informant38
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...But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not...
Milton, Areopagitica
Except he had found the
standing sea-rock that even this last
Temptation breaks on; quieter than death but lovelier; peace
that quiets the desire even of praising it.
Jeffers, Meditation On Saviors
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3.5.05
This is a coincidence of course, how could it be anything else? But the word "tongue" moves sound by sound right down the thing it names, starting from the tip and ending in the back of the throat.
t uah nn g uh.
It walks right along. It's linear. But pure coincidence of course. The problem is there's all these correspondencies, buried like landmines in the letters and words of the language. So if you start seeing them you end up with what may be a map, a diagram, a big steaming pile of what appear to be clues. Or a distraction.
The access necessary for them to be intentionally placed implies things that there's no preparation for in our little normal cosmologies, unless it's religion. And even then it's all spooky/occult. The creepy powers that be. Or nobody at all.
Whatever it is that put that panoptic eyeball on the dollar bill. Or randomness exercising its legs.
still here 13:19
2.5.05
Classified Info Accidentally Revealed in Sgrena Report
The US Army and the Multi-National Corps-Iraq have released an official report on the incident, posting it in PDF format to the Coalition website. The Italian press quickly discovered that the redactions in the report - which blacked out about a third of the text - were done improperly. It is possible to cut and paste all of the text or, alternatively, to select and remove the black censor marks. Doing this has revealed a lot of information classified as Secret.
Now-empty original link to the report on the Coalition site
PDF version of the report with removeable redaction
still here 14:55
29.4.05
The Iraq war wasn't sold to the American people by the use of a non-existent threat of WMD's. It wasn't a result of a discussion of terms and points in which the case for war was made by lying politicians. Those were simply the formal gestures that gave the invasion a gloss of American intent. The Iraq war was legitimized emotionally, and the emotions of the American majority are the property of CNN FOX and MSNBC. Those networks are in turn the property of men and groups of men whose interests were and are being served by the invasion and occupation and castration of Iraq.
Attaching significance to the politicians who spoke the lies, past a certain point, is complicity. It's why they're there, to take the accusations and, if necessary, fade. It's important to hold them to account for the things they've done and said, but it's vital to keep in mind that where they said it is now a part of the game. If Bush had made his case in the newspapers and magazines alone, even if he'd used his time on television to make it, without the networks it wouldn't have happened. That's who lied to the American people.
So when the networks are unanimously stressing the importance of the death and election of the Pope you can bet it's more of the same. Intentional excitement - the people look to the networks to tell them what's important, and what to feel about what's important.
The power of the Catholic Church in Latin America is much greater than it is in Europe, now. And Latin America is getting hot.
still here 01:36
28.4.05
I had a vision once, it was mountains all cold rocks and no trees, and a little path that dwindled even smaller, and a pass that was like a cleft, narrow, just enough room for the two men standing on either side and the hoop they held between them.
The hoop was a perfect circle and the color of the rainbow, a shimmering spectrum, it was alive and sort of spinning, though not in their hands which were steady, and they were calm and physically strong, like athletes, at rest but full of energy.
Stretching out down and away along the path up the mountain were all the people in the world. And each one had to go through that hoop individually to get to the other side. In the vision the other side wasn't the afterlife - it wasn't about death, it was about the future, about tomorrow, about going on.
There's a lot of talk about "moral relativism" and at the same time a lot of excusing of the past behaviors of men like Ratzinger, and it's coming from people who think of themselves as more or less at the center of things, normal, they're speaking from the heart of the big middle of being human.
What the vision seemed to be saying is that everyone who passed through would have that in common, and everyone who didn't would be gone.
Events that require cowardice and complicity in order to ensure survival create populations whose norms will eventually become complicitous and cowardly. It moves in such tiny increments it doesn't seem to move at all. But it does.
That makes the illusion - that it never changes - easier to maintain. And maintaining that illusion is a vital part of changing the human median. Because no one will worry about something happening they think can't.
still here 17:34
27.4.05
AMY GOODMAN: They say the soldiers used hand and arm signals, flashed white lights and fired warning shots to get the driver to stop.
