Thursday, January 31, 2008

I make a very serious terrorist threat

Attention - Australian Federal Police, ASIO and other assorted terrorist-hunting task-forces of Australia. This is not a hoax - It is precisely as real as everything you've ever been told about terrorism.


I have planted a bomb - lots of them actually. Don't laugh. This is serious.

You may now rejoice. Finally a real terrorist! Let the hunt begin! So that you may know that I'm for real I shall precisely adhere to your long experience of real terrorists. Which is to say, what you've seen in the movies and on the telly. To this end I am leaving clues just like a real cinema-terrorist leading you to an impossibly complicated cinema-bomb. Er... bombs, sorry.


In the spirit of these impossible villains of Hollywood I will make impossible demands of you. You must run around and do them all or EVERYBODY DIES! Here is my list of demands -

Google - bomb in san lazaro
Google - michael meiring bomb philippines
Google - john martinkus dateline abdurrahman wahid bomb
Google - liquid bomb myth
Google - july 7 bomb peter power
Google - charles menezes witness discrepancy
Google - 911 senior military intelligence law enforcement
Google - al qaeda threat adam gadahn pearlman

I demand that you read every article on the first google page. And the second. And the third. Feel free to follow other links and pursue you own lines. These articles contain all the clues as to the certain reality of the threat that I represent. Do not wonder, not for a second, that nothing makes sense. Do not wonder that it's all bullshit. Do you wonder at the WMD's in Iraq? Of course not.

Don't think, just do what I command. Lives are at stake! And certainly do not ask yourself - 'When was the last actual terrorist attack in this country? Surely it couldn't have been that stick of gelignite in a garbage bin outside the Hilton Hotel thirty years ago?' That was before half of you were even born. Dismiss it as a dim memory. Know that the terrorism you have been told is real - IS REAL. The lack of any actual terrorist attacks in this country, or even half credible plots, is neither here nor there. You are not running around wasting your time and the taxpayer's money for nothing. You are not part of some insane fear-mongering hoax. It's all real.


I am real. I am here. Making threats! I am proof-positive that your government, or whoever the fuck it is, is not making this shit up. I demand that my file be named - TERRORIST THREAT HEFFALUMP. Clues as the very real nature of the Heffalump threat can be found in the pages of the subversive terrorist manual Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne. So that you may know what Heffalumps look like, the manual contains precise depictions by Ernest Shepard. Study them hard and know that terror is real. I demand that you write long detailed reports on the precise threat of Heffalumps. I demand that you sit in meetings and make contributions about how we might address the Heffalump threat. I demand that you contribute to the WAR ON HEFFALUMPS.

As the impossible mad bomber, I will now taunt you in a cinematic fashion. I laugh at all your mad capering around, arresting people on trumped-up bullshit charges. That bullshit Haneef case! Ha ha ha ha ha. Were you not ashamed by that? Was that not a slur on you and your whole organisation? Look to your boss, Bill Keelty, he has the answer to such embarrassment - Secret Trials! Feel proud that you are doing your bit to have your country join that hallowed list of 'Nations That Conduct Secret Trials'. Follow your leader. He has secret knowledge. Trust him. He is leading you to a new place. It's called Australia apparently. Who knew?


Whatever you thought Australia was, you were wrong. The new Australia is, bravely, all about fear. You know that fear. It's the fear a man has that if he stands up and says, 'This is all bullshit!', he'll get the sack. Do you know what I'm talking about? I suspect that you do. Ask Andrew Wilkie. Alright for him, says you, he doesn't have a mortgage. Between the fear of being sacked and of not making the mortgage payments, and the fear of me, the impossible terrorist - you can choose both! I, the terrible Heffalump, will keep you in a job. Of course you will chase me. Even if I didn't exist you would do so anyway. You have no choice.

Or do you? What is that nagging voice in your head? It's annoying isn't it? It says maybe all this is bullshit. It picks at inconsistencies in what the government tells you. Don't listen to it! It's only common sense. It's only you wondering at what kind of people we are becoming and what kind of place Australia is now. All those ads and posters telling us to dob in our neighbours - Is that us? Is this my country?


Pay no attention to that questioning voice! Stuff it back in its box. Relax safe in the knowledge that if you pursue these impossible terrorists long enough, they will appear! Kick in enough doors, raid enough mosques, humiliate enough people and lo-and-behold they will fucking hate you! Finally you'll be able to take that idiot phrase 'They hate us for our freedom' and smash it, bend it, stretch it into shape to explain their behaviour. That no man ever hated another for their freedom, only for their oppression, can be consigned to the scrap heap of common sense in your head. Like I said, Forget Common Sense. It will do you no good and certainly not pay your mortgage.

It will certainly not assist you in chasing me. Nor in finding the bomb. Er... bombs, sorry. It's important that you view everything I've written here as being a Very Serious Threat. I am not taking the piss. Dismiss that thought from your head. I am real. I am nobody. I am the mad terrorist Heffalump of your imagination. If you want to know how mad and irrational I am, know this - I Have No Fear. In a nation full of fearful people I am clearly insane and must be stopped.

Now boys, get to work and arrest me. Don't forget the requisite and absurdly expensive government media campaign telling us how fearful we should all be. I demand the following slogan -

Australia! Nobody Wants To Kill You!

Monday, January 28, 2008

The Holocaust - Made in Germany

I do not question the Holocaust. In both the micro and the macro I find it rings perfectly true, and accords with everything I understand about the villains, the Germans, and the victims, the Jews.


Take the well known German inability to design anything that isn't crap. As my engineering lecturers in university used to drum into us - don't look to the Germans, their design has always been bad to the point of idiotic. And the Holocaust provides perfect proof of this in the famous electrocution rooms of Belzec. The existence of these rooms was 'irrefutable' and was widely discussed and written about in the forties. And sure enough, the manner of their construction and the complete lack of logic adheres to everything we know about German problem solving and design.


How stupid were these Belzec designs? A survivor described a large room with a metal floor on which the victims were lowered into neck-deep water and then electrocuted. The floor would then raise and the victim's bodies were further electrocuted until they were ashes. Those idiot Germans. The floor didn't need to lower. A quick spray with sprinklers would have done fine for electrocution. All those moving parts for nothing! Talk about over-engineering.


