The Best Of April Fools Day

The Annual Swiss Spaghetti Harvest, Towing Icebergs And The Time-Travelling Insider Trader


The Great Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

For one of the most famous and enjoyable days of the year, the origins of April Fools Day are somewhat vague. There is no country or year that can lay exclusive claim to April Fools Day, it just kind of happened, and then increased in popularity.

The decision to mark April 1 by pulling pranks, staging hoaxes and trying to fool your friends and co-workers is a social phenomenon that has fermented over centuries, across the world, and only came into somewhat official usage off the back of infamous newspaper hoaxes in the US and the UK in the 1800s.

Wikipedia has an interesting round-up of notes on the origins of April Fools Day, but can't decide on a region or decade from which April Fools Day surfaced. There is also a comprehensive collection of the best newspaper, internet and radio pranks pulled over the decades that is well worth checking out.

Likewise, the UK Guardian has a thick excerpt from a book on April Fools Day here, detailing some of the best pranks pulled in the past 160 years.

Probably the most famous and successful TV-based April Fools gag was 'The Great Spaghetti Harvest', where locals in a Swiss village were filmed gathering spaghetti from trees. Millions of BBC watchers in England were fooled by the straight-faced report.


Gathering The Spaghetti

'The Great Spaghetti Harvest' could be called the most successful April Fools Day gag ever because it was harmless, it caused no panic, no injuries (unlike some fake tsunami pranks) and people recall the memory of it with great fondness. Millions were fooled, but most were happy to be fooled :

The Spaghetti tree is a fictitious tree, a joke designed to fool those who do not know how spaghetti is produced.

The report that it is a product grown on trees was first produced as an April Fools' Day joke by the BBC TV programme Panorama in 1957, reporting on the bumper spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland due to the mild winter and "virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil".

Pasta was not an everyday food in 1950s Britain, and was known mainly from tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce.

Panorama cameraman, Charles de Jaeger dreamed up the report due to his remembering how he had been ridiculed by a teacher while he was at school, for being stupid enough to believe that spaghetti grew on trees.

An audience of approximately 8 million watched the programme, broadcast on April 1, and hundreds phoned in the following day to question the authenticity of the story, or ask for more information about spaghetti cultivation and how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC reportedly told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".

Time Travelling Insider Trader

My personal favourite April Fools Day gag, and one I must admit had me going for a few minutes, purely from a love of science fiction I assure you, was the tale of the time-travelling stock market speculator, who turned an $800 into a few hundred million in only a couple of weeks.

The story originally appeared in Weekly World News in 2003, but Yahoo News ran the report in full on their site, which is where I came across it :

NEW YORK -- Federal investigators have arrested an enigmatic Wall Street wiz on insider-trading charges -- and incredibly, he claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2256.

Sources at the Security and Exchange Commission confirm that 44-year-old Andrew Carlssin offered the bizarre explanation for his uncanny success in the stock market after being led off in handcuffs on January 28.

"We don't believe this guy's story -- he's either a lunatic or a pathological liar," says an SEC insider.

"But the fact is, with an initial investment of only $800, in two weeks' time he had a portfolio valued at over $350 million. Every trade he made capitalized on unexpected business developments, which simply can't be pure luck.

"The only way he could pull it off is with illegal inside information. He's going to sit in a jail cell on Rikers Island until he agrees to give up his sources."

The past year of nose-diving stock prices has left most investors crying in their beer. So when Carlssin made a flurry of 126 high-risk trades and came out the winner every time, it raised the eyebrows of Wall Street watchdogs.

"If a company's stock rose due to a merger or technological breakthrough that was supposed to be secret, Mr. Carlssin somehow knew about it in advance," says the SEC source close to the hush-hush, ongoing investigation.

When investigators hauled Carlssin in for questioning, they got more than they bargained for: A mind-boggling four-hour confession.

Carlssin declared that he had traveled back in time from over 200 years in the future, when it is common knowledge that our era experienced one of the worst stock plunges in history. Yet anyone armed with knowledge of the handful of stocks destined to go through the roof could make a fortune.

"It was just too tempting to resist," Carlssin allegedly said in his videotaped confession. "I had planned to make it look natural, you know, lose a little here and there so it doesn't look too perfect. But I just got caught in the moment."

In a bid for leniency, Carlssin has reportedly offered to divulge "historical facts" such as the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden and a cure for AIDS.

All he wants is to be allowed to return to the future in his "time craft."

However, he refuses to reveal the location of the machine or discuss how it works, supposedly out of fear the technology could "fall into the wrong hands."

Officials are quite confident the "time-traveler's" claims are bogus. Yet the SEC source admits, "No one can find any record of any Andrew Carlssin existing anywhere before December 2002."

Fantastic story. Weekly World News followed up its 'exclusive' a few weeks later to report that Carlssin had been bailed by a mysterious benefactor, and then disappeared without a trace.

The story didn't end there, however. Apparently, a number of reporters decided to follow up the story, and some mainstream newspapers ran the report as a straight news item, long after April Fools Day, 2003, was over with.

From Snopes :

The spokesman at the US Security and Exchange Commission in Washington gives a weary sigh and then a slightly strained chuckle when he hears the words "time traveller" and "inside trader".

"This story is pure fantasy. There is no truth in it at all," he says. "This is the kind of story that belongs in the same file as 'Elvis Shrine Found on Mars.'

"You know something? We have had an enormous number of calls from the media on this one. It has been absolutely amazing. Of course, we had to look into it, but as far as we know, it’s just not true."

How To Tow An Iceberg

My second favourite April Fools Day hoax was one I completely fell for as a kid, living in Sydney in 1978. And it was great to be fooled. It was my first distinct memory of learning not to trust everything I read in newspapers or saw on television.

I'd read articles in the Omega science magazine about how fresh water shortages could one day be solved by towing icebergs from the Antarctic. So I was fully excited when Australian inventor and explorer Dick Smith announced that he was towing an actual iceberg into Sydney Harbour :

Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman (owner of Dick Smith Foods), had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded.

He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled.

Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.

It should be noted that no Australian media was in on the hoax. They completely and utterly fell for it.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the arrival of the iceberg in Sydney Harbour was also shown as a live TV news broadcast, with a very excited reporter on the scene visibly crushed when the truth of Smith's Great Iceberg Tow became apparent.

Great stuff.

Here's a couple of other classic April Fools Day hoaxes from the UK Guardian :

Leap Of Imagination, 1978

Patrick Moore was an ideal presenter to carry off an astronomical hoax. As weighty as Richard Dimbleby, with an added air of batty enthusiasm that only added to his credibility, he announced on TV on April Fool's Day 1976 that a "unique astronomical event" was going to occur at 9.47am. As the little planet Pluto passed behind Jupiter, he said, a "gravitational alignment" would reduce the Earth's gravity for a few moments. Anyone who jumped into the air at 9.47 would experience a strange floating sensation.

They did too - or at least hundreds of them thought they did. The BBC was flooded with appreciative calls from people claiming to have floated, including a woman who said that she and 11 friends had been wafted from their chairs and orbited gently around the room.

Moscow underground, 1992

As the former Soviet Union thawed, its sense of humour warmed up. In 1992, the Moskovskaya Pravda newspaper guyed the country's increasingly passionate embrace of capitalism with news that the city was going to build a second underground system. The Moscow underground, built by Stalin to impress the rest of the world, is a genuine wonder, with marble floors, classical pillars and even chandeliers, but it does get crowded. The newspaper explained, however, that the new system was not intended to relieve the crush. It was ideologically necessary under capitalism to have at least two of everything, "to destroy monopolies in the interests of competition".

Buried loot, 1840s

At the time in the 1840s when European visitors were denouncing American greed for a fast buck, one of the earliest newspapers April Fools, printed by the Boston Post, proved their point.

It electrified the city by announcing that a cavern full of gold, jewels and other loot had been found by workmen digging out the roots of a felled tree on Boston Common. Everyone could go and have a peek at the presumed pirate hoard, or cache left by the dastardly British, on April 1.

As an eyewitness recorded: "It was rainy, the Legislature was in session, and it was an animated scene that the Common presented, roofed with umbrellas, sheltering pilgrims on their way. A procession of grave legislators marched solemnly down under their green gingham with philosophers, archaeologists, numismatists, antiquarians of all qualities and the public."

Nothing awaited them except disappointment, the rain-soaked turf of the common and a small hole. And the Boston Post saying, "April Fool".

So what will be best, and thereby most believable, April Fools Day hoax this year?

We'll keep track and run a compilation on Monday of the best ones we come across.

The Primal Joke Revealed

Laughter : The Secret Of Our Survival

Rats Like To Laugh, And Be Tickled

Having a good laugh not only feels good, cuts down on your stress levels and relaxes those around you (as long as you're not laughing at them), but it may also be one of our most ancient social survival character traits.

Scientists now claim they have cracked the secret meaning and the secret language of laughter. Their theories make for some fascinating, but not very funny, reading. Except for the bit about tickling rats. :

From the International Herald Tribune :

(Researchers) have discovered something that eluded Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Kant, Schopenhauer, Freud and the many theorists who have tried to explain laughter based on the mistaken premise that they were explaining humor.

Occasionally we are surprised into laughing at something funny, but most laughter has little to do with humor. It's an instinctual survival tool for social animals, not an intellectual response to wit. It's not about getting the joke. It's about getting along.

Robert Provine he went out into natural habitats — city sidewalks, suburban malls — and carefully observed thousands of "laugh episodes."

He found that 80 percent to 90 percent of them came after straight lines like "I know" or "I'll see you guys later." The witticisms that induced laughter rarely rose above the level of "You smell like you had a good workout."

"Most prelaugh dialogue," Provine concluded in "Laughter," his 2000 book, "is like that of an interminable television situation comedy scripted by an extremely ungifted writer."

