Geophysical Habitat of Subglacial Thwaites. His study will map a sliver of the bed beneath the glacier, deep below sea level, in an effort to predict how Thwaites will behave in the future. Soft, wet sediment, Anandakrishnan says, can make a glacier slide extremely fast, and it is probable that a lot of such sediment lies under Thwaites. He likens it to what you might find “when you go into your backyard and play with the mud with your kids. It’s got a little bit of strength but not a great deal.”
West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier is the size of Florida.
Bryan Christie Design
A few weeks before the conference, I visited Anandakrishnan at Penn State. His office, an austere space with white cinder block walls, cluttered with books and stacks of papers, had little in the way of mementos to show that he’s been to Antarctica more than 20 times. As we talked, he laid out his plan for studying Thwaites. In 2008 and 2009, he told me, he examined an area of the glacier bed roughly 25 miles long. The blueprint for the next four years, beginning in the winters of 2020 and 2021, is far more ambitious: With nearly a ton of explosives in tow, Anandakrishnan and around a dozen colleagues should be able to chart an area 10 times as big. If things go right, the seismic reverberations will illuminate the contours and material composition of what’s underneath Thwaites.
Anandakrishnan stood up and walked over to a whiteboard to draw me a picture of the glacier bed’s geometry. It was a line that began with a bump in the front, where the glacier met the sea, and sloped gently downward as it went inland. At the moment, he said, it’s unclear how long Thwaites has before it pulls off its bump—its grounding line—and starts a rapid decline. “It’s kind of hanging on by its fingernails right about there,” he explained, gesturing at the bump.
Glaciers like Thwaites that terminate in the ocean tend to follow a familiar pattern of collapse. At first, water gnaws at the ice shelf from below, causing it to weaken and thin. Rather than sitting securely on the seafloor, it begins to float, like a beached ship lifted off the sand. This exposes even more of its underside to the water, and the weakening and thinning continue. The shelf, now too fragile to support its own weight, starts snapping off into the sea in enormous chunks. More ice flows down from the glacier’s interior, replenishing what has been lost, and the whole cycle starts over again: melt, thin, break, retreat; melt, thin, break, retreat.
It is difficult to find any scientist, Anandakrishnan especially, who thinks that Thwaites can avoid this fate. Because its bed lies below sea level, water will pursue it far inland. When Thwaites’ grounding line starts to retreat, possibly within the next few decades, Anandakrishnan says, it could do so fairly fast. That retreat may raise sea levels only modestly at first. From radar studies, scientists believe they have detected another bump, now called the Ghost Ridge, that runs about 45 miles behind the existing one. This is what Anandakrishnan’s Ghost team will trace with their seismic experiments from the surface. Is the ridge made of wet sediment, or is it firm and dry? Is it low, or is it high? Such esoteric differences may have extraordinary effects. If any good news arises from his fieldwork at Thwaites, Anandakrishnan says, it may come from the discovery that the glacier has a chance of getting firmly stuck on the Ghost Ridge.
You might therefore think of Thwaites as a man dangling from the edge of a cliff. Just as he falls, he grips a rock, a sturdy handhold, to avoid the abyss. Of course, the rock may loosen and dislodge tragically in his hands. And then he’ll drop.
ANATOMY OF A MELTDOWN: In one of the largest scientific collaborations in Antarctic history, a team of British and American researchers is scrutinizing Thwaites Glacier from every side—air, ice, and sea.
Grounding Line: For the time being, Thwaites is held in place by a bump in the seafloor. Once it pulls off this so-called grounding line, it’ll begin to collapse more quickly.
Ghost Ridge: Glaciologists have identified a second bump about 45 miles behind the current one. They call it the Ghost Ridge, and there’s hope it could significantly slow Thwaites’ decline.
Explosive Charges: Seismologists study the area under the glacier by setting off small explosive charges in the ice and listening for the reverberations.
Ice Shelf: A floating ice shelf defends Thwaites from the assaults of ocean currents. As it disintegrates, more and more of the glacier becomes vulnerable, and more icebergs end up in the sea.
The first team ever to set foot on Thwaites Glacier, in the late 1950s, included a crusty glaciologist named Charlie Bentley. He spent 25 months driving around West Antarctica in a tractor, taking soundings across the ice. His process was much like Anandakrishnan’s. Bentley would drill a hole deep enough to reach the compact layer of snow known as firn or, better yet, solid ice; place in it an explosive charge; and then register the shock wave using geophones. In those days, the data was recorded in analog form, with a needle “that would shake back and forth and inscribe something on a piece of paper that was whipping past,” Anandakrishnan says. “Afterwards, you would look at the record, and the distance on the paper was equivalent to a certain amount of time.” Bentley’s momentous discovery was that much of West Antarctica’s land is actually below sea level, even though it is cloaked by thick sheets of ice.
Anandakrishnan never intended to help revolutionize this process with digital networks, but that’s how things turned out. He had little interest in ice or climate when he arrived as a graduate student in electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin in the mid-1980s. Born in India, he had spent his teenage years in suburban Maryland, which is why he carries in his speech a relaxed folksiness; his father, a civil engineer, worked as a science adviser to the Indian ambassador in Washington. Anandakrishnan’s main interests during his college years were fiber optics and lasers. He planned to become a professor or an optical engineer in Silicon Valley. But then he answered an advertisement for a summer job.
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A group of Wisconsin glaciologists were trying to link their instruments together in the field, so they could record their data on a central hard drive. Anandakrishnan designed a fiber-optic system for their project and was eventually asked to go to Antarctica to install it. He was 23 years old. “These were things that I knew absolutely nothing about,” he says. “I’d come from a straight engineering background. I knew that glaciers existed. I knew glaciers had something to do with sea level. But I really knew nothing more than that.” When he got back to school, he remembers thinking, “I’m a year into my PhD program in electrical engineering. I have a guaranteed mansion or a yacht down the road, if I want it, or a position in a university. Or I could retrain myself—learn seismology, geology, glaciology, climate, oceans.” He’d been transfixed, he says, by the “unending horizons” of the ice sheet, but he was also taken in by a world of what he calls “capital-T” toys—snowmobiles, forklifts, cranes, and cargo planes. He immediately signed up for a PhD in glaciology, which happened to be Bentley’s department.
Anandakrishnan knows that exploding small bombs in ice may seem primitive. Each blast, known as a shot, can yield a foul gas that blows up from the borehole, along with sooty residue that sometimes rains down on researchers and their equipment. “But the reality is there is almost no other way to get the information we’re trying to get,” he says. Airborne radar missions can do some of the same work with equal accuracy and less fuss, but they can’t penetrate rock, so they don’t reveal much about the nature of the glacier bed.
This used to be the case with seismic soundings too. When Bentley was driving around Thwaites in 1957, the only thing he could calculate with any certainty was depth. When digital recordings became standard in the 1980s, researchers could focus on small changes in the reflection strength of the bed at different points and different angles. This new level of sensitivity, Anandakrishnan says, profoundly changed his field.
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Mejs Hasan
How Scientists Tracked Antarctica's Stunning Ice Loss
Innovations in explosives have also helped. Early glacier soundings, including Bentley’s, were done with TNT. On the upcoming Thwaites expeditions, Anandakrishnan—who still designs much of his own equipment—will instead use PETN, a chemical compound frequently found in plastic explosives. (It comes in 200-gram cylinders about the size of your index finger.) Besides being very stable, PETN is fast; its seismic waves propagate through ice at about 12,000 feet per second. This is critical, because a higher-frequency explosion will collect more detailed information about the glacier bed.
When it comes time for a shot on Thwaites, the wind has to be quiet. Nobody is allowed to breathe, cough, or sneeze. “We have a protocol for all machinery in the area to be shut off,” Anandakrishnan says. “Nothing can be happening. People can’t be walking. They can’t be talking. Everybody gets stock still. And for that five seconds when that seismic energy is coming up to your geophones, that’s the only thing you want those devices to be hearing.” On the surface you hear a thunk. If you’re close enough, and if it’s a large enough shot, you can feel it in your feet, a little tap on the soles. The team will look at the data quickly to confirm that the blast reached the bed. Then they’ll move on.
I asked Anandakrishnan whether there was any chance that he might crack off part of Thwaites with his explosive charges, which can sometimes add up to about a kilogram. I imagined some kind of calamitous avalanche, as in the Alps. He shook his head. “This ice sheet is so large,” he said. His small bombs would destroy the office we were sitting in, but they were nothing compared with the forces of nature moving Thwaites’ ice into the ocean.
Perhaps the greatest problem in imagining the future of Thwaites lies in trying to imagine a natural disaster that has never occurred in all of recorded human history. One day at Penn State, I dropped in on Anandakrishnan’s colleague Richard Alley, who sat me down in his office and insisted that I watch a clip of a short documentary he had been replaying on YouTube. Like his friend Anandakrishnan, Alley studied with Charlie Bentley at Wisconsin and has been thinking about the instabilities of West Antarctica for 30 years. The video detailed a catastrophe in Norway in the late 1970s. In the agricultural town of Rissa, the land, an unstable soil known as quick clay, suddenly liquefied during a construction project. Within a few hours, 82 acres fell into a lake. One person died, and the man filming the incident barely escaped with his life.
“It’s not ice,” Alley cautioned me as we watched. “But it’s an analogy for what can happen when things can break, when the cliff is too high and nothing piles up at the bottom.” Alley’s point was that this could be the situation for Thwaites. As a glacier breaks down, larger cross sections of the wedge become exposed to the elements. The process creates an ice cliff, which gets so tall that it can no longer sustain itself. In engineering terms, the ice suffers a material failure. In models, it breaks, and it breaks fast. The resulting icebergs are likely to float away, carried by swells and tides, rather than create a pileup that slows things down.
The WIRED Guide to Climate Change
“So the question,” Alley said, “is where is the threshold for triggering that in an irreversible or nearly irreversible way?” In his view, one of the most critical pieces of the Thwaites Collaboration is investigating when the glacier’s grounding line might move beyond the Ghost Ridge. This is conceivably the point at which disaster ensues. “If Thwaites behaves itself, and we only get a meter of sea-level rise by 2100 under a high-emissions scenario, a meter is a big deal,” Alley said. It would be painful, but humanity could adapt by building floodgates and sea walls, rethinking patterns of real estate development, and retreating from vulnerable shorelines. But what Thwaites and the glaciers around it have in store could be much more significant. “You have to think in terms of maybe 3 feet, but maybe 10 or 15,” Alley said. Maybe 15 feet. In that scenario, the Jefferson Memorial and Fenway Park would be underwater, and the Googleplex would become an archipelago. Outside the US, the damage would be incalculable. Shanghai, Lagos, Mumbai, Jakarta—all would flood or drown.
For now, the prospect of Thwaites’ rapid collapse seems enough of a possibility that a few scientists have suggested buttressing it. One of these geoengineering schemes, recently put forward by Michael Wolovick and John Moore, proposes that an “artificial sill” of gravel and rocks be constructed at the base of Thwaites to protect it from warm water. In an academic paper, Wolovick and Moore acknowledge that such an undertaking would be “comparable to the largest civil engineering projects that humanity has ever attempted.” When I spoke with Wolovick, he told me that the idea was intended to spark debate about a “glacial intervention” that may take a century to conceive and execute. Whatever the cost, he said, it seemed worth it. Rapid sea-level rise could mean trillions of dollars in losses and the mass migration of hundreds of millions of people. The poorer parts of the planet would invariably suffer worst. “If you stop sea-level rise at the source,” Wolovick said, “that benefits everyone.”