GIULIANA SGRENA: No, they didn't. No, no. No light, no air fire, nothing at all. They were beside the road. They were not on the street. They were away ten meters, and they didn't give us any sign that they were there, so we didn't saw them before they started to shoot.
AMY GOODMAN: Did they shoot from the front or from the back?
GIULIANA SGRENA: No, on the back, not on the front. They shot on the back, because Calipari was on the back on the right and he was shot dead immediately, and I was injured on my shoulder, but I was shot by the back. So I am a proof that they were shooting on the back and not in front of the car. We can see by my injured where I was shot.
[...]
I was there when they called. They called the Italian, because there is an official that is linked to the Americans. And this Italian general spoke to the Captain Green, that is the American one, telling him that we were on this road and that they were aware that we were on that road. And this happened at least 20-25 minutes before the shooting.
[...]
I was looking around to see what the people were thinking about. And overall, I was interested in Fallujah. But when I went to interview some people from Fallujah, I was kidnapped. Some people were not interested in my story about Fallujah, I think.
[...]
I was very happy to be free. But I was happy only for 20 minutes, and then it's finished. And now I am very sad. I am very painful, I am very tired. I am very...
still here 22:07
In what is unlikely to stem the controversy surrounding disgraced White House correspondent James Guckert, the Secret Service has furnished logs of the writer's access to the White House after requests by two Democratic congressmembers.
The documents, obtained by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal Guckert had remarkable access to the White House.
[...]
Democrats have sought to paint Guckert in the context of other efforts by the Administration to "plant" positive spin by paying for video news releases and columnists to espouse their views.
Guckert made more than 200 appearances at the White House during his two-year tenure with the fledging conservative websites GOPUSA and Talon News, attending 155 of 196 White House press briefings. He had little to no previous journalism experience, previously worked as a male escort, and was refused a congressional press pass.
Perhaps more notable than the frequency of his attendance, however, is several distinct anomalies about his visits.
Guckert made more than two dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings.
12/6/04 12:37 - 1:59 (1:03-1:36)
12/8 12:07 - 1:41 (1:05-1:39)
12/10 12:32 - 1:51 (1:06-1:32)
12/13 12:18 - 1:36 (12:50-1:18)
12/14 12:46 - 1:53 (12:48-1:23)
12/17 12:16 - 1:48 (12:47-1:14)
12/20 10:05 - 11:49 (Bush press conference, 10:32-11:25)
12/21 12:00 - 2:04 (12:35-1:10)
12/22 12:04 - 1:08 (no briefing)
12/23 12:31 - 1:26 (no briefing)
still here 15:28
There may be endless speculation over the circumstances surrounding the death of Nicola Calipari. But there are two things the case has accomplished.
1) The Berlusconi government is now toeing the Bush line: there will be no negotiations to liberate any possible future Italian hostage.
2) For any independent journalists, Iraq is now the ultimate minefield. It's virtually impossible to guarantee the safety of any non-embedded journalist, so that means no independent reporting.
Once the report is officially released, absolving the US military of any wrongdoing, one can expect the matter to end there...
still here 14:57
Writing on the front page of the communist daily Il Manifesto, which sent her to Iraq, Sgrena denounced the U.S. conclusions of no-blame as a "slap" for Berlusconi.
Rome prosecutors, who are conducting their own probe, have been waiting for the end of the U.S-Italian probe to inspect the car, which was expected to be flown to Italy later Tuesday aboard an Italian air force plane.
"It's enough to see the car," Sgrena wrote in Il Manifesto. "The front windshield is intact, while the side windows and the one behind are shattered."
Marla Ruzicka was killed in Baghdad while travelling along the Baghdad Airport road.
By a bomb. So there's no need for a probe.
She was killed on the Baghdad Airport road one week after she forced American military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces.