He found that most speakers, particularly women, did more laughing than their listeners, using the laughs as punctuation for their sentences. It's a largely involuntary process. People can consciously suppress laughs, but few can make themselves laugh convincingly.

"Laughter is an honest social signal because it's hard to fake," Provine says. "We're dealing with something powerful, ancient and crude. It's a kind of behavioral fossil showing the roots that all human beings, maybe all mammals, have in common."

The human ha-ha evolved from the rhythmic sound — pant-pant — made by primates like chimpanzees when they tickle and chase one another while playing.

Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist and psychologist at Washington State University, discovered that rats emit an ultrasonic chirp (inaudible to humans without special equipment) when they're tickled, and they like the sensation so much they keep coming back for more tickling.

He and Provine figure that the first primate joke — that is, the first action to produce a laugh without physical contact — was the feigned tickle, the same kind of coo-chi-coo move parents make when they thrust their wiggling fingers at a baby. Panksepp thinks the brain has ancient wiring to produce laughter so that young animals learn to play with one another. The laughter stimulates euphoria circuits in the brain and also reassures the other animals that they're playing, not fighting.

"Primal laughter evolved as a signaling device to highlight readiness for friendly interaction," Panksepp says. "Sophisticated social animals such as mammals need an emotionally positive mechanism to help create social brains and to weave organisms effectively into the social fabric."

Humans are laughing by the age of four months and then progress from tickling to the Three Stooges to more sophisticated triggers for laughter.

Laughter can be used cruelly to reinforce a group's solidarity and pride by mocking deviants and insulting outsiders, but mainly it's a subtle social lubricant. It is a way to make friends and also make clear who belongs where in the status hierarchy.

Be the class clown and become king of your society.

Huge Hexagon 'Feature' On Saturn's North Pole



What is that? Nobody knows. It was snapped by the Cassini space probe last year and NASA is open to any explanations anyone can come up with. They don't have a clue.

The hexagon-shaped 'feature' was first spotted decades ago on Saturn's north pole and was dismissed as an anomoly, but it hasn't gone away.

We are told that is a 'feature' made up of spiralling gases. But what gas cloud remains in almost the exact same shape for year after year, and manages to hold a straight-edged, near perfect hexagonal shape?

You may remember the dubious claims of buildings, towers and temples existing on The Moon and Mars, and evidenced by careful examination, or interpretation, of photos released by NASA and pored over by enthusiasts. 'The Face On Mars' got plenty of play from the media back in the 1990s, but it was never proven to be anything but rocky outcrops and shadows.

But this, this is something wonderfully unique and genuinely bizarre.

And it's huge. An estimated 25,000km across.

Even the experts can't offer an explanation, even after keeping it all but hidden from the world since the early 1980s, when it was first photographed during a Voyager flyby :

"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

"We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."

Bush Administration Rocked By Anti-War Tide

More than six out of ten Americans now want their troops out of Iraq next year, regardless of the situation on the ground.

President Bush has promised to veto any attempts by Congress to pull the troops out before he decides it's time, as a massive $130 billion war funding bill moves through Congress demanding troops leave Iraq by September, 2008 :

Within three weeks, the United States could face a constitutional crisis over President Bush's war policy in Iraq. The president and his allies seem to want this fight. Yet insisting upon a confrontation will be another mistake in a long line of bad judgments about a conflict that grows more unpopular by the day.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a longtime Bush critic, issued one of his strongest condemnations of the war over the weekend. "We essentially are ruining our National Guard. We are destroying our Army. We're destroying our Marine Corps," he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We can't sustain this. . . . I will not accept the status quo."

One Day In Iraq : 150 Iraqis Killed, 230 Wounded : Truck Bombs, Suicide Bombings, Drive By Massacres, Assassinations, Ambushes On Iraqi Army

Sunni 'Terrorists' Now Called "Reconciable Insurgents" By US Diplomats As Iraqi Government Moves To Bring Saddam's Ba'athists Back Into Power

Vice President Cheney Claims Pulling Troops Out Of Iraq Would Hurt Israel - "We Will Not Stand By And Let It Happen"

Claim : Moqtada Al-Sadr Assassination Plot Foiled - US & Iraqi "Parties" Blamed

US Marines Run Out Of Volunteers - 1800 Reservists Recalled To Go To War In Iraq

China's Mobile Execution Buses



There's nothing like total convenience.

This is a story from last year, but it still packs a punch. Not only for the cold, clinical efficiency of such an invention as a mobile execution bus, but for some of the crimes mentioned below that warrant such a fast execution.

Then again, wealthy Europeans are still flooding into China and paying to dollar for fresh organs from recently executed prisoners, so the demand for such vehicles is clearly there.

Presumably these vehicles will be warehoused for the duration of the 2008 Olympics. Then again, with government officials from Iran, Iraq and Indonesia in town for the Games, maybe they could showcase the death bus and pick up a few international sales.

All these buses need are mini-crematoriums hitched to a trailer behind and they'll be complete.

From USA Today :

The country that executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined last year is slowly phasing out public executions by firing squad in favor of lethal injections. Unlike the United States and Singapore, the only two other countries where death is administered by injection, China metes out capital punishment from specially equipped "death vans" that shuttle from town to town.

Makers of the death vans say the vehicles and injections are a civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely.

The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China "promotes human rights now," says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van...

Amnesty International estimates there were at least 1,770 executions in China in 2005 — vs. 60 in the United States, but the group says on its website that the toll could be as high as 8,000 prisoners.

Executions in death vans are recorded on video and audio that is played live to local law enforcement authorities — a measure intended to ensure they are carried out legally.

Makers of death vans say they save money for poor localities that would otherwise have to pay to construct execution facilities in prisons or court buildings. The vans ensure that prisoners sentenced to death can be executed locally, closer to communities where they broke the law.

That "deters others from committing crime and has more impact" than executions carried out elsewhere, Kang says.

From the outside, the vans resemble the police vehicles seen daily on China's roads. A look inside reveals their function.

"I'm most proud of the bed. It's very humane, like an ambulance," Kang says. He points to the power-driven metal stretcher that glides out at an incline.

"It's too brutal to haul a person aboard," he says. "This makes it convenient for the criminal and the guards."

Tycoon Yuan Baojing was executed in March in a death van, in northeast China's Liaoyang city. He had been convicted of arranging the murder of a man trying to blackmail him for attempting to assassinate a business partner.

Sixty-eight different crimes — more than half non-violent offenses such as tax evasion and drug smuggling — are punishable by death in China. That means the death vans are likely to keep rolling.

A glossy brochure touting the benefits of the death van is available in Chinese.

And English.

Rumsfeld "Deserted His Post" On Morning Of 9/11



By Darryl Mason

There was a time when it was socially unacceptable, in the United States at least, to say anything bad about then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The man who once flew over Iraq and declared the terrorism-smashed country didn't look so bad, from the air, was widely perceived to be a cross between a witty genius, an American hero and a war-time leader of Patton and Churchillian credibility and vision. From September 11, 2001 to late 2004, Rumsfeld was all but untouchable.

But the 'Generals Revolt' of 2005 and 2006, proved to be right on the money.

Rumsfeld was a lying, insidious propagandist, who okayed and encouraged the use of torture by the military in Iraq and the United States, who ignored the sexual torture of Abu Ghraib until confronted with it by the media, who played down the strength of the Iraqi insurgency for years while thousands of American soldiers died, and he was the one who regularly blasted anyone who said things might not actually be going America's way in Iraq as being like "Henny Penny", crowing about how "the sky is falling in..."

Rumsfeld is a fallen American icon now. The gloves are well and truly off and the head-kicking boots are on. It sounds like there are plenty of former Rumsfeld colleagues from the White House and Pentagon who are now ready to tell the truth about America's most dangerous defence secretary, and even Rumsfeld's behaviour on the morning of September 11, 2001, is coming into renewed and revelatory focus.

So what exactly was former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld doing on the morning of September 11, 2001?

We know Rumsfeld was in his office in the Pentagon, we know he was seen helping at least one of the wounded after the Pentagon was smashed by the third hijacked plane, and we know that he was the one who fronted the cameras hours before President Bush and "impressed viewers" with his "calm demeanour".

But according to a new book. 'Rumsfeld' by Andrew Cockburn, the then defence secretary was so unconcerned, and unsurprised, after learning that two jet airliners had crashed into the World Trade Centre towers that he continued with regular CIA briefing.

He only got moving when another plane slammed into the Pentagon. When Rumsfeld refused to follow security advice and chose instead to head out in front of the media cameras at the Pentagon, a senior White House official, with him that morning, says Rumsfeld "deserted his post".

When he picked up a piece of the destroyed American Airlines jet from the lawn of the Pentagon, he was "inteferring with a crime scene".

Rusmfeld also chose to ignore "anxious pleas" from the military to go immediately to the operational command centre. America was clearly under attack, but where was the defence secretary?

When he finally arrived at the command centre, the United States had been under attack for than two hours and the last hijacked airliner, United 93, had already crashed into a field.

The defence secretary took no part in US military operations on the morning of the most destructive attacks ever launched against the United States.

You can read the first chapter of the new book 'Rumsfeld' here.


The Fourth World War - Rumsfeld's 'Secret Plan' For American Global Dominance

Rumsfeld Can't Stop Lying : Six Months Of Lies, Distortions And Disinformation That Led To The Iraq War

American Army Mutiny Quelled As Rumsfeld Thrown Out Of Pentagon - The Best (Or Worst) Of Rumsfeld In Qoutes

Woodward : Rumsfeld Was A Bright Political Star In 1960s & 1970s

The Armageddon Plan : How Donald Rumsfeld And Dick Cheney Will Survive A Nuclear Apocalypse

The War On Rumsfeld - America's Military Fights Back

Rumsfeld Makes $5 Million Off Anti-Bird Flu Drug Sales

'War On Terror' Creates A "Culture Of Fear" In The United States

Bush Co. Pump Threat Of Jihadist Attacks In US To Quell Growing Demands For Immediate Iraq Troop Withdrawal

Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzeniski claims the 'War on Terror' has resulted in a terrible "self-inflicted wound" on the United States, which is now suffering through "a culture of fear" :

"...the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of being "at war."

To justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan.

The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle."

Go here to read the full Washington Post op-ed piece by Zbigniew Brzeniski.


Robert Fisk pursues similar themes in the UK Independent.

"...fear seems to drip off the trees in America," he writes, describing what he claims is a growing belief in Bush Co. propaganda that if the US leaves Iraq, jjhadists will follow the troops back to America, in pursuit of the Fox News-approved 'Global Caliphate' :

But America is not at war. There are no electricity cuts...There is no food rationing. There are no air-raid shelters or bombs or "jihadists" stalking these God-fearing folk. It is the US military that is at war, engaged in an Iraqi conflict that is doing damage of a far more subtle kind to America's social fabric.

The United States once needed Osama Bin Laden to re-ignite The Fear when the horror of 9/11 started to fade for the majority of Americans, as they got back on with their lives.

Now President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Fox News heartily continue the Al Qaeda psychological warfare mission of scaring the absolute shit out of as many Americans as possible in their hyper-manic opposition to the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

Six out of ten Americans now want the United States to withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of the 2007. It will take a remarkable turnaround on the ground in Iraq for that opposition to recede in the coming years. Even if the Baghdad-focused troop "surge" does work, such a late-game success is unlikely to re-enthuse Americans in the war that has now cost them more than half a trillion dollars, international prestige and the lives of more than 3200 soldiers.

Despite an extremely vocal anti-war vote for the US Democrats at last year's mid-term elections, the Democrat-dominated US House Of Representatives have passed a new, mind-bogglingly huge war funding bill worth more than $120 billion.

In a nod towards those who helped them win control of the US government, the Democrats included the clause that Bush had to end combat operations in Iraq before September 2008, or the legislation would become void. Bush has vowed to veto the bill and Dick Cheney spread the word that Democrats wouldn't dare to cut off funding to US troops in Iraq.

Threat Of Impeachment Levelled At Bush To Rein in His Pseudo-Dictatorial Powers

Putin To Europe, We Are Not Your Enemy

In anticipation of a full-blown World War 4, Russian president Vladimir Putin is selling his nation, and the Russian people (and its vast military) to the people of Europe with this widely reprinted column. The headline sums up the big sell by Putin perfectly - Russia Is Europe's Natural Ally - but the whole column is worth a read :

One should not superimpose cold war ideological labels on legal and quite understandable actions aimed at protecting our national interests. Let me say again: we are ready to settle differences through open dialogue and compromise, based on mutually agreed rules.

I am convinced that only on a genuinely collective, trustworthy basis can we find solutions to the world’s challenges and threats: the question of antimissile defences in Europe, the stabilisation of Afghanistan, international terrorism, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking, illegal immigration and global poverty. Russia stands ready for that. I hope the choice will be made in favour of mutual efforts to construct our common future.

You can expect a fresh round of demonising Russia and Putin by the mainstream American media to begin within weeks, if not days.

China's President Hu To Meet Putin For Discussions On Iran, North Korea Next Week

Putin Aide Calls For Intensified Dialogue Between Russia And The European Union

Russia Claims US Is Selling Missile Shield By Using "Cold War Tactics"

Russia's Foreign Minister : "Anti-Americanism Is Dangerous And Intellectually Deficient."

BRAIN FOOD

After September 11, 2001, the New York Police Department announced they could no longer rely on the federal government to protect the city. They vowed to create an inhouse department to collect intelligence on future security threats to the city. This they did, with enthusiasm and, clearly, millions of dollars in resources. Presumably this intelligence service was funded via Department of Homeland Security grants.

In preparation for the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, which President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney both addressed, undercover police travelled across the United States, and across the world, tracking down and inflitrating potential "terrorist" groups and organisations. But along with tracking and investigating leads of potential terrorists who might have tried to hit the Republican National Convention with truck bombs, the spooks also went after anarchist groups, performance artists, and anti-war groups.

Personal information on thousands of people who had no connection to terrorism or violence of any kind, and had never urged aggression or acts of violence, were databased by the New York Police Department.

One of the primary 'triggers' to draw the attention of undercover NYPD spooks was to have expressed "anti-Bush sentiment" in the media, particularly on websites or in blog comments.

If that was indeed a proviso, they must have had a list of tens of millions of people across the planet to cull their way through.

As this piece of solid investigative journalism from the New York Times shows, as far as the NYPD is concerned, the words "activist" and "terrorist" now all but mean the same thing.



It's now confirmed, at least in the United States and the UK, that Satan is not getting rich off Pampers nappies or Pringles chips. A court in Salt Lake City has ordered four men to cough up more than $12 million in damages to corporate bohemoth Proctor & Gamble for spreading the conspiracy theory that P & G were funnelling profits to The Very Devil Himself.

P & G has been pursuing legal action to kill off the rumours for more than a decade and have lost, acccording to them, hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

How does such stupidity get started? An agent for a corporate rival has been blamed for starting the rumours in 1994, but P & G first attracted the attention of Satan-hating, Anti-Christ anticipation American Christians in the 1960s when they :

began to take exception to a company logo showing a bearded and horned man surrounded by 13 stars. This was said to be a perversion of the passage in the Book of Revelations that describes "a woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of 12 stars." The stars in the company logo supposedly spelled out 666, the number of the beast.

Despite denying it all, P&G dropped the logo in 1985.

Makes you wonder how many other product boycotts and corporate conspiracy theories began with "agents" from rival companies.





So what exactly was former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld doing on the morning of September 11, 2001?

We know Rumsfeld was in his office in the Pentagon, we know he was seen helping at least one of the wounded after the Pentagon was smashed by the third hijacked plane, and we know that he was the one who fronted the cameras hours before President Bush and "impressed viewers" with his "calm demeanour".

But according to a new book, Rumsfeld acted with remarkable calm even after the second hijacked plane hit the World Trade Centre towers and he chose to continue getting his morning CIA briefing.

When Rumsfeld refused to follow security advice and chose instead to head out in front of the media cameras at the Pentagon, he "deserted his post".

When he picked up a piece of the destroyed American Airlines jet, he "interferred" with the crime scene.

Rusmfeld also decided to ignore "anxious pleas" from the military to go the operational command centre. When Rumsfeld finally arrived at the military command centre, the United States had been under attack for than two hours and the last hijacked airliner, United 93, had already crashed into a field.

The defence secretary took no part in military operations on the morning of the most destructive attacks ever launched against the United States.

You can read the first chapter of the new book 'Rumsfeld' here.



Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzeniski claims the 'War on Terror' has resulted in a terrible "self-inflicted wound" on the United States, which is now suffering through "a culture of fear" :

"...the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of being "at war."

To justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan.

The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle."

Go here to read the full Washington Post op-ed piece by Zbigniew Brzeniski.

Robert Fisk pursues similar themes in the UK Independent. "...fear seems to drip off the trees in America," he writes, describing what he claims is a growing belief in Bush Co. propaganda that if the US leaves Iraq, jjhadists will chase the troops back to America, in pursuit of the Fox News approved "Global Caliphate" :

But America is not at war. There are no electricity cuts...There is no food rationing. There are no air-raid shelters or bombs or "jihadists" stalking these God-fearing folk. It is the US military that is at war, engaged in an Iraqi conflict that is doing damage of a far more subtle kind to America's social fabric.

The United States once needed Osama Bin Laden to incite a renewed dose of The Fear.

Now President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Fox News heartily continue the Al Qaeda psychological warfare mission of scaring the absolute shit out of as many Americans as possible in their hyper-manic opposition to the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

The US House Of Representatives have passed a new, mind-bogglingly huge war funding bill worth more than $120 billion. Democrats included the clause that Bush had to end combat operations in Iraq before September 2008, or the legislation would become void. Bush vowed to veto the bill.









asdf

Killbot War God Promises War On Iran

Dick Cheney Preaches To The Converted




At a widely ignored speech on March 12, to the Zionist-dominated AIPAC conference in New York City, Dick Cheney said :

"We're here today as citizens from different parts of the country, diverse backgrounds, many professions and various political affiliations. Yet we find unity and strength in the values of liberty and equality and our belief in democracy and the rule of law and in our devotion to the security of America's friend, the state of Israel. (Applause.)

As members of AIPAC, you play a vital role in making the strategic and moral case for America's friendship with Israel. I commend AIPAC for the fine work you do, not just at this annual event but every day of the year. It's good to be in your company, and I bring warm regards from the President of the United States, George W. Bush. (Applause.)

As most of you know, the President is traveling in Latin America this week, solidifying our friendships in that region and promoting an agenda of democracy, economic progress and security. He asked me to convey to this gathering his great appreciation for your efforts, his strong support for Israel, and his firm commitment to peace in the Holy Land, built on a foundation of security, not surrender. (Applause.)

The President has been clear and forthright about his vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace. He remains committed to the achievement of that vision, nor has he compromised the basic principles he has stated from the very beginning: Peace requires a Palestinian government that recognizes Israel's right to exist, accepts the validity of past agreements and renounces violence and terrorism totally and completely. (Applause.)

Progress in the cause of security and long-term peace never comes easily. Yet the United States and Israel persevere in that cause. We understand, as Ariel Sharon put it, the right and responsibility of every democracy, if it wishes to survive, to protect itself and its values. Doing so requires moral clarity, the courage of our convictions, a willingness to act when action is necessary, and a refusal to submit to any form of intimidation, ever. (Applause.)