And you can turn people to ashes with electricity? Sledge hammers for walnuts ain't in it! What absurd amounts of electricity would be required to turn dripping-wet fleshy bodies into parched ashes? Enough to power a small city! And how long would it take? And how much muck would have been baked onto the floor? Imagine the unspeakable sludge the thousands of litres of water below must have been turned into. Think of the clean-up! I expect that those German bastards would have even forced the next set of victims to do all the cleaning - before they in turn were made into more clean-up work for the next set. German wickedness is beyond imagination. Much like their inability to sensibly answer a simple design problem. Rather than come up with something cheap, efficient, reliable, and easy to maintain, trust those German dickheads to come up with the most idiotic construction possible. Typical.


Certainly this speaks to our understanding of Germans. How does it speak to our understanding of Jews? Perhaps you're wondering why you've never heard of this. For this you may thank the Jews and their well-known forgiveness and consideration of the feelings of others - even those who attempted to murder them. Wishing not to impugn the German people's pride in their engineering ability, they quietly let all talk of the electrocution rooms drop shortly after the Nuremberg trials. Proof-positive of their virtue. People like me rightly sneer at those who say the witness was never there and made it all up. Why would he do that? Don't answer, because we don't actually sneer so much as throw you in jail. And quite right. I would never question the holocaust.


But that's merely a microcosmic example of what we know is true of Germans. What of the macro? Proof of the German people's idiocy in the big picture is clearly evident of their use of trains, camps and arcane machines to kill Jewish people as inefficiently as possible. As everybody knows, if the Germans were to organise a piss-up in a brewery, they'd dismantle the brewery, build a new one, come up with a new formula for beer, make the beer, and then kill everyone anyway. Because that's how stupid and evil they are. That's why they didn't just shoot Jewish people as they laid hands on each one. Where's the bureaucracy and mad expenditure in that? A penny a bullet? Anyone who knows anything about Germans and their love of over-complicated inefficient solutions knows why they didn't do this.


Just take a second and think of any German machine or design solution you ever saw. You laugh at all those clunky piece-of-shit Mercedes, BMW's and Audis, right? Of course. Just like the allies in the war used to laugh at those crap Panzers, U-Boats, and Messerschmitts. And just like I laugh at those bullshit electrocution rooms at Belzec. Germans! Hang your heads in shame!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

working title - 'Dreyfus 2 Bigger and Better'

Just a thought on that wicked French bank fellow. What if we're seeing a deliberately set up Dreyfus Affair MkII? The Dreyfus affair served in its day the same localised purpose the holocaust globally serves now. It was proof of the innocent victimhood of Jewish people and of the timeless racism of the French people. For the record I have no idea if that affair was a scam or not. But either way, the utility of it was what it was. Let's imagine you were interested in putting a damper on rising anti-Jewish sentiment, possessed of resources, and sitting around a conference table.


'What about a Dreyfus redux? We get instant brand recognition in the title..."In an incident harking back to the infamous Dreyfus Affair in which French anti-semitism condemned an innocent man..." yada yada yada.'
'Hmmm...' say the other wise heads.
'Tell me how it's a twofer.'
'Let's make Dreyfus a trader who appears to swindle a billion dollars.'
'Don't think so small. Let's double that Leeson guy.'
'Double up!'
'Done. The biggest loss - or profit, ha ha - in history. And the eternal victim found innocent. Sounds good.'
'Due to the usual lack on interest we'll have to whip up some indignation. I recommend media hints of fore-planning, hints of a conspiracy and appearance of guilty behaviour. Perhaps we say he's run when he's done nothing of the sort.'
'And we sacrifice him?'
'Keep up. He's completely innocent. There's nothing to link him to the crime except for media hints to whip up the goyim.'
'No, I mean, why not follow through, find him guilty and send him to some modern version of Devil's Island? Suffering like that really amplifies the victimhood when he's found innocent on appeal. Like a Jewish version of the Libyan schmoes in the Locherbie thing. Travesty of French justice and all that. Except our guy's innocence gets some airtime.'
'And how!'
'Sorry yes, okay. Sounds good. I can have a chat with the judiciary. It'll all depend on the timetable. I don't know that we'll have that much time in the er... 'denouement', ha ha.'
'This isn't an all French affair is it? Surely we can make it global.'
'Yes, yes, of course, but with the historical guilt of the French as the unquestionable foundation.'
'And how much do we make?'
'Well there'll be disbursements of course - parties to be kept happy - but let's aim for, I don't know, ten billion? But just as an aim. When we hit ten we'll pull the pin on him ourselves. If he gets caught before that, then fine.'
'But not too much before...'
'No we can ensure that. Say, after eight billion we'll start leaving clues and see how long it takes them. And otherwise calm down. It's not like we need the money. And yes, I know about that rainforest you want. You'll get it. The sum is mostly to shock the goyim. And let's not overdo the media. Leave it sparse. Use the usual signal code-words and let everyone fill in the gaps.'
'And those disbursements... how about some discoverable trails leading to Muslims?'
'What, from some innocent Jewish guy? How does that work?'
'Leave it with me. Maybe we have no mention of where it all goes. Or maybe we can add a cutout and pull off a threefer.'
'Fourfer! And not a penny to the Arabs! Some anti-semitic rabble-rousing, some swastika graffiti in the Banlieues, the police crack heads, and the Arabs will be rioting in the streets! Sarkozi empowered!'
'Ha ha ha, you're a genius. Europe in flames with the Arabs to blame. The freshly impoverished French, their iconic bank destroyed, go on to destroy what's left of their own society. Sarkozi an embattled hero and we walk away with the loot.'
'And Dreyfus' halo!'
'Ha ha ha ha ha. What is that? A sixfer? We are exactly as great as we think we are!'
'Greater!'
'Ha ha ha ha ha. Gentlemen, I thank you.'


No such conversation happened. It's imagined in much the same way as Muslim villainy is imagined by way of Hollywood. Given the apparent legitimacy of defaming Muslims I'm merely providing equal time. I expect if I swapped 'Jewish' and 'Arab', and 'goyim' to 'infidels' in the above script I'd probably be up for Hollywood funding. Otherwise let's just keep an eye on this Kerviel fellow. Something stinks.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

I'm so Australian



It's Australia Day - time to celebrate everything that's great about Australia and Australians. Apologies to Matthew Hardy who actually cracks me up. None of these 'gags' are his. It's just me driving his comedy stiletto a few, socially unacceptable, inches further -

I'm so Australian, that when the PM says dictionary-definition jingoism like 'Australians are the greatest people in the world', I cheer because it's so true.