She wrote a letter to the editor of the NYTimes that was printed February 5th:
Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis's comments during a speech in San Diego, remarking that "it's fun to shoot some people," in reference to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are appalling. At a time when the United States military is trying to win hearts and minds in both countries, and when Iraqis think that American forces are trigger-happy, his words are counterproductive. For our troops who are dying every day, making war sound like a sport is beyond distasteful.
General Mattis was defended by Gen. Michael W. Hagee, who said that "he intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war." From living in Afghanistan and Iraq for much of the last three years, assisting noncombatants harmed in the crossfire, I find that General Mattis's comments do not represent what it is like to lose a loved one or a home. For a parent in the United States who lost a brave young son or daughter, his words are far from comforting.
I have worked with many of our servicemen who have helped me assist innocent civilians injured accidentally by American forces. It is not fair that their acts of kindness and care are misrepresented by General Mattis's undignified remarks.
still here 02:03
26.4.05
"If you can't shut people up, and you really don't want their voices heard, then all you can do is try to persuade others not to listen to them or give them a platform. The easiest way to do this is to falsely accuse them of racism or Communism, or some other character flaw unacceptable to polite society."
still here 21:55
25.4.05
23.4.05
The natural horror at blood, and it may be the consequent dislike of red, is common among mankind; but I have seen a well-dressed child of about four years old poking its finger with a pleased innocent look into the bleeding carcase of a sheep hung up in a butcher's shop, while its nurse was inside. The subject of character deserves more statistical investigation than it has yet received, and none have a better chance of doing it well than schoolmasters; their opportunities are indeed most enviable. It would be necessary to approach the subject wholly without prejudice, as a pure matter of observation, just as if the children were the fauna and flora of hitherto undescribed species in an entirely new land.
CRIMINALS AND THE INSANE
Criminality, though not very various in its development, is extremely complex in its origin; nevertheless certain general conclusions are arrived at by the best writers on the subject, among whom Prosper Despine is one of the most instructive.
The ideal criminal has marked peculiarities of character: his conscience is almost deficient, his instincts are vicious, his power of self-control is very weak, and he usually detests continuous labour. The absence of self-control is due to ungovernable temper, to passion, or to mere imbecility, and the conditions that determine the particular description of crime are the, character of the instincts and of the temptation.
The deficiency of conscience in criminals, as shown by the absence of genuine remorse for their guilt, astonishes all who first become familiar with the details of prison life. Scenes of heartrending despair are hardly ever witnessed among prisoners; their sleep is broken by no uneasy dreams - on the contrary, it is easy and sound; they have also excellent appetites. But hypocrisy is a very common vice; and all my information agrees as to the utter untruthfulness of criminals, however plausible their statements may be.
We must guard ourselves against looking upon vicious instincts as perversions, inasmuch as they may be strictly in accordance with the healthy nature of the man, and, being transmissible by inheritance, may become the normal characteristics of a healthy race, just as the sheep-dog, the retriever, the pointer, and the bull-dog, have their several instincts.
There can be no greater popular error than the supposition that natural instinct is a perfectly trustworthy guide, for there are striking contradictions to such an opinion in individuals of every description of animal. The most that we are entitled to say in any case is, that the prevalent instincts of each race are trustworthy, not those of every individual. But even this is saying too much, because when the conditions under which the race is living have recently been changed, some instincts which were adapted to the old state of things are sure to be fallacious guides to conduct in the new one.
A man who is counted as an atrocious criminal in England, and is punished as such by English law in social self-defence, may nevertheless have acted in strict accordance with instincts that are laudable in less civilised societies.
The ideal criminal is, unhappily for him, deficient in qualities that are capable of restraining his unkindly or inconvenient instincts; he has neither sympathy for others nor the sense of duty, both of which lie at the base of conscience; nor has he sufficient self-control to accommodate himself to the society in which he has to live, and so to promote his own selfish interests in the long-run.
