It has been a most pleasant summer for me in my first year of retirement from the workaday world.
Travel, boating, naps, gardening, reading, and indolence have interfered with my posting here. But perhaps things will change.

Yesterday Vyzygoth hosted Gordon Comstock and myself in a roundtable discussion of Huxley, Orwell, the future, the past, and prognostication.

Listen to it here http://www.vyzygothraw.com/audio/huxwell.mp3

Image via WikipediaJapan considering Tepco breakup: report - MarketWatch

Nationalizing nuclear power is an outstanding idea, if only because nuclear power is always unprofitable business. Why not remove the entitled element  that expects to profit from the undertaking? If you believe that nuclear power is an efficient, useful and safe method of energy generation you are a rare bird. The nuclear industry itself doesn't believe this, else they would not seek government protections from indemnity and government subsidies and assistance at every level of operation. In fact, nuclear power as practiced today is an array of Rube Goldberg contraptions waiting to break down and spew deadly long-lasting human and environment killing poison over extensive areas.

Government should nationalize this beast if only to safely terminate it.

"My ass contemplates those who talk behind my back."- Francis Picabia

JB in Firenze wearing an SEG

My Conversation with Vyzygoth from Italia


Near the end of my two week vacation in Italia I was able to enjoy an impressionistic conversation with Vyzygoth Wednesday from the Veneto about the the land, the people and other things which has now been posted on  Think Or Be Eaten.

Right Click to Save; or Left Click to Listen Up Now!

Flag of Fukushima, Image via Wikipedia

Japanese parents fume over Fukushima radiation impact | Energy & Oil | Reuters

This is a new Antoni Slodkowski Reuters story about the concern Japanese parents have about the impact of the radioactivity on their children. And, of course, the lack of action by the bought-and-paid-for Japanese government to fulfill their promises to remove radioactive topsoil from schoolyards in the affected areas.

From the story:

Local governments now need to provide reports of radiation, while most schools in Fukushima are equipped with dosimeters and teachers have to record hourly radiation readings to help create a contamination map. Anxiety over health risks associated with prolonged stay in a contaminated area is shared by mothers who did not take part in Sunday's rally.
"I just found out that a place near my house was designated a 'radiation hotspot' and now I'm seriously thinking about leaving the city," said Noriko Ouchi, mother of a 4-year-old daughter.
"We are exhausted. We have to look at every food item we eat, we only use bottled water for cooking, and on top of that every day we confront this nagging dilemma whether it's really safe for our children to stay in Fukushima or not," she said.

The Indypendent » What Happened to Media Coverage of Fukushima?

Yes, what happened? I followed this story extensively for a long time but I got bored and frustrated with stonewalling by the Japanese Government/Corporate gang.

Things are bad. They are getting worse.

There is very little new information made available.

And, I was on vacation for a while.
But I am back.

I will get address this topic soon.

Des vacances bourgeoises dans Les Cinque Terre

The Gold Standard Paved the Way For Fiat Money
...And Easy War

This article on Alternet, "9 Signs That We May Be Living Through Another Depression" by Joshua Holland cites the Long Depression of the 19th Century as a similar period to ours. It is interesting to note that the "Long Depression" of the latter part of the nineteenth century from about 1873 to 1896 is very congruent with the period in which bimetallism (the original monetary system of the United States) was slowly supplanted by the strict gold standard, a process encouraged by the Bank of England all over the world during this time.

This stagnant period made it obvious that the strict gold standard was incompatible with a healthy growing economy, something the ancients of any sizable society had previously learned. Mankind had indeed been pinned to a "cross of gold."

However, the solution imposed on the world for this problem was the imposition of fiat money controlled by central banks. It can be argued that this "solution" led to the massive and then endemic wars and preparation for war of the twentieth and twenty-first century. War is not cheap, especially modern war that requires expensive sophisticated weapons and standing armies, and the requirement for gold to fund war had always been a challenge and a limiter for the most ambitious king. Fiat money is created in the gleam of a banker's eye. Solicting investment in war became so much less of a challenge for the governments of the twentieth century.

There are still those who believe that a return to the gold standard will solve all our problems.

Nothing could be further from the truth.
The gold standard created our problems.
When money is a scarce commodity there cannot be much money.
When there is little money there is little commerce. 


I will make man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir. ISAIAH 13:12

Note: Joshua Holland also cites Paul Krugman's calling up the similarities between today and the "Long Depression" in this June 27, 2010 column, "The Third Depression." 


The Didn't We Know This All Along? Department


Fukushima radiation was a lot worse than stated.

"The Japanese government has more than doubled the estimate for the amount of radiation released by the Fukushima nuclear plant crippled by the earthquake and tsunami.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), a government nuclear watchdog, also said at a briefing in Tokyo today that it believed reactor cores at some of the units at the complex melted much more quickly than the plant operator had previously suggested."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1394902/Japan-nuclear-crisis-More-Fukushima-radiation-released-thought.html#ixzz1OagKDxtA

The Book of Thel, William Blake 

Sunday Morning EDT/

Sunday Evening Japan Time

Spiraling Down the Damn Drain

Update

Let's glance at the situation in Japan. 

It's been a while since we have done that, but as has been observed here all along. 

Things are bad. 

They are getting worse. 

They are still not letting much information out.

Failure To See The Forest For the Trees

Fukushima prefect is home to a flourishing moribund forest products industry. Several managed woodlands are in danger of falling into a state which will make them difficult to use in the near future Digital Journal reports. 

Approximately 341,000 acres (138,000 hectares) in Fukushima Prefecture are under the jurisdiction of five forestry cooperatives, based on information from the Fukushima Prefectural Government and an association of prefecture forestry cooperatives. Located in 11 municipalities, the woodlands are either part of a no-entry zone or required evacuation areas in coming weeks, based on government orders.
“If we can't go in to thin the trees for a year or longer, the underbrush will grow and the saplings that have been newly planted will suffer from lack of sunlight,” said Hiroshi Sagara, a forestry cooperative chief, the Mainichi Daily News (MDN) reports. “The forest will fall into disrepair and trees will fail to grow well.”

