Senate hopeful, Missouri fool Todd Akin takes wide stance on legitimate rape

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Eric Verlo

Representative Todd Akin revealed his “legitimate rape” standard was no misunderstanding — now he’s courting America’s vast army of Christian idiots who already share his belief in rape-modulated immaculate contraception, a convenient pretext for a complete abortion ban. Meanwhile his Larry Craig Wide Stance against abandoning his campaign bid in disgrace allows the GOP to earn points distancing themselves from Akin’s crass misogyny, even though their party platform is steeped in it. When I hear American conservatives seem to compete with each other over who can bring the ugliest inanity to the party, I can’t help be reminded of internet trolls –which constructive discourse requires we not feed. Except we are powerless to prevent the damn corporate media from feeding their GOP squeezebox monkey trolls and stoking the firestorm of ignorant, beyond the pale, political twists and u-turns.

Now pundits are mouthing suggested mea culpa for the recalcitrant unpenitent: What Akin should have said. I’ll have a go: I’m sorry, I’m a moron, a morally bankrupt, crap-regurgitating degenerate. Yes I’m a reflection of my constituents, but people, you can’t give no-ideologues like me the responsibilities of government. I know that much.

Should the London Olympics remember the 1972 Munich Holocaust? Do you?

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Eric Verlo

America can’t memorialize the 1972 Munich hostage killings, because that act of terrorism was not unlike our own airstrikes or special ops raids, against purported enemy combatants, off the field of combat, except we don’t even try to kidnap them alive.

Of course the Israeli Olympic wrestlers and weightlifters killed in Munich in 1972 should be memorialized. But to call the deaths a massacre pretends the German police meant their ambush to kill everyone.* What happened at the 1972 Olympics is being recalled as the “Munich Massacre” but even the propagandists tweaking the Wikipedia entry don’t have the temerity to doff the disclaimer that “massacre” is the informal name. Shall we recall what happened? On September 5, 1972, PLO terrorists infiltrated the Olympic village and tried to kidnap Israeli hostages to exchange for 234 Palestinians held by Israel. Two Israelis fought back and were killed. Next the eight gunman and their nine captives were led into an ambush at a military airfield. After a 1 & 1/2 hour gun battle on the tarmac, trapped under the helicopters by police snipers, the PLO killed four of their captives. A police investigation revealed the remaining five captives may have died in sniper crossfire. This detail is disputed, but a secret financial settlement was sought and reached with German authorities. So, was Munich a massacre or a botched hostage rescue? Do words matter? The Mossad’s retaliatory murder of an innocent Moroccan waiter in Norway, mistaken for the Munich mastermind, is trivialized as the Lillehammer Affair.

Proponents want an Olympic tribute to the Munich Massacre “so that it never happens again.” Boy does that ever have a familiar ring to it. Look out for an Elie Wieselish re-tailoring of the original narrative, Steven Spielberg’s Munich being only a recent example of a myth-makeover remembrance.

To begin with, the PLO kidnappers were a faction of the PLO called the Black September Brigade, named after the Black September purge of the PLO from Jordan. This ouster, aided by the US and fought by Syria, was initiated by Israel’s attack on the village of Karameh, in which the PLO suffered 200 killed, to the IDF’s 28. Not a massacre because 150 PLO fighters were taken captive. Wikistorians taking liberties with translation are calling the PLO group “Black September”, with the effect of obfuscating the event which preceded the Munich operation.

The Munich raid to seize hostages was actually named “Operation Iqrit and Kafr Bir’im” after the Christian villages of Kafr Bir’im and Iqrit, ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948. Villagers were granted right of return by Israel’s supreme court, but overruled by the military. An attempt to return had been repulsed by police as recently as August 1972, as the Olympics began.

Next, the identity of the Israeli athletes is always left incomplete. With the exception of the 18 year old Russian immigrant, all the Israeli hostages were IDF soldiers who’d participated in military acts against Palestine, Egypt, lebanon, Jordan, or Syria, and so are not exactly the innocent civilians of current retellings.

Who killed the Israeli captives during the gun battle with German police? An immediate investigation found that sniper fire may have hit the captives, as it had also severely wounded a fellow policeman. A cover-up long obscured the official reports. While this could be pretended to protect the German participants, it also kept the blame on the PLO gunmen, which would have been critical to justify Israel’s “eye for an eye” revenge killings.

Did the gunman strafe their hostages with bullets upon seeing the arrival of the police armored reinforcements? The only witness accounts come from the German authorities. We might accept that the lead PLO gunman lobbed a grenade into the first helicopter with the intention of killing the four hostages it contained, if they were still alive. An autopsy revealing that one of the Israelis died from the flames is used the emphasize that the grenade, and thus a PLO terrorist, certainly killed him.

Though the German police admitted potential culpability for the deaths of the five hostages in the second helicopter, a later analysis put convenient blame on a particular gunman, one of them ones captured and who eventually escaped justice by being released. Certainly this narrative would be critical if Israel hoped for popular support for their effort to hunt the gunman down.

Many of Israel’s revenge killings involved car bombs which risked collateral deaths and injuries. Assassinating the “mastermind” killed eight others, including a nun, and injured 18 more.

Whether the PLO gunmen killed the Israelis or not, even the operation’s planners can’t be said to have intended it. No one masterminded a massacre.

Of the PLO participants in Munich, five gunman were killed, and three were captured. Those three were released weeks later to meet the demands of a subsequent hijacking. Israel’s Mossad boasted of having tracked them down and assassinated them shortly thereafter. But accounts vary, and one of them was interviewed decades later for a documentary. What’s known is that Israel implemented an “eye for an eye” operation that over 20 years hunted and killed 20-35 Palestinian targets. They weren’t sought out to take hostage but to murder, and most of them were unconnected to the Black September Brigade. The Mossad long-arm-of-the-law theme was less about revenge than deterrence, because anyone who might have masterminded or abetted the Munich plot was planning a kidnapping not a murder.

If a massacre is measured by an imbalance of casualties, let’s look at the numbers. After 11 Israelis were murdered, Israel retaliatory airstrikes killed 200 in Syria and Lebanon, an IDF raid killed up to 100 in Lebanon, and the Mossad targeted up to 35 in subsequent assassinations. Here’s an accounting:

Sept 5-6, 1972
11 Israeli athletes, coaches former IDF
(2 killed by BSB in initial break-in, 9 killed during the ambush rescue attempt, possibly by crossfire)
1 German police
5 PLO gunmen

Sept 8, 1972
IAF retaliatory airstrikes on PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon.
200 Palestinians killed, including women and children

IDF Operation “SPRING OF YOUTH” raid on Lebanon, April 1973
3 PLO suspected planners
12-100 PLO members
1 PLO wife
1 Italian woman
2 Lebanese policemen
Unknown number of Lebanese civilians

Mossad Operation “WRATH OF GOD”, (20-35 targets over 20 years)
PLO translator of disputed BSB involvement, Oct 1972
PLO senior official, December 1972
Palestinian activist “expertly” pushed under bus, London, 1972
Jordanian Fatah rep, January 1973
Law professor at Am Univ of Beirut, April, 1973
Replacement for Fatah rep, Athens, April 1973
(2 BSB minor members injured, Rome, April 1973)
PLO director of operations for BSB, June 1973
Moroccan waiter, mistaken identity, Norway, July 1973
3 Arab-looking men, Switzerland, January 1974
Arab security guard, Spain, August 1974
PLO rep, blamed on the Abu Nidal Org, London, January 1978
2 PLO reps, Paris, August 1978 (3 injured)
PLO suspected “mastermind”, car-bomb, January 1979, also killed:
4 Bodyguards
1 British student
1 German nun
2 Lebanese passersby (also 18 injured)
PLO military head, Cannes, July 1979
2 Palestinians, December, 1979
PLO rep, Brussels, June 1981
2 PLO senior figures, car bomb, Rome, June 1982
PLO senior official, car bomb, Paris, July 1982
PLO senior official, drive-by, Athens, August 1983
PLO Secretary-General, drive-by, Athens, June 1986
PLO official, car bomb, Athens, October 1986
2 Palestinians, car bomb, Cyprus, February 1988 (1 other wounded)
PLO suspected head of intelligence, June 1992

What’s that? The ratio is 11 to 335 and the Israelis want to call it a massacre? If you count the Palestinians killed in the initial Black September attack on the PLO in Jordan, the comparison becomes irrelevant.

But the Munich ratio is nothing compared to the 1,500 Gazans killed in Operation Cast Lead. Now there’s a massacre.