These qualities are a credit to the American and the Israeli people. And these qualities are tested every day as we wage the war on terror. Israelis know this because rockets are shot at them and three Israeli soldiers are now being held hostage, two by Hezbollah, one by Hamas, even as we meet here today.

We are the prime targets of a terror movement that is global in nature and, yes, global in its ambitions. The leaders of this movement speak openly and specifically of building a totalitarian empire covering the Middle East, extending into Europe and reaching across to the islands of Indonesia, one that would impose a narrow, radical vision of Islam that rejects tolerance, suppresses dissent, brutalizes women and has one of its foremost objectives the destruction of Israel. Their creed is extreme and backward looking, yet their methods are modern and sophisticated. The terrorists use the Internet to spread propaganda, to find new recruits, and they're employing every other tool of communication and finance to carry out their plans.

It's odd to think of ideologues out of the Dark Ages having a modern media strategy, but the fact is they do. They take videos of their attacks and put them up on the Internet to get them broadcast on television. They send messages and images by e-mail and tell their followers to spread the word. They wage war by stealth and murder, disregarding the rules of warfare and rejoicing in the death of the innocent.

And not even the instinct of self-preservation is a restraint. The terrorists value death the same way you and I value life. Civilized, decent societies will never fully understand the kind of mindset that drives men to strap on bombs or fly airplanes into buildings, all for the purpose of killing unsuspecting men, women and children who they have never met and who have done them no wrong. But that is the very kind of blind, prideful hatred we're up against.

And their aim, ultimately, is to acquire the means to match that hatred and to use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to impose their will by unspeakable violence or blackmail.

An enemy that operates in the shadows and views the entire world as a battlefield is not one we can fight with strategies used in other wars. An enemy with fantasies of martyrdom is not going to sit down at a table for negotiations. Nor can we fight to a standoff -- (applause). Nor can we fight to a standoff, hoping that some form of containment or deterrence will protect our people. The only option for our security and survival is to go on the offensive, facing the threat directly, patiently and systematically, until the enemy is destroyed. (Applause.)

The war on terror is more than a contest of arms and more than a test of will, it is also a battle of ideas. We know now to a certainty that when people across the Middle East are denied freedom, that is a direct strategic concern of all free nations. By taking the side of moderates, reformers and advocates for democracy, by providing an alternative to hateful ideologies, we improve the chances for a lasting peace and we advance our own security interests.

In the last two years, we have seen hopeful changes as men and women showed their desire to live in freedom. And we have seen the enemy's fierce reaction. In 2005, the people of Lebanon proclaimed the Cedar Revolution and drove out their Syrian occupiers. (Applause.) That same year, the people of Afghanistan elected a parliament. And in Iraq, citizens voted in three national elections, turning out in the millions to defy killers and car bombers and to elect a government that serves under the most progressive constitution in the Arab world.

In 2006, freedom's enemies struck back with new tactics and greater fury. In Lebanon, Hezbollah terrorists who are supported by Iran and Syria, attacked Israel, killing Israelis and sending rockets into civilian areas and have since worked to undermine Lebanon's democratically elected government. Also in 2006, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan waged a new offensive against Afghanistan and NATO forces. In Iraq, Sunni and Shia extremists engaged in escalating sectarian struggle that continues to this day.

Our duty is to face all of these challenges with resolve and we are doing so. In Afghanistan, where I visited just a few weeks ago, American and NATO forces are preparing a spring offensive against Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. In Iraq, our goal remains a democratic nation that upholds the rule of law, respects the rights of its people, provides them security and is an ally in the war on terror. But for this to happen, the elected government in Iraq needs the space and the time to work on reconciliation goals, and it's hard to do that without basic security in Baghdad.

Our coalition is pursuing a new strategy that brings in reinforcements to help Iraqi forces secure the capital so that nation can move forward and the political process can turn toward reconciliation. A few weeks ago, the new coalition commander, General Dave Petraeus, arrived in the Iraq theater. He sent a written message to his soldiers and, with your forbearance, I'd like to quote from it at length.

"The enemies of Iraq," he said, "will shrink at no act however barbaric. They will do all that they can to shake the confidence of the people and to convince the world that this effort is doomed. We must not underestimate them. Together with our Iraqi partners, we must defeat those who oppose the new Iraq. We cannot allow mass murderers to hold the initiative. We must strike them relentlessly. We and our Iraqi partners must set the terms of the struggle, not our enemies. And, together, we must prevail." As we meet -- (applause).

As we meet, ladies and gentlemen, General Petraeus and his troops are in the midst of some extremely tough, intense and dangerous work. The President and I have been briefed on their progress. These American soldiers represent the best that is in our country. They are well trained and professional, their morale is high, they are giving this mission everything they've got and they are doing an absolutely brilliant job. (Applause.)

It's always the case in wartime that the heaviest duties fall on the men and women of the military. The ones doing the fighting never lose their focus on their mission or on what is at stake in this war, and neither should the rest of us. Five-and-a-half years have passed since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the loss that morning of nearly 3,000 Americans inside the United States. As we get farther away from 9/11, I believe there's a temptation to forget the urgency of the task that came to us that day and the comprehensive approach that's required to protect this country against an enemy that moves and acts on multiple fronts.

In fact, five-and-a-half years into the struggle, we find ourselves having to confront a series of myths about the war on terror, myths that are often repeated and deserve to be refuted.

The most common myth is that Iraq has nothing to do with the global war on terror. Opponents of our military action there have called Iraq a diversion from the real conflict, a distraction from the business of fighting and defeating bin Laden and the al Qaeda network. We hear this over and over again, not as an argument but as an assertion meant to close off argument.

Yet the critics conveniently disregard the words of bin Laden himself. The most serious issue today for the whole world, he has said, is this third world war that is raging in Iraq. He calls it a destiny between infidelity and Islam. He said the whole world is watching this war and that it will end in victory and glory or misery and humiliation. And in words directed at the American people, bin Laden declares, "The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever."

This leader of al Qaeda has referred to Baghdad as the capital of the Caliphate. He has also said, and I quote, "Success in Baghdad will be success for the United States. Failure in Iraq is the failure of the United States. Their defeat in Iraq will mean defeat in all their wars."

Obviously, the terrorists have no illusion about the importance of the struggle in Iraq. They have not called it a distraction or a diversion from their war against the United States. They know it is a central front in that war and it's where they've chosen to make a stand. Our Marines are fighting al Qaeda terrorists today in Anbar province. U.S. and Iraqi forces recently killed al Qaeda terrorists in Baghdad who were responsible for numerous car bomb attacks. Iraq's relevance to the war on terror simply could not be more plain.

Here at home, that makes one thing above all very clear. If you support the war on terror, then it only makes sense to support it where the terrorists are fighting us. (Applause.)

The second myth is the most transparent. And that is the notion that one can support the troops without giving them the tools and reinforcements needed to carry out their mission. Twisted logic is not exactly a new phenomenon in Washington. But last month, it did reach new heights. At a hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain put the following question to General Petraeus, suppose we send you over to your new job, only we tell you that you cannot have any additional troops. Can you get your job done? General Petraeus replied, "No, sir."

Yet within his days of his confirmation by a unanimous vote in the Senate -- I repeat, a unanimous vote of confidence in General Petraeus -- a large group of senators tried to pass a resolution opposing the reinforcements he said were necessary. And, of course, the House of Representatives did pass such a resolution. As President Bush said, this may be the first time in history that a Congress voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose the plan he said was necessary in winning that battle. It was not a proud episode in the history of the United States Congress.

The resolution that passed was not binding, only a statement of feelings. Yet other threats have been made that would hamper the war effort and interfere with the operational authority of the President and with our military commanders. These, too, are counterproductive and send exactly the wrong message. When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called slow bleed, they're not supporting the troops, they are undermining them. And when members of Congress speak not of victory, but of time limits -- (applause) -- when members speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines or other arbitrary measures, they're telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out. (Applause.)

Congress does, of course, play a critical role in the defense of the nation and the conduct of a war. That role is defined and limited by the Constitution. After all, the military answers to one commander-in-chief in the White House, not 535 commanders-in-chief on Capitol Hill. (Applause.)

Congress does have the purse strings. And very soon, both houses will have to vote on a piece of legislation that is binding, a bill to provide emergency funding for the troops. And I sincerely hope the discussion this time will be about winning in Iraq. (Applause.)

Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word. But the proof will come when it's time to provide the money. We expect the House and Senate to meet the needs of our military and the generals leading the troops in battle on time and in full measure.

There is a third myth about the war on terror, and this one is also the most dangerous. Some apparently believe that getting out of Iraq before the job is done will actually strengthen America's hand in the fight against terrorists. This myth is dangerous because it represents a full validation of the al Qaeda strategy. The terrorists don't expect to beat us in a standup fight. They never have. They're not likely to try. The only way we can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon our mission and the terrorists do believe that they can force that outcome.

Time after time, they have predicted that the American people do not have the stomach for a long-term fight. They cite the cases of Beirut in the 1980s and Somalia in the '90s. These examples, they believe, show that we are weak and decadent and that if we're hit hard enough, we'll pack it in and retreat. The result would be even greater danger to the United States because, if the terrorists conclude that attacks will change the behavior of a nation, they will attack that nation again and again. (Applause.)

Believing they can break our will, they will become more audacious in their tactics, ever more determined to strike and kill our citizens, ever more bold in their ambitions of conquest and empire.

And that leads me to the fourth and the cruelest myth of all and that is the false hope that we can abandon the effort in Iraq without serious consequences to the broader Middle East. I stand here today as a strong supporter of Israel and Israel has never had a better friend in the White House than George Bush. (Applause.)

Friends owe it to friends to be as candid as possible. So let me say that a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster for the United States and the entire Middle East. It's not hard to imagine what could occur if our coalition withdrew before Iraqis could defend themselves. Moderates would be crushed, Shiite extremists backed by Iran could be in an all-out war with Sunni extremists led by al Qaeda and remnants of the old Saddam regime. As this battle unfolded, Sunni governments might feel compelled to back Sunni extremists in order to counter growing Iranian influence, widening the conflict into a regional war.