An untidy forest must be especially galling and unnerving to the Japanese. 

A small country with limited natural resources must manage well what it has. 

I live on nine acres of Maine woodland which I have begun to maintain in a manner which encourages orderly and healthy growth. It brings great satisfaction to stroll through the more maintained areas. 

Wild and unkempt is not necessarily good.

Yea, you shall leave in joy and be led home secure.

Before you, mount and hill shall shout aloud,

And all the trees in the field shall clap their hands.

Instead of the  brier, a cypress shall rise;

Instead of the nettle, a myrtle shall rise.

These shall stand as a testimony to the Lord,

As an everlasting sign that shall not perish. ISAIAH 55.12-13

Tanks For The Memories

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

-Ambrose Bierce

TEPCO, it seems, according to reports,  is now committed to storing highly radioactive water ad infinitum. 

370 water storage tanks capable of holding a total 40,000 tons of water have been ordered by the corrupt and failing corporation in an attempt to prevent radiation from further contaminating the environment. 

TEPCO is reporting that they expect to lose $7 billion this year, not counting expected disaster compensation for the millions of victims of their incompetence. 

Filthy water cannot be washed. ~African Proverb


Yet they shall attempt to wash the filthy water using a French process. An estimated 15 million gallons of radioactive water remain on site in storage and in the ruined plants with more being created all the time in the attempts to calm down the meltdowns and incineration processes going on in the reactors and cooling bins.

Chico Harlan in the Washington Post tells us:

A potential turning point comes roughly two weeks from now, when Tepco plans to begin a treatment process in which water is sucked from the basement rooms and fed into a special tank, then treated with chemicals that eliminate its radioactivity. The process creates a byproduct of radioactive sludge, which is generally mixed with bitumen, poured into drums, then sealed and buried. The water itself can either be cycled back into reactors or discarded into the ocean.

The treatment system is being set up by Areva, a French company that uses the technology at its La Hague nuclear reprocessing plant, off the Normandy coast. Since 1997, Greenpeace — after taking water samples from La Hague’s discharge pipe — has made repeated claims that the supposedly decontaminated water in fact contains radioactivity levels above the regulatory limit.

The process “is not 100 percent, but it’s better than nothing,” Lochbaum said. “The alternative: you let the water simply evaporate and radioactivity carries to all parts far and wide.”

Mary taught me to go merry go round!
We're all going merry go round!
C'mon, c'mon let's merry go, merry go, merry go round! Boop boop boop!
Merry go, merry go, merry go round! Boop boop boop!
Merry go, merry go, merry go round!
I say let's merry go, merry go, merry go round!
I say let's merry go, merry go, merry go . . .
- Wild Man Fischer

Japanese Prime Minister and corporate flunky Naoto Kan will be stepping down this summer, reports the Wall Street Journal, so he can be replaced by another corporate flunky whose soiled and vile dirty laundry  hasn't yet been exposed to the public. Party Chairman Katsuya Okada  refuses to give a date for Kan's departure  because that would make him a lame duck!

It is no wonder that so many beautiful spirits have refused to be born into this world. 

I do believe I've had enough.

Take our politicians: they're a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches the first prize. ~Saul Bellow

An IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) preliminary report blames the Fukushima Daiichi disaster on inadequate preparedness for tsunamis. The tsunami wall around the complex was 5.7 meters high. The wave that devastated the plant complex was 14 meters high. It is sadly amusing that the land that gave us the word "tsunami" was so unprepared for a real tsunami.

Last week the Japanese government revised exposure limits for children to radiation by a factor of twenty times  previously permitted, causing a furor among parents, which caused the government to back down on this policy. 

If these events haven't caused the obedient Japanese people to rise up and slaughter their venal politicians and greedy corporate men, then nothing will. 

Export of green tea from areas near Fukushima has been banned by the Japanese Government. I ask my strict libertarian friends:  Is this action is a proper function of government?

 She wanderd in the land of clouds thro' valleys dark, listning

Dolours & lamentations; waiting oft beside a dewy grave,
She stood in silence, listning to the voices of the ground,
Till to her own grave plot she came, & there she sat down,
And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit:

"Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction?
Or the glistning Eye to the poison of a smile?
Why are Eyelids stord with arrows ready drawn,
Where a thousand fighting men in ambush lie?
Or an Eye of gifts & graces, show'ring fruits and coined gold?
Why a Tongue impress'd with honey from every wind?
Why an Ear, a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in?
Why a Nostril wide inhaling terror, trembling, and affright?
Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy?
Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire?"

The Virgin started from her seat, & with a shriek
Fled back unhinderd till she came into the vales of Har.

- Final lines, The Book of Thel, William Blake

The Book of Thel, Thel Leaning over the "Matron Clay" and the Worm

Chimera, 350 BC, Apulia, Now at Le Louvre

WE ARE CATTLE


DNA Sequence Yields Clues to Germany's 'Super Toxic' E. coli outbreak - ScienceInsider

Quick Reaction Post:

What are the chances that several strains of  Escherichia coli (a favorite bacteria used in genetic engineering)  could reassemble themselves taking the worst and most dangerous parts of their particular DNA to make a super deadly bacteria?

This one that is killing Germans has 93% of the DNA of a deadly Central African strain, which is amped up with DNA bits of several other distinct e. coli, then it has a dash of salmonella thrown in for fun. It has several bits to give resistance to antibiotics and it's dead bits become more lethal if it is somehow killed in its unfortunate host.

"The evolutionary process … of this very strange hybrid strain may be a very interesting scientific story," Yang wrote in his e-mail.-from ScienceInsider story linked above


It appears that this stuff was sprayed on produce deliberately. What murderous genii are at work in this world! A weird genetic chimera like this just doesn't become so widespread all by itself so quickly.

The source most likely is a government or a very well funded (read corporate)  private laboratory. This weaponized bacteria is the product of very sophisticated genetic processing, with implementation worthy of a Bond villain. Some flunky terrorist group or a forlorn nutty professor may be blamed for it eventually. But that story will be bullshit.

