23 Sept 2010

Most Amazing Street Art

streetart

Graffiti artist El Mac brings the streets to life with his most amazing murals. From the urban scenes of the USA to Canada, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Amsterdam, Switzerland and recently in far-east places like Vietnam and Singapore, El Mac has made his mark and I’m sure people are happier for it. Like-minded artist Retna sometimes joins El Mac on his adventures. Have a look at some of his and their combined work on Onelargeprawn

Illuminati Add

TheKilluminati786

16 Sept 2010

Israeli Army warns not to 'leak' photos that they treat Palestinians like the scum of the Earth

They must not 'leak' photos of torture or posing with dead Palestinians especially on Facebook. The World must not know what the Israeli Army is doing to them.

COINTELPRO: FBI's War On Black America

An informative film on the FBI's COINTELPRO conspiracy to kill major black leaders in the 1960s and early 1970s.

12 Sept 2010

Fallen Art

Dir: Tomek Baginski / Poland / 2005

In an old forgotten military base far from civilization, a group of deranged military officers nurture their insanity.

More here

10 Sept 2010

Peter & The Wolf by Prokofiev

West Memphis 3 Draw Celebrity Support

West Memphis 3 Draw Celebrity Support: In 1993, three young men were convicted of murdering three Cub Scouts in Arkansas. Now stars such as Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines are rallying to the cause of the incarcerated men and calling for new evidence to get a hearing. “We’ve got evidence that even in the last two, three years that we believe will exonerate these kids,” Vedder told CNN. The case has been the subject of several books and documentaries, including the 1996 movie “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.” You can see a video from the CNN segment here.

More on WSJ or freewestmemphis3.org

Who are you? Where do you come from? Where are you going when this is over?

Part 2 - David Icke Website

Fort Gay, WV man suspended from Xbox Live for use of the word 'gay'

Josh Moore lives in Fort Gay, West Virginia, a town of about 800 people. He listed his location in his Xbox Live profile, and for doing so was accused of violating the Xbox Live Code of Conduct. His account was suspended and the word 'Gay' was removed from his profile. When Moore contacted Xbox Live customer support to sort out what was clearly a misunderstanding, he was rebuffed, then threatened with a permanent ban to his (paid for) account if he dared put the name of his town back into his profile. Moore suggested the Microsoft employee he was speaking to could google his zip code for proof that Fort Gay was the name of a town, but he was told nothing could be done.

fortgay

According to the CBS News post on the story, Moore went as far as enlisting the mayor of Fort Gay on his behalf, but the mayor had no more luck than he did:

Mayor David Thompson also tried to intervene, but with little success. He told television station WSAZ, which first reported the dispute, that he was informed the city's name didn't matter. The word "gay," he was told, was inappropriate in any context.

"It was so inappropriate for them, they wouldn't even say the word," Thompson told the AP Wednesday. "They said, 'that word.' It's beyond me. That's the name of our town! It's appalling. It's a slap in our face."

Eventually Stephen "Stepto" Toulouse, director of policy and enforcement for Xbox Live, stepped in and got the suspension lifted, and said he would apologize to Mr. Moore. Fair enough, I guess. But I do wonder how Moore would've gotten this overturned if he hadn't had a television news station reporting the story.

More on ITworld

9 Sept 2010

Activist Chen Guangcheng Released after Serving Full Sentence

Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚), a well-known human rights activist and “barefoot lawyer,” was released today from Linyi Prison in Shandong Province after serving his full term of four years and three months of imprisonment. Convicted in 2006 of “intentionally damaging property and gathering crowds to disturb transport order,” Chen was jailed for his work exposing local authorities’ use of violence against villagers during official family planning campaigns.

chen

Chen (who is blind) was sent home directly by prison authorities at around 6 this morning. According to his friends and supporters, following his release, Chen stated, “I have not changed at all…I want to thank all the friends who have been concerned about me.” While he appears to be in good spirits, Chen is in poor health: he looks weak and thin, and is still ill from chronic gastroenteritis. Chen has suffered from this illness since July 2008, and was not provided with adequate treatment while imprisoned. He was also beaten by fellow inmates on at least one occasion.