He cannot be preserved from criminal misadventure, either by altruistic sentiments or by intelligently egoistic ones. The perpetuation of the criminal class by heredity is a question difficult to grapple with on many accounts. Their vagrant habits, their illegitimate unions, and extreme untruthfulness, are among the difficulties of the investigation.
It is, however, easy to show that the criminal nature tends to be inherited; while, on the other hand, it is impossible that women who spend a large portion of the best years of their life in prison can contribute many children to the population.
The true state of the case appears to be that the criminal population receives steady accessions from those who, without having strongly-marked criminal natures, do nevertheless belong to a type of humanity that is exceedingly ill suited to play a respectable part in our modern civilisation, though it is well suited to flourish under half-savage conditions, being naturally both healthy and prolific.
These persons are apt to go to the bad; their daughters consort with criminals and become the parents of criminals.
An extraordinary example of this is afforded by the history of the infamous Jukes family in America, whose pedigree has been made out, with extraordinary care, during no less than seven generations, and is the subject of an elaborate memoir printed in the Thirty-first Annual Report of the Prison Association of New York, 1876. It includes no less than 540 individuals of Jukes blood, of whom a frightful number degraded into criminality, pauperism, or disease. It is difficult to summarise the results in a few plain figures, but I will state those respecting the fifth generation, through the eldest of the five prolific daughters of the man who is the common ancestor of the race. The total number of these was 123, of whom thirty-eight came through an illegitimate granddaughter, and eighty-five through legitimate grandchildren.
Out of the thirty-eight, sixteen have been in jail, six of them for heinous offences, one of these having been committed no less than nine times; eleven others led openly disreputable lives or were paupers; four were notoriously intemperate; the history of three had not been traced, and only four are known to have done well. The great majority of the women consorted with criminals.
As to the eighty-five legitimate descendants, they were less flagrantly bad, for only five of them had been in jail, and only thirteen others had been paupers.
Now the ancestor of all this mischief, who was born about the year 1730, 15 described as having been a jolly companionable man, a hunter, and a fisher, averse to steady labour, but working hard and idling by turns, and who had numerous illegitimate children, whose issue has not been traced. He was, in fact, a somewhat good specimen of a half-savage, without any seriously criminal instincts.
The girls were apparently attractive, marrying early and sometimes not badly; but the gipsy-like character of the race was unsuited to success in a civilised country. So the descendants went to the bad, and such hereditary moral weaknesses as they may have had, rose to the surface and worked their mischief without check. Cohabiting with criminals, and being extremely prolific, the result was the production of a stock exceeding 500 in number, of a prevalent criminal type.
Through disease and intemperance the breed is now rapidly diminishing; the infant mortality has of late been horrible, but fortunately the women of the present generation bear usually but few children, and many of them are altogether childless.
from Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development 1883-
by Francis GaltonVictorian polymath: geographer, meteorologist, tropical explorer, founder of differential psychology, inventor of fingerprint identification, pioneer of statistical correlation and regression, convinced hereditarian, eugenicist, proto-geneticist, half-cousin of Charles Darwin and best-selling author.
text also at Gutenberg ebooks
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link path - purse lip square jaw 22.Apr.05
PLSJ is Anne Galloway
still here 18:20
"Call me paranoid, but given all the manipulative tricks the Republicans have gotten up to recently, I am prepared to believe that this has less to do with Homeland security and more to do with keeping the American public ignorant and free of foreign influence and inspiration. An ill-informed, isolated, ignorant populace is a populace easily manipulated. Fed a diet of reality shows coupled with faith-based reasoning (an oxymoron if ever there was one) and you have a perfect recipe for a country in which the government that can do more or less whatever it wants. Democracy becomes a farce without access to information. And culture - music, theater, dance, etc. - is information for the heart.
[...]
These writer reporter guys at this dinner party exchange amazing stories - that the U.S.-installed president of Afghanistan is a well known pederast (he likes young boys), for example... but everyone is loathe to put that in print. I was sort of mystified - why not print it? The explanation seemed to be that it's not unusual over there and it deflects attention from whether or not he's actually doing anything about pulling that country together, which is deemed a more important issue.