Spiegel On Line tells us that this chimera also contains markers for The Plague.
How can anyone believe this is a "natural" event.

On Tuesday, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Karch had discovered that the O104:H4 bacteria responsible for the current outbreak is a so-called chimera that contains genetic materia from various E. coli bacteria. It also contains DNA sequences from plague bacteria, which makes it particularly pathogenic. There is no risk, however, that it could cause a form of plague, Karch emphasized in remarks to the newspaper.

Pravda has speculated that this form of e. coli has the ability to travel up the roots and into the flesh of the vegetable. If this is true then we are about to experience a huge culling of the herd. 

Harold Camping, the latest in a long line of men in suits (previously robes and togas) wielding Bibles telling us the end is nigh. They have been doing this for 2000 years. By the look of things, the end is nigh for Harold. He just can't bear the thought that the World will happily continue without him.

Friday Morning EDT/

Friday Evening Japan Time

End of the World Update

"But of that day and [that] hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Mark 13:32

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." - Mathew 6:6

"How many times has the end of the world been predicted? The same number of times, the prediction has proved false." - Hugh Downs

"Such things have often happened and still happen, and how can these be signs of the end of the world?" -Julian, Emperor of Rome 361-363

Judgement Day is tomorrow according to Harold Camping and his Family Radio Worldwide conglomerate. I notice his home page still has two buttons that allow contributors to make secure donations. 

I actually have been listening to the station this morning and Harold was taking calls. A distraught gentleman asked him if Judgement Day here in America could come on May 20 if it is May 21 somewhere else in the world.

Hal's short answer was yes. 

My guess is that Hal will explain the absence of Judgement Day with the argument that his warnings created so much prayer that God's mercy was invoked and we were spared.

As I write Family Radio is playing lots of sacred music which invokes the god Morpheus. 

I suppose Hal is taking a break for prayer or counting his money. 

But listen! 

Hark! Is it a trumpet? 

No. 

Here is an important announcement. 

Family Radio is still begging its listeners for money.

I enter into a closet and recite my prayer:

Please God take away from this planet and heal all of those sad and crazy people who can never be happy in your wonderful creation. 


"Christians are like a council of frogs in a marsh or a synod of worms on a dung-hill croaking and squeaking 'for our sakes was the world created.'"-Julian, Emperor of Rome 361-363

"He is a born again christian. The trouble is, he suffered brain damage during rebirth." -Lenny Bruce

This gray gloomy spring has made many cranky in the Northeast. I might welcome the end of the world if the cloud and rains and mist do not soon dissipate.

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review, 

Twain was mistakenly attributing the quote to Disraeli instead of the more generally accepted Leonard Henry Courtney, Baron Courtney of Penwith (1832–1918)

The Catholic Church is blaming the sixties for the sudden rash of pedophile priests that has flourished under its protection for  the past several centuries.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned an independent "landmark" study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York titled The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010. 


In a nutshell, the study blames the liberality of the sixties for the influx of hippie pervert priest bad apples into the Holy Mother Church. They present charts showing peaks indicating the hippie priests of the sixties were the culprits. But 23.4% of the accused priests were ordained in the 50's, while 27.3% were ordained in the 60's. This is not a huge difference in a smallish sample cobbled together years later.

The Bishops' numbers also look a little skewed because their chart of "Decade of Ordination of Diocesan Priests  Later Accused of Sexual Abuse of Minors" shows a total of 2,832 priests charged with abuse through 2002. That number seems to represent gross under reporting which contradicts an earlier 2004 John Jay Report  which recorded 4,392 priests accused of engaging in sexual abuse of a minor between 1950 and 2002 alone.

I would propose, in contrast to the Church's conclusions, that the new openness of the sixties enabled many victims to finally come to terms with the fact that the priests who raped them were criminals. The freedom of the sixties gave them the courage to overcome the fear and shame conditioning of the Church to report the holy fiends and go public. This was not possible previously when the the Church could intimidate the victim, when police and government authorities seemed to think it was more necessary to protect the Church from the consequences of its own profound corruption than to enforce the law.

I suspect this study will be used as another justification for Pope Benedict to jettison the reforms of Vatican II. "The sixties" is often code for Vatican II in the lexicon of the reactionaries now running the Catholic Church.
This long study also reminds us that other religions and the Boy Scouts also have had their problems so why don't you just shut up about this already?

The Church is in the habit of playing the blame game for their pedophile predilection. Last year Giacomo Babini, 81, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, blamed, you guessed it, the Zionists for the Pope getting so criticized for his minions' love of prepubescent lads.  He believed a “Zionist attack” was behind the criticism of the church, considering how “powerful and refined” the criticism was.

Sure, only the Jews could be crafty enough to make the Church look bad.

“They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers.” -Giacomo Babini
After taking heat he backed away from his statements saying: 
"Statements I have never made about our Jewish brothers have been attributed to me."
Giacomo was quoted  by the Catholic Pontifex website which stood by the quotes, claiming recordings of the interview.

The default setting of Europe and the Church is to hate Jews.

"Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and paedophilia but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia. This pathology is one that touches all categories of people, and priests to a lesser degree in percentage terms. The behaviour of the priests in this case, the negative behaviour, is very serious, is scandalous."-Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, April 2010

"We decree and order that from now on, AND FOR ALL TIME, Christians shall not eat or drink with Jews; nor admit them to feasts, nor cohabit with them, nor bathe with them. Christians shall not allow Jews to hold civil honors over Christians, or to exercise public office in the State. Jews cannot be merchants, Tax Collectors, or agents in the buying and selling of the produce and goods of Christians, nor their Procurators, Computers or Lawyers in matrimonial matters, nor Obstetricians; nor can they have association or partnership with Christians. No Christian can leave or bequeath anything in his last Will and testament to Jews or their congregations. Jews are prohibited from erecting new synogogues. They are obliged to pay annually a tenth part of their goods and holdings. Against them Christians can testify, but the testimony of Jews against Christians in no case is of any value. All and every single Jew, of whatever sex and age, must everywhere wear the distinct dress and known marks by which they can be evidently distinguished from Christians. They cannot live among Christians, but in a certain street, separated and segregated from Christians, and outside which they cannot under any pretext have houses"
-Pope Eugenius IV, A.D. 1442, Bull. Rom. Pont., V.67


