Late last week, Chrissy and I sat down with Hugo Sharp for a cigar and a chat about the latest news in politics, religion, science and philosophy…. oh and cannibalism.
Here’s the list of stories we chatted about:
Maxim Golovatskikh and Yury Mozhnov ‘killed Karina Barduchian and ate her’
On March 23, 2010, this site predicted that China and Russia would use a “HAARP-like instrument” to create earthquakes on the US West Coast.
On 28 March, 2010, a 7.2 earthquake hit Baja California.
Coincidence?
And in today’s news, there are concerns that these strange images appearing on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s site are evidence of HAARP being used to create violent weather in Australia. Believe it or not.
It’s been fascinating to me to note the difference between the way the media has been treating the two Americans who have lashed out at their government in the last month – John Patrick Bedell, who shot a couple of Pentagons guards, and Joe Stack, who flew a plane into an IRS building in Austin – and they way the media treats civilian deaths at the hands of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The media, completely unable to even explore whether or not men like Bedell and Stack might have had genuine grievances, have immediately closed ranks to write both men off as being crazy. There’s no investigative reporting, no genuine inquiry into what would make these US citizens commit acts of suicide to make a point about the actions of the US government. Both men have just been tarred and brushed. The media grabs quotes from family and friends that make it sound like each man was a loony and then they editorialise with descriptions to back that up.
Some examples:
On Bedell:
The Washington Post just puts it in the headline “Pentagon shooter’s spiral from early promise to madness”.
The Boston Globe, in its first paragraph, says Bedell “crisscrossed the country in a frenetic and sometimes doped-up state”.
The Mirror in the UK claims he was a “conspiracy theorist”.
The Associated Press claims Bedell “a history of mental illness”.
CBS News leads with the headline that Bedell was a “nut”.
On Stack:
The Christian Science Monitor refers to Stack’s online writing as a “lengthy, disjointed screed”.
USA Today says his writing “drips with cynicism, paranoia and narcissism.”
Of course, the 535 Afghani civilians who were murdered by US & NATO bombs in 2009, are just “collateral damage” or “civilian casualties”. When one out of every three people killed by US bombs in Afghanistan is a civilian, that’s just unfortunate. Obama is actually increasing the use of drones, not decreasing them. The media makes no psychological analysis about the people who are sending in drones that kill THOUSANDS of innocent civilians, men, woman and children. They don’t ask whether or not those people, the politicians or the soldiers, are paranoid or suffering from a mental illness. The issue isn’t even broached.
The lesson? When “we” kill civilians, it’s justifiable. But when someone, even one of our own, attacks us, then they suffer from a mental illness.
Oh come ON. This CRU hack story is the biggest beat-up I’ve heard in a long time. Of the 4000 documents and emails they hackers got their hands on, the best dirt people can find is a request to delete some non-specified emails and some discussion about how to present the data in the best way to make it easy for non-scientists to understand the trend? That’s a pretty lame smoking gun, especially when the other side have been caught red-handed literally making shit up.
From the excerpts I’ve read, it just sounds like a bunch of scientists trying to win an infowar against a much more powerful and fully-financed opposition. We might wish they could hold to a higher standard of ethics and transparency, but these folks are in the bunker. Their credibility and intelligence is being challenged on a daily basis. They are fighting for the survival of their species. It’s only natural for them to be a little cautious about what how the data gets presented and to fight against the people who are trying to manipulate the data for nefarious purposes.
But there’s *nothing* I’ve seen that even suggests these scientists fudged data or even manipulated the data to prove a dodgy theory. If you’ve seen something like that in the evidence, point me to it.
This whole beat-up reminds me of when Michael Moore’s critics try to attack his films on the basis that he edits the footage with an agenda. No kidding.
(thanks for the link, Russell)
The one thing I love even more than 50s SF stories are advertisements from the 50s for Space Age promises. I bought a few copies of "Astounding Science Fiction" at a secondhand book store in Paddington (that’s a suburb of Brisbane) today. The owner told me that she picked them up in a deceased estate. They are all from the 50s and in near perfect condition.
I love this back cover of the November 1954 edition which promises "A Bona Fide Opportunity to have your name "On File" with the first company embarking on commercial flights to the moon!"
Working in advertising these days, I’m often trying to think up innovative prizes to offer people for taking part in competitions but I’d never thought about guaranteeing a trip to the moon. These guys were WAY ahead of their time. I wonder if the Science Fiction Book Club in NY still have those names on file? Maybe they will pass them onto Virgin Galactic? Assuming, of course, that the people who added their names to the list in 1954 still want to travel to the moon….
The inside cover offers readers a copy of the book "Across The Space Frontier" written by "seven of the greatest living space experts", including former Nazi and then director of NASA Dr Werner von Braun.
One of the other copies of ASF I picked up (December 1950) had this advertisement on the inside front cover which reads:
"Dianetics – the first true science of the mind. Dianetics started in Astounding Science Fiction. It is not the first, nor will it be the last time, Astounding Science Fiction precedes science generally."