In the days leading up to Chen’s release, his wife, fellow human rights defender Yuan Weijing (袁伟静), was tightly monitored by local officials. Plainclothes policemen appeared outside her door and followed her whenever she left her home and on occasion prevented her from going out.

More on Chinese Human Rights Defenders

Also see: China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group - 中國維權律師關注組

Invisible Empire - A New World Order Defined

8 Sept 2010

Book claims Churchill deliberately let millions of Indians starve to death

British prime minister Winston Churchill deliberately let millions of Indians starve to death, the author of a new book has claimed, alleging he was motivated in part by racial hatred.

churchill

As many as three million people died in the Bengal famine of 1943 after Japan captured neighbouring Burma -- a major source of rice imports -- and British colonial rulers in India stockpiled food for soldiers and war workers.

Panic-buying of rice sent prices soaring, and distribution channels were wrecked when officials confiscated or destroyed most boats and bullock carts in Bengal to stop them falling into enemy hands if Japan invaded.

Rice suddenly became scarce in markets and, as worsening hunger spread through villages, Churchill repeatedly refused pleas for emergency food shipments.

Emaciated masses drifted into Kolkata, where eye-witnesses described men fighting over foul scraps and skeletal mothers dying in the streets as British and middle-class Indians ate large meals in their clubs or at home.

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The "man-made" famine has long been one of the darkest chapters of the British Raj, but now Madhusree Mukerjee says she has uncovered evidence that Churchill was directly responsible for the appalling suffering.

Her book, "Churchill's Secret War", quotes previously unused papers that disprove his claim that no ships could be spared from the war and that show him brushing aside increasingly desperate requests from British officials in India.

Full article on Raw Story

Culture Of Imperialism

Noam Chomsky

Chariots of the gods - Mexico

Von Daniken's 1968 best seller, Chariots of the Gods, claimed that ancient civilizations from Mexico to China were visited by a space-faring race. His Maya astronaut was presented as a critical piece of evidence, the smoking gun that proved his theories: Here, he claimed, was a graphic image of an ancient astronaut, looking very like John Glenn lying in the Mercury capsule that took him into orbit in 1962.

UN 'failed' DR Congo rape victims

UN troops failed 242 women and children who suffered a mass rape attack in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a top UN peacekeeping official has said.

Congo hosts the largest and most costly UN peacekeeping mission in the world, but the mass rape attacks happened just 30km from a UN base some time between July 30 and August 3 in the North Kivu region.

"Our actions were not adequate, resulting in the unacceptable brutalisation of villages in the area," Atul Khare, under-secretary general for peacekeeping operations, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

un

He said that government of the DRC holds the primary responsibility for security in the area, but acknowledged that "Clearly, we have also failed".

The area was reportedly over-run by rebels from neighbouring Rwanda and Congolese Mai Mai militia.

On July 30, the day the rapes began, the UN mission in North Kivu apparently received an e-mail warning that rebels had moved into the town and one woman had been raped there.

But the UN did not report it until ten days later.

Al Jazeera

7 Sept 2010

Operation Ajax - Iran and the CIA coup

American CIA and British MI6 draw up Operation Ajax. A secret plan to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq in order to secure their oil interests and contain Soviet influence.

Part 2

How Advertisers Use The “Religion of Death” to Brainwash Us

This is a shocking example of how advertisers use the “religion of death” to brainwash us, and how they laugh about how easily we are manipulated. I expose some of the leaked ad training manual. This includes color illustrations and photos detailing the HELL-SELL method of advertising. This explains some of the Satan/Death subliminal embeds in advertisements.