In the Fukushima prefect we learn again that many livestock are being left to starve. Some farmers are making the heroic journey to evacuated areas to feed and water their stock, but it is difficult to determine if they can even market the meat.
Shingo Ito of AFP writes:

Katsurao, 25 kilometres (16 miles) northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, is among the communities newly designated as no-go zones, meaning no one will be allowed in from as early as late May.
More than 10,000 cows -- prized for their marbled beef and rich milk -- have already been left behind in the scramble to escape Fukushima prefecture, many of them locked in sheds where they starved to death, farmers have said.
As the no-go zone spreads, ever more farmers are being forced to make agonising decisions over whether to move their livestock to safe areas and incur huge costs, slaughter their animals or -- perhaps the most unacceptable option -- leave them to their fate.

Accurate information about radiation levels remains are rare as a dragon's tooth. 

Charles Darwin, 1881, photograph by Herbert Rose Barraud

Wednesday Morning EDT/
Wednesday Evening Japan Time
Hell in a Handbasket Update

Presented with the assistance of Charles Darwin, 
12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882
He was a thoughtful, intelligent and conflicted man. 
He was not an ogre out to disestablish God. 
He sought truth as he found it in the study of Nature.
If you find an error in his work, 
And there are many, 
That doesn't mean you have proved that the Bible is inerrant.

To sum up, I believe that species come to be tolerably well-defined objects, and do not at any one period present an inextricable chaos of varying and intermediate links: firstly, because new varieties are very slowly formed, for variation is a very slow process, and natural selection can do nothing until favourable variations chance to occur, and until a place in the natural polity of the country can be better filled by some modification of some one or more of its inhabitants. And such new places will depend on slow changes of climate, or on the occasional immigration of new inhabitants, and, probably, in a still more important degree, on some of the old inhabitants becoming slowly modified, with the new forms thus produced and the old ones acting and reacting on each other. So that, in any one region and at any one time, we ought only to see a few species presenting slight modifications of structure in some degree permanent; and this assuredly we do see. - On The Origin Of Species

The Wall Street Journal has a summing up of the first day of the events at Fukushima Daiichi and tells us what readers of this blog already know. The cascading disaster at the nuclear plants was much worse than presented by the authorities and their failures of action and their lack of truthfulness were numerous. 

Some highlights:

-It was thought they were unneeded so there were no filters on the vent pipes to remove nuclear materials when high pressure radioactive gas filled the reactor buildings. This delayed venting to allow time for  evacuation and ultimately caused explosions. 

-The emergency cooling system at the melted down reactor one didn't operate properly, probably because of a combination of human error and battery failure after the loss of electrical power. 

-The emergency response center fifteen miles from the plant lost power and all (satellite, cell, landline) telephone communication. The emergency power plant failed. 

-Authorities mistakenly thought reactor 2 was the problem when it was reactor 1 all along. This mistake allowed the meltdown of reactor 1 to occur.  

The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic. -Autobiography

The nuclear industry in the UK through the good graces and soothing words of nuclear chief inspector, Mike Weightman, has convinced the government that what happened in Japan could never happen there according to the Guardian UK. 

"The extreme natural events that preceded the accident at Fukushima – the magnitude-9 earthquake and subsequent huge tsunami – are not credible in the UK.
"We are 1,000 miles from the nearest fault line and we have safeguards in place that protect against even very remote hazards.
"Our operating and proposed future reactor designs and technology are different from the type at the Fukushima plant.

As has been made clear, this is the same fallacious reasoning presented in the US to justify the continuation of the nuclear program. Each nuclear disaster is different. That is what is so dangerous about this kind of energy generation. It requires complicated and expensive systems that can fail in myriad ways, each of which a public relations flack could justifiably say: "That failure, well, it can't happen here."

In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.  -Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879

 The New York Times says today that Fukushima Daiichi had recently installed the same new more powerful and modern GE venting systems which American plants claimed would prevent the problems which occurred in Japan. These systems  failed to react properly when workers finally tried to use them in Japan. The nuclear industry can't get prevarication (lies) out of their system.

[In conversation with the atheist Edward Aveling, 1881] Why should you be so aggressive? Is anything gained by trying to force these new ideas upon the mass of mankind? -from Edward Aveling, The religious views of Charles Darwin, 1883

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the corrupt Japanese government is now requesting their corrupt banks to assist the corrupt TEPCO by granting them loans which they probably never will repay without assistance extorted from the people by the corrupt government. 

This means the people of Japan, through taxes,  will be subsidizing a failed and criminal capitalist company which does not deserve to exist any longer. 

"The accident occurred on March 11. Accidents like this are factored into loans made prior to that. Naturally, I expect financial institutions to be asked for cooperation in light of Tokyo Electric's new financial standing," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a regular news conference.

My theology is a simple muddle: I cannot look at the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent Design. - Letter to Joseph Hooker, July 12 1870

It is really funny that an establishment news outlet like NBC, which predictably mocks  all conspiracy theories, is giving a little credence to the notion that  Dominique Strauss-Kahn was set up. From The Wall Street Journal:

NBC touted the conspiracy theories surrounding the case as the news broke. On Monday's Today, Lauer talked to Newsweek's Paris bureau chief Christopher Dickey, and gave credibility to the bizarre claims: "Talk to me about the more conspiratorial aspect of this....there are some people speculating that this was more than just a chance encounter. That, in fact, Strauss-Kahn was set up. And some have even speculated...that Nicolas Sarkozy could have been behind something like this. Take me through it."
"Dickey went after Sarkozy: "He's seen as an absolutely ruthless, no-holds-barred politician. Some people even compare him to the gangster actor Joe Pesci, just in his manner. That's one of the reasons the French don't like him. They don't like his style." He then explained: "So the minute his main political rival falls into this bizarre situation, horrible situation, in New York and is accused of crimes and is taken on a perp walk, many people sort of automatically assume Sarkozy must have had something to do with this."