I'm so Australian, I reckon that when Shane Warne shook his arse over the balcony at Lords that time, he set an example for us all. Warnie, we salute you! Rub those Poms' noses in it mate!

I'm so Australian, that when foreign cricketers complain about Australians lacking sportsmanship I know that they are whinging envious losers.

I'm so Australian, I laugh at anyone who has an opinion on anything other than sport, because they're a wanker.

I'm so Australian, I think that t-shirts that say 'Australia - Love it or Fuck off' are brilliant.

I'm so Australian, I think jokes about aborigines are funny.

I'm so Australian, I go overseas and know that the places I visit aren't that great because the people living there don't say, 'Isn't this the greatest place in the world!' like we do.

I'm so Australian, I think Indonesians who object to me and my footy team going to Bali to publicly get drunk, go pants-off and have a bit of a vom, should lighten up and get a sense of humour.

I'm so Australian, that the crushing Australian defeat at Gallipoli under the British makes me proud and and I cheer for our troops now continuing this Aussie tradition under the Americans.

I'm so Australian, I think that hamburgers, pizza and fried chicken are as Australian as Mom and Apple Pie. Thanks Mum! I mean, Mom.

I'm so Australian, I go to Ibiza and come back saying things like, 'Wicked!' and, 'I was so nana-ed' and 'It all went pear-shaped' in a cockney accent. Awesome!

I'm so Australian, that even though I'm a bodysurfer, I wear board shorts. Those speedos we've all been wearing for forty years are, you know, like, dude, gross me out! If I'm in a passing car I yell unintelligible shit at people who wear them.

I'm so Australian, I wear a baseball cap in a country that has no baseball. I wear it backwards or sideways except for when I play cricket - then I wear it like a baseball player.

I'm so Australian, I aspire to be American. Or is it English? Why not some weird cobbled-together version of both? Anyway, whatever we were before TV came along was bullshit.

And,

I'm so Australian, I like to laugh at myself and how great my country is. And anyone who says it isn't great, is un-Australian, and can go and get fucked.


the Reserve Bank arse about



Right now in the US, the Fed is cutting rates - a whopping 0.75%. Apparently this is the biggest cut since way back when. The economy is tanking and more liquidity is required. Meanwhile here in Australia the talk is all about raising rates. The economy is robust and could do with reining in - not quite yet but it all depends on key inflation indices blah, blah, blah.

As I watched this on TV a mad thought struck me. Perhaps we've got it all arse-backwards. Certainly when a Reserve Bank sets rates it does control the velocity of the economy - inflation and deflation and all that. But it's really clunky. It's a long and tenuous path between the official rates and what people are spending and earning. Why is this mechanism, ostensibly the central bank's raison d'etre, such a clunky Heath-Robinson shit fight? Has anyone noticed that the efficiency lies in the reverse direction? When they raise rates there's no lag at all in their profits. The money flies into their pockets like it was on a turbo-charged conveyor belt.

Forget the Reserve Bank as some sober 'independent' quasi-governmental body. Under this job-description it is sadly inefficient. Instead, imagine it as just another profit hungry business. Now it's a model of efficiency at delivering insane sums of insane profit. Forget the self-serving lies. The fact is, each Reserve Bank sets the interest rates solely on what the market will bear. Can you dig it? They merely charge as much as they can, just shy of fucking everything up. If you want to say that isn't so, in what way would this model differ to that of the the banks as sober monetarist stewards of national economies, blah, blah, blah?


Money is merely a product rented by the monopoly that owns the printing press. And it is the wonder product. To hell with ipods, money is the must have accessory. And the only brand is the Reserve Bank brand. Interest rates are just the rent we pay. Without a competition brand, the Reserve Banks charge whatever they want - provided the market can bear it. Like all products, when demand is high the cost goes up and everybody pays more. And yeah, eventually the market cools - proof of the effectiveness of monetarism, ha ha.

Lets put it another way - imagine a loanshark, lacking even a sense of criminal honour, who charged more or less depending on what he thought you could pay. If you're getting ahead and have a few extra bucks, he ups the rate. If you are falling down, and his gig is endangered, he charges a bit less. He's not a humanitarian. He's just wants to keep you alive so you can keep paying.

So. Right now the US pays less and Australia pays more. Forget all that economic mumbo-jumbo on TV. It's really simple. Americans are falling down and Australians have a few extra bucks. Lucky us.


And now the only other question - Does the Reserve Bank exist to make themselves rich or to keep us poor? Given that they're all already richer than god, the former makes no sense, surely.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Ray McGovern and the art of limited hangout



I like Ray McGovern. He says all sorts of good things. But he's also ex-CIA. And you can take the boy out of the CIA but you can't take the CIA out of the kindly old grandfather. Recently McGovern has been shocking people with the story of the USS Liberty. It was an act of arch Israeli wickedness, says he. And he's right of course. It is exactly that. If you don't know about it, start googling. The BBC's Dead in the Water on googlevideo is the single unmissable summary. The concentrated significance of the USS Liberty cannot be underemphasised. And don't miss the leading role played by John McCain's father - arch villain of the cover-up! He actually threatened the surviving crew with death.

For those who already know about the Liberty, it is my solemn duty to inform you that McGovern is practising the fine art of limited hangout. Limited hangout is a technique where a secret is revealed but with crucial parts of the story missing - invariably to protect a guilty party. McGovern seeks, in his telling of the Liberty incident, to point attention away from the US administration and solely at Israel. In doing so he ironically lessens the crime and weakens his own case.


The bit McGovern crucially ignores is the launching of Cairo-bound, nuke-laden Skyhawks. LBJ and Robert McNamara launched the mission - wait for it - before they were even meant to have known who the culprit was. But, horror of horrors, the Liberty failed to sink with all hands, and the planes had to be recalled. The people of Cairo were spared mass death by nuclear firestorm. How to explain the nukes? Best not to - mistake, mumble, mumble. And the final murderous truth about the Liberty is that it was sent to the Levant deliberately for this grand charade. It had to be the Liberty because it was perhaps the only ship in the navy that couldn't defend itself and was not a fleet support vessel. Which is to say, it could be on its own, without any witnesses, and in range of Israeli bombers and torpedo boats.