If Sunni extremists prevailed, al Qaeda and its allies would recreate the safe haven they lost in Afghanistan, except now with the oil wealth to pursue weapons of mass destruction and underwrite their terrorist designs, including their pledge to destroy Israel.

If Iran's allies prevailed, the regime and Teheran's own designs for the Middle East would be advanced and the threat to our friends in the region would only be magnified.

My friends, it is simply not consistent for anyone to demand aggressive action against the menace posed by the Iranian regime while, at the same time acquiescing in a retreat from Iraq that would leave our worst enemies dramatically emboldened and Israel's best friend, the United States, dangerously weakened. (Applause.)

We must consider as well just what a precipitous withdrawal would mean to our other efforts in the war on terror and to our interests in the broader Middle East. Having tasted victory in Iraq, jihadists would look abroad for new missions. Many would head for Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban. Others would set out for capitals across the Middle East, spreading more discord as they eliminate dissenters and work to undermine moderate governments. Still others would find their targets and victims in other countries on other continents.

What would it say to the world if we left high and dry those millions of people who have counted on the United States to keep its commitments? And what would it say to leaders like President Karzai and President Musharraf who risk their lives every day as fearless allies in the war on terror?

Commentators enjoy pointing out mistakes through the perceptive power of hindsight. But the biggest mistake of all can be seen in advance. A sudden withdrawal of our coalition would dissipate much of the effort that's gone into fighting the global war on terror and result in chaos and mounting danger. And for the sake of our own security, we will not stand by and let it happen. (Applause.)

Five-and-a-half years ago, the President told the Congress and the country that we had entered a new kind of war, one that would require patience and resolve, and that would influence the policies of this government far into the future. The fact that we have succeeded in stopping another attack on our homeland does not mean our country won't be hit in the future. But the record is testimony, not to good luck, but to urgent, competent action by a lot of very skilled men and women and to a series of tough decisions by a President who never forgets his first job is to protect the people of this country. (Applause.)

It would be easier, no doubt, to avoid controversy by following snapshot polls or catering to elite opinion or seeking political refuge in comfortable myths. President Bush understands, as Ronald Reagan did, that if history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

Either we are serious about fighting the war on terror or we are not. Either we persevere despite difficulty or we turn our backs on our friends, our commitments and our ideals. I, for one, have never had more confidence in the outcome because America is the kind of country that fights for freedom and because, at this very hour, our soldiers are engaging the enemy on the field of battle. (Applause.)

One of the great examples of leadership in our world is that of Ariel Sharon, a man of courage and a man of peace, who remains in our thoughts. (Applause.) In his last speech at the United Nations, Prime Minister Sharon said, his great passion in life was "manual labor, sowing and harvesting the pastures, the flock and the cattle." "If the circumstances had not demanded it," he said, "he would not have become a soldier but rather a farmer, an agriculturalist." But life had other plans for this Israeli patriot, and he did his duty until the very ending of his strength.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the circumstances have demanded much of this great nation, but we are more than equal to the test. America is a good and an honorable country. (Applause.) We serve a cause that is right and a cause that gives hope to the oppressed in every corner of this earth. We are defended by some of the bravest citizens this nation has ever produced. We are in a war that was begun on the enemy's terms. We are fighting that war on our own terms, and we will prevail.

Dick Cheney's Speech In Full

Bloated Old War Pig Christopher Hitchens Interviews Himself On Whether He Was Right To Support The War On Iraq

Shock Conclusion : He Was Right!


Artist Sandow Birk's The Liberation Of Baghdad - The painting shows Birk's vision of "what we were told would happen — happy, joyfully liberated Iraqis welcoming American troops as we free them from the shackles of oppression.”

Poor old Christopher Hitchens. He was once the go-to man for 'informative' and 'opinionated' comment on how the Iraq War was going. Other journos and late night news magazine shows wanted to know what he was thinking, and how much longer the non-existent Iraqi insurgency and non-existent Iraq civil war could possibly not keep raging for.

In a desperate, and genuinely bizarre, attempt to justify his enthusiastic support for the most disastrous American foreign policy decision in history, and to quell the night screams of tens of thousands of dead Iraqi children, Christopher Hitchens decides it's time to interview himself in his latest word compilation for Slate.

Hitch stands proudly alongside a long list of American pro-war media pundits, including The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol and Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, not to mention freelance musician Mark Steyn (who actually called for more chaos in the Middle East late last year), who were absolutely right about how events would turn out in the Iraq War, week in, week out.

But then the Iraq War actually began.

These Yodas of war comment had Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush to back them up by constantly claiming "progress" was being made, and "we're turning a corner" and the slaughterhappy insurgency were "not an insurgency" but mere "dead enders", and that the WMDs had "been found" and that they knew where they were and that they would soon be shown to the world to prove the illegal invasion and subjugation of a mostly defenceless people, who posed no threat at all, was all worth it.

So for more than three years of the war, these propagandists actually managed to sound like they knew what they were talking about. All they had to do was mimic the fetid spin of Rummy, Dicky and Bushy and they'd be remembered for being great chroniclers of the Iraq War.

But that was then, a few thousand dead American soldiers ago. Half a trillion American dollars and the goodwill of the world all a distant memory.

Steyn, Kristol, O'Reilly and Hitch still get paid to comment on the war, remarkably enough, but as many people now tune in to hear and read their words to laugh in dismay at their ceaseless tide of factless sewage as those who think they still have relevant or accurate insight into why almost a hundred American soldiers continue to die each month and why the streets of Baghdad are still being drenched with the blood of Iraqi children.

Becoming utterly irrelevant is why the staggeringly drink-fragged Christopher Hitchens has now been reduced to conducting piercing examinations of his own thoughts on whether or not going to War On Iraq was, in general, a good idea.

It will come as no great surprise that Hitchens reaches the stunning conclusion that he was right all along, and continues to be right.

But as The Agonist blog points out, Hitch becomes all coy and dismissive and ends up trying to avoid giving a straight answer.

To his own questions!

The Agonist provides a lacerating deconstruction of Hitchens' self-delusions, flat-out lies and blatant rewriting of the pre-history of the Iraq War. It's worth a look if you want see what the appalling failure of the Iraq War has done to the mind of one of its biggest supporters. It's not pretty.

But here's our favourite bit. Hitchens' last question to himself :

So, you seriously mean to say that we would not be living in a better or safer world if the coalition forces had turned around and sailed or flown home in the spring of 2003 (before the war began - ed)?

That's exactly what I mean to say

What you mean to say, Hitch?

You're interviewing yourself, moron!

Why didn't you just say it?

You made up the questions and then you wrote the answers!

The man is a living parody.

Dog 'Adopts' Orphaned Squirrel



Yes, this is "Oh, that's so cute!" time.

I promised late last year that we'd include a few more positive and pleasant stories on 'Your New Reality', so here's one to warm your heart.

A family in Arkansas rescued an orphaned squirrel and then bottle-fed it for a few days. They apparently left it in the company of the family dog, busy nursing its puppies, but when they returned they found the squirrel right alongside those puppies having a feed.

Go Here For The Rest Of The Story

Go Here For More Bizarre & Weird Stories From 'Planet Of Strange Things', Including 'The Invasion Of The Flesh-Eating, Cannibal Frogs'

Fourth World War Now Closer To Reality

Turkey Prepares Invasion Of Northern Iraq

US Warns Turkey Over Iraq's "Territorial Integrity"

How much worse could it possibly get for the United States in Iraq?

In order to counter what is expected to be a Spring offensive from Kurdish terrorists (PKK), Turkey has now instructed its military forces, the most powerful in all the Middle East, to cancel all leave and prepare for an invasion of Northern Iraq to cut down the PKK before it can begin its push through mountain passes along the border.

Turkey seems convinced that the United States is backing the PKK (also known as the Kurdistan Workers Party), in its bid to establish an independent Kurdistan state, with the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital.

Turkey claims the PKK has been responsible for terrorist attacks inside its borders, killing hundreds of soldiers and civilians since mid-2004, and yet the United States, even though it is supposedly fighting a 'War on Terror', has been reluctant to damn the PKK attacks, let alone attempt to rein them in.

The United States is aware of Turkey's plans to cross the border into Iraq (to tackle the PKK), and has issued a stark warning, in the strongest language used by the US State Department against Turkey since the Iraq War began, that the US intends to defend the "territorial integrity" of Iraq.

In short, the United States will not stand back and allow Turkey to enter Northern Iraq to head off the PKK. But the blowback from the US countering an advance by the Turkish military would be immense.

The United States has a key strategic air base inside Turkey's borders, which Ankara would no doubt evict the US Air Force from in the event of a confrontation, and Turkey is a key financial player in the development of the mega-billion dollar Joint Strike Fighter program, along with a host of multi-billion US defence contracts.

Meanwhile, both Russia and China are watching events closely, concerned about their own 'strategic interests' in the region.

For more on what may well prove to be key events in the breaking out of a wider Middle East war, or a new World War should China and Russia become involved, here's a selection of excerpts from a longer, link-heavy post from 'The Fourth World War' blog :

The PKK wants an independent Kurdistan nation, primarily in Iraq, with the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital, but with territory swallowing up thousands of square miles of land now under Iranian, Syria and Turkish control.

Kirkuk, in Northern Iraq, is a glittering prize coveted by the United States, the Kurds and also Israel (who want an oil pipeline from Kirkuk), as it sits amongst oil fields believed to still hold more than 10 billion barrels in proven reserves.