*ON THE OTHER HAND. The botched hostage rescue in Munich might very well have been a massacre. Do we really want to go there? The German snipers who initiated the gun battle at Furstenfeldbruck Airbase may really have behaved with a total disregard to the fate of the Israeli hostages. With the antisemitism that prevailed in Europe, and still prevails there among the working classes, it’s very likely the policemen looked at the gunmen and their captives with equal scorn. If the bound Israelis weren’t hit in the crossfire, it could certainly be held that the sniper attack provoked their killing. The coverup and subsequent private financial settlement reached between Germany and the Israeli survivors suggests a culpability of the like. In that respect, if European Jews look back at Munich 1972 and say it was a massacre, I believe them.

Who obsconded with Pikes Peak Area Earth Day?

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Eric Verlo

Famed environmentalist Denis Hayes spoke at Colorado College last week, and it was very tempting to ask the creator of EARTH DAY what he thought about speaking to an audience which had eliminated theirs. Oh, we have Earth Month, and CC has Earth Week, to make room ostensibly for the growing plethora of environmentalist activities, to a thinning crowd unfortunately. Shrinking the party is a curious strategy, don’t you think? Obviously the Earth deserves more than a day’s commemoration, but the point of an Earth Day, is to concentrate popular attention toward building global community. Perhaps the new “Earth Hour” attempts to recapture that focus, you’d think there might be a happy medium, such as… Earth Day?! We’re content with holidays of a day duration. America’s uber-patriots would have expanded the 4th of July to Independence Month, if such a thing was really meant to be effective. We do not have Memorial Month, or Veteran’s Month, or Christmas or Easter Months either. Oddly, Pikes Peak environmentalists chose to expand their drinking hours to last a month, encompassing more eco-themed happy hours to please their members-only. Local common folks looking beyond the usual corporate media antagonist apathy on subjects environmental, find themselves on April 22 with no Earth Day.

This American Life caves to Apple Corp, swaps Mike Daisey Chinese factory horror story for Marketplace puff spin

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Eric Verlo

Playbill This American Life host Ira Glass tried to pull an Oprah on playwright Mike Daisey, to dress him down on creative license Daisey took with an excerpt of a monolog aired on TAL titled Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory. The debunking came courtesy of American Public Media’s laughable “Marketplace” Wall Street PR engine, which Glass pretended were reliable experts on the subject of China’s apparently resolved labor abuses. That’s not even funny. This “retraction” reeks even upwind, and Apple’s having become the most highly valued corporation probably explains Glass’s uncharacteristically virulent condemnation. Shameful is what it was, and I hold it unforgivable, for the pretend-affable Glass, so-called folk archivist, to scuttle someone else’s too successful artistic quest for fundamental truth.

Let’s be clear. Mike Daisey was “debunked” based on his Chinese translator contradicting his version of events, and Marketplace finding Hong Kong based activists ready to give Chinese labor problems the all-clear signal. Both sources no longer protected by anonymity are under duress in China, and it’s not mentioned under whose employ they are now.

The Apple Factory story was the first best thing TAL had aired since pioneering post-sardonic navel gazing, but this week Glass issued a full retraction, removed the episode from the archive, and aired a blistering character assassination complete with manipulatively edited confrontations with Daisey, loaded with the expectation he’d buckle like fictional-confession memoir author James Frey. Except Frey’s lies unraveled because they contrived to propagate untruth. Daisey’s truths were undisputed, but the liberties he took to weave a personal narrative were “debunked” to cast doubt on his every word. It was a shameful moment for This American Life, and I’m hoping this time Glass has overestimated the vapidity of his listeners.

For example, when Mike Daisey explained his rationale for not wanting to “unpack the complexity” of his narrative, Ira Glass responded that he didn’t know what that meant. To what kind of reporter, editor, producer, or storyteller would that concept be foreign?

APM’s Marketplace
This was not the first collaboration between Marketplace and TAL. As the Occupy Wall Street protests grew, Ira Glass commissioned folksy research pieces from a Marketplace team to explain world banking and derivatives trading in terms sufficiently lazy to not disturb the usual NPR stupor. It was bunk coiffed in TAL’s typical carefree je ne care pas.

So this time, Marketplace’s man in China was consulted to fact-check Mike Daisey’s account. ACTUALLY, Glass reveals that he was approached by Marketplace AFTER they’d looked into Daisey’s sources. Glass thanked Marketplace for offering the story to TAL, instead of exploiting the exposé themselves. That’s Glass pretending he doesn’t know PR is about getting someone else to say it for you. Absolving Apple required more than one media property criticizing another. Somebody probably wanted a full retraction.

To foul Mike Daisey’s story required one phone call to the translator and guide he’d used in China, whose contact information he tried hide from Glass and co. No mention that this might have been to protect her from angry Chinese authorities, or from Apple and its supplier Foxconn and the inevitable underworld that rides herd on its victim laborers.

Marketplace’s feat consisted of tracking down his translator, breaking her cover, and putting her on the spot for the harsh criticisms which Daisey laid on Apple, Foxconn and their Chinese hosts. Especially as the popularity of Mike Daisey’s performance piece grew, and after its airing on TAL and his many media interviews, the anonymity of his Chinese translator would remain of paramount concern, but once exposed by Marketplace, what choice might she have had but to denounce Daisey’s heresies?

Could Apple’s being the world’s most high valued company have had anything to do with this kill-the-messenger hit piece? Apple has scheduled a press conference Monday morning to announce what it plans to do with its now famous $100 Billion cash holdings.

Storytelling
Isn’t it rich that TAL suddenly wants to hold its stories to journalistic standards? Imagine if someone had called them on the Christmas elven adventures of David Sedaris. Was that fact-checked? Or what of the elementary Christmas play Sedaris so gloriously skewered? IF YOU Criticize TAL for its too-often neglect of difficult subjects and you’re scolded that the show is about culture and storytelling.

Mike Daisey’s TAL recording is now offline, although the transcript remains. In it you’ll find an indictment that Ira Glass perhaps lacks the temerity to redact as well. It’s his introduction to the segment, and I’ll reprint it here, because Glass praises exactly Daisey’s storytelling technique, separate from the facts he recounts.

A couple weeks ago I saw this one-man show where this guy did something on stage I thought was really kind of amazing. He took this fact that we all already know, right, this fact that our stuff is made overseas in maybe not the greatest working conditions, and he made the audience actually feel something about that fact. Which is really quite a trick. You really have to know how to tell a story to be able to pull something like that off.

In his own words, Glass concedes what his show’s retraction is all about. He’s not retracting the facts, these “we all already know”. Glass and Apple are trying to retract Mike Daisey’s effect, that “he made the audience actually feel something about that fact.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Were Qurans the only books burned? Where’s the outrage from US churches?

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Eric Verlo

If the Qurans recently burned at NATO bases in Afghanistan were disposed of accidentally in the incineration pits, aren’t American Fundamentalist Talibans concerned about where the excess bibles go? By now we all know the M.O. at US camps in our occupied territories is to incinerate any and all unused inventory. They’re even ordered to burn leftover bottled water. Can there be any doubt if the US forces found themselves with too many Qurans to go around, that they had fewer takers for Christian bibles? When you raise the subject in these parts, even yokels profess their indignation at the prospect of burning a bible, so wouldn’t they want to scrutinize what’s being burned at our military bases? Or is it the same with American flags? When hippies do it, it’s a national sacrilege, when the Army does it, it’s ordained cremation.

Tea Partying with the Freak Brothers

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Steve Bass

Whew! These Occupy posts are far more difficult to pry from myself than their predecessors; the hands-on mechanics of putting the earlier stuff into practice in the present world, amongst the isolated pools of individuated consciousness we humans represent, each with his or her own vision of the whole, has been at the very least disorienting. I’ve lately revived an old motto i swiped from the good people at Oat Willie’s down in Austin, Texas: Onward Through the Fog! How odd is it that i’ve recently connected with some folks that hark back to that place in ways that are deeply surreal. Oat Willie’s and Fat Freddie will seem to be completely out of place in this bit, in which i mean to address the notion of cooperation amongst disparate factions, but not permanently i hope. By the end of this post, i hope to connect Occupy, The Tea Party, disparate passions, and yes, Hippies. It will be necessary to engage in some relatively surreal thinking.

Last night on a new Facebook page, “UNITE: OCCUPY,” (cap lock and all), i got into a conversation about this stuff started by a guy that asked whether anyone thought a joint event between Occupiers and Tea Partiers might be possible. Sure, i said, our Colorado Springs group had lots of Tea Partiers among its earliest enthusiasts, and although many have pulled away, there still exists a close association with many that veer sharply toward the Te Party camp, especially among Ron Paul supporters. The common ground Occupy shares with the Tea Party, at least t a grass root level, is substantial. There can be no doubt of the equally substantial differences. I suspect that it would take some pretty serious ideological barnstorming to bring the two camps together, but nothing prevents the groups from at least tentative discussion to find commonalities.