In order to support his limited hangout thesis, McGovern must leave the 'why' question unasked. He shrugs his shoulders and defers to others. Time for the small-concession crowd to misdirect: perhaps the Liberty had evidence of an Israeli atrocity against the Egyptians? A perfect example of limited hangout. It concedes the wickedness of the Israelis but in a useless, go-nowhere fashion. Otherwise as an explanation for the attack it's prima facie crap. If the massacre of US servicemen could be successfully covered up for forty years, do we really think anyone would bat an eyelid about a who-gives-a-shit massacre of Egyptians? And they did massacre Egyptians - in the hundreds. And we know and we don't give a shit. Honestly, like such small-time bullshit would warrant the sinking of a US vessel and the machine-gunning of the crew.


McGovern cannot mention nuke-laden Skyhawks because that would lead to a whole other discussion. The Skyhawks were launched impossibly early. Actually they were on time under the Israeli schedule, but the crew of the Liberty had fucked the schedule up. Spoilsports! The early nuke mission means LBJ was in on the gag. From the get-go. Wow. And then we wonder - LBJ wanted to bomb Cairo? Why? How could this possibly be in the interest of the US? It's not, obviously.

Absurdly, McGovern's limited hangout actually diminishes Israel's wickedness. Says he, Israel launched a small operation, all on their own and who knew? They are tricksy, ungrateful shitheads but happily for all they're small-time, clumsy and unsuccessful. Um, yes and no. The unspeakable truth is that the Israelis had reached into the Whitehouse and gripped LBJ by the balls. And McNamara too. So great was their power, they could force a US president and his secretary of defence to sacrifice a US naval vessel and visit Hiroshima-like death and misery on a people guilty of nothing other than being on Israel's shit-list. Remember, none of this wicked enormity could possibly have been in the US's interests. And the question has to be asked - How the fuck could they force the President of the United States to do this? Guesses are all we've got.


Money? Would LBJ fuck his country over and nuke another for a sum of money? I don't buy it. And did he suddenly get rich? Which is to say, richer? How about blackmail? Run of the mill sex-blackmail is good for extorting tens of thousands of bucks - but this is nukes. It's my opinion that getting sprung for sleeping with another woman, or with a man, or even with some mad gimp-outfit scat-king is insufficient to sell out your country. Any one of these and LBJ could have slunk off and remained untarred, unfeathered, and unlynched.

There's only two things that come up to scratch, for mine. One is some variety of kiddy porn/snuff movie. A photo of an eight year old chomping his choad would have had magical powers. And cost pennies - you gotta love that! The other possibility is proof of LBJ's involvement in the murder of JFK. A recording of him congratulating the assassins would do it. Tricky though - it's a weapon of mass destruction, if you know what I mean. Whatever it was, the blackmail had to be so unspeakable that it was capable of forcing LBJ to commit a nuclear holocaust. Just what did that shitty little country have on him? And what do they have now on the current congress? Whatever it is now, it ain't a rap for JFK.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

screams of perfect agony



Do people get used to that screaming? The screaming you hear on all those taser videos on youtube? Maybe they do. If you read the comments at the bottom of each one, a majority seem to congratulate the police and heap shit on the victim. There's a thesis in that alone I reckon. 'Just do what the police say' they tell us. I don't know how that would have helped that fellow standing next to his shiny 4WD, wife inside, in New Mexico or somewhere like. As best as I could tell he was just standing there wondering what the cop was on about. I was with him - made no sense to me. But boy, did he fucking scream. Like Robert Shaw getting eaten alive. Only more real. All the taser victims scream the same. It's unbe-fucking-lievable. Nails on blackboards ain't in it. One wonders at the cops yelling at them - DO THIS! DO THAT! Jesus Christ - 99% of their brain is focused on screaming, boys. The remaining 1% is struggling to breathe. Never did a punishment so absurdly outweigh the crime that may or may not have been committed.

Just so there's no ambiguity I'll say what should be obvious - tasering is electrocution. When a cop tasers someone he is electrocuting him. No ifs or buts - it's a simple fact.

Here's another simple fact: screaming like that doesn't happen in the world of humans outside of battlefields and torture chambers. And being eaten alive, of course. Hands up all the people who've heard screaming like that in real life? Not me. I've crashed motorcycles, and watched others crash, till I lost count. Mad Max ain't got nothing on me. I spent half my life in workshops and saw extremities cut off and blood run like water. And I never heard screaming like that. These are warfare screams. Torture screams. Getting eaten alive screams.


God help us. The cops in that video carried on like nothing had happened. No, 'Jesus Christ! What the fuck was that?!' Nope, just another day at the office. 'Good for you buddy.' But did they dream afterwards? Did they hear those screams? Did they not ever twig that all those cops they know on stress leave might have a variation of PTSD, which is to say, a shattered mind? You hear enough screaming like that and it'll get you there. It's not natural. That sound is perfectly pitched to hit the reptilian part of your brain that floods your head with fear. Tough guy or no, you can't stop it. They don't play screaming tapes to torture victims for no reason. It's to break them. And cop's brains will do that thing too. The chemicals flooding through their heads will eventually break them. Troops have only 90 days of real combat in them. After that they're no longer tough guys. Only the insane can cope. Cops are no different. Their brains fry just like anyone else's. They know perfectly well that this is true.

And that's not all. There's the hundreds who died from being tasered. Think about that: They Died Screaming. Isn't this the precise definition of the worst death imaginable? Never mind the visceral experience of standing there listening to it - afterwards comes the loop-tape knowledge. This is the knowledge that a man died screaming at your hands. And for nothing. For talking back. For not being able to speak English. For being broke and going off their medication. The only way to deal with knowledge like that is with madness, alcohol, or drugs. Better still, all three.

Humans aren't meant to do this to each other. I say this to police - The people who tell you it's fine are deluded or liars. The only person who can save you from this, is you. You must listen to that voice that is not wrong. Not the bullshit voice that makes self-serving excuses. And then there's that saying - To thine own self be true. It's talking about those two voices. The one that lies and the one that's true. And you do know which is which. The voice in your head that justifies your part in the death of a person who died screaming is obviously bullshit and you know that. Wake up! Say no and hang tough. Otherwise, who are you? Who, or what, will you become?