The Washington Post has posted a discussion with establishment conspiracy experts, the so very cautious and reasonable debunkers, Ilan Shrira and George Johnson on  the DSK affair and other myths today. An example: 


RE: DSK AND CONSPIRACY THEORY
"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."
Q: Was FDR, whose quotation this is, a conspiracy theorist? And, in light of the Bay of Tonkin, the US-condoned attack on the spy ship USS Liberty by Israel in the '67 war, Project Northwoods, MK-Ultra, Iran-Contra, the creation of the Federal Reserve (from Jekyll Island to its Christmas Eve 1913 Senate vote and Wilson's later lament, "I've ruined my country!" ), and a host of other thoroughly documented conspiracy facts, many quite horrific, why do you present this Q&A session regarding the DSK affair--about which surely FDR would have had some private words to share--as an opportunity to use a social psychologist and a slayer of conspiracy strawmen to further paint those who agree with our 32nd president as abberants?
May 17, 2011 1:13 PM
A.GEORGE JOHNSON :
I don't know the FDR quote, but I doubt that he meant that everything, down to the finest detail, is planned -- that nothing happens accidentally. (Some conspiracy theorists have actually called that view "accident theory.") And of course there are real conspiracies -- just not the overarching, almost supernatural ones that some people are so eager to invent and believe.
– May 17, 2011 1:43 PM
A.ILAN SHRIRA :
Can we really say that FDR was a conspiracy theorist just from this quote? Imagine if George W. Bush had said the same thing--Would you still interpret it as conspiracy-minded?
But you bring up a good point. That there have been conspiracies uncovered in US history (things that almost anyone would agree constitutes a conspiracy--something like the Tuskegee experiment). But just because they have happened in the past, this doesn't not necessarily lend credibility to conspiracy theorizing on any given issue.
– May 17, 2011 1:43 PM


The establishment would want us to take seriously the possibility that a rich privileged man like DSK could be the victim of a conspiracy with a Ghanaian maid at the center while we are expected to accept that John F. Kennedy, or his brother, or Martin Luther King, or George Wallace, or Malcolm X could never have been victims of  conspiracies of the rich and privileged who give orders to governments.

There can be no doubt that the difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense. An anthropomorphous ape, if he could take a dispassionate view of his own case, would admit that though he could form an artful plan to plunder a garden--though he could use stones for fighting or for breaking open nuts, yet that the thought of fashioning a stone into a tool was quite beyond his scope. Still less, as he would admit, could he follow out a train of metaphysical reasoning, or solve a mathematical problem, or reflect on God, or admire a grand natural scene. Some apes, however, would probably declare that they could and did admire the beauty of the coloured skin and fur of their partners in marriage. They would admit, that though they could make other apes understand by cries some of their perceptions and simpler wants, the notion of expressing definite ideas by definite sounds had never crossed their minds. They might insist that they were ready to aid their fellow-apes of the same troop in many ways, to risk their lives for them, and to take charge of their orphans; but they would be forced to acknowledge that disinterested love for all living creatures, the most noble attribute of man, was quite beyond their comprehension. - The Descent of Man

The Pharyngula blog posts today on the subject "Evolution is a Jewish Conspiracy" in which PZ Myers tells us  that Karl Marx did not dedicate Das Kapital to Charles Darwin as many creationists believe. He outlines some of the attempts by creationists to prove their point by linking evolution, Darwin, Communists, Karl Marx and Jews. [The guilt by association fallacy.]

With savages, for instance, the Australians, the women are the constant cause of war both between members of the same tribe and between distinct tribes. So no doubt it was in ancient times; "nam fuit ante Helenam mulier teterrima belli causa." [ Darwin has cleaned up the original of Horace: Nam fuit ante Helenam cunnus taeterrima belli causa. which can be translated roughly as: For even before Helen's time many a hideous cunt was the cause of war. -JB] With some of the North American Indians, the contest is reduced to a system. That excellent observer, Hearne (22. 'A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort,' 8vo. ed. Dublin, 1796, p. 104. Sir J. Lubbock ('Origin of Civilisation,' 1870, p. 69) gives other and similar cases in North America. For the Guanas of South America see Azara, 'Voyages,' etc. tom. ii. p. 94.), says:--"It has ever been the custom among these people for the men to wrestle for any woman to whom they are attached; and, of course, the strongest party always carries off the prize. A weak man, unless he be a good hunter, and well-beloved, is seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man thinks worth his notice. This custom prevails throughout all the tribes, and causes a great spirit of emulation among their youth, who are upon all occasions, from their childhood, trying their strength and skill in wrestling." With the Guanas of South America, Azara states that the men rarely marry till twenty years old or more, as before that age they cannot conquer their rivals. - The Descent of Man

Dominique Strauss-Kahn with his American born wife Anne Sinclair, a TV journalist in France, Bob Edme AP photo

Monday Morning EDT/
Monday Evening Japan Time
Feet of Clay Update
Scandal! Scandal at the IMF!


"There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be."- Norman Mailer


"The dirty little secret is that both houses of Congress are irrelevant.... America's domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve, and America's foreign policy is now being run by the International Monetary Fund [IMF]. ...when the president decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from Congress."- Robert Reich, 1999

IMF may mean insane mad .. oh, you get it. It is interesting to note managing director of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn's problem in New York. In case you hadn't noticed by now, he is accused of sexual assault on a female house staffer in his suite at the luxury hotel Sofitel New York in Times Square. He was arrested yesterday in first class on his plane at John F. Kennedy Airport. He must have been in a hurry since he left his cell phone and personal effects in his room. He is accused of forcing the woman to provide oral sex apparently thinking it was part of the hotel services.
[Vous m'apportez des serviettes fraîches et sucer ma bite. Vous faites cela, bien sûr, il est nécessaire. N'avez-vous pas?]

DSK was denied bail today by Judge Melissa Jackson who deemed him a flight risk.

The New York City Police Department denied that DSK's behavior was protected by diplomatic immunity. The IMF has been awarded diplomatic immunity for its agents only for actions taken during the performance of  their duties. But demanding a blow job from a Argentine Ghanaian  maid may be an excellent metaphor for  official IMF activities.