If the worst happened, the Jefferson Memorial would be underwater. Shanghai, Lagos, Mumbai—all would flood or drown.
When I asked Anandakrishnan what he thought of this plan, he said it made him wonder whether we were in danger of losing sight of the larger problem. Geoengineering Thwaites would be the most difficult and dangerous construction project in the history of humanity, he agreed. As one of only two dozen people who has actually been to the glacier, he could say this with some authority. About 100 workers died building the Hoover Dam, he noted; the hazards here might be similarly large, or worse, even if you could get the right equipment in place. “But whether geoengineering works or not—and that’s a separate question—it doesn’t address the effects of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere,” he told me. “And that’s what is raising temperatures, melting glaciers, acidifying the ocean, and changing weather patterns around the earth.”
Dave Pollard, the Penn State ice-sheet modeler, and his colleague Rob DeConto, of the University of Massachusetts, have found divergent futures for Thwaites. “It ranges from devastating sea-level rise and rapid retreat into the middle of West Antarctica for ‘business-as-usual’ emissions,” Pollard told me, to “very little sea-level rise and tiny retreat around the edges.” The second future is possible, though, only if we keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations where they are today or allow them to go only slightly higher. Such a feat would involve cutting back drastically on fossil fuels and making a wholesale switch—as soon as possible—to a renewable-energy economy. Pollard’s point was that even a glacier as vulnerable as Thwaites could conceivably be contained if humans decided to radically change their behavior.
And that’s the biggest problem of all. We’re so small and so stubborn, and the challenges in holding back the ice are so large. Saving Thwaites, or even finding out whether the Ghost Ridge looks stable, won’t save the world. At the rate temperatures are rising, Anandakrishnan may soon have to pack up his explosives and go elsewhere. By then, some other glacier will be hanging by its fingernails.
Jon Gertner (@jongertner) is the author of The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. His second book, about the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, is due out this summer.
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Home Celebrities Stephanie Niznik, actress of Everwood , Lost and The Experts: died at...
Stephanie Niznik, actress of Everwood , Lost and The Experts: died at 52
Stephanie Niznik Died at 52
The actress was primarily known for her role in Everwood . The circumstances of his death are not yet known.
American actress Stephanie Niznik died on June 23rd in the Californian town of Encino at the age of 52, as reported by Variety on Friday. The People website says that the causes of his death are still unknown.
Stephanie Niznik was born in Bangor, Maine in 1967. She graduated from Duke University where she studied genetics, theater and Russian. She was best known for her role as Nina Feeney in the Everwood series , broadcast between 2002 and 2006. She has participated in numerous series during her career, taking on minor roles in Sliders , JAG , Profiler or Diagnosis: Murder . She was also in the cast of Star Trek: Insurrection , by Jonathan Frakes, released in 1999.
Most recently, she has appeared in the hit series Gray’s Anatomy , The Experts: Miami or NCIS: Special Investigations . She had moved away from film sets in recent years. According to Allocine , his last appearance on screen dates back to 2009, in an episode of Season 5 of Lost .
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Jennifer Lopez wants to perform during Super Bowl
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Brian Cage on being part of the X Division, Eddie Kingston on his previous Impact departure
Chris Featherstone passed along some recent Impact Wrestling interviews.
The first interview features Brian Cage where he talks about joining Impact Wrestling and becoming part of the X Division in the company.
“I love it, man. Before I was even talking to Impact, I wanted to be part of the X-Division. That would be like the coolest spot I’d like to be. Actually one of the top people I wanted to work with was Matt Sydal, he’s someone I never worked with prior to this. So here we are and yeah man, it’s the grandest stage that Impact has to offer. I think we’ll definitely be up there for top contender for match of the night. I’m definitely walking out with that title.”
Cage will challenge Matt Sydal for the X Division Title tonight at Slammiversary.
Eddie Kingston on his previous Impact departure
Another interview is also online with Eddie Kingston where he talks about his first departure from the company and returning as part of the LAX storyline.
“This is real life stuff. I don’t like Konnan. Konnan don’t like me. He says he helped me out, helped me out with what? While I was out doing independents and these guys were getting fat eating off Impact, TNA, Global, while they were sitting there eating off those checks, I was eating off indie money. Tell me who’s right or wrong. People are going to sit there and say I’m the bad guy, I’m this, I’m that. I’m not the bad guy, I’m doing what’s right. The people who think I’m a bad guy have never lived the life we live. Everyone’s like oh you turned on Konnan. Konnan turned on me the day he brung in new LAX and I was sitting in the back watching that happen. I’m not supposed to bring that up, but let’s be real about it.”
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1951 British Open, AP Was There
Posted: Jul 11, 2019 / 09:45 PM PDT / Updated: Jul 12, 2019 / 08:01 AM PDT
FILE – In this June 9, 1960, file photo, Max Faulkner putts at Wentworth Club in Virginia Water, England. The British Open returns to Royal Portrush on July 18-21, 2019, for the first time since 1951, the only other time golf’s oldest championship as been held outside Scotland or England. Max Faulkner won his only major on a rainy final day in Northern Ireland. (AP Photo/File)
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland (AP) — The British Open returns to Royal Portrush on July 18-21 for the first time since 1951, the only other time golf’s oldest championship has been held outside Scotland or England.
Max Faulkner won his only major on a rainy final day in Northern Ireland.
To mark the return, the AP is reprinting this story about the conclusion of the 80th British Open. It first appeared on July 6, 1951.
Max Faulkner Wins British Open Crown
By GLENN WILLIAMS
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland (AP) — Methodical Max Faulkner, a par-wrecking Englishman who spent one winter milking cows to strengthen his golfing hands, won the British Open Championship today in a dramatic rain-soaked finish.
Playing sub-par for every round except the last, Faulkner captured the 72-hole event with a score of 285 — highest since 1937 — and two strokes better than his closest pursuer.
But there were some breathless moments after Max finished, for handsome little Antonio Cerda of the Argentine was scorching the Royal Portrush course and it appeared for a time as if the South American would get home with a tie and force a playoff tomorrow.
For 15 holes, Cerda was right on the beam — until he slashed a drive up against some steps straddling a barbed wire fence along the 16th fairway. That did it, for it took Antonio four strokes to reach the green and his chances slithered away with a gloomy 6 in the drizzling rain. Cerda finished with a 287 for second place. Faulkner, who blasted a 2-under-par 70 in the morning round, had a 74 in the afternoon. Cerda shot a 71, then a 70.
Frank Stranahan of Toledo, Ohio, one of two Americans left in the tournament, wound up as the leading amateur in the Open for the third straight time, with a total of 295. His final-round 73 gave him a tie for 12th place with two professionals, Dick Burton of England and Dai Rees of Wales.
Another Ohioan, Sgt. Charles (Chuck) Rotar, onetime Canton pro now with the United States Army in Germany, got a 75 and a total of 303.
Charley Ward, a little British Ryder Cup player, clung to the leaders’ flanks with a scorching 68 on his last round, and got third with a total of 290.
Fred Daly, a curly-haired Irishman who won the Open in 1947, and big Jimmy Adams of Scotland, who led on the first day, tied for fourth with 292s.
The great Bobby Locke, seeking his third straight British Open crown, lost his famous putting skill and wound up with a 293 in a tie for sixth with four others.
In his morning round, Bobby missed nine putts of six feet or less, and repeated almost that many in the afternoon as he slow-poked his way around in three and one half hours per trip — backing up the field behind him. Locke had a pair of 74s today, to match his score of yesterday. Only on the first day was he able to break par, with a 71.
Faulkner, a British Ryder Cup star, had stayed out of the wet traps throughout the championship until this afternoon. But he dropped into three of them on the home nine, and gave Cerda the chink he was hunting in Max’s armor.
With Max in, Cerda needed a 68 to force the playoff and he was well on his way to getting it. With only three holes to go, he needed to finish in 4s. That’s when the steps interfered and he got a 6 on the par-4 16th hole.
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‘12 Years a Slave,’ ‘Mother of George,’ and the aesthetic politics of filming black skin
Chiwetel Ejiofor as "Solomon Northup" in Steve McQueens's “12 Years a Slave.” (Jaap Buitendijk)
By Ann Hornaday
Ann Hornaday
Movie critic
In one of the first scenes of early Oscar favorite “12 Years a Slave,” the film’s protagonist, Solomon Northup, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor , is seen at night, sleeping alongside a fellow enslaved servant. Their faces are barely illuminated against the velvety black background, but the subtle differences in their complexions — his a burnished mahogany, hers bearing a lighter, more yellow cast — are clearly defined.
“Mother of George,” which like “12 Years a Slave” opens on Friday, takes place in modern-day Brooklyn, not the candlelit world of 19th-century Louisiana. But, like “12 Years a Slave,” its black stars and supporting players are exquisitely lit, their blue-black skin tones sharply contrasting with the African textiles they wear to create a vibrant tableau of textures and hues.
“Mother of George” and “12 Years a Slave” are just the most recent in a remarkable run of films this year by and about African Americans, films that range in genre from the urban realism of “Fruitvale Station” and light romantic comedy of “Baggage Claim" to the high-gloss historic drama of “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” and the evocatively gritty pot comedy “Newlyweeds.” The diversity of these films isn’t reflected just in their stories and characters, but in the wide range of skin tones they represent, from the deepest ebonies to the creamiest caramels.
The fact that audiences are seeing such a varied, nuanced spectrum of black faces isn’t just a matter of poetics, but politics — and the advent of digital filmmaking. For the first hundred years of cinema, when images were captured on celluloid and processed photochemically, disregard for black skin and its subtle shadings was inscribed in the technology itself, from how film-stock emulsions and light meters were calibrated, to the models used as standards for adjusting color and tone.
That embedded racism extended into the aesthetics of the medium itself, which from its very beginnings was predicated on the denigration and erasure of the black body. As far back as “The Birth of a Nation” — in which white actors wearing blackface depicted Reconstruction-era blacks as wild-eyed rapists and corrupt politicians — the technology and grammar of cinema and photography have been centered on the unspoken assumption that their rightful subjects would be white.
Fall pop culture preview: ‘12 Years as a Slave,’ ‘Gravity,’ Kendrick Lamar and more
Calling all movie fanatics and music lovers: Washington Post critics Ann Hornaday and Chris Richards make their picks for this season’s can’t-miss movies and must-hear crooners.
Tom Hanks stars in Columbia Pictures' "Captain Phillips." Hopper Stone/SMPSP
The result was that, if black people were visible at all, their images would often be painfully caricatured (see Hattie McDaniel in “Gone With the Wind”) or otherwise distorted, either ashy and washed-out or featureless points of contrast within the frame. As “12 Years a Slave” director Steve McQueen said in Toronto after the film’s premiere there, “I remember growing up and seeing Sidney Poitier sweating next to Rod Steiger in ‘In the Heat of the Night,’ and obviously [that was because] it’s very hot in the South. But also he was sweating because he had tons of light thrown on him, because the film stock wasn’t sensitive enough for black skin.”