Tonight our Occupy group staged a talk by Tea Party stalwart, Constitutionalist Mike Holler. Mike seemed for all appearances to be an earnest and well-versed supporter of Constitutional “fundamentalism,” if you will. He peppered his talk with lots of my favorite quotes from my favorite founding fathers. He got a little testy about the revisionist history his kids bring home from college early on–perhaps indicative of one point of separation between Occupiers and Tea Partiers. Some of those are important. Occupy is international, where the Tea Party can display degrees of jingoism. I, personally, respect the earnest efforts of our Enlightenment founders, but recognize that they were flawed, and aver that their document was dated by racist, sexist, and elitist provisions and thinking that they might be excused from by noting their temporal milieu. We don’t have the same luxury. Occupy is legitimately grass root, supported by sweat and blood more than funded, where TP is, or at least became very quickly corporately funded “astroturf,” disingenuously proffering libertarian ideals as a smoke screen for corporate license to plunder. Occupiers are in my experience far more diverse than Tea Partiers. Socialist and Anarchist Occupiers are common, as are assorted races, genders, orientations, and religious persuasions, where Tea Partiers seem to my limited observation to be relatively homogeneously white Christian capitalist patriots. Mike interjected that both groups had been misrepresented by the media, and that seems likely to be so given that mainstream media seems content to misrepresent ’bout anything they report in this country, but Fox news and the rabid right like the Tea Party so much i have to wonder if he’s fallen victim to a personal soft spot.

Mike spoke eloquently enough in his effort to simplify the Constitution, focusing on issues of freedom, and state’s rights. He said very little with which i could find disagreement. He pointed out two major points of confluence between Occupy and the Tea Party–personal liberty, and a rally-cry, “No more Bailouts!” I suspect he fastidiously avoided some points he knew or at least feared might be contentious, like for example the ludicrous assertions i’ve heard often that environmental warnings from the scientific community stem from some kind of Satanic control scheme from the–well just whom is never too clear. The Vatican or something. Commies, i guess. That just maybe the best way for Tea Partiers and Occupiers to interact, though, for now, concentrating on the common aversion to what amounts to Fascism. Interacting from that perspective could exclude much conversation. It could put the Tea Party in the same position as the Occupy movement, after their Fascist sponsors withdraw in horror. Whatever. We Occupiers got on just fine with Tea Party Mike–“Mr. Constitution.”

Mike largely expressed notions we Occupiers could embrace. I suppose he could have done a bit of research and tailored his speech toward that end, but i think we just agree; he seemed a grassroot kind of guy, to me. He briefly alluded to schisms within the Tea Party, and there’s no sensible reason to avoid acknowledging the same within Occupy. Last night’s event was attended by Occupy people that have had such extreme altercations in their attempts to wrestle a semblance of ideological unity from a stubbornly liquid platform that it could easily enough have disintegrated into bedlam. I attended with my dear friend Thomas, with whom i often disagree. In fact, he and i often disagree so strongly that sometimes i feel like smacking him in back of the head. I expect he feels the same way about me at times. Maybe much of the time. Take note, war-mongers of the world: Thomas is a great guy, and even though we disagree with one another, sometimes strongly, neither of us has smacked the other in back of the head. Get it?

So here we were last night, disparate Occupiers engaging a Tea Party mouthpiece in a room full of people that have all experienced the vagaries of human interaction under a fairly pressurized circumstance over the past few months. No butterflies fluttered around the room, but no one worked up a bickering session, either. We worked together. All of us. One could recall the old adage that “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” but that would be devolution. I prefer to imagine that those with arguments present recognized the futility of scrapping amongst friends, if only below the radar of their Egos. Whether my nobler hopes for those pained souls in the room last night are valid or not, the assertions i made in these non-pages well before Occupy began remain true. The system we wrestle against is collapsing around our heads. And the solution is spiritual, to a far greater extent than it is temporal.

Fat Freddy is a comic book character that lives in Denver. Seriously. I met him a little while ago. (This only seems out of place, i promise.) Mr. Constitution Mike Holler expressed the opinion last night that our American republic, our constitutional federation of states, is in its final throes; that we are in a position where, ” it’s too late to save the country, but too early to start shooting.” Mike seemed tentative in expressing his hope that God might pull some kind of supernatural rabbit from his celestial hat to resolve our monumental national woes. I expect he feared perturbing the often non-Christian sensibilities of the Occupiers. He needn’t have worried quite so much–we may be largely skeptical of literal interpretations, but we’re pretty tolerant of that sort of thing. When i met Fat Freddy–an icon of counter-cultural activism important to me since childhood, an old-school Hippie with connection to the most famous and infamous of that crowd–he singled me out and pulled me aside to explain in some detail his expectation for a spiritual upheaval in coming days. Freddy’s taken up with the Urantia Book, a tome i’ve heard Christians disparage as devilish. I couldn’t see anything devilish about what he showed me. He earnestly explained his expectation for resolution. Soon.

We had come to Denver to talk about foreclosures and bank jiggery-pokery with another guy, and pulled up at Freddy’s house without knowing it. It just happened that way. These old Hippies like Tea Party fave, Ron Paul. (Follow along, now, i know it’s weird, and yeah, i know a lot of Occupiers don’t like Paul; i’m not sure about him myself). Also in attendance at that meeting was a woman i had been conversing with on line for quite a while in the context of Occupy. It took me nearly through the whole meeting to recognize her, because i knew her to live down in the Four Corners neighborhood of Colorado. She lives at Freddy’s now. This juxtaposition is so weird that now i’m expecting the Mad Hatter, or Lewis Carroll himself to pop up at some meeting quoting from Jabberwocky. Mike Holler holds out for resolution to the country’s woes in a traditional Christian context. My own suspicion, shared with J.B.S. Haldane, is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. But somewhere in the mix i am convinced that some divine Thing many of us think of as God is deeply interested in the little proceedings here on our little blue marble and that our interactions are subsequently and necessarily thus influenced.

We live right here. We have no choice but to manage things on a coarse, physical level; but we also live, i think, on an overlapping and less tangible plane, where we have more influence than we might ordinarily imagine. At the same time, things seem to occur herethere without our conscious direction. We’ll need to keep plugging away at things like grasping the Constitution, and taking on massive, quixotic quests like fighting banks and a world full of renegade, intransigent governments and power brokers, not to mention our own internal battles, as finely defined as within our own Souls. We’ll need to recognize the Truth in one another, even when it’s obscured by a bunch of worldly disagreement and fog. And so far as i can tell, were learning. Whatever that means.

Reprinted from hipgnosis.

PICS: Occupy Walmart 12/12 First of our Twelve Walmart Days of Christmas

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Eric Verlo

OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Occupy CSprings occupied the Walmart on 8TH STREET for our first of 12 Walmart Days of Christmas. Slogans you can use for your own superstore boycott: WALMART: ROLLING BACK UNION GAINS, ALWAYS — WALMART KILLS MOM & POPS — SHOP LOCAL, NOT WALMART and HEALTHCARE FOR CHRISTMAS. Up next: POWERS BLVD!

More posters: WALMART SUCKS THE LIFE OUT OF OUR TOWN — WALMART: BAD JOBS, BAD KARMA — WALMART: LOW WAGES, NO HEALTH CARE — DON’T SUPPORT SLAVE LABOR — BOYCOTT WALMART: COMPANY STORE OF THE GLOBAL PLANTATION.

Photos by Roger, Robin, Loring and OCS.

If you don’t see Merry Christmas in the window, no, you don’t go in that store! The Star of David used to do that trick.

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Eric Verlo

This season’s War-On-Christmas email is pushing a holiday ditty whose refrain goes “If you don’t see Merry Christmas in the window, then you don’t go in that store.” Seems like it might be easier to mark those stores with a Star of David on the window, or would that be too obviously Nazi?
On the other hand, it is refreshing to see even Dumbfox recognize the imperative of targeting commerce to make your point heard. So, boycotts do work?

You can see the Christmas-lovers’ point of course. They’d prefer that merchants exploiting the Christmas purchasing season at least be paying lip service to Christmas and not the ever-looming Godless “Holiday” eclipse, supposed.

This song reminds us “it’s all about the little baby Jesus” and goes on to list all the things Christmas wouldn’t be without him. Of course, half the list traces back to pagan tradition, but what to Christian Holiday-goers know of that?

And the latter half goes back as far as they remember, as their grandmother and her grandmother before might remember, but no more. The commercial Christmas charts its provenance to the industrial revolution, the birth of consumer goods and marketing. Santa Claus as we recognize him stepped right off Coca-cola calendars of the last mid-century.

Christmas was the religious Trojan Horse to pitch the shopping holiday to reluctant hedonists. Now the same parishioners who don’t have an needle’s-eye chance to get to Heaven, feel like the can pay their tithes in Christmas presents.

Yes, I do think it’s funny that people who abhor the prospect of disruptive economic boycotts are willing to consider it at the drop of Santa’s cap. Unless of course they’re satisfied that making this video viral is a shot across the bow enough. I doubt their Christmas Spirit has any room for Lenten restraint.