In the Huffington Post we are given details from a recent interview:

Business Insider has uncovered an interview Strauss-Kahn gave to the French publication Liberation in which the IMF's chief cites "the money, women, and my Jewishness" as the three challenges to his potential bid for France's presidency.
Published just weeks ago, Strauss-Kahn's own words provide an intriguing twist on the developments of the past few days.
When pressed to elaborate, Strauss-Kahn offered the following explanation: "Yes, I love women, so what? ... For years we talk about giant pictures of orgies, but I've never seen anything out ... Let's show them!"
He imagined a scenario in which a woman is paid off to play the role of a victim of a purported assault: "A woman that he would have raped in a parking lot and to whom half a million or a million euros would be promised to make up such a story."

DSK actually seems to foresee the pickle he now is in and proactively refutes it!

Today the IMF temporarily replaced DSK with first deputy managing director John Lipsky. Lipsky is a former U.S. Treasury manager and a former banker at JP Morgan. He was probably the one making the calls at the IMF whilst Dominique was out doing his randy gamboling.

The supposed socialist Strauss-Kahn was previously noted in this blog back in April for his arrogant dismissal of the possibility that the IMF could ever take human rights issues into consideration when making loans to countries that may not have as enlightened leadership as La Belle France.
The International Labor Group's concerns were communicated to the IMF and rejected by Strauss-Kahn as follows:

"I don't believe I'm going to turn the IMF into an institution with a lot of expertise on this question," he told an audience at the Brookings Institution.
"I don't see these topics becoming defined targets for IMF programs," 
-Dominique Strauss-Kahn, April 2011


The New York Times reports that Strauss-Kahn's presidential election campaign in France may be in trouble.
Earlier this month French socialists were enraged when DSK was photographed getting into a Porsche.

I admit the possibility that this is a set up. Even Mr. Strauss-Kahn could not be this stupid; could he?
And the fact that he is a Jew is causing the extreme right wing (read neo-Nazis) extreme agita.

I do believe Americans tend to over-react to normal sexual peccadilloes. But forced oral sex on a housekeeper is generating outrage even in France. Dominique must have some enemies as head of the IMF. Indeed, he richly deserves his enemies. And more stories about his insatiability are now surfacing.
But wait. Here is the NYPD's official complaint against Mr. Strauss-Kahn. It is not pretty reading.

The Business Insider today gives us the story of his affair with Piroska Nagy, Senior Adviser to the Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The affair began when she was an economist at the IMF. Piroska was married to former Argentine central bank President, Mario Blejer at the time. Mario was furious. The marriage ended. Dominique stated when the incident became public at the time:
"It was an incident in my private life and at no time did I abuse my position as the fund's managing director."
The story also lists other missteps by DSK:

-- An unnamed actress who said Strauss acted 'like a gorilla' after inviting her back to a Paris flat.
-- Tristane Banon, a French journalist, who Strauss allegedly tried to rape, or at least sexually assault.


Quotes from Dominique Strauss-Kahn


"In Spain you have a lot of rigidities, the labour market doesn't work for numerous reasons, and I think the labour unions, the government, business everybody understands this and knows what should be done...Even in good times you have a lot of people unemployed and also a lot of people on short term or transitority contracts. All these are matters which show the labor market does not work...[The labour market] has to be greater effective, .. the way people are hired, or sometime are fired, are to be done the way it is done in remainder of Europe, no greater no less." -  in Spain, May 2010

"Greek citizens shouldn't fear the IMF; we are there to try to help them." -message to the Greeks, April 24, 2010

"the money, women, and my Jewishness"- DSK's reply to the question about the three greatest challenges to his bid for the French Presidency in Liberation, a French periodical

«Oui, j’aime les femmes, et alors ?» 

John Keel, March 25, 1930 – July 3, 2009 

Saturday Morning EDT/

Saturday Evening Japan Time 

The Universe is Crumbling All Around Us Update

Presented with the illuminating comments of  the great Fortean, John Keel

Fort was not against the astronomers. He was amused by them. But the other sciences are just as amusing. Archaeologists have been busy burying more things than they dig up... ignoring everything that doesn't fit into their theories. For example, they tell us that North America was uninhabited by anyone except Indians before the Europeans arrived. They overlook all the stone towers and structures found all over this continent (including miles of paved roads) when the Pilgrims arrived. Fort cataloged all kinds of metal objects from swords and axes to coins that have been found and dated as pre-Columbian. Somebody was mining ore and coal in this country, and pumping oil in Pennsylvania before Columbus set sail. Rather than tussle with the problem of identifying those mysterious North Americans, the archaeologists have chosen to ignore these artifacts. - Disneyland of the Gods


The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia has been enlisted by what remains of the SETI program to search for radio emissions coming from 86 "Earth-like planets" identified by NASA's Kepler telescope reports the Sidney Morning Herald. The chances of success are remote. I suspect the time window during which intelligent life uses radio waves for communication is a short one. I suspect the chance that intelligent life is on any of those planets is slim. I suspect that the chance that there is intelligent life on one of those planets in the short time period radio waves may be used for communication which are now reaching Earth is vanishingly small. The game is fixed.

It is almost as if scientists want to say:

"See! Nothing going on out there!"

Andrew Siemion, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley was quoted in the story:

"Our search employs the largest fully steerable radio telescope on the planet, and the most sensitive radio telescope in the world capable of undertaking a SETI search of this kind,'' Siemion said.
''We will be looking at a much wider range of frequencies and signal types than has ever been possible before,'' he added, describing the instrumentation as ''at the very cutting edge of radio astronomy technology''.

This is like saying they are using cutting edge technology to detect horses and buggies on these planets.