Turkey believes that the United States is secretely backing the PKK in its plans for an independent Kurdistan, not only to share in the oil riches such a state would then control, but because it would allow the Americans to use Kurdistan territory for permanent air and army bases, by which the US could then reach into, and dominate the airspaces of, both Iran and Syria.

China and Russia are unlikely to stand idly by if Turkey decides to invade Iraq to deal with the "Kurdish problem". Such a move by Turkey would put at risk billions of dollars of Chinese and Russian business interests, to say nothing of their strategic interests. It would also put at risk deals already being negotiated by Russia and China to access oil from Kirkuk.

Iran may be the focus of the American media, for now, but the brewing war in Northern Iraq between Turkey and the PKK is likely to have far greater consequences for the United States in the long run, and could act as a trigger for an incomprehensible, but utterly realistic, wider World War drawing in Russia and China.

Consider, as well, that thanks to the Iraq War, the United States military has been left broken and exposed, and reportedly does not have one single US Army or Marine brigade "battle ready" to deploy to deal with an international confrontation of the scope that an invasion of Iraq by Turkey may well trigger off.

Turkey knows this. But so does China and Russia.

If the United States or Israel decides to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, Russia and China may choose to use such a provocative and unsanctioned act of war as a reason to strike back and shatter what remains of America's military supremacy in the Persian Gulf. and the wider Middle East.

Go Here For The Full Story

Metal For The Brain

Fast, loud, political and very heavy metal music is the auditory stimulation of choice for some of the brightest, most intelligent children in the world, according this report from the UK Independent. :

Heavy metal has long been saddled with a reputation for attracting admirers more interested in decibels than Descartes. New research, however, promises to rescue the genre from the mosh pit of intellectual obscurity.

A study has revealed that death metal and thrash bands such as Slayer and Slipknot produce the music of choice for today's brightest youngsters.

A survey which was carried out among students at the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth, a cohort drawn from the top 5 per cent of the nation's youngsters, drew praise for metal's "visceral brutality" with more than a third rating it among their favourite styles. Researchers admitted they were surprised to find that "intelligent" genres traditionally associated with the precociously bright, such as classical and jazz, were the least popular.

What they discovered instead was that youngsters liked to let off steam to hardcore sounds, particularly if it had an emotionally charged or overtly political message behind it. One respondent said: "You can't really jump your anger into the floor and listen to music at the same time with other types of music."

Stuart Cadwallader of the University of Warwick, which conducted the survey, said heavy metal was found to provide a form of "catharsis", particularly for those with low self-esteem.

They found the aggressive music a useful conduit for their frustrations and anger, according to the findings revealed at the British Psychological Society conference in York yesterday.

However, many of the students disagreed over what constituted a heavy metal fan andargued that they liked to pick and choose from different styles according tothe way they were feeling.

One student concluded: "As with most music, it depends heavily on the person's mood at the time. So while there probably is your 'average metalhead fan', there will also be a lot of other fans who just feel 'metalheady' every so often."

Metalheady! Fantastic stuff.

The next time you see some iPodded kid air guitaring away at your local bus stop to the musical equivalent of hurricane of machine gun fire, you may be looking at the smartest youth you'll see that day.

Go ahead, set your brain on fire. Dump the jazz and classical and pump up the Tool and Slayer till the wallpaper starts to peel..

Robots Are Now Being Given 'Emotions'

Box On Wheels Forms Relationship With Its Creator

We're All Living In A Philip K Dick Novel



In the early 1960s, American writer Philip K Dick began exploring the idea that in the future, robot makers would have to give their creations a range of human-like 'emotions' so they could more easily interact with humanity, and learn for themselves.

Philip K Dick masterpiece on this subject was 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?', which evolved into the movie classic Bladerunner. PKD's fictional world saw robot makers not only giving their creations a range of human emotions, but also memories. This allowed the robots to believe they were actually humans. Naturally, when they learned they were not humans, and the memories were fake, they reacted violently against their creators, and the society that inflicted such an inhumanity upon them.

Throughout many of PKD's 40 or so novels, and hundreds of short stories, he portrayed a series of possible futures where cities and societies were divided by security checkpoints, hardcore and constant inhome surveillance and compulsory high-tech ID cards.

He wrote of a police state America ruled by Patriot Act-like laws, where human rights were historical relics and the books which praised the rights of man were illegal.

He returned again and again to the theme of fictional wars fought against overhyped (and sometimes non-existent) enemies.

PKD foresaw, internet sex and relationships, trivia and game driven societies.

But his favourite and most powerful theme, endemic in Electric Sheep, was a simple one : What does it mean to be human? What is it that defines as a human being?

His answer was : Empathy.

In his last days (he died in 1982, shortly after viewing a rough cut of Bladerunner), PKD liked to tell people that they were all now living in a Philip K Dick book. He meant it as a half-joke. It is a joke no longer.

We are living in a Philip K Dick novel, and nothing rams home the fact more than this remarkable story (excerpted below) about a new generation of robots that have been given human-like emotions.

An end goal for these robots, in the question to make them more human, will be for them to develop 'empathy'. Empathy not only for their human creators, and owners, but for each other, and for themselves.

Robots that bond like human children and display emotion are being developed at a British university.

The £1.68 million Feelix Growing Project, a partnership of robotic experts, psychologists and neuroscientists from around the world, aims to produce machines designed to engage emotionally with humans.

Like children, they will form attachments with their human handlers.

The robots, being built at the University of Hertfordshire, will be able to see, hear, touch and judge the distance between themselves and humans.

They will recognise human body language signals, and respond to emotional states such as anger, fear and happiness.

One of the first machines - a box on wheels - is already showing imprinted behaviour, The Engineer magazine reported. Like a human baby, it has become attached to its "mother" and follows her around.

Dr Lola Canamero, who is co-ordinating the project, said: "The goal is to build machines that can develop social, functional skills to interact with humans....

"If robots have to be integrated with humans then they should be able to develop social and emotional skills."

In Japan, robots are already being trained to acts as servants for the wealthy, babysitters for the time poor and companions and nurses for the elderly.

In Australia, robots have performed delicate and successful surgery on humans.

In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, robots are killing people, rescuing injured soldiers and flying above entire cities keeping a never-blinking eye on anything that moves.

The robots are not coming, they are already here, and they are quickly becoming a part of our society, whether we like it or not.

Despite having read hundreds of science fiction stories as a teenager that varied on the theme that intelligent robots would ultimately decide humanity had to wiped out for the good of the planet, or for the good of an android dominant future, I don't actually dread the widespread use of synthetic humans in society.

We will learn plenty from them, and they will become a part of us as robotic and synthetic arms, legs and internal organs are added to us to expand our lifetimes and up the quality of that extra time to live that we are given.

The more intelligent the robots become, the more independently they can think and process information, the more emphatic they can become, then the more likely it will be that the harder choices and hardest jobs of this world, this existence, will be given over to robots.

One day, of course, these choices will include the running of governments and community institutions.

The career politician as we know them today will become an extinct species.

So how you exactly do you bribe an android?


25 Years After His Death, Philip K Dick Finally Gets Recognition And Respect For His Brilliant Mind

Robots Don't Cry : US Military Has Big Plans For Its Robotic Army

Robot Plane Kills 18 People

Why We're All Living In A Philip K Dick Novel

If Iraq Joins International Criminal Court, Bush And Blair Could Face War Crimes Trials

Iraq May Use War Crimes Threat To Lever Power Against US During Oil Wealth Carve Up

In news that will cause millions of anti-war protesters to drool helplessly, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations has revealed Iraq is "actively considering" signing up to the International Criminal Court.

Why is this such a mouth-watering proposition for those opposed to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq?

If Iraq were to do this, the actions of the United States, the UK, Australia and other Coalition countries, during the Iraq War could be legitimately investigated in war crimes trials at The Hague. For example, in 2005, the US admitted to the UN that it had tortured prisoners inside Iraq. An illegal act commited during an illegal war.

From the Washington Times :

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said in an interview that he can envision a scenario in which President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair could one day face war-crimes charges at The Hague.

Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph that it was frustrating that the court was viewed in the Arab world as biased in favor of the West.

Asked whether he could envision a situation in which Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair found themselves in the dock answering charges of war crimes in Iraq, he replied:

"Of course, that could be a possibility ... whatever country joins the court can know that whoever commits a crime in their country could be prosecuted by me."

The United States, under President Bush, has refused to recognise the ICC's jurisdiction and have openly opposed the existence of the court.

A tidbit of info, from the same story, about the start of the Iraq War I don't recall having read before :

Days before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein approached lawyers in Britain about signing up, but his effort was overtaken by events. Had he succeeded, the actions of the U.S. in Iraq would fall within the court's jurisdiction.

Saddam Hussein may have been one of the world's most savage dictators, but he was surely no idiot.

While the democratically elected government of Iraq no doubt wants to embrace all aspects of its new found freedom and liberty, one valid and powerful reason for Iraq approaching the ICC about membership may prove to be that the threat of helping The Hague pursue war crimes prosecutions against the governments of the US and the UK could provide an extremely powerful bargaining chip in stalled negotiations with the US and the UK (and its mega-powerful oil corporations) over the future of Iraq's oil wealth.

In short, Iraq could use the threat of legitimate ICC war crimes prosecutions as a way of leveraging massive advantage over the US and the UK in the carving up of oil resources within its borders.

The starting point for the Iraqi government in playing the ICC card is a simple one : the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War 2 decreed the action of pre-emptive war, or a war of aggression, is, in itself, the ultimate war crime.

But like the fantasy of President Bush being impeached by a Democrat heavy US Congress, the day when Bush or UK prime minister, Tony Blair, is bustled into the dock at The Hague will come some time after the last star in the sky has blinked out of existence.

If one of history's greatest mass murderers, Henry Kissinger, can escape prosecution at The Hague, then Bush and Blair have little to worry about in the coming decades.