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

the most crap weapons ever

Just a short note on those wicked Qassam rockets. Is it just me or are these the most crap weapons ever invented? Two hundred years ago, in the Napoleonic era, weapons were very rudimentary. Anyone watching any Pirates movie or Sharpe on TV should know that the roundshot fired by those muzzle-loading cannon were nothing but balls of iron. They did not explode. If you see 19th century cannon-fire explode, you are watching Hollywood bullshit. But amazingly those clumsy 200 year-old, non-exploding, iron roundshot did more harm to people than these worthless Qassams.


You'd have to wonder why the Palestinians bother. But apparently they persist with this most pointless and least lethal of weaponry. Or so says the Israeli propaganda machine. (Hey Mark Regev when I hear you spouting your petulant racist shit with that Australian accent you make me sick. I hope you and I never meet mate.) But maybe the Palestinians concede the point. I have no idea. They're not on the telly. They should get better agents, ha ha ha. And better weapons. And where are all those weapons allegedly smuggled in from Egypt? Anyone seen any?


Given that the Israelis are hell-bent on ethnically-cleansing Palestinian 'beasts with two legs' and are looking for every excuse to kill them all, if the Palestinians didn't fire these idiot Qassams, the Israelis would have to do it for them. They certainly wouldn't do it any differently to the way it's being done now. When was the last Israeli casualty from a Qassam, by the way? Years ago? And how many in total? Could you count them with the fingers on one hand? Anyway, when the Israelis say the Qassams must stop what they really mean is, Thank God for those Qassams! If not for them they'd have no excuse for their relentless murder-fest and everyone might view the Israelis as the most genocidal, racist fuckers on the planet.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Pondering the absence of Sir Ed



Sir Edmund Hillary's funeral is live on TV. It is huge. The numbers of people paying their respects leaves me in awe. As I type, a procession of Nepalese monks are draping gold silk on his casket. The more you learn of this fellow the more impressed you become.

As annemarie said after the last piece, she'd only ever heard of his climbing of Everest. I knew a little more than this due my antipodean proximity to New Zealand. But really I understood only a fraction of what he achieved. I wondered that people knew so little of him beyond 'first' and 'highest'.

As I pondered it, I realised it said as much about the media and those who shape us as it did about Sir Ed's modesty. The media is a machine that tells us who we should be. It is a 'mirror' that shows us our 'reflection'. You should be like this, it says. Before television existed people became who they were by interacting with other people. In countless exchanges with other humans each 'individual' was shaped to be less 'individual' and more considerate of others. It was others who shaped us and our 'shape' pivoted on our relations with them. We necessarily defined ourselves by those we necessarily lived with.


No longer. Certainly we still interact with others. We're not plugged into the Matrix yet. But we do so as little as possible because really we'd rather be watching television. We don't interact with it, as such. It interacts with us. It's a one-way trip. Don't underestimate the significance of this. Many many people spend more time being spoken to by TV than by actual humans. It shapes us much like old-fashioned human interactions but crucially it lacks the regard for the feelings of, and concern for, others. Look into that 'mirror' and see if you can see any selfless people there. All I see is striving, greedy, self-obsessed people who prize, above all else, money and celebrity. The canned applause and canned laughter tells us that these people are admirable and to be emulated.

Humans have always striven, but now it is different. For whom do we strive now? For each other? Hardly. Now we strive for our own personal selves. The biggest shows on TV, Survivor and Big Brother, are distillations of the paradigm we now embrace. Humans working together to achieve a worthy aim are utterly absent. It's now all about the individual most capable of manipulating others, using them and casting them off. Any alliances made are merely temporary affairs, self-serving shams to be ditched as the former ally is stabbed in the back. And we, the audience, 'interact' week after week, by voting, not for those we like, but against those we hate the most. At the end of this sordid hate-fest we cheer for the self-obsessed, celebrity-seeking winner-who-takes-all.


There is no one like Sir Ed on TV. Sir Ed was exactly the wrong sort of fellow. Advertisers who wanted him to promote breakfast cereal were shocked when he declared he didn't eat their cereal or particularly like it. That doesn't matter, said they, you merely turn up for the shoot and take the very big cheque. It matters to me, said Sir Ed. So much for those measure-of-success endorsement deals. In a paradigm pivoting on selfishness, Sir Ed was poison. He spurned tainted money and trinkets and could not be prostituted. He would speak the truth and that truth was selflessness.

No wonder annemarie knew so little of him. God forbid that individuals like this should get on television and set an example as to what humans might aspire to. Any model that offers an alternative to a petty, self-obsessed acquisitiveness, and to the treasured lying, cheating, stealing, will not be permitted. Consumer's minds (the word 'people' is passé, we are all consumers now) must revolve about possessions, money, celebrity and the self. Whoever dies with the most toys 'wins'. But no one outside their dependants will love them, honour them, or mourn them when they pass. The most for one is the least for all. The least for one is the most for all. Sir Ed with the least self-regard gave the maximum to the most. Even his death, in uniting millions to honour his selflessness, is a treasure of, and for, humanity.


Monday, January 21, 2008

Brando sticks to his guns

Marlon Brando on Larry King Live in April 1996


MB - Hollywood is run by Jews; it is owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of - of people who are suffering. Because they've exploited - we have seen the - we have seen the Nigger and Greaseball, we've seen the Chink, we've seen the slit-eyed dangerous Jap, we have seen the wily Filipino, we've seen everything but we never saw the Kike. Because they knew perfectly well, that that is where you draw the wagons around.

LK - When you say - when you say something like that you are playing right in, though, to anti-Semitic people who say the Jews are...

MB - Sure. That's what I'm talking about. You're making my point for me.

LK - Sorry? You're talking about anti-semitism?

MB - No. You are. I'm talking about how Jews in Hollywood treat others in a way they would never allow for their own people.

LK - But what's the point I'm making for you?

MB - That the wagons will get circled and the conversation will not be permitted.

LK - But when you say Jews control Hollywood you're playing into the hands...

MB - Yeah. I'm uninterested in what others may make of it. Nothing to do with me. Meanwhile here we are, nervous that this discussion is taking place.

LK - Yes, well of course. After the suffering of the Jews you have to be sensitive about that... how they...


MB - Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm not disputing the suffering of Jews. What I'm saying is that you'd think they'd have a heightened sense of other's suffering. You know, because of what they went through. But they don't. They paint them in the broadest of racial epithets. Like I said.