Lost Treasures Online

The Extraordinary Tale of Red Rain, Comets and Extraterrestrials

For years, claims have circulated that red rain which fell in India in 2001, contained cells unlike any found on Earth. Now new evidence that these cells can reproduce is about to set the debate alive

Panspermia is the idea that life exists throughout the universe in comets, asteroids and interstellar dust clouds and that life of Earth was seeded from one or more of these sources. Panspermia holds that we are all extraterrestrials.

In 2001, numerous people observed red rain falling over Kerala in the southern tip of India during a two month period. One of them was Godfrey Louis, a physicist at nearby Cochin University of Science and Technology. Intrigued by this phenomena, Louis collected numerous samples of red rain, determined to find out what was causing the contamination, perhaps sand or dust from some distant desert.

Red_rain_Kerala_optical_microscope

Under a microscope, however, he found no evidence of sand or dust. Instead, the rain water was filled with red cells that look remarkably like conventional bugs on Earth. What was strange was that Louis found no evidence of DNA in these cells which would rule out most kinds of known biological cells (red blood cells are one possibility but ought to be destroyed quickly by rain water).

Louis published his results in the peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space in 2006, along with the tentative suggestion that the cells could be extraterrestrial, perhaps from a comet that had disintegrated in the upper atmosphere and then seeded clouds as the cells floated down to Earth. In fact, Louis says there were reports in the region of a sonic boom-type noise at the time, which could have been caused by the disintegration of an object in the upper atmosphere.

Much more at arXiv blog on Technology Review

Prince Harry faces animal cruelty claim over polo pony's stab wound

harry 1

Prince Harry was accused of animal cruelty yesterday after his horse suffered a bloody injury during a polo match.

He was photographed riding a pony that appeared to have been stabbed in the flank by his spurs.

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An onlooker claimed that the 25-year-old prince continued to ride his horse while blood was visible on its flank, but St James’s Palace said he stopped playing as soon as the injury was spotted.

Animal welfare groups accused Harry of being ‘heartless’.

More on Mail Online

6 Sept 2010

Despite formal combat end, US joins Baghdad battle

Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.

It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.

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The attack also made plain the kind of lapses in security that have left Iraqis wary of the U.S. drawdown and distrustful of the ability of Iraqi forces now taking up ultimate responsibility for protecting the country.

Sunday's hour-long assault was the second in as many weeks on the facility, the headquarters for the Iraqi Army's 11th Division, pointing to the failure of Iraqi forces to plug even the most obvious holes in their security.

My Way News

Subliminal Sex Messages and Pornography in Advertising and Cartoons

Subliminal perception is a deliberate process created by communication technicians, whereby you receive and respond to information and instructions without being aware of it. Messages in the form of printed words, pictures or voices presented either very rapidly or very obscurely bypass your conscious awareness. Anything consciously perceived can be evaluated, criticized, discussed, argued, and possibly rejected. Anything programmed subliminally to your subconsciousness meets no resistance. This subliminal information is stored in your brain and capable of influencing your judgment, behavior and attitudes.

More on Subliminal Manipulation

China needs anti-ship missile against US in the Western Pacific

China's anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBP), known as the "carrier killer," is close to operational, said the commander of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Robert Willard, in Tokyo recently. While US aircraft carriers appear more active in China's offshore waters, concern over China's ASBP is rising in the West.

China has never pursued a policy of confrontation with other world powers, including the US. However, it does need a strategic deterrence. In a bid to protect its own strategic interests, China should not only build its anti-ship missile capacity, but also possess a range of other carrier-destroying measures as well.

China-Warship-Missile-Launch

For quite some time the intelligence agencies in the US and other Western countries have conjectured over China's anti-ship missile capacity. China ought to convince the international community of its reliable carrier-killing capacity as soon as possible to end the speculation. Such capacity is necessary for an emerging power, and it is necessary infrastructure for China's military modernization.

Since US aircraft carrier battle groups in the Pacific constitute deterrence against China's strategic interests, China has to possess the capacity to counterbalance.

