One of the most poignant and insightful essays on the true nature of war ever written was penned by retired Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler. With a name like that, you have two options in life: be beaten to death in the schoolyard before your tenth birthday, or become a man’s man Marine. Smedley Darlington Butler opted for the latter.
Highly decorated, highly respected, this was not a man easily led by folly. Also not a man easily swayed by public opinion and fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Butler’s essay entitled War is a Racket makes a strong case against war. Whether you’re a neo-peacenik opposed to US foreign policy or a newly developed hawk supporting the Bush government all the way, you need to read what Butler had to say many, many years ago.
The basic premise of almost all illusions performed by stage magicians (and charlatans like Uri Geller) is that the obvious actions are made to happen with one hand (like overblown flourishes of waving silk), while the important actions are performed by the other hand. You’re watching spot A because Uri told you to, while in actual fact the trick is performed in spot B. This is a process known as misdirection.
Misdirection is also a very important trick in the political world. While the public eye (and mind) is occupied elsewhere, politicians seize on this to perform deeds they would not have been able to get away with otherwise. TomPaine.com have collected a few choice news articles from around the United States to show what the American Government have been up to while their electorate sit at home watching CNN.
As we Americans sit glued to images of bombs falling on Baghdad, we should also be keeping one eye on Washington. In the past when this country has gone to war, legislation has slowed to a trickle as lawmakers wait out the storm. But this time around, the Bush administration and the GOP Congress have teamed up to ram through some of the most potentially destructive legislation we’ve seen in decades. And they’re hoping Americans will be too fixated on the Middle East to notice.
So take notice, citizens of America. Take notice, and ask yourselves: come next election day, what am I going to do about this?
Cheech & Chong-wise, that is. The long-awaited Belgian legislation allowing for personal use of soft drugs was passed by the Senate last week. Ending up with that odd gram of cannabis in your pocket, as one does, should not result in criminal charges any more. This only goes for quantities of less than five grams, and only as long as it constitutes “non-problematic” use.
Unfortunately the government stopped short of allowing for the legal sale of cannabis (such as on the Dutch coffee shop model), which means occasional users (many still teenagers) will still have to deal with the murky world of organised crime. Naturally soft drugs are not the only things these people sell, making it so much easier for occasional cannabis users to get hooked on something stronger and more destructive.
An X-ray of US President George Bush, revealing what you might have
expected. A very scary guy on the inside.
www.gradis.net
An interesting story that’s been doing the rounds: 44-year-old Andrew Carlssin from New York turned $800 into a portfolio valued at $350 million in just two weeks. Over the course of 126 high-risk trades he didn’t lose out once. The Security and Exchange Commission naturally grabbed him on charges of insider trading, but he has a much more interesting explanation: he’s a time traveller from the year 2256. Logic says he’s not, of course. But logic also says it’s highly unlikely for him to be lucky for 126 consecutive high-risk investments. Insider trading on one or two companies can be a frequent occurrence, but how many people know the ins-and-outs of more than a hundred different companies, well enough to risk these kinds of investments? Assuming that he’s not the time traveller he claims to be, this is still a pretty interesting mystery.
Update: Snopes declare this particular urban legend to be false (duh).
Who says you can’t teach an old browser new tricks? A neat trick for jaded surfers, take a look: www.waxy.org
Some people are having a paranoia party. And yes, you’re invited.
There isn’t much I need to say about this article in the Guardian. It’s Richard Dawkins. If you don’t know who he is, you should. If you do, you probably respect his intellect and insight, whether you agree with him or not. (To the few troublemakers calling him the evil spawn of Satan, you probably also belong to the crowd claiming the Devil planted fossils to confuse good Christians.)
”...in 2004 Bush may actually win an election. Who can guess what that swaggering, strutting little pouter-pigeon will then get up to, and what resentments he will arouse, when he finally has something to swagger about?”
“My American friends, you know I love your country, how have we come to this?”
How have we come to this, indeed…
The Belgian Government’s testing of new electronic identity cards kicks off this month. The ambitious (not to mention expensive) scheme promises much, but will it deliver? And what does increased identifiability mean in a world of increased surveillance and decreasing privacy rights? Should I, as taxpayer, be paying for the Government to be able to keep better tabs on me?
According to a Government spokesman quoted in Expatica.com, the new cards will enable holders “to fill in tax returns, pay social security and vote from the comfort of [an] armchair”. But I can already fill in my tax return from my armchair, albeit with pen and paper. (Yes, I have to mail it as well.) And social security payments aren’t exactly strenious, just painful. Voting from my armchair, lastly, opens up a particularly smelly kettle of fish. If the closest members of my family get a hold of my card and (presumed) password, that means they can vote for me. Great if I get tired of deciding things for myself, pretty bad if I still do the traditional independent thinking thing.
The electronic ID card sounds suspiciously like a modern idea that was lunged upon by officials after seeing a flashy corporate presentation. The people behind this idea will be making a lot of money (and let’s emphasize lot here), and the chumps left holding the bill will be the taxpayers in Belgium.
A troop of loonies claim to be able to draw a hexagram on a map of the United States that connects various school shootings and disasters. “And, remember that the key northern intersection is in Hope, Arkansas, clearly telling us that this entire episode begins and ends with President Clinton.” These and other shocking details now being mocked at SkepticNews.com…
www.skepticnews.com
Despite there being no link between Saddam Hussein and the attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, the White House persists in using the one as propagande tool for the other. The Christian Science Monitor reports that “the White House appears to be encouraging this false impression, as it seeks to maintain American support for a possible war against Iraq and demonstrate seriousness of purpose to Hussein’s regime”. This is a clearly a very dangerous game to play, and the effectiveness of the strategy depends on the gullibility of the American public. Apart from the ethical dilemma involved in abusing an international tragedy—in which thousands of innocent lives where lost—for political propaganda, it is unacceptible for an American administration to mislead the American public in this way. Let us hope Abraham Lincoln was correct in his famous quote: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”
Gibberish of the day:
I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose, “You disarm, or we will.”
No marks for guessing the US politician quoted here…
An opinion piece in the New York Times, written by Paul Krugman, is being widely linked to in the Blogging community—currently among the twenty most popular articles. What makes this exceptional is that Mr. Krugman is questioning the wisdom of an American attack on Iraq, and the ability of George W. Bush and his gang of insiders to make informed decisions. This would appear to be another sign that American public opinion is shifting to an anti-war, anti-Bush attitude.
So you know how to land a plane? Jump off a building into a dumpster? Wrestle an alligator? Fend off a shark? Sure you do, doesn’t everyone on the Net? But do you know how to determine the gender of your date? Or how to get out of a date once the lovely girl with the big hands turn out to be packing more than you bargained for? All these scenarios are covered by WorstCaseScenarios.com. Can you afford not to go?
Final proof that some US Government officials are on drugs comes courtesy of the CIA. The nasty piece of clipart that can be seen on this page on the CIA website clearly shows that these people are incapable of navigating the intricacies of modern graphic art (or copyright law), so let’s not mention the intricacies of intelligence and anti-terrorist campaigns. Or perhaps it’s simply a very smart trick to lull the terrorist crowd into a false sense of security? Who came up with this, and why are they still employed?