Kenneth Arnold, the private pilot whose sighting on June 24, 1947, set off the first modern flying saucer scare, quietly investigated UFOs in depth for years, and then in 1955 he, too, issued public statements expressing his belief that the objects were actually some form of living energy and were not necessarily marvelous spaceships. -Why UFOs? Operation Trojan Horse, 1970

Annie Jacobsen in her new book,  Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, has come up with a new explanation of Roswell. It was a Soviet plot to cause fear and panic in the USA.  Josef Stalin, with the assistance of Dr. Mengele, supplying mutant children to pose as aliens, arranged the crash. Nice one Annie. Disinformation is alive and well.

History prefers fantasy to fact. Legend endures while truth coughs up blood which dries and fades. We prefer to teach our children that Christopher Columbus was a hero and have buried his glaring faults. We choose to pass on the nonsense that the Great Chicago Fire of October 8, 1871 was ignited when Mrs. O'Leary's discontented cow kicked over a lantern, and we forget that that fire was actually caused by a gigantic still-unexplained fireball which swept low across the skies of several states, destroying dozens of communities and creating a kind of death and havoc which would not be seen again until the great fire raids of World War II.-  Why UFOs? Operation Trojan Horse, 1970

Benjamin Radford's "Bad Science" column mocks the belief in djinns and black magic in Iran and the rest of the Muslim world. Mr. Radford predictably takes this stance since he is a man who believes in Nothing, not that there is anything wrong with that. 

 It seems several close advisors of Iran's  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been denounced and arrested by mullahs for consorting with djinns and resorting to black magic according to the Guardian UK:

  

Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being "magicians" and invoking djinns (spirits).
Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds".
The arrests come amid a growing rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei which has prompted several MPs to call for the president to be impeached.

It is easy to disparage seemingly irrational beliefs in unseen things that have persisted for thousands of years. It is even easier to revile the works of religious fanatics. The word djinn itself means in Arabic, beings or things concealed or covered in darkness. So one can always attribute bad luck, sickness and disaster to the djinn. 

I am not prepared to comment on the reality of the djinn. But I do find it interesting that the President of Iran, who has been demonized by the West is now indirectly accused of consorting with demons by the religious establishment of his country. 

In Mexico there are stories of the ikals, tiny black men endowed with the powerof flight who live in caves and kidnap humans. In India the giant bird known as the Garuda is an important part of the mythology. The gods Vishnu and Krishna traveled around the heavens on the back of a great Garuda. North American Indians have extensive legends about the Thunderbird, a huge bird said to carry off children and old people. It was accompanied by loud noises, hums, buzzes and, apparently, rumbles from the infrasonic and ultrasonic levels. Known as Piasa to the Indians of the Dakotas, it was supposed to have terrifying red eyes and a long tail. - Mothman Prophecies, 1975

A chupacabra like creature has been reported in Belarus. 250 rabbits are said to be the victims:

Bites in the form of four large holes were discovered on the victims' bodies, being in the closed cages at the time of the accident.
In addition, young people, who rested in the countryside, announced that they had seen strange creature of about 1.5 meters high, moving nearby on hind limbs. According to them, the animal resemble an ostrich but with hooves, dog-like head, jaw with large teeth, gray hair, hanging in tufts, and eyes gleaming red in the dark.

In Kenya a strange kid was born: 

Residents of Mkaomoto village in Malindi district woke up to find a goat had given birth to a kid with human features. The goat's kid has a bald head, eyes, mouth and nose similar to a human. Superstitious villagers have started talk it could be a ghost. Hundreds of residents rushed to the home of Joseph Baya at 7am to see strange creature after word spread.

With millions of people barrelling along our highways each day, it is not unexpected that Driving
Unknowns (DUNKs) are becoming more and more common. The UFO literature is now filled with
reports of the strange things that happen to people in automobiles. A majority of our monster and
tall, hairy humanoid reports come from solitary motorists, usually those driving alone along country roads late at night. In the average account, the car passes around a bend in the road and suddenly happens upon a landed UFO or a monster shuffling across like a chicken seeking the other side. Many of the classic episodes in the UFO annals began in this way. Add to this the growing number of stories of witnesses who innocently stopped to aid what appeared to be a fellow motorist in distress, only to be suddenly attacked by Men In Black types who grimly warn them to keep quiet about something they saw previously. It is easy to conclude that driving can really be hazardous to your health.-  Disneyland of the Gods

Oh yes, let us look at the situation in Japan.
TEPCO proclaimed that a worker who collapsed and died at Fukushima Daiichi today was not poisoned by radiation. It was stated that the worker who was in his 60's probably died of a heart attack. Another source cited exhaustion. Well, it looks like they really don't know what caused the death. But they can announce that it wasn't radiation. That's exactly been the problem with TEPCO from the beginning. They are blowing wishful thinking out their asses and calling it information.
It is now established through photographic analysis that there was a meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi much more severe than previously admitted by TEPCO.
TEPCO has begun construction of a "sarcophagus" to contain radiation at plant 1. This is the plant that definitely experienced a meltdown that created a hole in the pressure vessel which allowed an enormous amount of radiation to escape.
Giant polyester sheets will be used to cover the shut down and wrecked nuclear plants at Fukushima Daiichi to contain radiation still spewing from the site according to the Wall Street Journal.
Inaccurate information from gauges in plant 1 from the beginning of the catastrophe has resulted in bad information about the seriousness of the meltdown there according to Asahi.com:
TEPCO officials admitted on May 12 that a "meltdown" had occurred in the No. 1 reactor. Fuel rods had melted, and the molten fuel accumulated and caused small cracks at the bottom of the reactor pressure container, they said.
Until now, TEPCO officials only said that fuel rods were partially damaged and compiled a work schedule in April for restoring a stable cooling system based on that assumption.

Members of the Board of Directors of TEPCO can expect further pay cuts said Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda. More justified pay cuts of fat cats have never been imposed. But more painful sanctions are necessary as punishment for such a failure of corporate authority.