Montré Aza Missouri, an assistant professor in film at Howard University, recalls being told by one of her instructors in London that “if you found yourself in the ‘unfortunate situation’ of shooting on the ‘Dark Continent,’ and if you’re shooting dark-skinned people, then you should rub Vaseline on their skin in order to reflect light. It was never an issue of questioning the technology.” In her classes at Howard, Missouri says, “I talk to my students about the idea that the tools used to make film, the science of it, are not racially neutral.”
Missouri reminds her students that the sensors used in light meters have been calibrated for white skin; rather than resorting to the offensive Vaseline solution, they need to manage the built-in bias of their instruments, in this case opening their cameras’ apertures one or two stops to allow more light through the lens. Filmmakers working with celluloid also need to take into account that most American film stocks weren’t manufactured with a sensitive enough dynamic range to capture a variety of dark skin tones. Even the female models whose images are used as reference points for color balance and tonal density during film processing — commonly called “China Girls” — were, until the mid-1990s, historically white.
In the face of such technological chauvinism, filmmakers have been forced to come up with workarounds, including those lights thrown on Poitier and a variety of gels, scrims and filters. But today, such workarounds have been rendered virtually obsolete by the advent of digital cinematography, which allows filmmakers much more flexibility both in capturing images and manipulating them during post-production.
Cinematographer Anastas Michos recalls filming “Freedomland” with Julianne Moore and Samuel L. Jackson, whose dramatically different complexions presented a challenge when they were in the same shot. “You had Julianne Moore, who has minus pigment in her skin, and Sam, who’s a dark-skinned guy. It was a photographic challenge to bring out the undertones in both of them.”
Michos solved the problem during a phase of post-production called the digital intermediate, during which the film print is digitized, then manipulated and fine-tuned. “You’re now able to isolate specific skin tones in terms of both brightness and color,” says Michos, who also shot “Baggage Claim,” “Jumping the Broom” and “Black Nativity,” due out later this year. “It gives you a little bit more flexibility in terms of how you paint the frame.”
Daniel Patterson, who shot “Newlyweeds” on a digital Red One camera, agrees, noting that on a recent shoot for Spike Lee’s “Da Blood of Jesus,” he was able to photograph black actors of dramatically different skin tones in a nighttime interior scene using just everyday house lamps, thanks to a sophisticated digital camera. “I just changed the wattage of the bulb, used a dimmer, and I didn’t have to use any film lights. That kind of blew me away,” Patterson says. “The camera was able to hold both of them during the scene without any issues.”
The multicultural realities films increasingly reflect go hand in hand with the advent of technology that’s finally able to capture them with accuracy and sensitivity. And on the forefront of this new vanguard is cinematographer and Howard University graduate Bradford Young , the latest in a long line of Howard alums — including Ernest Dickerson, Arthur Jafa and Malik Sayeed — who throughout the 1990s deployed the means of production to bring new forms of lyricism, stylization and depth to filmed images of African Americans.
At Howard, Young says, “the question of representation was always first and foremost. . . . When bias is built into the negative, how does that affect the way we see people of color on screen? People like Ernest, Malik and A.J. [found] a sweet spot. There’s always an inherent bias sitting over us. We’ve just got to climb through it and survive, and that’s what’s embodied in the cinematography.”
Whether working on film stock for Dee Rees’s “Pariah,” high-definition video for Ava DuVernay’s “Middle of Nowhere,” or with digital Red cameras for Andrew Dosunmu’s “Restless City” and “Mother of George,” Young is finding a newly rich visual language, one that’s simultaneously straightforward, soft, stylish and intimately naturalistic. His work with Dosunmu — for which Young won the Sundance cinematography award this year — is especially expressive, with the camera coming in and out of focus and often capturing the actors in moments of stillness, like works of sculpture.
“I was trying to be assertive with the imagery as flamboyant, space-age and assertive as African American textiles have been for 10,000 years,” Young explains, adding that he lit “Mother of George” to accentuate blue skin tones and illuminated scenes from above, to suggest natural sunlight. “It takes us back to Tuaregs and Niger and nomads, because the people in the film are kind of like nomads,” he says. “That’s why the top light is always so cool, and their hands are always stained with something. Because that’s what nomadic people do.”
Solomon Northup is a nomad as well in “12 Years a Slave,” in which he and his fellow laborers — often abused, but shown in all their physical types and tonal subtleties — stand in symbolic rebuke to a cinematic apparatus that habitually ignored or despised them. Like their brethren in “Mother of George” and other denizens of this year’s “black new wave,” these characters are claiming aesthetic space that they’ve long been denied.
That space, at long last, seems endless: Young suggested that his next step with Dosunmu might be photographing a movie in 3-D. Having transformed the black body in a two-dimensional format, he says, “let’s work on the perception of the black body in space. Instead of having depth of field, let’s actually take control of each field.” It’s tempting to imagine that Northup and his peers would agree — literally, metaphorically and, not least of all, cinematically.
Ann Hornaday Ann Hornaday is The Washington Post's chief film critic. She is the author of "Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies." She joined The Post in 2002. Follow
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The world's first live virus vaccine
Reconstructing the Wistar Institute
Leonard Hayflick Scientist
31. Professor Charles M Pomerat 98 01:58
32. Working with adenoviruses 40 04:09
33. A seredipitous discovery 49 04:12
34. Why Galveston tap water was special 64 02:15
35. Charles Pomerat's polkadot shorts 48 06:07
36. Financial security came with the Fellowship at Galveston 38 01:28
37. Hilary Koprowski appointed Director of the Wistar Institute 50 02:07
38. Hilary Koprowski 55 02:01
39. On our way to Philadelphia 37 01:11
40. Reconstructing the Wistar Institute 38 02:43
My job technically was to operate a central cell culture facility to produce cell cultures for use by other members of the institute. And I should say a word or two about the structure of the institute. Hilary brought with him to the Wistar Institute several people from the pharmaceutical company in, that he left, and all of them actually became good friends of mine. He also hired several other people in building the labs, and I should say parenthetically that when I arrived in 1958, Hilary had gotten sufficient funds to remodel the entire institute. To do away with the museum and to build laboratories and conference rooms, and rebuild the library that existed already at the Wistar Institute, a very interesting 19th-century medical library, an anatomical library, so that we had to wait, as I recall, about six months before the construction was completed.
During that time I shared laboratory space in a semi-circular shaped room, which was an old anatomical laboratory, with several other of the scientists who worked there and their technicians, we just sort of spread out over this semi-circular shaped table that ran underneath the windows on that floor, and it was large, this was a very large room. Of course very little could be done there. We used to have a saying that it was very difficult to do cell culture in that room because the construction had been such that it allowed the cells to grow in a growth medium that contained 10% plaster, to give you some idea of the primitive working conditions through that six-month period. Of course it was worth the wait because we knew that we were going to end up with very beautiful luxurious labs, and we did.
Leonard Hayflick (b. 1928), the recipient of several research prizes and awards, including the 1991 Sandoz Prize for Gerontological Research, is known for his research in cell biology, virus vaccine development, and mycoplasmology. He also has studied the ageing process for more than thirty years. Hayflick is known for discovering that human cells divide for a limited number of times in vitro (refuting the contention by Alexis Carrel that normal body cells are immortal), which is known as the Hayflick limit, as well as developing the first normal human diploid cell strains for studies on human ageing and for research use throughout the world. He also made the first oral polio vaccine produced in a continuously propogated cell strain - work which contributed to significant virus vaccine development.
Title: Reconstructing the Wistar Institute
Listeners: Christopher Sykes
Christopher Sykes is a London-based television producer and director who has made a number of documentary films for BBC TV, Channel 4 and PBS.
Tags: Wistar Institute, Hilary Koprowski
Date story went live: 08 August 2012
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'Game of Thrones' premiere leaked hours early on DirecTV Now
Author: Tegna
Updated: 10:22 PM EDT April 14, 2019
The fight to avoid online spoilers before the "Game of Thrones" season 8 premiere got a bit harder in the hours before the scheduled premiere.
DirecTV Now posted the first episode of the season on Sunday about four hours ahead of its scheduled 9 p.m. ET premiere on HBO, according to INSIDER and The Wrap. The subscription service is owned by AT&T.
Those who subscribe to DirecTV Now started tweeting about the apparent accidental leak around 5 p.m. ET and said they got a push alert letting them know the season was available to watch.
INSIDER confirmed that subscribers were able to start and play the entire episode. By 6 p.m. ET, the episode was no longer available to watch on DirecTV Now.
An AT&T representative told INSIDER that its system must've been as excited as everyone else was because it gave a few customers early access by mistake and "when we became aware of the error, we immediately fixed it and we look forward to tuning in this evening."
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Stories After Syria
7 Stories for 7 Years
After Syria
After seven years, many children displaced by the war in Syria only have vague memories of their homeland. The confines of a refugee camp, poor housing and sanitation, inadequate healthcare and intermittent education, all seem normal to them.
Stories After Syria Home
Blogs from our filmmakers
Syria Crisis Response
These children want to tell their stories and be heard so World Vision partnered with Al Jazeera’s virtual reality studio Contrast VR to train and equip budding young filmmakers in Jordan’s Za’atari Refugee Camp with Samsung 360 cameras. The result is seven powerful short virtual reality films written, directed and shot by child refugees.
While the films document some of the daily stressors child refugees face, the overwhelming theme which emerges is one of hope. The young filmmakers explore topics such as football and friendship, people they look up to and pursuing their dreams no matter what.
We partnered with Al Jazeera's virtual reality studio Contrast VR to teach budding journalists and filmmakers in Jordan's Za'atari Refugee Camp how to share their #StoriesAfterSyria using 360 cameras. Meet our filmmakers and view their work.
Marah (18) has been living in Jordan's Za'atari Refugee Camp since 2013. She is married, and a mother to five-month-old Omar. Marah's dream is to become a professional photographer or filmmaker "…when people hear about Za'atari they think of us as dirty refugees, I want to show the world both sides of the story… I hope I can film a great movie about life here in the camp. My message to every young woman in the world is, do not stop dreaming for any reason."
Tabarak (16) missed several years of school due to the conflict but now attends regular lessons in the camp. She wants to be a journalist. "I have a message to all the students: Never give up on your dream despite any situation whatsoever. They should read and work hard." Tabarak's film explores the challenges she and her family faced when they first arrived in Jordan. "In the beginning we weren't used to this kind of life. Now we are used to it, we adapted. It has become like our home in Syria."
Obada (15) like many his age, is passionate about football. There was never any doubt the 'beautiful game' would feature in his film. Obada says football not only brings him joy, but it helped him make friends when he first arrived at the camp five years ago. "I want to show people all over the world that despite all of the difficulties in the refugee camp, we play soccer." Obada hopes to one day make the Syrian national football team and become a professional photographer.
Yousef (16) misses Syria but is thankful his family is together. He left his home five years ago for a tent in Za'atari Refugee Camp. He profiles his entrepreneurial older brother who started a barber-shop inside the camp. "I wanted to show my brother Ali in my story because he is my oldest brother in Za'atari camp and he takes care of me."