Oddly enough, one of their potential boycott targets, and mine, has hung banners in its outlets to announce they will be open for Christmas, introducing a delectable dilemma. Starbucks says Merry Christmas in the window, so it’s exempt from this singing email picket, yet it disrespects Christmas by working through it. What do you do?

I answer that one unequivocally. Yes, boycott Starbucks. They fund Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. That may be somewhat directly related to their celebrating Hanukkah not Christmas, but that’s NO KIND OF REASON to boycott a business. If you want to boycott a store because it’s not Christian, take it up with the Anti-Defamation League. Leave bigotry to the Zionists.

City Hall of Mirrors

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Steve Bass

As cities around the US bully Occupy groups around on park verges and college campuses, we here in Colorado Springs have not remained unscathed. Monday morning saw our friendly neighborhood “Homeless Outreach Team,” (HOT), and a much less friendly contingent from the city’s code enforcement office dismantle the previously permitted Occupy site at Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs. A surprisingly good-sized group materialized after midnight to vocally express displeasure at the actions of the city as rendered by the police and what appeared to be a rather callous batch of contracted laborers hired to accomplish the actual dismantling. No one got beat up or gassed. The permit surrounding which had developed controversy in our little microcosm is gone and we will now be required to redefine, restructure, and proceed without it. Personally, i feel it to be a good riddance even though we here in Colorado Springs seem to be experiencing a bit of disorientation as a result.

Dan and M.J. of the HOT team, (a redundancy, i know, but common parlance), were present for the dismantling of the tents that had been a fixture at our protest site. Some 50 or so protesters managed to flood the scene, even at the late hour of the event. Despite the relative peace between authorities and Occupiers here, the police present were fully prepared to inflict harm if we protesters had engaged in any form other than the sometimes obnoxious yelling. The whole scene, not unlike other aspects of our unusual local manifestation of the Movement, produced and continues to produce a sense of extreme ambiguity in my own psyche. I like to think of Dan and M.J. as friends, at least in a provisional sense, but i have no choice but to acknowledge that none of my closest friends would ever even think of putting me in jail or beating me up, even if i piss them off.

Tuesday a fairly large group of Occupiers attended a City Council meeting with a previously established agenda, none of which was to address Occupy directly, though it would be difficult to conjure a government meeting with an agenda that pertained to no issue encompassed by Occupy at this juncture. My own experience at the council meeting felt very much like an exercise in futility. A gentleman preceded us Occupiers with a request to restore city funding to his non-profit that helps supply transportation to disabled city residents. As the council and mayor did with our objections next, they seemed to tolerate the man’s speech and then perfunctorily ignore it. No indication of interest or intention to act was in evidence. Aimee Cox, serving as some sort of city liaison, distributed a few sheets describing the city’s appeal process in a few sentences. The remainder of the council meeting involved investment strategy and plans to extract additional money from residents in the form of utility rate hikes.

The minutiae to all this wrangling is just about as pointless to describe as anything i can picture. The clearest vision afforded by the whole scene is still one of a struggle to get things from those that control them on the one hand, while struggling to keep people from getting things on the other. There remains a sense of entitlement held both by those with little, and by those generally smug players with much. I remain convinced that the current state of affairs is fully unsustainable. The global takeover of industry and commerce by factions that appear fully unconcerned by any consideration other than personal enrichment has led to a scenario in which those at the winning end of that paradigm are in as much trouble as anyone else. Sure, if our supply of food, energy, shelter, and so on becomes insufficient those with more clout in hand may well be able to hold out rather longer than those otherwise equipped. A few survivalists will likely outlast inner city dope fiends; but what’s the point? Is the object of human interaction to feel smugger than the next guy? Who gets to feel the smuggest?

Directly attacking the intractable problems of human interaction seems as futile as ever. No amount of negotiation seems effective enough to overcome the entrenched cultural aversion to cooperation and insistence on coming out on top that has produced such a three ring circus of a society. Observe that Colorado Springs’s Mayor Bach is in office after a campaign financed largely by real estate and development interests. Really, now, do we need more buildings around here, or aren’t these activities really just the outcome of individual efforts to scrabble up money? Think about that a moment. How much human activity is nothing more than bullshit make-work designed not to be productive, but to shift money around? How much useless crap does Madison Avenue convince us we need for no better reason than to supply income to its players. I’m suggesting that most of the stupid jobs we Occupiers hear we should get so often are self-destructive bullshit. That the great majority of laws and regulations we have allowed to overwhelm our hard-won liberty, spawning the parasitic legal industry, the real estate industry, the huge regulatory bureaucracies of governments all around, and in fact most of the “work” we humans do is utterly pointless. I’m suggesting that we humans will, in fact, need to rethink our entire interaction with one another if we are to survive our own more ridiculous tendencies.

I’m hardly the first person to posit this notion. Jeremy Rifkin, for one, discussed the ideas i merely hint at above in rather more depth in his 1995 book, The End of Work. Of course, suspicious religious folk have raised an uproar at the mere mention of Rifkin for decades now, claiming him to be a Devil-worshiper, among other things. The sad truth seems to be that fundamentalists in this country and others, of Christian orientation and others, seem content to allow their Creator’s handiwork to burn to ash rather than to work together with anyone else to resolve the problems we humans have cobbled together to our own collective detriment. As little as i relish the sort of fight that generally ensues from arguing about spiritual matters, i’ll be finding it necessary to head in that direction in upcoming posts. Hold on tight, and please feel free to engage….

The Great American Hero

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Steve Bass

America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses. –Woodrow Wilson

Our understanding of history shapes our perception of the present, and informs our actions in the moment. This post, for example, is given additional flesh by the eviction of Occupiers from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan last night by forces directed by 4.0 × 10-8 percenter Michael Bloomberg, one of the richest guys in the USA, and probably in accord with Federal direction. Zuccotti Park is a “Privately Owned Public Space,” (POPS), and that odd status has no doubt been notable in current discourse. Across the USA and elsewhere, including here in Colorado Springs, governments at various levels have utilized no-camping ordinances and public park hours to harrass Occupiers, often to such extremes as to soundly demonstrate some of the protesters’ most salient points. So what is the history of “property,” and how does it pertain to the Occupy Movement?

We citizens of the USA are virtually without foundation where historical discussion is concered, unless we educate ourselves beyond the standard drivel so ineptly foisted in our direction by teachers bound by our disastrously faltering public indoctrination system, mislabeled “education.” We learn a sanitized verion of our own history, and the European history from which ours so largely derives, focused on patriotic and Euro-centric hero-worship rather than on the genuine and controversial currents that have effected societal changes at various junctures in world history. We often become enraged when these inane presumptions are questioned, as i have personally witnessed when service veterans have come unglued when protesters suggested they ought not to have been engaged in foriegn adventurism for resources, or when Occupiers have come near to blows over rights or priveleges the foundations for which they often demonstrate but scanty comprehension.

The story of Christopher Columbus and his noble and brave explorations of a frightening unknown quantity for the lofty purpose of betterment of the human condition, followed immediately by even more noble American colonists’ successful efforts to throw off the shackles of monarchical tyranny culminating in the sacrosanct US Constitution is ingrained in our collective psyche like a Freudian complex. The quote from the nearly deified US President Woodrow Wilson at the top of this page is meant to illustrate this phenomenon. Wilson said some things that seemed to spring from a font of humanity, but he was demonstrably a heinous racist and an elitist, encouraging reestablishment of the KKK, turning US finances over to the Federal Reserve, propagating celebrated treaties he subsequently ignored, and intrepidly belittling any expressor of opinion contrary to his own, among other public sins. Columbus filled his own journals with tales of religiously inspired avarice as he gleefully reported his intent, and execution of his plan to conquer the lands and subjugate the peoples he encountered. The US Constitution, while serving to codify some dignified and egalitarian principles, was still seen as some as an instrument of avarice in its formative days, as has proven to be the case with Adam Smith’s doctrines when handed over to naturally acaricious men. Even the highest-minded of US founders–St. Jefferson springs to apperception–firmly established racist, misogynistic doctrine and elitism by excluding all but white, male land owners from the earliest US political process. Those Founders also knew themselves to be limited and allowed the mechanisms for change to exist within the document.

The land owners so favored by the Founders above had been granted holdings either by monarchical fiat, or by purchase from those granted such holdings. Subsequent years were full of similarly motivated action, wh en”pioneers” once again ennobled by our propagandist history strode across North America claiming everything in sight by perfectly legal Homestead acts and the like, and killing or subjugating anyone not European, male, and white, assuaging their consciences with the absurd “moral” doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Many US citizens, usually white and of European descent, have blithely sloughed off Native American claims to the land here as anachronistic, habituating themselves to the notion that a couple of generations represent a lengthy historical stretch. “Indians,” many of whom don’t experience the epoch between, say, the gleeful rape and resettlement of their great-grandmothers as very lengthy at all, advocate for the removal of white Europe from “their” lands. This may not be anachronistic after all, but it has indeed become impractical, and it is no more nobly motivated than the insistence on Americans, or anyone else, to scarf up resources, such as but not limited to land, to which no human being enjoys a more legitimate claim than any other.