Such capacity could inhibit US thoughts of keeping China in check through aircraft carriers, and therefore greatly reduce the possibility of confrontation between the People's Liberation Army and US military forces in the Western Pacific.

While developing its anti-ship missile capacity, China should also let Westerners know under what circumstances will such weaponry be used.

GlobalTimes - AFP

Keeping the faith: how bleak is the future for Catholicism?

In Nigeria, Archbishop Matthew Ndagosa of Kaduna, looks out on a horizon that would dazzle his Western counterparts. "The churches are full. Young people go to church. And we have the world's largest seminary, in Enugu," he says, adding that the doctrines that cause Catholicism problems in the rich world strengthen its appeal in countries like Nigeria. "In our tradition, morals are very strong. The strong rulings – on abortion, condoms, homosexuality, etcetera – in the Catholic church are a natural match."

pope

Africa's experience highlights several points that are at risk of being obscured in the controversy surrounding Pope Benedict's visit to an increasingly secular Britain. One is that, while Western Europeans may be abandoning religion, the rest of the globe is not. Muslims are not exactly turning away from Allah. The United States remains deeply religious. Millions of people in formerly communist Eastern Europe have re-embraced Orthodox Christianity. And in many parts of Asia, an emergent middle class is finding in organised religion a spiritual counterweight for its new-found wealth (and perhaps too a badge of social respectability).

According to the World Christian Database, the proportion of the planet's population professing one or other of its four biggest faiths (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism) rose steeply in the mid-1970s and has been climbing rapidly ever since. By 2005, the figure was 73%.

Full story on The Guardian

5 Sept 2010

Chinese police

California man tased repeatedly in own home for refusing hospital visit he can’t afford

A 911 call for help after a fall ended with a 64-year-old cancer survivor getting Tased three times by police in his California home, an action his attorney said could have killed him.


(some 5 minutes into the clip)

Marin County sheriff's deputies turned a Taser on Peter McFarland when he refused to go to the hospital and allegedly became belligerent.

"These are deadly weapons, and he had a heart condition," McFarland's attorney, John Scott, told "Good Morning America." " He could have easily been killed here."

McFarland can be seen screaming in agony on a police video, lying on the floor as the officers pumped high-powered volts of electricity into his back.

More on ABC News

US veterans should voluntarily give up their disability benefits to help reduce the deficit

The Young Turks

4 Sept 2010

Morrissey reignites racism row by calling Chinese a 'subspecies'

For almost three decades, indie rock icon Morrissey has made almost as many enemies as devoted fans willing to hang on his every melancholy-drenched lyric. Described by one high court judge as "devious, truculent and unreliable", the former Smiths frontman is no stranger to controversy and criticism. But tomorrow he reignites a simmering row about his views on race in an interview in Guardian Weekend magazine, in which he describes Chinese people as a "subspecies" because of their treatment of animals.

jesuismorrissey

Morrissey, a vegetarian and animal rights advocate who last year abandoned the stage at the Coachella festival in California because of the smell of cooking meat, described the treatment of animals in China as "absolutely horrific", referring to recent news stories about animals in Chinese circuses and zoos. He told interviewer Simon Armitage: "Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare? Absolutely horrific. You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies."

The Guardian

Arizona Governor's Shocker Becomes Internet Hit

After a painful performance on a televised political debate, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer says she had never wanted to take part in the first place.

Now we - along with millions of internet users around the world - know why.

The controversial Republican's performance in a debate with gubernatorial rivals has become a cringe-worthy hit and a source of glee to her political opponents.

It will probably go down as one of the most painful openings to a political debate in recent memory.

Sky News

There Is No 'Ground Zero Mosque'

Keith Olbermann Special Comment

“They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

Martin Niemöller (more about the quotation)

Editor of opposition Belarusian website found dead

A popular opposition website in authoritarian Belarus says its editor was found dead amid an ongoing crackdown on government critics and independent media.

oleg-bebenin

Natalya Radina of the Charter97 website said 36-year-old Oleg Bebenin's body was found Friday in his country house outside the capital, Minsk. She says the cause of death was not immediately clear.