LK - Epithets like Kike?

MB - No Larry. That's the one you'll never hear. That's what I'm saying.

LK - Never hear it? I'm hearing it now. And I'm hearing that Jews control everything. And I'm sure anti-semites are taking great comfort in it. I mean it's exactly what anti-semites would say.

MB - Forget them Larry. Forget anti-semites. I have nothing to do with them and they have nothing to do with me. I told you that. I'm merely pointing out that that's how Hollywood is and that no discussion may be permitted on it. Do you get it?

LK - Well I don't know, Marlon. We're out of time now... but I wonder... you know I wonder at you for saying such things. Honestly I thought you'd know better than to say things that...

MB - No, no, because I will be the first one who will appraise the Jews honestly and say 'Thank God for the Jews'.


Actually Brando didn't stick to his guns. He folded up at the first mention of the anti-semite voodoo talisman. All he actually uttered was the last piss-weak line. Everything in between was imaginary. It was me channelling a more resolute Brando, unfazed by the magic words. Those words only held their power when they were used sparingly. The phrase is thrown about with such abandon now that it's an object of scorn. At this rate it'll end up a badge of honour. Otherwise Brando was right.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

cinema of nobody



I am schooled in cinema and film. I started as a sculptor/FX guy and ended up as a director of TVC's. It's possible you guessed something-like already. It's all in the past now. But I can't help myself and remain endlessly distracted by moving pictures and what they mean.

And they don't mean nothing. Anyone who says It's only a movie, doesn't get it. Moving pictures sway you like nothing else. They are propaganda vehicles nonpareil. Advertisers don't spend such spectacular sums on little 30 second movies because they have no effect. Their effect is precisely measurable and precisely calculated.

If you're not in the industry you have no idea how much thought and argument goes into every single thing in every second of every shot. Everything is there for a purpose. Everything is there to sway the viewer. And boy, do they know how to sway. Not only can they sway you but you will remain unaware of what is taking place in your head. Even cynical types get their heads done in, me included.

But I'm getting ahead of things. I've decided to split off another blog, the cinema of nobody, devoted to moving pictures, and where I intend to dissect them in a socially disagreeable fashion, ha ha. If this appeals, pop in. First up - deviltry.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Sir Edmund Hillary



On 11 January a singular and extraordinary man died. His name was Sir Edmund Hillary. He was the first man, with Tenzing Norgay, to conquer Everest. New Zealand, his home, went into mourning. He was their greatest man - equivalent in stature to the immortal All Blacks. This entry here is me signing his condolence book.

I'm not so much given to higher, faster, bigger. That Hillary conquered the roof of the world is no small feat but for mine it's only half of his greatness. What sets him apart is what he did after this herculean effort. The news of his achievement was world-wide event. Fame and fortune awaited him - the world was his oyster. A lesser man would have cashed in. Hilary could have swanned about the world and played on his celebrity and good looks - money, a jet-set crowd, the high life.

But he didn't. His love for the people of Nepal, big of heart but poor as dirt, drove to him to devote his life to improving theirs. He built schools, clinics and whatever he thought would provide the greatest benefit. When I say 'built' he didn't turn up with a cheque, have his photo taken and then head back to the hotel. He took his shirt off, picked up a hammer and piled in. The people of Nepal declared him a saint.

Meanwhile back in NZ he was simply Sir Ed. He didn't need the 'sir' bit, but people thought it was right. It was right. No one earned it more. Yet he didn't flaunt it. His name was in the phone book. His house was modest. He talked to regular people like they were regular people. He wasn't overly impressed with himself and didn't ask that others be either. He was the embodiment of level-headed selflessness.

His passing affected me more deeply than I expected. I offer my condolences to his family, friends and the people of New Zealand and Nepal who mourn him. Were that there were more like Sir Edmund Hillary. Vale.


Thursday, January 17, 2008

The Japanese brain-washing victim

Should you come across a book called Japan at War - An Oral History I recommend you to pick it up. It's gripping in a way that no piece of artifice could ever manage. It's a collection of various Japanese people talking of their time in WWII. It runs the gamut: School-kids making balloon-bombs; settler-housewives from Manchuria; wicked Kempei head-loppers; everyone is here. And they tell you of their experiences in their own words.


I do not recommend this book for the simple-minded seeking to have their racist Hollywood delusions confirmed. This book is too full of humans. There is a great deal to Japanese culture - it is as complex as a thing can possibly be. It can, like our culture, produce perfect villains. It can also produce astounding people like the fellow I am dubbing here, 'the brain-washing victim'.

I can't even remember his name. Understand, I read this book years ago and it's now in storage a thousand kilometres away, so I necessarily run on recollection. Our villain-victim provided insights into two aspects of the Japanese at the time. Initially he was a standard occupier doing his small part in the subjugation of China. He hunted 'bandits', or 'terrorists', or whatever phrase-du-jour was then in use to avoid calling a patriotic resistance something truthful. But it's what happened to him after the war that lends him significance. After Japan's defeat he was captured by the communists, imprisoned, and 'brain-washed'.


This was the precise term he used. And he wondered at the words themselves and made a simple point: said he - Why do we shudder at the words 'brain-washing'? Isn't 'washing' good? When a thing is 'dirty' and we 'clean' it, isn't that better than leaving it as it was? This fellow, believe it or not, was of the opinion that the Chinese had removed the filth that had been clogging up his brain. His understanding that others were 'unter-menschen', or 'beasts', or any other self-serving bullshit, was broken down and washed away. He could look back clearly and know the falsity, indeed enormity, of who he had been.

As an aside - if you're given to thinking that 'brain-washing' is some kind of evil, hypnotic, drug-fueled mindfuck, then you've obviously been reading about mkultra and Sirhan Sirhan. I can dig it. I read that too and it's all true. But just put that to one side for the moment. This fellow's experiences were no such thing. The Chinese had neither the resources nor the mindset of the CIA. They did not mistreat him, drug him, or torture him. They simply demanded, implacably, that our Japanese victim-hero stop bullshitting them. And himself, of course. They would not stand for his lies. They demanded nothing less than that he cast off delusion and face the wrongness of his behaviour. And he rose to the occasion.