The uproar in Zuccotti Park last night is based on laws that derive from the notion of public versus private property. The Banks we Occupiers have been railing against hold the threat of eviction from private property over the specious doctrines of land ownership in this and other countries. The spats in Colorado Springs over tents, where they belong, and who belongs in them derive from the same set of doctrines, which i hearby proclaim to be bogus, in my opinion. The bad habit of human beings to either grovel or dominate is yet another matter.
One can follow the tendency to dominate and conquer, along with the development of Divinely appointed land control in western culture at least as far back as the dubitable stories of Hebrew escapades in the Levant, supposedly ordered by a loving god to kill, pillage, and rape in order to spread their doctrine of light. Ahem.

While the recalcitrant problems of aggression and slithery competitve spirits, as well as our quickness to condemn one another’s mere habits lead us deeper and deeper into an environmental cul de sac, we continue to pursue failed doctrine. The USA has, in apparently actual fact, presented the world with a still viable political framework within which to effect the sort of massive changes necessary for everyone involved, and it may well be our saving grace, if we acknowlege and rectify its initial errors and subequent abuses. Lots of thinking will be necessary. It’s awfully difficult to conclude that genuine unfettered Anarchism is likely to produce a civil society. Laws are not intrinsically bad unless they’re bad laws. Few really believe Libertarian suggestions that unregulated exploitation of natural resources can lead to anything but irredeemable destruction akin to the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or the impending collapse of our fisheries.

Did you notice how comfortable my use of the term “our” felt, applied to a natural resource in that last sentence?
Capitalism and the American Constitution found themselves on private property ownership. Some things belong intrinsically to individuals and groups. Marxism denies any right to private property at all and kills innovation, in the argument of McCarthy’s legacy. Marx and Lenin were motivated by historical factors as well, even if their doctrines were no more effective at legislating kindness than ours have been. Most of us will agree that our bodies ought naturally belong to ourselves–the person whose consciousness centers in that particular body–and yet many of our laws belie that acceptance even now that we’ve abolished open slavery. We’ve built a gigantic and Byzantine body of law here in the US, and in countries all over the world, based on principles of subjugation and rapine that are in actual fact now fully anachronistic, using justifications that are fully mythological. The conquering of neighboring lands and their parceling for sale for personal enrichment, using armies fed a long and patriotic line of shyte about motives is simply not sustainable any longer. We can continue to fight over detritus after we, (by which i mean everyone and not just Europeans or Americans), collapse the entire playing field, or we can recognize our errors and take on the extraordinarily difficult prospect of admitting fault and rectifying our relationships with one another both here in the US, and everywhere else. Some things belong to everyone.

This post is largely about bad history, and partly about the failure of both Capitalism and Communism. I’ll be putting it up lacking a certain amount of flesh in order to have it in place. The natural aggression inherent in confronting some of the subject matter contained requires some additional referenceing, which i’ll add later. The characterization of both systems as failures could be entirely specious if i were unprepared to offer alternatives. This is not the case, and i’ll be addressing the whole kit and caboodle, whatever that means, at greater length in the future. The best suggetion i’ve come across thus far is from Henry George, and i hope you’ll investigate. But even if you don’t i hope you’ll give this the thought it warrants. My ideas are unlikely to be the best out there. Look around, though. The one’s we’re working with now are bullshit.

More links are forthcoming, but the take on history expressed here is largely indebted to Howard Zinn’s “Peoples’ History of the United States,” and James E. Lowen’s critique of history as taught in public schools, “Lies My Teacher Told Me.”

Ye Aulde Memoir

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Steve Bass

Another old piece. These stories are distorted by romanticized memory, at times, and others likely remember them differently. I by no means intend to insult any of the real persons that lived through this stuff with a cavalier treatment of tender recollections, or harsh description of personalities or actions. Each of us always did exactly what seemed to be exactly the right things to do at the time. And there survives much, much love, which has grown and developed like it always does, in ways we never see coming.

I’m not putting these old ones up because i’m too lazy to write new. I’ll have one of those next–but some of this old stuff fits. Hope you like it.

11 May 2009

One day during the summer of 1980 my brother David was in the hospital at Case Western Reserve University for yet another open-heart surgery. The scene that day was dramatic I suppose, but for our family at the time, it was in many ways just another day. The state of the relationships between us had come to the condition that existed then because each and every incident that had occurred in the history of the Universe had added to that cumulative point. The way it came together then could have been viewed as tragic, I suppose, but we never noticed.

I don’t even remember how I got the news that this particular episode was approaching. David’s surgery that year was one of many—so many, in fact, that by now surgeons and academics had written papers on his congenital condition, and even given it a polysyllabic title. His lead surgeon, a Dr. Ankeny as I recall, had once claimed that he had “learned more from David Bass than fourteen years of medical school.” We four siblings had in effect grown up in the hospital, with the constant potential for death in attendance on a daily basis. Many years would pass between that summer and the moment I decided any of this was applicable to self-reflection, and the sweltering summer afternoon was as present and imminently experiential as any other I lived through during that period.
Our family seemed done that year. I had been out of the picture for over a year. Dad had left soon after, leaving a sour tinge in the air with those remaining, though I never blamed him. When David queued up for one more death-defying, experimental, split-chest open-heart surgery, Dad came back to Cleveland from Florida to put in an obligatory appearance.

Here was a meeting that defied conventional description. Dave, the least guilty of all our immediate family, had been deeply affected by Dad’s exit from the filial stage earlier that year. I hadn’t seen, or even spoken to Dad for well over a year, nor could our interactions prior to then be described as warm and supportive. Outnumbered by angry or indifferent family members, and perhaps less acclimated to hospitals as the rest of us, Dad was way out of his simpler, down-to-earth element.

I showed up unannounced, with glorious southern tart Candy Stone from Mobile, Alabama in tow, she in dirty bare feet, nearly illegal shorts, one of those dangerous eighties tube-tops, and very red eyes. I don’t think Dad spoke more than a half dozen words to me. His eyes told the whole story of uncertainty, pain, and failure. Dave, fresh from surgery, quite literally green, with a repulsive grey crust around his lips and appending to the tubes and what not projecting from several of his orifices, refused to see Dad. Refused to allow him in the room. Dad left unrequited to return to his exile in Florida. I didn’t see him again for many years.

Once, David, following the Dead tour in our Mom’s old family van showing all the effects of the Rust Belt, with his underage Russian girlfriend, his fiddle, and a patchouli oil manufacturing operation, got pulled over in Alabama, for sport. By this time, David was unkempt, smelly, and obviously committing some crime or another. The cops shook him down pretty good, but of course he had no contraband. He has a vice or two, but the heart thing keeps him from excess. He had that young Russian girlfriend, though, and Alabama’s finest figured they could really hang him out to dry, (dang hippie). But she and Dave convince the alpha cop to let them call her mom in New York to confirm that permission had been granted for the road trip and no heinous kidnapping was going on. The mother spoke zero English, but somehow the girlfriend convinced the cop to allow her to translate for her mother. Mother and daughter held a five minute conversation about the mental acuity of Alabama cops, duly translated as an expression of permission, and the travelers were on their way. David drawls this story on stage in his hillbilly persona, fiddle in hand. It’s hilarious.

It seemed to me for a long time that David was the only one of us to escape that little bubble of anti-reality that made up our family life while we siblings were young. Maybe he somehow managed to avoid being trapped in it in the first place, residing only temporarily, with some sort of metaphysical pass associated with potential imminent death. I don’t know, but years later, during one of the high points of my own endeavor, Renaissance Paint and Remodeling, I remember feeling jealous of David. This was a recurring sentiment, and all the more abberant for the fact that my strongest memory of it falls during a visit to Dave’s place in North Carolina that amounted to a just-in-case kind of deal before a heart transplant. Whatever the rationality or fairness of my little envy, (not real envy, mind you, but one of those little personality spikes that one notes and passes through), David is the one of us that got away the least damaged, and has lived his idiosyncratic dream out in full, down to the fine print, with joy.

Mom tells a story about my first day at school. Or maybe the second. I had asked some question that Miss Gardner couldn’t answer, and after day two, came home grousing about how those people were ignorant, and furthermore lazy, since no one had even bothered to look up a response. Mom likes to carry on about how smart her offspring are. She doesn’t usually bring up in public how warped we can be.

Mom, we brothers agree, bequeathed us a legacy of somewhat dubious mental processes. She’s nuts. We all know it. She knows it. Dad knows it. The rest of her family knows it well, and most of them recognize a common bond of familial, brand-name insanity that we all seem to share. I expect this is a more or less common thing among families, but I remain convinced that we are a bit stranger than most, at least in part because of the unique circumstances we lived through.