You'll be seeing the comatose corpse of Ariel Sharon propped vertically against a board in the dock at The Hague long before Bush or Blair, or Australian prime minister, John Howard, are sighted anywhere near the place, particularly in handcuffs.

It's. Not. Going. To. Happen.

Son Of A King

Joe Hill is one of the rising stars of American horror writing, and with his debut published novel, 'Heart Shaped Box', he has also become one of its best selling.

He also happens to be the son of Stephen King, the most successful horror fictionalist in history.

For ten years, Joe Hill remained virtually anonymous, submitting novels to a long stream of publishers, and collecting more rejection letters than his father did before his breakthrough novel 'Carrie.' He had no intention of using the family name to more easily secure a book deal. Had he used the name 'King' and mentioned he was the son of one of the world's most famous, and popular, writers, Joe Hill would have been inundated with book deal offers.

But he stuck to his plan and collected rejection letters. Not necessarily a bad thing, Hill now admits, because the books weren't good enough to be published, and the rejection letters, many offering positive advice, forced him to work harder.

Everything changed when Hill wrote 'Heart Shaped Box', a book that sits easily inside the unofficial new literary genre, Slipstream, that 'mashes' together a feast of disparate genres :

When Hill finally sold “Heart-Shaped Box” to a major U.S. publisher, he thought he would probably be...outed. After the contract was negotiated, Hill called his editor, Jennifer Brehl, and told her his full name and who his father was. Brehl agreed that they would publish the book under his pseudonym and play down the family angle as much as possible. But there wasn’t much she could do.

“I had pretty much run to the end of my rope around that time,” Hill told me. “I had done an appearance in England, and people kind of noticed a little bit of a family resemblance. There started to be some muttering going around.” Later Hill told me, a little wistful that the statute of limitations on his pen name had expired, “It would have been nice if the book could have come out and been out for a while, but it just didn’t work out that way.”

Hill could, of course, do what his father did and write under a psuedonym. Stephen King published four novels in the late 1970s and early 1980s under the name Richard Bachman, before he was outed. One of those novels, 'Rage', bears an uncanny resemblance to the real-life Columbine high school massacre. King pulled 'Rage' out of circulation shortly after the massacre.


You can read the first chapter of Joe Hill's 'Heart Shaped Box' here

The 'Funny' Side Of Suicide Bombings

Can Satire TV Ever Go Too Far?

British satirist Chris Morris is about to take on the challenge of his anarchic career as he sets out to make what is expected to be a satirical film about Pakistani suicide bombers in England.

I've got a suspicion that Morris will be basing his film story around the July 21 London bombers, who have been plunged into a reality zone somewhere far beyond satire already by their lawyer and the 'lead bomber', who now claim the bombs carried onto the London Underground, laced with ball bearings and nails, were never meant to actually explode and kill anyone, and that it was just "a protest against violence".

So Chris Morris wants to satirise wannabe suicide bombers?

Why doesn't he just go and try to make paedophilia funny instead?

Actually, Morris has already done that with a previous television special.

In 2001, Morris became the most controversial comedian in England, and probably the world, when he turned out a half hour mockumentary about the British media's ultra-hysterical, fear-bludgeoning campaigns about the 'terror' of paedophiles.

Through the late 1990s, paedophilia scares had become the lock-standard of British tabloid newspapers and the frothing Frenzy Of Fear reached such absurd proportions that a crowd of people in Northern England descended on a pediatrician's office, baying for blood, not seeming to understand that 'pediatrician' did not spell paedophile, and even if it did, what sort of loony nonce would actually advertise their demented perversion on a sign outside their office?

To a survey crowd during the mock current affairs show, Morris proposed a solution to dealing with paedophiles. It won immediate approval from the punters :

A paedophile has an implant the size of a cashew nut in his rectum. These devices are triggered by the sound of children's voices. "It" hears those voices . It expands to the size of a 42 inch colour television set. Bang! They fall to the ground shrieking and the children are safe.

Too far? Chris Morris felt the show, titled Paedogeddon, didn't go far enough.

The media well understood they were the target of Morris' satirical wraith and for the most part they reacted as he expected they would, with utter outrage and disgust. The show sparked a record number of viewer complaints, more than 1500, though that figure has been topped since by outrage over the recent series of UK Big Brother.

Through the late 1990s, paedophilia scares had become the lock-standard of British tabloid newspapers and the frothing Frenzy Of Fear reached such absurd proportions that a crowd of people in Northern England descended on a pediatrician's office, baying for blood, not seeming to understand that 'pediatrician' did not spell paedophile, and even if it did, what sort of loony nonce would actually advertise their demented perversion on a sign outside their office?

No doubt, Morris senses something stinkingly familiar about the Islamist-focused Frenzy Of Fear now gagging the rational mind of England's masses; a mostly media-induced terror pumped directly into the moral and emotional veins by vapidly uninspired politicians with nothing good to say and tabloidia so utterly degenerated they would splash their front pages with three inch high headlines declaring 'Islamists Plot Anthrax-Soaked Toilet Paper Campaign Of Arse Terror' if they thought it would sell more papers than an exclusive multi-page spread of eight month old x-rays revealing Kylie Minogue's cancer infested tits.

So what's so funny about suicide bombings anyway?

Morris made a rare public appearance recently in England when he attended a conference on Al Qaeda. He revealed he had been interested in making "a comedy version" of United 93, the Paul Greengrass movie detailing what may have happened inside the hijacked airline that was supposedly set to hit the White House on September 11, 2001, before the intervention of passengers forced the hijackers to crash the plane into a field, killing everyone on board.

Only a few months after 9/11, Morris published a mostly-forgotten special in the UK Observer, where he and another writer attempted to satirise the events of the day. It provoked a storm of letters, both outraged and supportive, but since then Morris has left the subject of terrorism pretty much alone.

However, Morris began thinking about doing a satire on terrorism in early 2003, when he was quoted as saying :

"People are thinking quite seriously about the war on terror. Don't get me wrong, there are many eminently mock-able things about it. I'm just not sure what you could do with it all."

"...if a terrorist organisation wanted to knock out the moral compass of Britain, all they'd have to do is to kill 100 celebrities at random. The entire country would have an instant nervous breakdown."

What can we expect from a Chris Morris comedy about suicide bombing?

Seeing as casting has only just begun, there are scant details, but the casting call sheet reveals a few character traits :

The leaked casting note for the project, due to start filming this summer and directed by Morris, describes one of the characters as being "the sort of guy who'd protest against cartoons in a bomb belt...

"A TV film about a bunch of Pakistani lads living in Britain now. It's about what they do for work, for play, what they believe, how they relate to their parents, families, the culture around them, their sense of heritage." The document describes seven characters aged from 17 to 38 who are variously described as not good with people, fearless, mouthy and mad and brooding. The youngest character is "insanely intense, bright, very focused, blind to anything he's not focused on, small seething boffin".

Of course, this news of Morris taking on terrorism could be another of his carefully conceived frauds. He is, after all, famous for pulling off outrageously hilarious hoaxes on gullible celebrities and a culturally bereft public baying for new modern horror stories to shrink back from and react against.

One of the less famous examples of Morris hoaxing was his brilliant rip into the morose drug-and-boozed soaked UK blokey confessional literature of the late 1990s when he created the columnist Richard Geefe, who agreed to commit suicide six months hence, generating a book and documentary deal, and then wrote a series of hilariously self-indulgent columns about how his "brave" decision to die on a pre-set date had transformed his life.

For the better.

Naturally, Geefe then tried to back out of the 'deal'. But his newspaper editor insisted he had to go through with his suicide pact, if only not to disappoint the readers of the newspaper he wrote for.

The columns, published in The Observer, generated a hail of media and public reaction, as Morris expected they would, and it was only towards the end of his 'Time To Go' columns that he cranked up the absurdity to such monumental proportions that few readers were left believing Richard Geefe was anything but a well-timed spoof on a mostly empty-headed, and short-lived, literary genre.

You can read the full set of Richard Geefe's 'Time To Go' columns here.

Some tasters :

'Richard's...told us that the best way to kill yourself was to buy 200 feet of nylon rope, tie one end round your neck, the other round a lamppost, get in your car and floor the accelerator. That's how his uncle had done it. Richard was just nine years old. And he'd been forced to ride in the car to stop it crashing when his uncle's head came off. The blood had made the pedals slippery.'

* * * * * *

But we don't leave late and we don't leave in each other's arms. We agree that we find each other attractive. We agree that if we took it further we would one day end up sharing breakfasts of hate.

* * * * * *

True love impels you to tell the truth. Yet with Vanessa, the truth made the love impossible. The only way to protect love is with lies and yet lies turn love into indifference. In my late adolescence, I turned this into an equation. Love of truth = death of love. If you divide both sides by love you end up with Truth = Death.

I thought that was clever at the time, then for years I thought it was stupid, and last week I realised it was true. Maybe Vanessa knew it too. Death is the one place where there is no hypocrisy and Vanessa died eight years ago. So there is no going back - not without a spade anyway...

* * * * * *

I've contemplated taking my own life before but it wasn't like this. I was 23, watching my girlfriend destroy herself with heroin and had just lost two friends in a road accident. Why did I stop myself then but not now? I had more reason to die then. But maybe grand reasons stop you because they excuse your mood. Reasons are not the reason. You decide to kill yourself at the point when the momentum of being born simply runs out. Spiritually we're all born at different speeds. A few of us reach the end of the arc before we plough into the blades of car crashes and coronaries.

* * * * *

I phoned the editor. `I'm not doing it! I'm going to be a father.' `Richard,' he said, `have you thought this through?' He assured me that the child would learn more from my writing than he ever could from me as a living person.

What's more, he said, The Observer has a bond of trust with its readers, who are now relying on me to commit suicide and would rightly be appalled if I said I was going to live after all. And I began to see that morally, and in every other conceivable way, the editor was actually right.