Najat's (16) dreams of obtaining a passport and traveling the world. She wants to become a journalist and promote peace. "I want people to remember me [as someone who] helped many people. We need to help each other." Najat's film explores her love of theatre. Something which developed after taking lessons in the camp. "When I'm on stage, I feel as if I'm in a different world. Everything I feel, I can express it and show it on stage."
Mahmoud's (14) arrived in Za'atari camp in 2012 along with his parents and six siblings. He'd like to be a photographer or famous singer. Singing brings him joy and he'd like to one day audition for Arab Idol. He says his ultimate goal in life is to help children in need. "Especially the poor ones. And the people that live in tents. I want to tell people all over the world to help people in war zones like Palestine and Syria." His film examines how his life has changed since leaving Syria.
Nisreen (16) misses Syria and her old life. "I want Syria to go back as it was before the war with everything in it, so we live safely in it. [I want] everything to go back as it was: houses, shops, and people go back to their work, back to their families and back to their country." Nisreen wants to become a journalist so she can report on what life is really like in the camp. In her 360 film, she profiles her disabled drama teacher who has overcome many difficulties, and provided a creative outlet for many young refugees.
Dreaming in Za’atari
In addition, World Vision and Contrast VR have released Dreaming in Za’atari: Stories after Syria an immersive film exploring the hopes and dreams of three of the young filmmakers. VR animations bring their stories to life, transforming the spaces around them.
The film is directed and produced by Contrast VR’s editorial lead Zahra Rasool and narrated by World Vision supporter and actor Liam Cunningham, United Nations Ambassador Dr. Alaa Murabit and former head of the United Nations Development Programme and former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark.
World Vision's response to the Syria crisis began in 2011 and has since expanded to operating across five countries. In 2017 World Vision reached more than 2.2 million people, including nearly 1.3 million children. But after seven years, longer-term solutions are needed. The international community must look Beyond Survival and consider what is needed to ensure Syrian children are able to live happy, healthy and productive lives post-conflict.
Read Policy Report
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Does My Business Need A Privacy Policy?
In January 2017, it was official – exactly 50% of the global population had internet access. Though this international connectivity brought about a multitude of benefits, we cannot say it wasn’t without a few issues, to put it mildly.
As we arrived in the online world, we entered almost completely exposed. We were ready to put our personal information out in the open, if it meant gaining something in return. Unfortunately, much as in regular life, not everyone we gave our details to had good intentions. Many joined the online community just to collect user data and utilise it in whichever way they pleased without asking if we were okay with it first.
In fact, statistics indicate that there are almost 6.5 million data breaches on a daily basis – if that doesn’t put a little scare in you, Brach Level Index (April 2019) states that someone has their data records lost or stolen every 75 seconds of the day.
This has resulted in the majority of users becoming displeased with the fact that any website they visit can collect their personal info without their consent, and then use it for their own purposes. Of course, there are still many modern consumers who appreciate the benefits this data collection has brought with it (eg. better ad targeting, better services), but most are also worried whether about the downside.
Here enter’s the Privacy Policy – a legal document, which clearly explains what happens to users’ personal info on a specific website.
Ever notice how much code looks like cross stitch?
What Is A Privacy Policy?
A Privacy Policy is a document that informs your business website users what type of data you are collecting and what you intend to do with it.
But let’s get into the specifics:
The Privacy Policy has to specify the type of data being collected. This section should be as detailed as possible, listing everything a website intends to obtain –from users’ IP address, email address, payment information, and so on.
The document should also outline the methods of data collection (eg. through website cookies, form, etc.).
It should also state how long you plan on storing the data and keeping it in your possession.
Users also need to know who can be contacted to access their data in case they decide to request or make changes to their data.
Furthermore, depending on the location of your company, it is important to provide information on where the data is being stored – are you doing it yourself or is a data centre doing it for you (and if so – where is the centre located?).
It doesn’t matter if your website targets children or not, it is recommended that you address children’s privacy either way. If the website targets adults, a brief sentence will suffice, stating that the website is not intended for children under a certain age. In case the website primarily targets children, you should draft a more detailed Children’s Privacy Policy.
When it comes to businesses that collect cookies, or if your third-party software collects them, it is essential to draft a Cookies Policy where you will explain what cookies are, how you are using them, why they are necessary, and which types and functions each cookie performs.
A privacy policy might go hand in hand with the security policy intended to protect the collected user data. This section states the measures a business website takes to safeguard customer data.
Certain countries require websites to give customers a chance to opt out of receiving any further email or notices.
Note that the language of a Privacy Policy should be formal, but at the same time easy to comprehend so that users can obtain a clear understanding of your actions and intentions.
Yum. But not that kind of cookies.
Why You Need A Privacy Policy
1. Firstly, it’s required by law.
In response to catastrophic breach events, which have occurred on a frequent basis over the years, we’ve seen the rise of laws and regulations intended to keep users’ personal data as safe as possible.
The two most influential ones are:
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Europe’s directive which affects websites worldwide. It replaced the Data Protection Act 1998 and dealt with concerns regarding the collection, possession, storage, and sharing of personal data. To find out more about GDPR and how it affects your business, check out Zegal’s white paper on Understanding the new GDPR.
California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) – Established in 2004, it represents the first US law which prevents any website from collecting California-based users’ data, including their email address, phone number, location info, etc. In case a website does intend to collect any information, it is required to have a legal statement outlining your business privacy practices available for a user review.
Others include, Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the US’ Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the UK’s Data Protection Act (DPA) and Australia’s Privacy Act of 1988.
Certainly, we can expect more regulations in the future in response to the emerging global requirements.
2. It is required by third-party services your business website uses
In order to deliver certain services, websites collaborate with third-party affiliates, including website analytics tools, online shopping functions, advertising services, and so on. Consequently, you are required to include a section about these online associates, their role on your website, and explain whether or not they collect user data, in which manner, and for what purposes.
3. Users Demand Privacy
Let’s go back to the beginning. All of this started, largely, because internet users were concerned about their personal data being exposed, collected, used, and share without their knowledge.
It is not that everybody is looking to keep their data private – quite the contrary. Many are willing to disclose their personal information if they get something in return. Nevertheless, they would still like to know what the info will be used for.
This is where the Privacy Policy steps in. It answers all of their burning questions, clearly stating:
Which information will be collected
How will the data be used
Who can they contact to access their personal data
If the information will be used in another country
If a website uses cookies and which ones
If payments are possible on the website and which type of encryption is used
This list is by no means exclusive as the specifics of the Privacy Policy depend on the nature of your business and website.
How To Write A Privacy Policy?
Easy. Make one here.
A Privacy Policy safeguards both the business that drafted it and its users. It makes the online environment honest and transparent, helping businesses cultivate trust and confidence with their consumers. A privacy policy should be easily accessible so that users can locate it at any time and read through the details.
Regardless of how you operate – via a website, a desktop app, or a mobile app, you are advised to have a strategically-drafted privacy policy in place. Be sure to update it regularly to reflect changes in the law and automatically inform users.
This article does not constitute legal advice.
Start managing your legal needs with Zegal today
READ MORE: 8 GDPR Compliance Tips Explained Through Queen Songs
READ MORE: How To Master E-Commerce At A Local Level
How To Start A Business In New Zealand
Step by step on how to take the plunge and set up shop in one of the easiest and most supportive countries in the world to start a business
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Via YayaCanada, from Bible Study for Atheists, an interview with David Plotz, author of the book "Good Book" (VL is the interviewer 'Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy', DP is Plotz, and OT is Old Testament; my emphasis in red):
"VL: One thing I really wasn't prepared for was how explicit the OT was about how the Israelites were to barge into other people's land, kill them, and take it over. It seems to fulfill the worst perceptions that anti-Zionists have, no?
DP: That's an unfair conflation, because it merges an ancient religious text with modern geopolitics. There are, of course, lots and lots of Jews who justify their claims to Israel and the West Bank by using the Bible. But most Israelis don't and the Israeli government doesn't. One of the oddest realizations I had while reading the Bible is that modern Israel occupies land that was not generally Biblical Israel. Modern Israel is where ancient Israel's enemies lived. The Biblical demands to kill and occupy are horrifying, and probably the most troubling part of the Bible. (Book of Joshua is hands down the most disturbing Bible book.) But it's succumbing to the literalist fallacy to extrapolate from that that Jews inherently are genocidal and seeking to expel and murder everyone on "their" land.
I guess your question is about whether it reinforces anti-Zionist views, and I suppose you are right that it could. My answer suggests that I think that would be unfair, but it may happen anyway."
Did anyone see this week's CSI:NY? The one with Ed Asner as a Nazi? With a 'Jewish' son? Human-skin lampshades? Connect-the-dots neo-Nazi tattoos? Black-and-white (recreated) Auschwitz footage? Jewish children shot in the back of the head? Secret Nazi memorabilia rooms (remember that episode of Father Ted?!). Wow! I don't think I've ever seen propaganda more blatant. Maudlin. Over-the-top. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it manages to rise to yet another level of bathos (I'm serious - this is multiple throw-up-in-your-mouth material). Gary Sinise, like Jon Voight, is one of those right-wing Hollywood types that gives me the creeps. The truth is rising fast and the Zionists are using all their propaganda machine in order to try to continue killing Palestinians and stealing their land. Pathetic (and I doubt that propaganda this obvious will fool even an American audience that is used to such drivel).
From Against All Enemies: 'Who is Israeli spy MEGA?' There appears to be one guy, a big-wig policy guy in the American government - someone who could obtain hand's-on access to all files, including the most classified, without attracting suspicion - who was running Israeli spy operations against the American government in the period from the late 70s until at least the early 90s, and probably up until today (i.e. he's the guy the FBI was really after when they overheard the 'American' phoning Harman to have her suborn justice in the AIPAC case in return for a promotion obtained through financial contributions from a 'one issue guy'). Try as you might, you will have a terrible time finding one individual who has been in power all those years, with the right level of access, across both American political parties.
What if that is the wrong way of looking at it? What if there is such a guy, a big political player over the decades, who had bipartisan political access to different big-wig players who had the kind of hand's-on access the big guy needed. There is only one such guy: Henry the K.
Obviously, Kissinger could have done his own snooping when he was Secretary of State. After that, he could rely on a series of big American political operators, in both parties, with connections back to him. The list is long. Names like Brent Scowcroft, Lawrence Eagleburger (chairman of the International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims), George Shultz, Anthony Lake (take a wild guess at which religion he was a late convert to) all connect to Kissinger, often through Kissinger Associates. Any number of traitor neocons would have been happy to help in recent years. Of course, Kissinger, Cheney and Wolfowitz were together during the Ford Administration. Kissinger has thirty years of colleagues and disciples to call on. He has to be the only guy with that kind of access, or access to that access, across party lines and over the decades in question.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009:
The cost of always arresting the wrong people on racist grounds inspired by Bibi's 'war on terror' - both Bibi and Rudy were on hand in London on 7/7 to see the conspiracy first-hand - is not only the costs of the legal proceedings and the cost to the innocents involved and the costs to many others who face the same Zionist racism, but the biggest cost of all: the real perpetrators go free, and are able to do the same thing again. One wonders how much of this bullshit the British people will put up with before they decide to do something about it.