Back in the day, Mom’s thing was what they call control issues. The dynamic of her issues was so complex I can’t imagine I’ll ever figure it out. Some of her personality came to her by heredity from her mother, whom we call Mo. Much of it developed in that crucible of stress Dave kept heated by his repeated, continuous flirtation with death. Mom, responding to my over-the-top reaction to a pubescent hormonal tsunami, became madly obsessive with minutiae, dividing her time among us brothers and badgering us constantly in a fashion no one can really get unless they have their own experience to compare. I think she and I trapped ourselves in a sort of feedback loop that could have ended no other way.

I was out of the house for good, by the age of fifteen, for all purposes off to lead a life of crime, I suppose. For some years, I lived out my interpretation of the old Kerouac/Kesey/Abbie Hoffman mythos, on the road, in the street, an utterly directionless rebel. A good five or six years passed without more that a word or two passing between Mom and me.

I was nineteen when I came to Colorado Springs. The vague and unformulated manifesto for global revolution I had worked out in my head was on hold, kept in place by a twelve-pack of cheap beer. I had a job as an electrician, and didn’t see any reason to change that, but we actually didn’t do much of anything but work and drink beer that year.

One day Mom called to say Mike, another brother, got himself in trouble again and she expected him to “run away.” I told her to give him my number and I’d let her know when he called. He did just a few days later, and can I come pick him up over on south Circle.

Mike and I spent a couple years engaging in the sort of insanity to which we had become habituated in Cleveland. The reader will require imagination to add flesh to the story here. The statute of limitations may prevent backlash, but I don’t mean to poke at a bees’ nest, and it seems unlikely you might imagine anything more extreme than what actually took place. We weren’t stupid, though, and the business of working for wages, or relying on illicit behavior for advancement just wasn’t good enough, so we formed a construction company and went to work. That proved to be a trap. Maybe an extension of the weird, family trap that all of us have discussed so deeply, without resolution.

Mike and I had it in our minds that the working man’s habit of grousing over how management acts is crap and that if we were going to grouse, we ought to just take the reins ourselves. It turned out we were pretty good, too, in a lot of ways. We worked together for the best part of twenty years, and reached moments of national prominence in our little niche. The whole period was characterized by more bone-crushing stress and absurd, super-human feats. We had little breaks from the madness when we’d crash the business, which we did three times. We were great at getting shit done, but lousy at administration in the final analysis.

Hiring employees in the construction business kept me exposed to the street element to which I had become accustomed. I involved myself in various efforts to assist folks in their low-budget struggles, imagining still that I could somehow change the world. In fact, contrary to Mike’s primary obsession with business success, I figured the whole pursuit as a means to some vague end involving social revolution. For a while a religious experience had me involved with a church effort to “reach out” to the hoodlums that used to cruise Nevada Avenue on Friday and Saturday nights. I even managed to glean an ordination from the Baptists, though now I suspect they’d regret bequeathing me with it. My identification with street folks and the urge to help them rise above conditions has never left me. Actually I’ve worked up the notion that we could all stand to rise above conditions.

Dad. I went even longer without speaking with him than I did with Mom. He dealt with our family’s teen-aged fulguration by folding his hand and striking out on his own. Offered a transfer by his employer, the story goes, he told Mom, “I’d like you to come to Florida with me, but I don’t think I can love you anymore.” No woman in her right mind would go for that deal, and Mom didn’t fall for it either. Dad packed his company car and struck out, leaving his all-important nest egg, and everything else, behind. When David was in the hospital again that summer, that’s where Dad came from to visit him.

I had been away, and I don’t recall blaming Dad for his poor dealings with the family. He had been raised in a very old-school, European style, and he simply couldn’t handle our ways. To this day, in spite of Dad’s expression of a taste for “philosophy,” our conversations are often guarded, pregnant with unspoken truths. I still don’t know his philosophy.

Last summer Dad, my youngest brother, and I went to Montana to camp and fish, riding an outfitter’s horses into some of the most pristine wilderness left in the lower forty-eight. I had genuinely hoped to break the communication barrier that stands between us, but we had to settle for hugs and meaningful silences, for the most part. Dad still plays with his cards pressed tightly to his chest, flashing a look of panic if the conversational waters begin to threaten him with submersion. I guess he can’t swim.

Dad’s experience, it seems to me has also been different from the norm, though I’m uncertain that any human being matches that mythical standard. His family, unlike Mom’s, which fought in the Revolution, was barely American. They were proud American citizens, but their traditions came from old Europe, and they still lived communally on the old Bass farm as they had done for a thousand years.

During my childhood, whenever David was out of the hospital, we’d spend weekends at the farm with the scene looking very much like something from an era that had long since passed in this country, all Dad’s siblings and extended family eating together, playing cards, children roaming the grounds like Huck Finn. It was all rather idyllic, truly, and the moment Grandma Bass died and the farm disappeared under a layer of vulgar office towers marked the shift from one childhood to another.

Dad’s life since then became an effort to recreate those years. His brother and sister had never left the farm. Even when his brother Paul married and had a child, he stayed there on Rockside, as the place was known. I think that scene served as an anchor for my Dad, and when he retired, impressively early despite having suffered huge financial setbacks, he bought his own farm, secluded and sylvan, and moved his socially inept brother and sister in with him.

Paul was a very strange dude. Throughout his lifetime he suffered from some sort of condition that caused him to wobble quite a bit and to mumble when he spoke, like a cartoon character. I still have no idea what the actual condition was–it was never discussed in medical terms, and Paul worked, loved, laughed, and lived in a fashion perfectly suited to him. He represented another unusual facet of our lives that never seemed unusual to us, simply because it just had always been what it was. During his declining years, Paul became more and more difficult to live with, his condition developing into a matter that caused him to actually require care, rather than merely one engendering bemusement. He became cantankerous, incontinent, and dangerous to himself, given his refusal to use a cane. Dad actively cared for him, there on the new farm, forty-five minutes from a paved road, until he died a few years ago.

I couldn’t make the funeral, but I spoke to Dad on the phone as he was back in the city making arrangements. I told him I thought his dealings with Paul were among the most impressive and moving things I had ever seen. I still see it that way. The conversation, which lasted no more than ten minutes I guess, may have been the deepest we’ve ever shared.

For the past eight or nine years every Sunday, so long as I’m in town, I give away food we cook up to whomever we can get to come up to the Colorado College campus and sample our fare. Often our guests are homeless or dirt poor, but we’re not so much stipulating low economic clout as a qualifier. We’ll feed anyone. Dick Celeste, the former governor of my home state, Ohio, and once ambassador to India, comes now and then. He’s a friend, and I visit him at his home, during party season at CC. Arlo Guthrie came down to our basement kitchen once–I put him to work washing dishes. Many of the crowd I see every week are chronic though, plagued by demons I surmise to have been born in conditions similar to mine as a youth. I’ve occasionally contemplated the accusation of “enabling” bad behavior that people toss my way once in a while, but many of our regulars, some of whom I’ve known for twenty-five years, are simply never going to approach any sort of productivity. They are simply too extraordinarily damaged, and as the proverb goes, there, but for the grace of God, go I.

The Christian experience I mentioned earlier was a reflection, or maybe an extension, of spiritual drives I always apprehended. I pursued it heartily for a time, beginning my adult involvement with the sort of hands-on charity our Sunday kitchen represents in a Christian context. The Church always felt skewed to me though, and a couple years’ studying of the questions involved convinced me to adopt thinking anathema to most of my Christian friends. The exclusionary thinking shared by many church folk, in turn, began to seem anathema to me.

Something about my family and its ability to weather long, rending forces, becoming over time a stronger entity for all its roiling turbulence, seems to me akin to the aspect of the human condition that produces the wrecked lives that bring folks to visit me on Sunday afternoons. Further spiritual thinking–some would say metaphysical thinking–concerning Chaos and Oneness has encouraged me to feel like the separation between me and the crowd I serve is illusory in some indefinable fashion. When members of our family passed through periods during which we found it necessary to step back from one another, the bonds that hold us together never broke, and the etheric bonds between my soup kitchen crowd and me, and ambassadors or presidents, don’t seem breakable either. We all seem to share certain common struggles, differences arising simply from disparate approaches, variant perspectives. Our family, it turns out was never what we imagined it ought to be, but perhaps something greater, and more viable, after all.

Part of my mission in ditching the construction business for more cerebral and perhaps less lucrative pursuits at an age when many of my peers in the building industry are thinking of golf courses and retirement comes from a belief that the differences in individuals are reconcilable. Feeding people is necessary, but falls short of bridging the apparent expanse between souls. I still want to change the world, even though I understand the futility of such a grandiose notion. Utopians always fail. But I expect that each time some failure becomes apparent, we can learn a little something, and maybe the next day we can fail a little better.