I always imagined that his experiences resembled those of Pu Yi in The Last Emperor. And like the ex-emperor in that film, our Japanese hero possessed no hatred for his 'brain-washers'. Far from it - he rejected any label of victimhood. With a clear mind he saluted his jailer's humanity and expressed his gratitude. They could have just shot him. It would have saved a lot of time and money and achieved a similar result - ie. ensuring one less murderous racist scumbag. Nobody would have blamed them. Instead, his jailers freed him. And he thanked them.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

I'm talking to you



annemarie,

As ever your insight (last comments) is spooky. I AM silly. Everything I'm doing here is a waste of time. It's just me shouting to an empty wilderness. I'm not saying I don't enjoy you, Tony and the odd anonymous dropping in and keeping me company. I do. But a wilderness with three people in it is still a wilderness.

Fact is, I imagine in my head that I'm following Pilger's dictum of 'speaking truth to power' - albeit in a socially unacceptable way - and doing so to a power that not even the otherwise fearless Pilger will address. It's a fact that simply acknowledging these paragons of hubris renders one socially acceptable. So if I must be socially unacceptable I shall go full-tilt. I know that what I write will not appeal to anyone. But there's a reason for that. I am only nominally addressing the 'masses'. (the masses, ha ha). Pilger speaks to power 'slantwise', and good on him. What I write is directly for the 'benefit' of those who view themselves as above their fellow man. I am the tiniest insect voice in their ear, a splash of water by way of the smallest raindrop, an air molecule that is just outside of the climate-control of their air-conditioned comfort.

But do they really hear? Who knows. I have no idea how many hits my blog gets. I haven't been able to figure that out yet. But I do know that my nearly information-free profile page has taken 80 hits in the short month that the blog has been up. Who are these people? I have no idea. Me, I surf a lot. And I almost never read the profile. But some people do, obviously, and in numbers far out-stripping those who leave comments. I'm not paranoid. I have no fear. I just wonder at things.

I wondered at the leviathan MSM - a spectacular and insanely complex edifice employing countless people in countless locations on every continent - and how they sing with one voice, everyone on the same songsheet. It's almost like every star in the universe twinkled at the same rhythm. It's what did my head in in 2002 running up to the war. Realising the impossibility of the media was my red pill, ha ha.

And how is it possible that whatever ensures that the MSM sings with one voice, would not pay attention to the MSM's only competition, the net? How could the one and only voice let live another voice singing a discordant counterpoint?


Before execution comes intelligence. I consider it a certainty that money, resources and personnel are devoted to tracking those voices on the net. Before anyone rolls their eyes and says that it's too huge, forget all the Britney sites, the recipes, the 'ball in groin' videos, all the idiot teenage shit. To ignore this 99% and just zero in on the voices raised in opposition is perfectly do-able. The people who own the reserve banks of the world need merely pay the pennies required to fund however many people it takes. Frankly, five full-time people could comfortably do every site linked to by Mike Rivero. Hell, I read most of them daily in a couple of hours and I ain't even trying.

Not forgetting, there's a legion of trolls out there happy to do it for free. The early days I spent on indymedia were eye-opening. So busy and devoted were these people that you had to wonder how they had time to make a living. Invariably the first three comments on any post belonged to them. They'd usually hit the mark within five minutes of posting. Their tireless blank-eyed zealotry was educational.

So. If I were a bookie I'd be giving the shortest odds imaginable on the likelihood of those very people reading these very words. Since I'm possessed of no discernible charisma, ala Les, and shall never sway any masses, I've chosen to speak to them. Perhaps other people do this too. I have no idea. Perhaps they have better things to do with their time, ha ha ha.

The people I'm talking to are pathetic underlings, sure, but since my voice will reach no higher, they will have to do. I am doing my limited best to afflict them with (guffaws of laughter) a truth. I wish them to know that I will not buy their line, will not confirm their self-impressed delusions and will never acknowledge their genius, their superiority or any other goddamned thing. I will afflict them with a view that is at odds with their delusion and at odds with what they've been told about the people who oppose them. I am not that cardboard-cutout guy. I will do so publicly, and in terms that render impotent their standard cardboard-cutout weapons of defence. They will never be able to accuse me of being racist. I consider myself unassailably anti-racist. Nor can they accuse me of envy or any other self-serving shit. They have nothing I desire, nor any ability I would choose to emulate, nor any personality trait I consider admirable. I only admire those that shed delusion.

Sorry for the heading annemarie. Ever ambiguous, me, ha ha. I'm just making clear, ambiguously, what I'm certain the aforementioned fuckers have pretty much already figured out. And you never know, it's not impossible that I just might smash through one person's life-long inculcation and help them to (groan, here he goes again) cast off fear, realise the wrongness of their actions and wake up. Sure, in the face of thousands of years of finely honed, near perfect 'us-as-gods-them-as-beasts' paradigm, success is hugely unlikely. And when faced with a task way beyond me - I choose to be silly!


Monday, January 14, 2008

the shortcomings of corporeal bodies



This is a snippet of Eric Toussaint's latest piece over at counterpunch -
"The response of the US and European political and financial authorities to the liquidity crisis which began in August 2007 is a far cry from the response imposed on the Indonesian authorities by the IMF, supported by these same governments, at the time of the Asian crisis of 1997-1998. In the first case, the US and European authorities saved the banks by placing liquidities at their disposal, whereas in Indonesia, the IMF enforced bankruptcy on dozens of banks by refusing to let either the Indonesian Central Bank or the IMF itself lend them liquidities. This ended in a social disaster and a huge increase in the internal public debt because the debts of the failed private banks were transferred to the Indonesian State. Another glaring difference: to stem the crisis, the US monetary authorities have since August 2007 lowered interest rates (as they did between 2001 and May 2004), whereas the IMF demanded that the Indonesian government increase interest rates, a factor which considerably aggravated the crisis. Double standards for the North and South."
So much for sovereignty. Who owns and controls the Indonesian Central Bank? Not the Indonesians obviously. Who owns and controls the IMF? Seriously. I'd love to know. We seemed to be able to figure out who did what in the Enron scam (allegedly the biggest in history, ha ha) but on the subject of banking these questions are never asked. Somehow it's a force of nature, an agenda-less thing from nowhere, a variation of an act of god. But as sure as eggs is eggs there are people responsible for this. They have names and, in spite of their hubristic delusion, corporeal bodies. Their bodies, just like those guilty of infinitely lesser crimes, are perfectly capable of dangling from a lamp-post or being put on a hook in a butcher's shop window.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

the self-impressed

What is it, precisely, that The Self-Impressed are self-impressed about? I'm not talking about some low-rent, penny-ante kind of self-impressed. I'm gunning straight for the top. I'm talking about the kind of people who say things like - 'Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who makes its law.'