The chain of custody problem would be sufficient in itself to sink the latest 'truther' effort. I love this Danish moron, who seems to think that the problem of secretly moving 10 to 100 tons of explosives into buildings which were in full operation 24/7/365 without one person noticing anything isn't his problem.
Part of the secret war against the Jews. Godspeed. As a mind experiment, contemplate how much better the world would be if the Jews didn't run the United States and much of Europe.
CIA clown scared away from a speech by fear of embarrassment.
The guy who phoned Harman probably knew he was being wiretapped (“We know that we are closely watched, that people might be listening to our phone calls. This is our working premise.”), which means he was setting her up to control her for even worse crimes, possibly when she became CIA director. The story is accomplishing the impossible by making Dennis Hastert look like some kind of hero, despite the fact that some people are never going to love him (the aides typing the letter themselves has an 'All the President's Men' feel to it!).
A peak behind the curtain, no doubt intended to make it seem normal and un-frightening. I too "detest the accusation of dual loyalty and find it a despicable canard." The only loyalty of anyone who still self-identifies as Jewish is to Anti-Assimilation-Land. End of story. Start self-identifying as Palestinian and I'll start to give you some respect.
More funny stuff:
"Former FBI counterintelligence official David Szady, who led the investigation that targeted the AIPAC figures, told the New York Times in an interview last week that he was confident Harman had never sought to intervene in the case. "In all my dealings with her, she was always professional and never tried to intervene or get in the way of any investigation," Szady told the Times. The remark, while exonerating, is still perhaps puzzling. Why would an official who had been involved in a sensitive counterintelligence investigation yet to go to trial comment about the actions of someone who the government has not acknowledged was a subject of investigation in the case? How would he know who Harman had or had not lobbied on the matter? The Justice Department, for its part, denied comment. Szady could not be reached."
Posting will be a little iffy as I've decided to reinstall everything on the computer I use for posting, and things are still a mess. I've noticed that the Disqus anti-spam filter is quite aggressive, so that's where any missing posts went (it seems to regard any posting from a big free email site as spam). I am in the process of reviewing and restoring the improperly canned posts.
Photo op? Any of these Air Force photographers heard of Photoshop?
I really like Gawker, a mainstream blog with a conspiracist's attitude.. Two from today:
"Creepy People on The Internet: 'The Schnoz'", which leads you to a whole bunch of weird YouTube videos, and then it turns out he had a prior life, and then this.
"Six Million Ways to Die", one of the favorites of the demolitionists. A commentator liked this ad.
Speaking of lukery, from his partial transcript of the Scott Horton (SH) interview of Philip Giraldi (PG) (on the big FBI investigation that discovers massive espionage and treason, but never gets anywhere because the corruption is just too massive; my emphasis throughout in red):
"SH: I want to get to the NSA thing because that connects to this story in a couple of important ways, and I guess the Ben-Ami Kadish theft of nuclear secrets cuts perhaps into the same thing. I'm having trouble figuring out exactly who is investigating what and under what authority but it seems like there has been one big FBI counter-intelligence operation against Israel spying inside the US since about 1998 or 1999, and that this one investigation seems to interact with all these different things - whether it is the leaking of secrets to Ahmed Chalabi who then passed them onto Iran, or whether it is the Sibel Edmonds story talking about the Turkish lobby, the neocons or Israeli spies in the Pentagon or paying off people in the Pentagon to steal secrets for them. It all sort of seems like - perhaps even this Jane Harman investigation - or would-have-been investigation-that-never-happened - is still kind of part of this one big counter-intelligence operation. Am I guessing anything close to right there? What do you think is going on?
PG: Well, I think that the key here is that this is all part of one huge, co-coordinated intelligence effort by the Israelis, and once you make that assumption, you realize that what the FBI is doing is they've been nibbling at the edges of this for a long time, and they've been discovering increasingly that a lot of the pieces come together. And we really shouldn’t be surprised at that. I would also throw in a lot of the phony intelligence leading up to the Iraq war, a lot of the phony intelligence that we've seen more recently trying to blacken the Iranians. This is all part of a scheme that is basically coordinated by Israeli intelligence, but has a lot of fellow travelers in the US, particularly the people we were seeing up until recently at the Pentagon, that basically are part of this scheme. And I think what the problem is for the investigators at the FBI is that they get a lot of names, they get a lot of information, but a lot of these people turn out to be Jane Harmans. They turn out to be people that basically are in very sensitive positions in the government and it becomes a political issue where to go with this kind of investigation, and the result is that most of these investigations are, as in the case of the Jane Harman investigation, they are squashed.
SH: It really goes to show, I guess, that you can even understand their point of view. That to really make the change and say for example really let the FBI off the leash and try to bring cases and let the Justice Department try to bring cases against as much Israeli spying and corruption and that kind of thing as they can, in this whole interconnected web of neocons and criminals... It would be 'horribly destabilising,' in their words, right. We'd be talking about taking two thirds of Washington DC and putting them in prison.
PG: Yeah, that's one way to look at it. The thing is that if the FBI and DoJ ever went after all the people who ever gave classified information to Israel or did things that amounted to malfeasance or criminal activity on behalf of Israel there would be a lot of people running through the system, and you'd have people like Abe Foxman screaming 'Anti-semitism!'
So yeah, there's a political dimension to everything but this is one kind of festering sore that has been there for a long time, and to lance it now would be an enormous political problem for any administration, Democratic or Republican."
and (on the weakness in the American political system that manifests itself in interesting ways in places like Turkey):
"SH: So that's where we really get into Bizarro World here... You have Larry Franklin, the case that started all of this thing, the top Iran analyst in the policy shop at the Pentagon, he wanted a promotion to the National Security Council, so apparently the way he judged his risk/benefit, the idea of going to Rumsfeld and asking for a recommendation was out of the picture. He decided instead the best route to the White House was through Israeli spies, and apparently this is the same way that Jane Harman assesses the balance sheet as well: If I want a promotion, I need to get the government of Israel to intervene on my behalf! That's really through the Looking Glass at this point isn’t it?
PG: Well, it's not through the Looking Glass, because obviously they felt that that was the way to go. And, you know, there are a lot of other people that see the US in the same way. For example, let's go back to our Turkish example. Why are the Turks so cozy with Israel? Do they have any real community of interest? You know, they have some common enemies in the area and so forth, but the big reason is that being chummy with the Israelis is a big plus for the Turks vis-a-vis the US. So a lot of people have seen our foreign policy as having this kind of key in the door which is the Israeli relationship, the Israeli connection, and clearly this was very plausible that the Israelis would be able to make these things happen. And even a canny operator in the political sphere like Jane Harman was convinced that it would work.
SH: I guess the message here is that the American people are just not responsible enough to maintain a world empire, because the incentive for the leaders of every other country to exert extraordinary influence in order to try to influence this empire apparently outmatches the American people every time.
PG: And our politicians are so corrupt and so motivated by their own interest that it makes it easy to manipulate them. I suspect that's a big part of it too. But you know this whole Israeli thing has been going on for so long, and they've been so successful at it, that they just kind of feel that at certain levels they are bullet-proof, and they can do what they want, they can manipulate the situation to satisfy their own needs."
Harman is ambitious and figures the best way to obtain her various political goals is to fulfil requests from Israeli agents for political and legal manipulations in the United States for the benefit of Israel (it doesn't hurt that she is also a so-called dual loyalist whose only true loyalty is to her fellow JIZ); Larry Franklin wants a promotion in the American bureaucracy and determines that the best way to obtain it is to turn classified info over to Israeli agents; Turkey would like its political dealings with the Americans to be smoother so is unnaturally friendly to Israel. This absurdity all plays out because the Israelis and their invariably Jewish apologists and agents are all one-issue-guys, with the one issue being the creation of Anti-Assimilation-Land across the Middle East, and because they are all, to a man or woman, psychopathic extremist violent racists who will do anything to achieve their one long-term goal. They have been manipulating American politics for so long that the fact of their manipulation and corrupting has become one of their major blackmail handles (another point that Giraldi makes is that once you have done one favor for them, they can use that to blackmail you into doing more - very le Carré).
It must be frustrating for the FBI to work on these files. Not only is it dangerous work - probably both physically and politically dangerous - but the immensity and bipartisan nature of the crimes they discover make it impossible to obtain convictions. The JIZ have so destabilized the American government through decades of systematic corrupting that even pointing to the tip of the iceberg would destroy the entire political system (that is the hint being dropped by the JIZ insisting that the AIPAC prosecution be scrapped). The perfect crime is one so immense that it destroys the legitimacy of the political system in which the crime is investigated.
Niqnaq (posted Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 7:43 pm, presumably London time):
"The 23 countries that walked out of the Geneva Conference during Ahmadinejad’s speech are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The 27 EU members are the above plus Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland, which had already decided not to send delegates at all. The other 5 countries which had already decided not to send delegates at all are Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and the US. So the formula for the bloc claiming that Ahmadinejad is ‘racist’ is: EU, plus Israel, plus the surviving ‘Anglo-Saxon’ or ‘English-speaking’ — i.e., white colonial — states: Australia & New Zealand, the USA & Canada. It seems then that this bloc is no more nor less than the white, western colonialist and imperialist nations, with Israel acting as their convenor, and that to be opposed to white, western colonialism and imperialism is the real definition of ‘racism’ in their eyes."
From Mondoweiss (posted April 25, 2009 at 11:30 a.m., presumably New York time):
"Mohammad of Vancouver writes:
The 23 countries that walked out of the Geneva Conference during Ahmadinejad’s speech are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
The 27 EU members are the above plus Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland, which had already decided not to send delegates at all. The other 5 countries which had already decided not to send delegates at all are Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and the US.
So the formula for the bloc claiming that Ahmadinejad is ‘racist’ is: EU, plus Israel, plus the surviving ‘Anglo-Saxon’ or ‘English-speaking’ — i.e., white colonial — states: Australia & New Zealand, the USA & Canada. It seems then that this bloc is no more nor less than the white, western colonialist and imperialist nations, with Israel acting as their convenor, and that to be opposed to white, western colonialism and imperialism is the real definition of ‘racism’ in their eyes."
I agree with Niqnaq. Presumably a citation back to an inappropriate site like Niqnaq was not possible.
Sibel is talking again so lukery is back, and noted this odd thing which has come up before, that Larry Franklin is not in jail, despite his 151 month sentence. This reminds me of the case of Ali Mohamed, convicted but apparently never sentenced, and who may have been released by Alberto Gonzales, presumably in return for future espionage-related services.
A comment by 'American' to Mondoweiss on Lobbygate (my emphasis in red; much of the same ground, but not the crazy red paragraphs, is covered by Justin Raimondo):
"Some of you STILL DON'T GET IT.
You need to go back to the original reporting on the FBI surveillance of AIPAC and Israeli spying operations to know how Franklin, Rosen and Harman, et all got caught.
From Richard Sale..best reporter on whole affair:
"Gilon, chief of political affairs at the Israeli embassy, had been under surveillance at least since 2001, when the FBI discovered new, 'massive' Israeli spying operations on the East Coast, including New York and New Jersey.