Hmmm. I see."
still here 01:15
22.4.05
The police commandos have been supplying suspects who confess their crimes on the TV show, "Terrorism in the Hands of Justice." Described as the Iraqi government's "slick new propaganda tool," the program runs six nights a week on the Iraqiya network, which was set up by the Pentagon and is now run by Australian-based Harris Corp. (a major U.S. government contractor that gave 96 percent of its political funding, more than $260,000, to Republicans in 2004). According to the Boston Globe, camera crews are sent "wherever police commandos make a lot of arrests."
The show features an unseen interrogator haranguing alleged insurgents for confessions. Virtually every press account notes that the suspects appear to have been beaten or tortured, their faces bruised and swollen. The London Guardian states "some have. robotic manners of those beaten and coached by police interrogators off-camera." The Boston Globe observed, "The neat confessions of terrorist attacks at times fit together so seamlessly as to seem implausible." And then there's the nature of the confessions. Many suspects admit to "drunkeness, gay orgies and pornography," according to the Guardian. The Financial Times reported that, "One long-bearded preacher known as Abu Tabarek recently confessed that guerrillas had usually held orgies in his mosques." Another preacher giving a confession says he was fired for "having sex with men in the mosque," the Globe account stated that suspects "frequently admit to rape and pedophilia."
still here 22:54
The NCTC is not exactly there to undermine the White House. On the contrary. It operates under the "direction and control" of the new director of central intelligence, Porter Goss, an extremely close Bush ally. Goss would have something to say about terrorism himself, as he was having breakfast on the morning of September 11, 2001, with Mahmud Ahmad, then director of the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence, and the author of a wire transfer to one of the September 11 masterminds.
still here 22:28
"Cardinal [Pope Benedict XVI] Ratzinger is an ape. He is driven by oh-so-typical ape motivations, the desire for dominance, the need to control the reproductive behavior of other members of his clan, the back-and-forth of social feedback. His brain contains circuits of reward and punishment we can find in rats. His neurotransmitters and the signaling cascades that modulate his neuronal activity are present in worms. The ion channels that mediate transmembrane potentials are inherited from single-celled eukaryotes. The machinery of his cells can be mapped back billions of years. I suspect that troop of primates dwelling in the Vatican could learn a great deal from the objective eye of a primatologist.PZMyers/Pharyngula 20.Apr.05
Who has the more sophisticated understanding of human nature: the man who thinks he can squeeze our history into a span of a few thousand years and the isolated vision of a single species and worse, the limited traditions of a single culture, or the one who aspires to comprehend the full breadth and depth of our place in the universe?"
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This is a good beginning for a big disgorge on Ratzinger, the papal election and things generally, that's backed up in the alimentary and making me feel a little queasy.
Not now, but above, soon.
Only to say here and now that maybe Myers isn't seeing all of what's there, because it's more comforting to see Ratzinger/Benedict as unaware of his primate nature; it makes him seem less capable and blunts the threat of his dominant posturing.
But maybe Myers doesn't go back far enough in his reminding, maybe Ratzinger/Benedict is not just an ape, maybe he's moving through a big buzzing hive, wings folded like a minor queen, glistening with the grooming attention of the drones; maybe there's something insectile going on here - and maybe that's way more scary and far less familiar than mammalian intimidation display.
Myers' scale of values and attainment puts the pragmatic realists ahead of the delusional fantasists, with their "spiritual" mumbo-jumbo - but what if that mumbo-jumbo's just cohesive noise, camoflage and diversion?
What if what's coming next isn't predictable based on a template we already have? What if Ratzinger/Benedict is delivering the mass of his congregation and the wealth of his institution to a new creature whose roots are in what we term lies, but in reality isn't dishonesty but camoflage?
Camoflage is not a biological sin, lying is not a biological sin - the only biological sin is extinction. One of the most effective augmentations for camoflage is the confidence the observer has in what he seems to be seeing.
still here 16:12
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