Wow. Think about that for a minute. A fellow who says this is beyond the law. He is above the hoi polloi, the bourgeois, the intelligentsia, lords and ladies, kings and queens, you name it. You don't get more self-impressed than that. Humanity will never revere, honour or love that fellow. The only hip-hip-hoorays for him are silently echoing as a dull monotone in his own head.

There's a fascinating chicken and egg aspect to this. Is the above fellow, whom I take as an archetype, self-impressed because of he will die with the most toys? Or is his possession of the most toys, or more exactly the pursuit of them, all due to his idea of his own deserving greatness? It depends on whether you ask that fellow or me. I expect that he is impressed with himself on account of the 'success' that he and his ancestors have achieved. Genius, says he. Me, I reckon he and those before him, achieved what they did because they viewed themselves as gods deserving of all and the rest of humanity as beasts deserving to give it to them.

And sure, everyone would love to have more stuff, to live lives of ease and to indulge their whims. But there is a price to this. After a certain point, such self-indulgence must require the impoverishment and/or enslavement of others. The majority of mankind will countenance a degree of this but become uncomfortable with, say, obvious slavery. 'If you prick a slave does he not bleed?' Such speeches tug at the heart strings of the human possessed of empathy. Irony banished, our self-impressed uber-man remains untouched. He is to such humdrum desires and concerns what the nth degree is to ordinal numbers. Indeed the mathematical infinity-approaching end-point of this trajectory, which is to say the aim of our archetypal fellow, is to claim all the wealth of the world for one person, himself. Ipso facto, this aim also requires that the entire population of the world, minus himself, would possess nothing at all. And yeah, I get it - this is impossible. I'm merely defining the endpoint of the continuum.

Our paragon of selfishness is not a fool. He must concede to reality and share the winnings with others. If we now posit all the wealth in the world, slaves included, as 'n', he must aim lower - 'n' minus some minimal number. This is not a blemish on his self-perceived god-like perfection. Far from it. He knows perfectly well that it is the final esoteric knowledge that actually confirms his sacred status. One wonders if he ponders on the precise number to subtract from 'n'. But never mind the maths, his necessary sharing of the spoils (with his family and the others of his tribe) serves another self-serving measure. For the most self-obsessed man in the world, it serves as a testament to his humanity, compassion and benevolence. Don't laugh. It makes a 'great' man 'greater' still. Of course a fellow perfectly convinced of his greatness would think this way. If every single thought in his head wasn't utterly self-serving he might at some point fall down and concede the humanity of others. Perish the thought!

The simple truth is our self-impressed archetype's 'greatness' is not due to his superior intelligence. Lots of people are so endowed and besides, intelligence is necessarily finite - never mind the convoluted metaphor in the Matrix. The only thing he ought be self-impressed about is his perfectly vicious disregard for his fellow human. This is limited only by his hubristic attempt to more nearly approach 'n'. Subsequently, fellow humans must be regarded as nothing of the sort. They are beasts, cockroaches on two legs or non-people who never existed. Whatever suits. That he might meet another fellow and not know if he was 'beast' or 'human' says all there is to say about the monstrous falsity of his delusion. Our archetype must remove himself, and his children, from humanity and never join them so that his delusion remains unsullied by such moments of clarity. Ordinarily empathy for others is a natural, indeed instinctive, trait. To crush it from the human spirit requires an insanely massive edifice of lies and a lifetime of inculcation. Unsurprisingly very, very few humans could possibly be so hateful were they to adopt this world-view in adulthood. Wonder no longer at the lack of proselytising. A model positing others as beasts could only ever exist in this way.


The other unknowable possibility is that the self-impressed understand this perfectly well and that everything I've said here is perfectly familiar to them. Perhaps the father sits with his son and whilst they admire the lakes, mountains and sunset, all of which they own, ha ha ha, he turns and says, 'Forget those stories of our genius. It's bullshit for those in the stalls. We're not actually smarter than anyone else. The truth is that our unrivalled pre-eminence is due solely to our perfect and unstinting lack of human empathy.'

Saturday, January 12, 2008

t'was the night before anti-xmas



It's not just annemarie. We're all on tenterhooks - like six year olds at bedtime on anti-xmas eve. We can barely wait for the metaphoric tomorrow - Anti-Xmas! Will it never come? The worst of it is, anti-santa won't even tell us when tomorrow is! For anti-santa, the waiting is half the fun.


And of course, the media department stores, started their marketing early. It's never too early to hype anti-xmas. Gotta get the kiddies revved up! In the store windows, unconvincing animatronic elves rhythmically swing little hammers, tap tap. The sign says, in an hysterical typeface, They Hate Us For Our Freedom. And when the flash-bulb pops, our expression of fear, as we sit on anti-santa's lap, makes his day. He laughs - Ho Ho Ho. He is coca-cola red, in tooth and claw.


And naughty or nice? Who gives a shit. You'll get yours either way. Don't forget to leave out a beer and a carrot and every other thing you treasure. Lo and behold when you wake up in the morning, it's always gone! Wow, he really was here. And not only was our tree cut down, they all were! Thanks anti-santa. Other kids say you don't exist but I know you do. Sure we never see you, just your proxies. The greatest trick anti-santa ever pulled was convincing the world he never existed. But I believe in you!


And one day it'll be tomorrow and anti-xmas will be here. Families will gather together and think fondly of all their assets, now worthless. We'll all rejoice that at least we still have each other and sing seasonal elegies. And on the TV, a special event! Is that anti-santa's golem sleigh leaving a path of death and destruction on it's way to punish other undeserving boys and girls? Is that Donner and Blitzkrieg? Donner is german for 'A-10 Thunderbolt' you know, and he leaves a magical trail of depleted uranium pixie dust to light up everything it touches for the next 10,000 years.


And who'd want to spoil the fun? What sort of party-pooper would hit the streets with thousands of others and shout, 'Bah! Humbug!'? To them I say, 'Yes annemarie, there is an anti-santa and you and your little friends should celebrate the true spirit of Jesus and throw the fuckers out.'