"The FBI began intensive surveillance on certain Israeli diplomats and other suspects and was videotaping Naor Gilon, chief of political affairs at the Israeli embassy in Washington, who was having lunch at a Washington hotel with two lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby group. Federal law enforcement officials said they were floored when Franklin came up to their table and sat down."
As I said the FBI was after something much, much bigger than just regular AIPAC doings...there was a "massive" Israel spying operation going on in 2001 that the FBI was tracking..that is where all the Franklins, Rosens and Harmans got caught up.
What were the Israelis doing in NY and NJ in 2001 that the FBI was watching? Stay tuned. Everything comes out sooner or later.
Did it have anything to do with 911? I wouldn't put anything pass the zionist. From the days when they dressed up as Arabs to bomb the King David Hotel to today, deception and false flags have been their stock in trade."
Harman, the two AIPACers and Franklin were all caught because of a long-ongoing espionage investigation which involved Israeli spies in the United States. All these people found themselves in trouble by wandering into the frame of the FBI's pre-existing surveillance and implicating themselves. The big unanswered question: what was the reason for the initial FBI investigation of Israeli spies in the United States? Given the extreme delicacy of the politics, the Israelis must have been up to something really, really big.
David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of mortgage company Freddie Mac, apparently managed to kill himself by both a gun shot and hanging. It is unclear whether he got up on the chair, put the noose on, kicked away the chair and then shot himself, or whether he shot himself first, and then with all his dying energy climbed up on the chair, put the noose on, and then kicked away the chair. In any event, he is the undisputed winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Suicide (previous winners include Gary Webb, Steve Kangas, J. Clifford Baxter, Deborah Jeane Palfrey and Danny Casolaro). It is funny how, when officials lie, they can't even get the most rudimentary facts straight.
Freddie Mac was one of the two huge American financial operations that were bailed out by the American government in order to protect Chinese investments so the necessary life blood of the American empire, Chinese loans, would continue to flow. Those Wars For The Jews aren't cheap. You have to wonder what Kellermann knew, and what he might have been preparing to say. He "was working on the company's first-quarter financial report". There are often tell-tale hints: "Fearing that someone might attack his house, his wife or their 5-year-old daughter, he asked the company for a security detail."
The ex-CIA guy who allegedly set the targets on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade that was 'accidentally' bombed by the Americans also suffered a recent fatal mishap. Is a Chinese mop-up crew at work in the United States?
How bad is it? It's so bad that President Ahmadinejad was criticized for things he didn't say. Gilad Atzmon:
"On a final note, if the British government insists upon sending delegates to such a conference, it better make sure that those assigned to the task are capable of presenting an eloquent argument that can withstand intellectual scrutiny. Peter Gooderham, the UK ambassador to the UN in Geneva, is clearly not suited to the job. The Ambassador went on record saying "Such outrageous anti-Semitic remarks should have no place in a UN anti-racism forum." Ambassador Gooderham better advise us where the ‘anti Semitism’ is exactly.
President Ahmadinejad did not refer to a Jewish race, he did not refer to Judaism either. He did not refer to the Jewish people, if anything, he was referring to their suffering.
Ambassador Gooderham, in case you have managed to miss it all, while acting like a sheep in a herd, President Ahmadinejad was telling the truth referring to some universally accepted facts.
It would save some embarrassment in the future if British diplomats would be properly trained to understand the complexity of current world affairs and the ideologies that are involved in shaping those affairs. It would save us from watching the odd buffoon diplomats throwing around meaningless sound bites, which they themselves fail to fully comprehend."
The unanimous official Western response is as accurate as if the Jews rolled out the president of the American Asparagus Growers Association to feign outrage at all the terrible things President Ahmadinejad said about asparagus! Not only was he criticized for things he didn't say, he was criticized for things that were in a draft of his speech which he intentionally changed to avoid offense! It is obvious that the Jews wrote up the various responses based on the speech they wished President Ahmadinejad would say, and then ordered all their reps and collaborators to read the prepared text (I hope the collaborators don't forget what happens to collaborators after the revolution when we throw off our shackles - we're keeping a list).
Note this particular fuckwit who calls the perfectly accurate and inspiring speech a "screed worse than anything found in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The Jews have lost it (and Dersh called Bishop Tutu, an 'Apartheid survivor' - to use the lingo - a 'racist and bigot'!). Of course, because the mainstream media is utterly Jew-controlled, the criticisms of a speech that Ahmadinejad didn't give will make it look like he said all the things the Jews and their craven collaborating employees claimed that he said.
Note how Harman is getting in trouble, not for treason or breaking the law or consorting with foreign agents or confirming the complete truth of the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis (including the fact that she claimed her point of influence was in the White House - sorry, Noam), but for the utter hypocrisy of feigning outrage that it was her precious call that was being monitored, a legal wiretap involving an espionage investigation, while she was the primary Democrat who enabled the Bush Administration to engage in illegal spying on Americans. It is curious that the new revelations claim that Gonzales blackmailed her into taking this stance based on his knowledge of the wiretap, while she seemed all too eager to allow illegal surveillance without the prodding of any blackmail (when Gonzales blocked the investigation of Harman in 2006, it looks more like a bribe than blackmail). Even before the tapped call, she had already intervened with the NYT to stop their NSA story before the 2004 elections, when it might have had a political impact favorable to her own party. There is a hell of a lot going on here, all pointing to the enormous control of the Lobby (sorry again, Noam). Blackmail and bribery aren't the right terms - it is more like bipartisan political corruption all in service to the Lobby.
The Holocaust and Israeli occupation cannot be compared
"The Holocaust and Israeli occupation cannot be compared". Or can they? Levy, a 'liberal', just can't shake that racist supremacist idea that the Jewish holocaust can't be compared to anything else. It is this kind of fucked-up thinking that is behind my view that Jews will never solve this problem, no matter how well meaning they think they are.
Watch how all the delegates from the racist European nations walked out - en masse, so it must have been preplanned - when Ahmadinejad points to their racism (not just Israel's racism, but the racism of those who set up and support the racist illegitimate Israeli regime; the speech continues here, here, and here). They must be so proud as they discuss their actions tonight over $800 bottles of wine in Geneva's best restaurants. The rest of the world gets it, and applauded. While it may be lost on supremacists like Levy and lapdogs like the Eurotrash dips, Ahmadinejad makes some excellent philosophical points towards the deep politics of Israeli/Western racism as made tangible in the colonialist state of Israel. Israel looks like a theme park, the only present-day chance you have to witness the worst excesses of Western racism in action.
It seems to me that if you are a citizen of two countries, the first of which is a nuclear superpower whose foreign policy and media is run by racist psychopaths who constantly lie about the second country in order to trick the first country into participating in the nuclear destruction of the second country, and you move to the second country and immediately start snooping around and asking pointed questions, you have only yourself to blame when you are arrested and convicted by the second country for spying. Frankly, I'd be flabbergasted if she wasn't spying, at least in the semi-professional way where you have a nice meeting with the State Department before you leave with the suggestion that the American government would be grateful for any information you might convey. If you want to lay blame for this on anybody, don't blame the victim Iran, blame the real culprits, the JIZ.
Speaking of lying, the Jew-controlled media is having a field day over the noble speech of President Ahmadinejad, completely misconstruing the content of the speech - with which any moral and decent person has to be in full agreement - and lyingly calling him a denier of the Jewish holocaust and somebody who has called for the destruction of Israel, both patent and outrageous falsehoods intended to lead to genocide.
Speaking of denial and genocide, did you know that discussing the campaign of genocide against the Palestinians is 'Holocaust denial'? Does that mean that if there is really an ongoing campaign of genocide against the Palestinians the Jewish holocaust did not occur?
Wider implications of the leak of the Harman treason
The content of the revelations that lead to the inescapable conclusion that Jane Harman should be tried, and hung, for treason are less interesting that the timing of the release of the information. Two timing issues:
Steve Rosen started the attacks on Charles Freeman. The Harman treason revelations appear to be payback, as the political interference in the trial will make it difficult for prosecutors to drop the matter. Rosen may serve time for his victory over Freeman.
Who was the Israeli spy who was instructing Harman? If it was indeed Naor Gilon, who slithered out of town back to Israel right after the arrest of the AIPACers, the same Gilon who has just been appointed the number two man of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, it gives Obama some powerful ammunition in dealing with the Israelis.
The leakers are comedians, hanging Harman with info from the wiretap program that Harman was instrumental in covering up.
The United States announced that it just might attend Durban, so the organizers rushed around to remove the few - to hear the Jew-controlled media whine about it, you'd think Durban was AntiSemitapalooza - references to Israeli racism from the conference. Once the conference agenda was Judenrein, the Americans said 'Psych! We're not going anyway!' Nice work, Rahm!
The Gaza slaughter changed perceptions so radically that the December efforts by some American 'elders' to encourage the U. S. to take steps towards a two state solution now seem quaint and naive, if not covertly Zionist. No, the only solution now is sea bathing, followed by a majority-ruled - i. e., Palestinian ruled, with perhaps some minority rights granted to the non-supremacist Jews who choose to remain - state over the whole area. It is not that two states are physically impossible, it is the stark realization that the utterly racist, violent, eliminationist and supremacist JIZ - I continue to refuse to play into their game and separate Jews, Israelis and Zionists, who are all equally insane - are incapable of even looking after their own best interests. They are all madmen who won't stop slaughtering, with the damage being blamed on Americans, until everybody is dead, including themselves.
A lot of hints have started to fall that the United States is finally fed up with it all, and will take steps to impose a two state solution:
The U. S. is considering attending the anti-racism conference in Durban, with lapdog Europe surely to follow, leaving only Israel and Canada as the countries officially in favor of racism (the shitty little country and the shitty big country).
Obama is apparently going to be washing his hair that week, and won't be able to meet Bibi when Bibi arrives for his triumphant appearance at the AIPAC conference, a snub which would be too destructive of Jewpower for Bibi to risk attending.
In a phony 'leak' to the Israeli media, Rahm indicated that the U. S. is going to ensure that steps are taken in the next four years to lead to a two state solution.
Mitchell emphasized the change of direction when he refused to let Bibi throw up yet another bullshit JIZ precondition to peace - I have to say that the JIZ have developed a well-deserved reputation as being completely untrustworthy scoundrels with all their tricks - this time that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people before negotiations can begin.
The role of Rahm in this is an indication that this is some sort of trick, but I'm not sure which one. Rahm's JIZ plan may be for this to devolve into a linkage of solving the phony Iran problem with the Palestinian issue, in which case of course the Israelis will never have to get around to negotiating with the Palestinians as they will claim never to be satisfied with whatever the Americans manage to negotiate with the Iranians.
The alternative scheme may be based on lite Zionist fears that the slaughter in Gaza truly made the existence of a supremacist Israel impossible, with one state inevitable. The scheme would thus be to ensure the continued existence of a racist Jewish supremacist state by tricking the Americans into imposing a two state solution on both parties (the Collaborator-In-Chief is happy to take whatever crumbs he is thrown). This would be a terrible shame for the Palestinians, who have endured so much and almost won the whole falafel, only to have it snatched away by Rahm at the last minute (particularly as they will surely be left with an unviable Bantustan-style statelet). Fortunately, extremist JIZ - i. e., most of them - will never stand for a setting of Israel's borders and the de facto end of the dream of Anti-Assimilation-Land, and will do everything to scupper any imposed two state solution. The greatest allies of the Palestinians will be the craziest of the JIZ.