"The U.S. government is being taken over by the space people!"
This rumor spread throughout the country in 1967, an updated version of the old  devil theory. Actually it got its start in 1941 when James V. Forrestal, the  brilliant secretary of defense in the Truman cabinet, went bananas and raced  through the corridors of the Pentagon screaming, "We're being invaded and we can't stop them!" He was convinced that his phones were being tapped and some  enormous conspiracy was underway. Soon after he was placed in a hospital he  leaped out a window to his death. While the press blamed his paranoia on the  tensions of the cold war, the UFO enthusiasts knew better. Air force  Intelligence had compiled a Top Secret Estimate of the Situation following their UFO investigations in 1947-48. Their conclusion, according to the late Capt.  Edward Ruppelt, was that flying saucers were extraterrestrial. Forrestal, so the  story went, was one of the few to read that report before Air Force Chief of  Staff Hoyt Vandenberg ordered all copies destroyed, and it blew his mind. - Mothman Prophecies, 1975

Monday Morning EDT/
Monday Evening Japan Time
The Whole World Is Going To Hell
And It Is Our Fault
Update

With the Kind Assistance of Thomas Paine 
Revolutionary Pamphleteer
A Complicated, Difficult Man
Who Hated All Engines of Human Oppression

February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736] - June 8, 1809

The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed. [The Theological Works of Thomas Paine]

Vivian Norris at the Huffington Post has also noticed the lack of information on the true state of affairs at Fukushima Daiichi.
From her post today:

There is something extremely disturbing going on and having lived through the media blackout in France back in April and early May 1986 [Chernobyl Time for you kids out there], and speaking to doctors who are deeply concerned by the dramatic increase in cancers appearing at very young ages, it is obvious that information is being held back. We are still told not to eat mushrooms and truffles from parts of Europe, not wild boar and reindeer from Germany and Finland 25 years later.


Vivian recommends (also cited and recommended on this blog)  http://www.fairewinds.com/updates for honest information on the situation from nuclear experts such as Arne Gundersen. She further details stonewalling by officials in Japan.
Highly recommended.


Fukushima Groundwater Contamination Worst in Nuclear History from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistant that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel. [Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason]

MIT's The Physics arXiv Blog tells us today that chain reactions continued despite shutdowns at Fukushima Daiichi in a  self explanatory post titled  "Chain Reactions Reignited At Fukushima After Tsunami, Says New Study Radioactive byproducts indicate that nuclear chain reactions must have been burning at the damaged nuclear reactors long after the disaster unfolded"

Today, Tetsuo Matsui at the University of Tokyo, says the limited data from Fukushima indicates that nuclear chain reactions must have reignited at Fuksuhima up to 12 days after the accident.
Matsui says the evidence comes from measurements of the ratio of cesium-137 and iodine-131 at several points around the facility and in the seawater nearby. He has calculated what the starting ratio must have been by assuming the reactors had been operating for between 7 and 12 months.
He says the ratios from drains at reactors 1 and 3 at Fukushima are consistent with the nuclear reactions having terminated at the time of the earthquake.
However, the data from the drain near reactor 2 and from the cooling pond at reactor 4, where spent fuel rods are stored, indicate that the reactions must have been burning much later.

"The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety." - Common Sense, January 10, 1776

Over and over in what my active imagination appears to be almost a conspiratorial enterprise we are being reassured by the local press in the United States with similar phraseology like this example drawn from Pantagraph.com of Bloomington, Illinois.  

A nuclear radiation incident similar to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan is unlikely to happen at the Clinton nuclear plant, say Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials.
"All nuclear power plants are designed to handle the most severe, natural phenomenons such as earthquakes, flooding, tornadoes and things of that nature," said NRC public affairs spokesman Prema Chandrathil at a recent open house in Clinton. "But we will continue to evaluate such incidents as they had in Japan and see how they relate to our plants and make any changes if necessary."

No my friends, the Clinton plant will have its own inimitable and unique problems as happens in every nuclear disaster. And its nuclear problems will be cited  as not being possible anywhere else. Each nuclear plant in the United States is telling us that an accident such as happened at Fukushima Daiichi is unlikely. 

But do they say that any accident is unlikely? 

No.

"It is of the utmost danger to society to make it (religion) a party in political disputes." - Common Sense, January 10, 1776

Read the story of Angelo "Doogie" Golatt, a minister who specialized in working with developmentally disabled youths and allegedly abused them sexually wherever he went. Religion is the perfect mask for evil. 

Doogie's blog. 

"Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?" - The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776

It's so bloody heart warming to see that the Wheeling Intelligencer is still banging the war drums to destroy people who are simply defending their own land against foreign incursion as they have done for thousands of years. There are enemies everywhere. And we shall keep making them as long as we send American soldiers half way around the world to kill tribesman on their own turf. 

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." - The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776

The 14th Dalai Lama spoke at the University of Minnesota last night. 

"Compassion is the key factor for good health. ... It is not money or materialistic concerns, it is compassion and also education," he said. "If you do bad things for people, you get negative consequences. But if you do good things for people, you get good consequences."
"Use this for your own well-being," he urged.
In recognition of Mother's Day, the Dalai Lama lauded mothers for providing the affection and warmth people need to develop a compassionate society.
"My mother (was) so kind to me when I was young — I was the youngest of the children — that she really spoiled me," he said with a laugh. With the influence of his mother, he felt "deep inside, I am much calmer."

Tom's Death Mask

Thomas Paine died reviled and abandoned by both those in whom he had once generated conservative hatred and those in whom he inspired the spirit of revolution. 

"Thomas Paine had passed the legendary limit of life. One by one most of his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him. Maligned on every side, execrated, shunned and abhorred – his virtues denounced as vices – his services forgotten – his character blackened, he preserved the poise and balance of his soul. He was a victim of the people, but his convictions remained unshaken. He was still a soldier in the army of freedom, and still tried to enlighten and civilize those who were impatiently waiting for his death. Even those who loved their enemies hated him, their friend – the friend of the whole world – with all their hearts. On the 8th of June, 1809, death came – Death, almost his only friend. At his funeral no pomp, no pageantry, no civic procession, no military display. In a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the bounty of the dead – on horseback, a Quaker, the humanity of whose heart dominated the creed of his head – and, following on foot, two negroes filled with gratitude – constituted the funeral cortege of Thomas Paine." -Robert G. Ingersoll

Common Sense

The Rights of Man

The Age of Reason

Complete Writings of Thomas Paine