* * * * *

I phoned the Sunday Times: sorry old chap - love the column but we've got a reporter who's just taken out a contract on his own life and is writing some terrific stuff about living in fear. The Mail on Sunday have an accidental injury man who gets something dropped on him or falls out of a window every week. And there's a female writer at the Sindie who's agreed to have her child kidnapped. I'm so fucking marvellous, they're all ripping me off.

Casting Call Sheet For Morris' Suicide Bomber Film Project

Profile Of "The Most Loathed Man On TV"

What Happens When You Satirise Hysteria?

VIDEO : YouTube Clips Of Chris Morris' Bizarre, Hallucinogenic Sketch Show 'Jam'

VIDEO : YouTube Clips From Chris Morris' Brilliant Mock TV/Current Affairs Show 'Brass Eye'

A Clown Called Malice

Record Number Of Viewer Complaints For Morris' 'Brass Eye' Special

Chris Morris : The Secret Timeline Of George W. Bush On 9/11 - "Ring Al Gore And Tell Him He's Won"

Letters Of Outrage And Support Over Morris' 9/11 Satire

9/11 - Six Months That Changed A Year

Chris Morris : 'The Only Interview'

Russia's Female Cosmonauts : The Race To Put A Woman In Space

"Can We Risk The Life Of A Mother?"



An interesting story here from Novosti about the largely unknown (in the West at least) story of Russia's female cosmonaut program :

March 12, 1962 is the official date of the establishment of a women's group in the first division of cosmonauts. Five people were selected from more than a thousand applicants: engineer Irina Solovyova, mathematician and programmer Valentina Ponomaryova, textile worker Valentina Tereshkova, teacher Zhanna Yerkina and shorthand secretary Tatyana Kuznetsova.

Yury Gagarin, present at the crucial meeting, protested against Ponomaryova's candidacy. "Cosmonautics is a new and venturesome business," he said. "It is an unknown and unsafe world. Can we risk the life of a mother?"

Star City was still a long way off. The location of the training center was a secret. Its compound was surrounded by a tall fence, with guard dogs running around the perimeter. Here, the "petticoat battalion," as cosmonaut Alexei Leonov described the women's group, was to have its first foretaste of space.

The body's resistance to high temperatures was tested in a heat chamber. A test subject wearing a flight suit would be placed in an environment with a temperature of plus 70 degrees Celsius and a humidity of 30% and forced to stay there until her body temperature jumped by 2.5 degrees and her pulse rate quickened to 130 beats a minute.

A session in the silent chamber - a sound-insulated room measuring 2.5 meters by 2.5 meters - was monitored by psychologists. Above the table, to the right and left, were TV camera eyes. In front was a porthole through which the test subject was fully observable, though she herself saw nothing. Each candidate was to spend ten days in the chamber.

For the record, Russia launched the first woman into space in 1963. Earlier this year she turned 70 and said she wanted to go Mars. She said was prepared to fly a one way mission to the red planet. "I'm ready to fly there and never come back," she said.

It took until 1983 for the United States to match the Russians' achievement of putting a woman in space.

War In Space : US Suggested Atom Bombs In Space In 1948

US Military Chief Claims Homosexuality "Immoral"

But How Does He Feel About Wars Of Aggression?

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace :

"I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts....I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way."

A genuinely bizarre comment from a man who apparently has no problems with the brutal occupation of Iraq, where tens of thousands of civilians die each year the war continues.

Surely there is no greater act of immorality in the world than to launch of pre-emptive war of aggression against a (basically) defenceless country and civilian population.

It is beyond troubling that the these words, these definitions of what constitutes an immoral act, come straight from the mind of one of the most powerful military leaders in the world today.

Because the US military has a strict policy against self-declared gay people serving in its forces, a federal government audit revealed in 2005 that at least 10,000 troops have been discharged due to their sexual preferences.

This figure includes more than 50 people specialising in Arabic languages, and is one of the primary reasons why the US forces in Iraq have had such monumental problems communicating with Iraq Army and police allies in the war zone in the past three years.

The only reason why there is such a reluctance within the US military to accept gay people as they are is due to the religious beliefs, or "family values", of so many aging, senior ranking military and government officials, including the president himself.

Retired Army general John Shalikashvili, and former Joint Chiefs chairman, was once anti-gays in the military, like General Peter Pace. That is, until he actually met with gay servicemen.

"These conversations showed me just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers."

Opinions towards openly gay troops within the Iraq and Afghanistan serving ranks of the US military have changed dramatically in the past decade :

...a new Zogby poll, commissioned by the Michael D. Palm Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara, of 545 U.S. troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three quarters said they were comfortable around gay men and lesbians; 37 percent opposed allowing gays to serve openly; 26 percent said they should be allowed, and 37 percent were unsure or neutral.

Of those who said they were certain that a member of their unit was gay or lesbian, two-thirds did not believe it hurt morale...

Despite the lowered recruitment 'targets', the US military is having a hell of a time making up the numbers it needs to keep up with the Bush Co. expansion of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

This is why Americans with felony criminal records, including drug, violence and alcohol-related convictions, and recognised members of Chicago and LA gangs, are now allowed to join the military. You can be a former drug-dealing gang banger and the US military will spend more than a million dollar training you to kill more effectively, but only if you're not openly gay.

Bush Co. and the bizarrely out of touch, and religious-centric, senior ranks of the US military, may soon reach a point where the only way they can continue to expand their wars will be by allowing the serving ranks of the armed ranks to include openly gay service people.

And that would be an irony even beyond that of a man who regards homosexuality as "immoral" but appears to have no problem with the invasion and deadly occupation of sovereign nations who posed no immediate threat to the United States.

Claim : 65,000 Gay And Lesbian Troops Now Serving In US Armed Forces

Gay Advocates Demand Apology From Peter Pace Over "Immoral" Comments

Disgusting Treatment Of War Veterans At Army Hospital Claims Third Scalp

Pace Doesn't Believe Iranian Government Is Arming Insurgents In Iraq

Wolf Creek Director Uses Monster Crocodiles To Dispatch Tourists In New Horror Movie


Photos by Darryl Mason

Australian crocodiles can be scary enough when viewed from the safety of a zoo. But there is nothing like coming face to face with one of these dinosaurs in its own environment. The Northern Territory of Australia is home to tens of thousands of these monsters, and on a 'hunting' river trip through the region last year, we saw crocodiles as big as ten foot long.

Big crocodiles can go underwater and swim at about 20 kmh, for a solid hour before they need to come up for air. The only thing scarier than having one of those monsters smash its jaws into the side of your tinnie, is to be putting along a mud-brown river and look back to see half a dozen crocodiles pursuing you, closing the distance, and then all submerging together. You have no idea where they are until they surface right next to you.

Fantastic, shitscary stuff.

Which is why we can't wait to see a new movie called Rogue, due out mid-year.

The director of Wolf Creek, Greg McLean, has finished work on Rogue and it should be out mid-year, all over the world.

Rogue will take viewers deep into the Katherine Gorge in the Northern Territory, and right into the heart of crocodile country. The story follows a tour group who become marooned on a river island. The river rises with the tide, the sun goes down, and the crocodiles come in for a feed. No doubt, gruesome crocodile attacks and much terror will follow.

Go to 'The Orstrahyun' blog for the full story, and more photos.


The banks of the East Alligator river, in the Northern Territory, were feet thick with a quicksand-like mud when we visited the area last year. The mud is a trap in itself. Once you step into it, it could suck you in up to your knees and then h0ld you in place until this 10 foot long monster is ready for a feed. Never, ever, get out of the boat.

Hunting For The Loch Ness Monster With Dolphins

The Times Of London has a long list of 'Things That Would Have Stayed Secrets' spawned of Freedom Of Information Act requests. Some of the info is shocking, some of it stunningly trivial, and some is genuinely bizarre.

Here's a few of our favourites :

- UK Prime Minister Tony Blair entertained one of the world's richest entertainers, Elton John, at his country estate and billed the British taxpayer for the festivities.

- Since Tony Blair took office, just over a decade ago, killings committed by strangers - persons unknown to those killed - have increased by more than 33%.

- British military tortured people in Germany following the end of World War 2 under a clandestine programme believed sanctioned by the UK government. It was described as being
“reminiscent of the concentration camps”.

- Israel built its first nuclear bomb in the mid-1960s thanks to Britain, who sold it some 20 tonnes of heavy water.

- During the current Iraq War, six British military policemen were killed by Iraqis in Majar al-Kabir because "nearby reinforcements decided it was too dangerous to rescue them".

- Since the 'War on Terror' began, the British Ministry of Defence undertook efforts to help UK arms companies find countries to buy its weapons, including countries with "poor human rights records" and countries regarded as being on the front lines of the WoT. Including Iraq.

- Members of the coalition forces returning from Iraq have smuggled both weapons and ammunition into Britain.

- In just twelve months, hundreds of 10 year old British children were charged with some pretty hardcore crimes, including robbery, assaulting police and serious sexual offences.

- In another twelve month period, more than 300 weapons were seized from British school children, including swords and "an improvised flame-thrower".

- The dramatically beautiful ancient sculptures known as the Elgin Marbles were damaged during a schoolboy brain at the British Museum in 1961, when one boy fell over and smashed off a piece of a centaur's leg.

- The government of Margaret Thatcher put together a plan to hunt down the Loch Ness monster via a team of trained recon dolphins.

You can read the full list of 'Things That Would Have Stayed Secret' here.

Out Of Action

Sorry, we're out of action for another week or so, due to traveling through the remote West Australian outback.

There's a story up on 'The Orstrahyun' blog on how the tech-ed up 'grey nomads' we've been encountering on the road are building a new society for themselves on the highways and in the isolated campgrounds of the great Australian outback and bush.

Go here for that.

We should be back in action by March 10 with lot of updates.