From the topical obituary of Mary McCarthy Gomez Cueto:
"Mary McCarthy Gomez Cueto, the Newfoundland-born widow of a wealthy Cuban businessman, had one fortune confiscated in the 1959 Cuban revolution and a second cache impounded by the 1962 U.S. trade ban on Cuba.
She forgave the former but never the latter, and her one-woman plight became an international campaign that finally, in 2007, caused the American stand to soften just enough for her to withdraw $96 (U.S.) every month from a First National Bank account in Boston. The money was released for medical reasons."
"In 1950, Mr. Gomez Cueto was diagnosed with leukemia and died. They had no children, and she inherited his fortune, about $4-million. Some was invested in Cuba and some banked in Boston. Mr. Gomez Cueto appeared to be a far-seeing businessman who wanted to maximize his wife's financial options. Her comfortable life continued in Havana; she gave no thought to returning to St. John's or remarrying.
On New Year's Day, 1959, president Fulgencio Batista was informed that Fidel Castro was in Havana, and fled. The Cuban revolution was at hand.
Ms. McCarthy's Cuban assets were seized, and she was allotted a monthly pension of 200 pesos - about $12.
It was a time of upheaval and flight, but Ms. McCarthy never considered leaving her adopted home. "I wasn't a bit frightened," she said. Castro had promised the Cuban people that they would not lose their homes, and she believed him. She remained in her mansion, which decayed around her.
She could see that the revolution had drained much of the fun, and certainly all the frivolity, from Havana. Yet she admired Mr. Castro and was resigned to her vanished riches. "He's a great friend of the poor, you know," she said. "Everything I lost was properly used. There was better education, more housing, and no more children in the street begging or anything like that."
(Mr. Castro himself used to greet her at the annual Canadian embassy party by saying: "I know your face, I know your face - but I don't remember who you are.")
The American freeze on her assets in Boston was another story as far as Ms. McCarthy was concerned. The U.S. government was wrong to take what was hers, she felt, because it did it only as part of an over-emotional response to Mr. Castro. To the end of her life, she hoped to see the embargo lifted. "That way we'd get on our feet.""
Note how the lyin' Telegraph manages the opposite spin!
Via Cryptome, a theory, probably in the ballpark, on the death of Robert Maxwell.
Good video of the murder of Ian Tomlinson, an innocent man walking home from work who was brutally assaulted by the police in London, an assault which led to an internal abdominal hemorrhage which killed him. One of the police dogs appears to have nosed Tomlinson in the leg, and when Tomlinson complained about it, the police thug officer hit him in the legs with his baton, causing Tomlinson to start to fall one way, then immediately pushed him from behind in the other way, causing the twisting which no doubt led to the ruptured artery which killed him. I wonder if they teach that move in thug police college?
The thugs police were somewhat unlucky, in that Tomlinson was in no way a protestor, and thus could not be labeled a 'terrorist', their lies that he died of a heart attack didn't pan out, their lies that the protestors stopped Tomlinson from receiving medical attention were easily disproved, and their lies about the absence of CCTV coverage (extremely unlikely in the Panopticon of London; isn't it odd that the entire city is under surveillance but whenever anything happens no camera seems to be on?) rendered irrelevant by the video taken by a bystander (how long before private ownership of video cameras is considered a 'terrorist' act?).
The police in London appear to have been rendered completely insane from the vile fumes of Bibi Netanyahu's 'war on terror' (for a more humorous but no less Orwellian story, read Julian Cope's adventure). Yet another reason why the sins of the JIZ are more important to every decent and moral person than the JIZ spokesmonsters would have us believe.
Interesting but very shallow article on the people who distribute the dirty money which facilitates big oil contracts, centering around one Ely Calil, apparently known as 'Smelly' to his friends. The article mentions, but minimizes, some of Calil's less savory adventures (note how Silverstein describes a deal to install an environmentally dangerous refinery in Tripoli as some kind of victory), including his involvement in the failed Equatorial Guinea coup plot, the investigation of which may be about to become very interesting.
George Galloway's excellent letter to the Charity Commission is worth the read.
Note that the so-called Charity Commission is quite happy to see people starve to death if it advances the goals of their Jewish masters. The Charity Commission is a collection of bureaucrats who perceive their principle job as covering their asses. They see that the Jews are in charge, and act accordingly. We mustn't forget that Jewish power, while both unbelievably evil and unbelievably strong, is still wafer thin, and rests entirely on a perception of power (that's why the Jews really don't mind, despite all the whining, when people point out how powerful they are). Galloway is pointing out to these utterly amoral bureaucrats that there are other, more real, sources of power out there, particularly the legion of moral and decent people, and working for the Jews may not be covering their asses as well as they think.
Never forget the importance of the Shabbos goy in perverting the ostensible humanitarian goals of various bureaucracies in advancing the evil goals of the Jews. If we stop the collaborators, we stop the evil.
Tony Blair, the Quartet's envoy for Middle East peace, and recipient of a cool million dollars from an Israeli foundation to make his impartiality all the easier, is a certifiable religious nut. As we've seen from American examples, Christian religious nuts don't make very good advocates for Middle East peace.
Another set of good doubts about the assassination of Dr David Kelly falls apart when it ventures into a consideration of possible suspects. There was a fairly massive cover-up which involved:
British intelligence agencies;
the entire British government, all the way to the top; and
rather sloppily, the British judicial system.
It is impossible to believe that all these entities conspired in such an obvious cover-up in order to protect some sleaseball Iraqi dissident, particularly as the attack was already over, Saddam was out, and the sleaseballs were no longer of use to the British government. No, the only possible suspect is the only possible beneficiary of the cover-up, the British government itself.
Good Friday 2009:
After visiting Putin the Collaborator-in-Chief spent two days (!) in Daghestan. Daghestan? Is he looking for a new homeland for the Palestinian people?
If you do a Google search on Norman Finkelstein you'll never find his website, while a Yahoo search lists it first. Google better be careful - political jobbing of search results is a quick road to obscurity. Some commentators suggest a technical explanation which begs the question why Yahoo isn't fooled. Time to switch search engines?
Watch the Angry Arab eviscerate the poor schlub the Israelis sent to the debate, who is reduced at the end to Woody-Allen-style sputtering and whingeing.
Following similar efforts in the UK, the American racist far right is joining with Zionists to build solidarity around the concept of Islamophobia.
Roger Cohen, under ceaseless assault by the Lobby for some unusually sensible reporting on the Middle East, gets his revenge by pointing out that the Israeli government has been whining about the imminent risk of Iranian nukes - with 'existential crisis' deadlines to the Jewish state passed over and over again - for almost twenty years. They started whining almost immediately after they stopped doing business with Iran in a little incident known as Iran-Contra (of course, they still do sub rosa business with Iran).
Via the Angry Arab, a shopping guide for the IDF in the West Bank:
"Israeli soldiers stormed the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem in three vehicles on Sunday, firing gunshots and tear gas before they besieged a café and forced everybody inside to lie on the ground.
The soldiers' mission, according to witnesses, was to buy a hookah from the café.
Palestinian youth who were inside Za'im Café had assumed the mission was, as usual, aimed at detaining someone. However, they were surprised when the soldiers examined hookahs and one asked for the owner.
Still lying on the floor, owner Thaer Al-Jaroun, answered. The soldier asked him how much he should pay for the hookah, then he took the hookah he selected and paid 230 Israeli shekels as the owner of the café requested.
After the soldiers left, youth pelted them with stones and confrontations erupted between both sides near the Palestine Khudouri College. Several students suffered tear gas inhalation on their way to the campus."
I like the fact that they paid for the idem, for, after all, they are the most moral army in the world.
Chinese revenge? This is being spun as the hoariest of urban legends, the gang initiation. The white van with Florida plates had been stopped and was determined by police to be 'college students selling magazines' (the new 'art students'?). Note the comments to this article (posted before they disappear):
""...that they are confident its occupants were college students selling magazines ..."
this is a favorite cover story used by the Zionists / Mossad, especially while in the usa.
for example, some of the Zionists / Mossad agents taken into custody after 9/11 for filming the jets flying into the WTC claimed that they were college students selling magazine subscriptions and were released and immediately flew back to Zionland.
and who buys magazine subscriptions from door to door salespeople these days ???
Posted by flo_mo_t (anonymous) on March 26, 2009 at 10:01 a.m."
"and why would you drive all the way from Florida to sell magazine subscriptions in Loudoun County Virginia ???
those van occupants all need to be apprehended and water boarded. they either are involved or witnessed what transpired.
"What this article fails to mention (maybe the reporter didn't know?) is that the "college students" in the van with Florida tags had been in Shenstone and the surrounding areas on Saturday afternoon and evening, and although they were "selling magazines," they were lying about where they were from (stating that they were neighbors alternatively from Beacon Hill and the Hidden Gap areas depending upon which neighbor he spoke to), that they were selling magazines for the benefit of local charities, lying about having sold subscriptions to neighbors (but giving you enough personal information about your neighbor to make you believe it's true), asking questions about where and when you work, about the vehicles in your driveway, about the habits of your neighbors (particularly the ones on the street with long driveways that make seeing the house difficult from the road), and trying to make excuses to get inside your house. The kid that came to my house came with a skateboard and said that he had ridden it across Route 7. He wasn't wearing a coat (it was about 45 degrees) because he claimed he left it at home, but when I saw him leave in his van, he was wearing one. He even suggested that he come inside so that he could write on a table. He wasn't afraid of my two very loud barking dogs either. Oh, and when my neighbor called the sheriff's department to report the incident, the deputy advised her that these boys had been seen trying the doors and windows of houses in Shenstone when no one answered the door. So, they may have been "college students selling magazines," but I believe they were also scoping houses in presumably affluent neighborhoods to determine which ones would make the best targets for home invasions.
Oh, and the boy who came to my house was Caucasian, with chin length blond hair, and was about 6'1 and weighed about 155-160 pounds. He was tall and very slender. He was also a very smooth talker. Even if these college students are not involved in the Bennett case - and I'm not suggesting that they are - they are scammers who are obtaining money under false pretenses.
Be vigilant!!
Posted by urdileoj (anonymous) on March 26, 2009 at 5:06 p.m."
"He was officialy the one to be held responsible for the CIA suggested NATO "accidental" bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Serbia back in 1999 that has taken the lives of 3 news reporters and left 27 people severely injured.
He was the one blamed for the "mistake" and fired from the CIA immediately afterwards. This was the one and only target suggested by the CIA to the NATO during the entire bombing campaign. An investigation regarding the Chinesse embassy bombing did not make any headway in the news.
You will not find any mention of this in any news report regarding the investigation into the death of William Bennett.
Posted by fredric.valve (anonymous) on April 7, 2009 at 12:35 p.m."