No account of self-examination is ever going to be complete. I won’t be asserting anything about how I’ve come full circle. Our family will never return to the conditions of my childhood. Nor is the new generation my brothers and cousins and I have brought into the world a retread of old lives. I haven’t even touched on my own experiences as head of a new family, but my children live lives vastly different from their forbears, and even though I rather hope they can avoid some of my mistakes, I suspect they’ll be making many of their own. It seems to be in their genes to require hard lessons. But, like my tortured friends in line at CC on Sunday mornings, or those in my circle equally tortured but accustomed to fine linens, whatever they may suffer holds its own value.

We all learn what we must learn. Life is perfectly safe. Its lessons are self-taught, but deep. I genuinely plan to write a real memoir and a family history, for my kids’ sake, but by the time we come full circle, it’s too late to write about it.

George Who?

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Steve Bass

This is a paper from some time ago, well prior to the advent of Occupy events. Henry George wrote from a sensibility one rarely finds expressed so explicitly today. The modern reader should note that Christian underpinnings in no way disrupt either the reasoned logic or the passionate humanity behind George’s arguments. Follow the links! Many Occupiers have promoted education, the deeper aspects of which are rarely available in 3 page tracts….

For Eric Stephenson
16 February 2009

George Who?

It seems peculiar that in 2009 no one has heard of Henry George, if only for the fact that during his prime a hundred years past his was easily one of the most recognizable names on Earth. Just a journalist really, George’s hardscrabble upbringing, his early experience in the business world, and maybe just a little OCD inspired him to craft an entirely new approach to economic theory. Its publication very quickly garnered him international acclaim, respect, and supportive friendship from many of the greatest figures of his day. Many, encountering his work for the first time today, would no doubt label him a Commie, particularly given that George’s work followed Marx and Engels’ by three decades. This misinterprets George. His thinking split the difference between Adam Smith and the Communist theorists in many ways, sharing common ground with both camps but firmly establishing his own territory. His work deserves a second reading.

George was born in Philadelphia, September, 1839, to a family headed by a hardworking but low-budget printer. By providing the Church cut-rate printing services, George’s devout father enabled Henry to garner a relatively high-standard primary education from the Episcopal Academy. He left home after high-school seeking his own way, and after a brief period of adventuring, found himself in San Francisco where he joined the Printer’s Union, following in his father’s footsteps after all.

George lived a poor man’s life–same as any tradesman at the height of the Robber Barons’ power–until an editor at the San Francisco Times came across a piece he had written and left lying around. He accepted an offered staff writing position at $50 a week, which seemed a princely amount compared with his father’s $800 a year. He traveled quite a bit for the Times, and in 1868 on assignment in New York City first encountered the squalid conditions surrounding and adjoining vaunted islands of luxury and power that would inform and undergird his writing for the rest of his life.

Having gained considerable respect as a newsman and a fair amount of seed-money, George and a partner, William Hinton, established the San Francisco Evening Post in 1871. George unabashedly used the paper as a human rights platform until 1877, when, some say, powerful railroad interests against whom he had written since his SF Times days shut the Evening Post down. Quickly landing a government post through highly-placed friendships he had developed, he used the leisure time it afforded to produce his magnum opus, Progress and Poverty, and published it in 1879. George moved to New York in 1880 and promptly left for England and Ireland, touring there to support Irish land support. By the time he returned, his life had changed forever. Progress and Poverty had made him a celebrity (de Mille 1-152).

George’s political economy laid out in his roughly 600 page book begins with his assertion that Smith’s approach established private land ownership as the foundation of economic and social structure, referring often to “the sacred rights of private property” (Smith, par. 1.11.79). So far few would argue, but George figured this skewed, and brazenly wrote that, “[t]he great cause of inequality in the distribution of wealth is inequality in the ownership of land. The ownership of land is the great fundamental fact which ultimately determines the intellectual and moral condition of a people….[I]t necessarily follows that the only remedy for the unjust distribution of wealth is in making land common property” (295, 391). He argued that as a foundational natural resource there is no basis for sequestering land in private hands. He proposed to hold land in common and allot it to users for as long as they needed, for whatever production they could derive from it, and the holder would pay tax, (rent), on its assessed value until relinquished. The holder and any capital or labor involved would keep whatever profit came from the working of the land, and the public would base taxation only upon the land itself. Note that this negates both income and capital gains taxes. (During George’s prominence, no federal income tax existed in the United States). George insisted the extensive system described philosophically in Progress and Poverty, and rather more technically in The Science of Political Economy, would adequately supply the government’s fiscal needs without additional taxes while simultaneously encouraging entrepreneurship and curtailing development of a landed class.

Marx, whose seminal works came before George, but close enough that both wrote from the surrounding milieu of the Industrial Revolution, addressed similar problems. He and those following took the matter to a deeper extreme, however, allowing for no private ownership of either property or capital. Marx expressed a well known hostility to capital. The familiar Communist adage, “Property is Theft,” represents a drastic condensation from Marx’s arguments that labor always seems to wind up on the short end of dealings with those holding either land or capital (Marx, chap. 6, par.2). Like George, Marx chafed at the inequities this arrangement produced, especially with the exacerbations of capital lording over labor, which industrial development had completely disassociated from the land producing the wealth. “The means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up,” says Marx, “were generated in feudal society,” (Marx, and Engels 1848, chap. 1, par. 21).The Communists implemented a far more radical seizure of all private property, including both land and capital, consolidating it under a central federal power (chap. 2, par. 75). Contrarily, George felt that capital deserved its due, and sought to rectify the problems he saw by implementation of a more enlightened “single tax.”

A few germane observations present themselves for discussion. Smith, George, and Marx all expressed notions we might call idealist—Utopian even. Each sought to solve timeless conundrums with an incredibly optimistic approach. Jaded 21st century readers might consider any one of them painfully naive, in retrospect. None of them had the advantage of the hindsight we enjoy, however, and fruitlessly denying the problems each pointed out in his broader work does not help at all. Smith wrote when, fresh from the collapse of European Feudalism, land served as the key to wealth of any kind, and still viewed as an unlimited resource for the grabbing. The vast inequities the Industrial Revolution had abruptly produced vexed George and the Communists. None of these could have predicted today’s technological, information based economies, with the problems they addressed dispersed over the entire planet. Today, the rate of separation between the “Haves” and the “Have Nots” poises to exceed the conditions affecting either set of writers.
George did not design a perfect system. Neither, as amply demonstrated by both history and current events, did Smith or Marx. Henry George thoughtfully and humanely addressed a terribly intractable matter in human affairs, however, and deliberately allowed for future thinkers to expand his work. His work deserves contemplation as we forge into a new century fraught with uncertainties. Our present crisis may help encourage just that.

Works Cited

De Mille, Anna George. Henry George: Citizen of the World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1950.
George, Henry. Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy. 1898. New York, New York: The Robert Shalkenbach Foundation, 1979. 17 February 2009

Marx, Karl. Wage-Labor Capital. 1849. 17 February 2009

Marx, K. and Engels, F. Manifesto of the Communist Party. 1848. 17 February 2009

Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 1776. Ed. Edwin Cannan. 5th ed. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1904. 17 February 2009

United States Department of the Treasury. Fact Sheets: Taxes. 17 February 2009 (This link is obsolete).

All in

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Steve Bass

When i first set out to write this blog i had no intention of writing about geopolitics, or anything any bigger than my own little world, or to develop any sort of readership at all, let alone to kick up international interest. Who knew? Since the time i started, Adbuster’s Occupy movement has overtaken the whole world and i’ve become a part of it, along with apparently millions of fellow humans dissatisfied with aspects of the concentric and overlapping political systems that govern and control the minutiae of our daily lives. Occupy has struck a chord that resonates well beyond what seems to have been its original intent as well.

Adbuster asserts in its campaign web-page opener that, “we vow to end the monied corruption of our democracy,” speaking, one assumes of U.S. democracy, even though Adbusters is a Canadian publication founded by Kalle Lasn, an Estonian. Adbusters itself claims to be a, “global network of culture jammers and creatives,” and that their Occupy is, “[i]nspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the Spanish acampadas.” One should note that Adbusters is a non-profit organization with aspirations and effect well beyond the confines of the magazine at its core.

Many of my dear intrepid friends struggle mightily with the unavoidable nature of the movement in which we all participate. Occupy Colorado Springs, (OCS), has garnered a fair amount of attention both because of its early acquisition of a city permit to camp on the sidewalk, and for its fragmentary infighting. Strong personalities have clashed fairly spectacularly for what scale we’re dealing with here, and precisely the same arguments are on display at Occupy web-pages all over the U.S., as well as abroad. Here, many patriotic, nationally oriented players have concentrated on addressing the U.S. Constitution and the influence of corporate interests in Washington, D.C. politics. Others have been caught up in causes of personal concern as the “focus” of the overall movement has grown more and more diffuse. The bickering and difficulty in reaching consensus has been frustrating but, i suggest, not unhealthy or out of place.