Police refused to comment.

Bebenin founded the website in 1998 and maintained it despite growing official pressure.

Lukashenko

Run by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, Belarus has been labeled Europe's last dictatorship. Television and most print media are state-controlled, and many independent newspapers ordered closed have taken refuge in cyberspace.

The Associated PressCharter ‘97

3 Sept 2010

7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction

Investigative documentary 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction, which examines some of the questions and conspiracy theories about 7/7, the July 7th 2005 London Bombings.

Secret Space

 

2 Sept 2010

Vladimir Putin to drive 1,300 miles across Russia in Lada

He has been pictured fighting fires, shooting whales with a crossbow and piloting a fire fighting plane. His latest endeavour is a slight departure from his usual macho pursuits.

The Russian Prime Minister is undertaking a 1,300-mile road trip across Russia's far east in a humble Lada. (does he? See the video… he he he…)

His journey is designed to showcase the completion of the country's first ever continuous east to west road.

His schedule has fuelled speculation that the 57-year old former KGB spy is out to boost his action man image ahead of a presidential election in 2012 though he has yet to confirm whether he will run for what would be his third term in the Kremlin.

Telegraph

BEHIND MEXICO'S BLOODSHED

While free trade wiped out Mexico's traditional agriculture, the drug cartels moved in.

The Real News

God did not create the universe, says Hawking

God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book.

In "The Grand Design," co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant, according to the Times newspaper which published extracts on Thursday.

stephen-hawking

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," Hawking writes.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

Hawking, 68, who won global recognition with his 1988 book "A Brief History of Time," an account of the origins of the universe, is renowned for his work on black holes, cosmology and quantum gravity.

More on CNBC

See MC Hawking here

Spy satellite use in the U.S.

1 Sept 2010

Orwellian DoubleThink: Rights are Privileges

Rights are Privileges (Freedom is Slavery): The primary duty of all public officials is to protect the rights of citizens as defined in the Constitution, where they shall not make or enforce any laws that violate those rights.  In fact, the "checks and balances" were put in place to assure that rights of citizens are not being trampled by one branch of the government. After 9-11, President Bush and other public officials proclaimed that their most important job was protecting the safety of the American people, which basically put an end to our rights coming first.

placa-de-george-orwell1
If the corporate-government fear campaign fails to scare the rights away from citizens, they try to convince the public that rights are now privileges and charge a fee or a tax for the "right" to engage in a certain activity. 
See a few recent examples where rights are eroding into privileges on Activist Post

Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons

knor

Cox & Forkum Website

Thousands Of Federal Police Fired In Mexico

UK government terror strategy 'fuels mistrust'

Secrecy surrounding counter-terrorism operations is fuelling mistrust of authorities, a study by independent think tank Demos suggests. It urges the government and secret services to be more open to stop extremist groups using conspiracy theories to discredit them.

alu

The study calls for greater communication with trusted community leaders and individuals. The report - entitled the Power of Unreason - says groups use conspiracy theories to recruit and radicalise people to commit acts of violence.

An example of one such theory is that the bombings in New York and London, on 11 September 2001 and 7 July 2005 respectively, were "inside jobs" carried out by authorities in the US and UK. Other theories highlighted were that "freemasons control the world economy through manipulation of paper currency", that the UK government is "consciously seeking to destroy Islam" and that a "conspiracy between the Japanese government, the US, and the Jews existed to gain world domination".

Jamie Bartlett, an extremism expert at Demos, said: "Clearly, there are occasions when more transparency is not possible for reasons of national security, the safety of certain individuals, or resource constraints. But the degree to which conspiracy theories make up part of the extremist mind-set and world view suggests it needs to be confronted."

He said such theories "destroy the trust that exists between the government and communities, which is the basis of effective counter-terrorism work".

BBC News