In case you're following the sabre rattling from Israel regarding an attack on Iran, Israel can't attack anybody - except, of course and as always, the Palestinians - until it reaches its phony installation date for its phony missile defense system, the summer of 2010.
Chomsky:
"AMY GOODMAN: We’re just wrapping up right now, but I want to ask if you support a one- or two-state solution there?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Nobody supports - I mean, you can talk about a one-state solution, if you want. I think a better solution is a no-state solution. But this is pie in the sky. If you’re really in favor of a one-state solution, which in fact I’ve been all my life - accept a bi-national state, not one state - you have to give a path to get from here to there. Otherwise, it’s just talk. Now, the only path anyone has ever proposed -
AMY GOODMAN: We have ten seconds.
NOAM CHOMSKY: - is through two states as the first stage."
Of course, the real pie in the sky is two states. Never going to happen as the psychos, the JIZ, have no intention of allowing it to happen. Chomsky knows this, so his solution is purest essence of JIZ.
George Bisharat on the ongoing Israeli plan to weaken international law in order to allow for the atrocities necessary to build Anti-Assimilation-Land:
"Since 2001, Israeli military lawyers have pushed to re-classify military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the law enforcement model mandated by the law of occupation to one of armed conflict. Under the former, soldiers of an occupying army must arrest, rather than kill, opponents, and generally must use the minimum force necessary to quell disturbances.
While in armed conflict, a military is still constrained by the laws of war - including the duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and the duty to avoid attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilian persons or objects - the standard permits far greater uses of force.
Israel pressed the shift to justify its assassinations of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, which clearly violated settled international law. Israel had practiced "targeted killings" since the 1970s - always denying that it did so - but had recently stepped up their frequency, by spectacular means (such as air strikes) that rendered denial futile.
President Bill Clinton charged the 2001 Mitchell Committee with investigating the causes of the second Palestinian uprising and recommending how to restore calm in the region. Israeli lawyers pleaded their case to the committee for armed conflict. The committee responded by criticizing the blanket application of the model to the uprising, but did not repudiate it altogether.
Today, most observers - including Amnesty International - tacitly accept Israel's framing of the conflict in Gaza as an armed conflict, as their criticism of Israel's actions in terms of the duties of distinction and the principle of proportionality betrays. This shift, if accepted, would encourage occupiers to follow Israel's lead, externalizing military control while shedding all responsibilities to occupied populations."
and (the money quote by Daniel Reisner; it will presumably be used at his war crimes trial in the post-sea-bathing period):
"Israel's campaign to rewrite international law to its advantage is deliberate and knowing. As the former head of Israel's 20-lawyer International Law Division in the Military Advocate General's office, Daniel Reisner, recently stated: "If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries ... International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal molds. Eight years later, it is in the center of the bounds of legitimacy."
In the Gaza fighting, Israel has again tried to transform international law through violations. For example, its military lawyers authorized the bombing of a police cadet graduation ceremony, killing at least 63 young Palestinian men. Under international law, such deliberate killings of civilian police are war crimes. Yet Israel treats all employees of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip as terrorists, and thus combatants. Secretaries, court clerks, housing officials, judges - all were, in Israeli eyes, legitimate targets for liquidation.
Israeli jurists also instructed military commanders that any Palestinian who failed to evacuate a building or area after warnings of an impending bombardment was a "voluntary human shield" and thus a participant in combat, subject to lawful attack. One method of warning employed by Israeli gunners, dubbed "knocking on the roof," was to fire first at a building's corner, then, a few minutes later, to strike more structurally vulnerable points. To imagine that Gazan civilians - penned into the tiny Gaza Strip by Israeli troops, and surrounded by the chaos of battle - understood this signal is fanciful at best."
There are many, many reasons why we should single out Israel and its JIZ supporters for their crimes, but the intentional destruction of all the norms of international law - a destruction which will deny protection to civilians all over the world until the norms are reconstructed, a difficult process which will take decades and will be ongoing long after the last Israeli Jew is sea bathing - would by itself be sufficient to damn them all for eternity. The difference between Israel and its disgusting supporters and, say, some slaughterers in Central Africa is that the African slaughterers:
do not have a master plan to to destroy international law in order to allow their slaughtering; and
could not destroy international law if they wanted to.
The Human Rights Industrial Complex is completely Jew-dominated, a dominance that would not be a problem but for the fact that human rights protections are constantly perverted for the purposes of building Anti-Assimilation-Land. Note the dance known as the Human Rights Watch (or Amnesty International) shuffle, where an inconsequential Palestinian or Lebanese reaction to terrible provocation - as little as a Palestinian child throwing a stone in the general direction of a group of illegally-stationed Israeli soldiers brutally manning an illegal Israeli checkpoint - is regarded as the moral equivalent of a terrible Israeli counterattack, perhaps the bombing of an entire household. The shuffler then throws up his hands and says everybody committed atrocities, so who is to judge who is right and who is wrong. The new UN investigation will follow this route: it will not absolve Israel, but will hide Zionist atrocities under this fraudulent moral equivalence. Another in the long list of the sins of Zionism: destroying the credibility of all official advocates for human rights.
As Abe Foxman, Alan Dershowitz and Daniel Pipes were busy, the U.N.'s Human Rights Council has found another group of worthies to investigate those wild anti-Semitic allegations of human rights abuses associated with the recent Israeli slaughter peace initiatives in Gaza:
The head of the inquiry is Richard Goldstone (my emphasis in red):
"A Jewish South African with close ties to Israel will head a U.N. inquiry into war crimes during Israel's recent war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Richard Goldstone, a trustee of Hebrew University, will head the commission appointed Friday by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council.
Israel did not say whether it will cooperate; it has in the past ignored other UNHRC probes, noting the body's tendency to single out Israel for criticism while ignoring other major violators.
Goldstone, who headed war crimes prosecutions in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, said he would investigate alleged war crimes by both sides.
"It's in the interest of the victims," Goldstone said in Geneva, where the UNHRC is headquartered. "It brings acknowledgment of what happened to them. It can assist the healing process."
He said his Jewishness and ties to Israel were added values. "I've taken a deep interest in what happens in Israel," he said. "I'm associated with organizations that have worked in Israel. And I believe I can approach the daunting task that I have accepted in an evenhanded and impartial manner.""
Goldstone is at least decent enough to pronounce himself shocked at the audacity of his own appointment.
Another member is Christine Chinkin, of Matrix Chambers, a group which also includes Cherie Blair, whose husband's pockets still jingle with all those shekels from the Dan David Foundation.
Another is Irish Army Col. Desmond Travers, associated with the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (note the Goldberg quote), part of the Human Rights Industrial Complex (HRIC) centered in The Hague, where the International Criminal Court recently outed itself as a covert JIZ operation with its indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
And finally Pakistani lawyer Hina Jilani, who has been involved in the investigation of human rights abuses in Darfur as a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur (and is also connected to the Institute for International Criminal Investigations: it is quite a cozy group), needless to say part of the wider JIZ initiative to have Britain and the United States attack Sudan for the crime of being a Muslim country that doesn't like Israel.
To be fair, it is probably impossible to find anybody in the larger HRIC who hasn't in some way been corrupted by the JIZ. In fact, taking control of the entire HRIC is an integral part of the planned destruction of international law required for the building of Anti-Assimilation-Land. I look forward to the report, which will blame the whole thing on Hamas.
I've been thinking more about the peculiar relationship of the Jewish power structure that controls America and the various hangers-on like Cheney and Rumsfeld. What's the connection?
I think it is just power. Political types are always looking for the most powerful star to which to hitch their wagons. They have far better instincts that the average person when its comes to sniffing out power structures, and thus were able to see the rise of the New American Establishment before it was obvious to everybody (except those who still choose not to see). People who aren't Zionists who ride with the Jews do so because their perception is that riding with the most powerful group is the best way to increase personal power. In the short run, they are right. There is also a peculiar element of circularity to this thinking: the New American Establishment is powerful because other powerful people think it is powerful.
In the early days, I suspect the Jews used blackmail and bribery (that's where the ongoing connections of the Jewish establishment to Jewish organized crime would have been useful). I'm sure these tools are still employed where necessary (along with old-fashioned political contributions and total control of the media), but the main enticement now of the camp followers is to share in the power of the most powerful group.
Here's where being 'one-issue guys' comes in handy. The Jewish establishment has only one issue, building Anti-Assimilation-Land and using American power and money to do it. The deal is simple. The Jews demand absolute and unwaivering - to the point of looking ridiculous (e. g., the almost universal political blame cast on Hamas as Israel slaughtered the Palestinians) - fealty to Anti-Assimilation-Land. In return, because they are One-Issue Guys, they will use their power to help their gentile followers to achieve some of their other goals, whether they be political goals or just personal wealth and power. The fact the Jewish establishment has only one issue, or at least is willing to sacrifice other issues to the good of the One Issue, increases its effective power, as it is able to throw its considerable weight around wherever it benefits the One Issue, without regard to any inhibiting ideology.
There are a couple of things that flow from this. Politicians are beginning to be bizarrely out of sync with the wishes to the vast non-Jewish part of the electorate. People don't want Wars For The Jews, they don't want the end of international law (undesirable to the Jews as it stops - or, rather, inhibits - Israel from doing what it wants to do), they don't want the end of free speech (the Jews want to end freedom of speech in order to block criticism of Israel), they don't want the restriction on personal liberty and costs involved in Bibi's 'war on terror' (required to make Muslims everybody's enemy), and they certainly don't want to be plunged into permanent economic depression because of the costs of the One Issue (which includes the opportunity cost: while Bush was obsessing about weapons of mass destruction and Bibi's 'war on terror' he let the American economy slip into the permanent shitter). Even in a place like the United States, with the utter Jew-stranglehold on mainstream information sources, Americans are not in agreement with much of what their Jew-controlled politicians are up to (including the realization that the same Jewish 'experts' who stole the Russian economy and turned it over to a group of Jewish gangsters is now working their magic on the American economy) . The disconnect between popular will and the efforts of corrupted politicians is even more stark in Europe and Asia, who are actually doing most of the funding of the WFTJ.
We're also seeing a bifurcation in the gentile establishment, with figures like Cheney, those who sold out to the Jews for a share of power (and thirty pieces of silver), being increasing seen by the Old American Establishment as out-and-out traitors (which is no doubt an accurate description). The stark difference between the interests of 98% of the American people, and what their power-sniffing politicians are doing, is becoming impossible to hide, and people are finally starting to talk about it, slurs notwithstanding. Of course, knowing there is a problem does nothing to stop it.
I don't care what we call this odd form of governance - Zionists, and those hanging on the coattails of Zionists - as long as everybody recognizes one thing: the One Issue is the prevailing issue. Non-Zionist politicians may use some of their other power derived from the coattails for other purposes (domestic political goals, building wealth for rich people, whatever), but the hollowing out of the United States - and the world, for that matter - to build Anti-Assimilation-Land is the only goal for the only people who are calling the shots.
It has become quite bizarre. If Obama is to become a successful President, he literally has to work in secret, even from (especially from) his closest political allies (Emanuel, Clinton). I'm not sure that saving the United States is even possible. The traitors are so ingrained that the only thing that might save the United States, and the world, is some kind of American military coup.
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