Adbusters, following ques from the Middle East and Spain, deliberately set off a “leaderless” movement, and has fastidiously avoided taking hold of any sort of control of what has developed since, refusing even media interviews for fear of exercising undue influence. Occupy remains a leaderless movement. Various groups and individuals have issued lists of demands; the one linked there, “is representative of those participating on this [particular ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Facebook] page.” We Occupiers have much common ground, which has served well to bring us all together, and will continue to serve as we gather to discuss and bicker over issues and particulars. There is plenty to differentiate amongst us as well, on individual and other categorical bases, but we have recognized, more or less, an essential humanity that has us willing to stand in freezing temperatures if we live in the northern hemisphere, and subject ourselves to the slow, often painful process of learning to live together.

Some among us, as we have seen right here in Colorado Springs, are very uncomfortable indeed with the amorphous nature of the Movement. We have seen splintering, censorship wars, general Assemblies that devolve into shouting matches, and the development of personal animosities. These phenomena are repeated on a grander scale throughout the Movement while observers gloat over the imminent dissolution of Occupy unity. Neither we Occupiers nor the Movement’s detractors ought to be misled by these birth pains. Our situation as humans, or for that matter any other creature inhabitant of the Earth has been rendered fully untenable by humans competing for dominance. The upheaval we engage from our Colorado Springs street corner, or from squares in Manchester, Belgrade, Cairo, and etc. is the natural response of rats in a corner. Were it not for the fact that we humans indeed possess reasoning capacity beyond a rat’s we really would be screwed. Fortune, or Divine providence, or evolution, or whatever mechanism or mechanisms turn(s) out to be true has granted us the tools that, utilized with empathy at every turn may–just may–allow us to work our way out of the massive pickle in which we’ve put ourselves. Nothing about this will be easy, quick, or for most, especially comfortable.

The Movement is leaderless. This is an existential fact. No matter how strenuously individuals attempt to grab hold of reigns, or to turn them over to others, there is no authority behind the Movement other than the profound spiritual authority of its essential Idea. The financial disparities that we have focused on here in the U.S. are real, and the supra-national bodies that control our government with full directive power are the same bodies that separate people from power in every nation on Earth. Each issue that has arisen into the Movement’s overall consciousness, from derivative markets, to marijuana law, to camping on public property is part and parcel of the whole thing, which itself amounts to such a gigantic, lumpen juggernaut that we have a hard time gathering our thoughts around the whole thing at once. We must.

Many U.S. citizens, including some prominent in and around OCS, have expressed insistent nationalism. Muslims and Christians around the world have pushed religions agendas. Nationalism is by no means confined to the U.S.A. Our corporate, non-personal enemy and its personal, human operators are Global already, and use these divisions to our detriment! At a Colorado College faculty panel yesterday, much ado was made of income disparities and market finagling by Wall Street financiers. We can isolate our minds all we want, but we can not eliminate the fact that Wall Street, Fleet Street, Singapore, Hong Kong, the House of Saud, whatever, whatever, are already one indivisible entity, operating in opposition to any concern for overall humanity or household priorities for any of us as inhabitants of the planet, including the natural requirements of the controllers. The Idea of competition and profit has acquired an independent life of its own and has prevented even those at the top of the unwieldy pyramid from living lives connected to the most valuable prizes of all, which we humans have recognized throughout our history and recorded in odes, songs, and literature to be transcendent of politics and possessions. The statistics cited by those college economists, and the many Occupiers that mention them in speeches and lists of demands are quite real, and Americans might note that Kurdish, Nepali, and Palestinian Occupiers, for example, skew the stats we’ve been flailing our arms about here even further, and that “First World” exploitation is a very large part of this discussion, indeed.

There can be little doubt that the “Wall Street” entities in control of our various governments have planned for and directed events toward a “New World Order” for decades, if not centuries. Lots of justifiably paranoid conspiracy watchers all over the planet have done their best to alert their fellows to this alarming and unacceptable development for as long as it has been in the mix. The Vatican, a power with negative credibility in its adherence to its own doctrine, has offered itself up as a potential controller of a global banking scheme. Currently entrenched power-brokers will absolutely without question attempt to co-opt and control the current Movement. We humans are not interested in more of the same bullshit, plus the added benefit of still more bullshit! We occupiers are fully Sovereign, each in his or her own right. We are leaderless by design, which is the natural development of the abject failure of our leaders, and in fact of the failure of the very foundation of our interaction amongst ourselves that has developed without much direction for at least the 10,000 year span during which we have written about it. Those who resist this fact will find little more than inversely correlated discomfort in their resistance. One can deny the nature of a rhinoceros till one’s dying day, but the beast remains a rhinoceros, and the denier’s last day may well come on the day he encounters a rhinoceros.

Sovereign consensus building is not democracy. It’s something we humans have never attempted on the scale we Occupiers are attempting now. Broad-scale cooperation as a foundation is against an established competitive approach that we have fallen into by default for a long, long time. Voting one another into submission will not work, simply because we have let the cat out of the bag. We noble individuals are learning a brand-new thing, like it or not, because a rhinoceros has smashed the freakin’ house down. I, for one will not abandon the Liberty of my own Sovereignty, no matter who votes what, nor will i abandon the respect i hold for each other Sovereign in the entire mix. I recognize the differences between whatever groups or persons are in the whole wide world. Categorical observations are real, so far as they go; but i won;t be bound by them. I won’t be forced to fight against the 1% simply because i am a member of the 99%. Rather i will be fighting with every fiber of my being for the 100% of us who will ALL be trampled by the rhinoceros, in pretty danged short order, unless we ALL relinquish our insistence on control, avarice, and irresponsibility of all stripes.

Each of us has a part to play, a purpose to serve. Never abandon what you know. Work hard at open discussion. Don’t be embarrassed by frustrating moments or attempt to hide your own humanity. Withdraw for a moment if you need to to prevent overboiling passions. We’re all in this together. Be patient Brothers and Sisters; this is gonna hurt some….

OWS List of Demands:
www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=157161391040462
Adbusters:
www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet
NPR:
www.npr.org/2011/10/20/141526467/exploring-occupy-wall-streets-adbuster-origins
Middle Eastern origins:
www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/apr/09/libya-egypt-syria-yemen-live-updates
Acampadas:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13466977

The Hail Mary pass still would need an Immaculate Reception.

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Brother Jonah

So, in the spirit of Code Duello, trial by combat, Might Makes Right and all that stupid crap, what happens when Texas Christian U., Southern Methodist University, Brigham Young and Notre Dame square off in a four way winner take all?
Will GOD Almighty choose the leaders of His Creation from a trial by combat amongst colleges representing the seminaries of American Christendom? Would He toss in a “ringer” like the New Orleans Saints? What if He uses the hole in the roof of the Cowboys Stadium to barf on “His” Team?
Sound ridiculous? How much more so the notion that He really cares who wins a football game?
Or that a victory on the battlefield of Real War means that your own country is far more righteous and beloved than The Other Side?

Occupy Denver recognizes Colo. AIM, mixes metaphor to Unoccupy America!

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Eric Verlo

This weekend the General Assembly of Occupy Denver recognized that its intended occupation was actually a re-occupation, of lands to which original inhabitants lay claim. On Sunday the GA consensus voiced its solidarity with the American Indian Movement of Colorado who submitted a statement for ratification. It’s reprinted below via The Sole Reader:

COLORADO AIM’S CHALLENGE TO #OCCUPYDENVER

An Indigenous Platform Proposal for “Occupy Denver”

“Now we put our minds together to see what kind of world we can create for the seventh generation yet to come.”

John Mohawk (1944-2006), Seneca Nation

As indigenous peoples, we welcome the awakening of those who are relatively new to our homeland. We are thankful, and rejoice, for the emergence of a movement that is mindful of its place in the environment, that seeks economic and social justice, that strives for an end to oppression in all its forms, that demands an adequate standard of food, employment, shelter and health care for all, and that calls for envisioning a new, respectful and honorable society. We have been waiting for 519 years for such a movement, ever since that fateful day in October, 1492 when a different worldview arrived – one of greed, hierarchy, destruction and genocide.

In observing the “Occupy Together” expansion, we are reminded that the territories of our indigenous nations have been “under occupation” for decades, if not centuries. We remind the occupants of this encampment in Denver that they are on the territories of the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Ute peoples. In the U.S., indigenous nations were the first targets of corporate/government oppression. The landmark case of Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), which institutionalized the “doctrine of discovery” in U.S. law, and which justified the theft of 2 billion acres of indigenous territory, established a framework of corrupt political/legal/corporate collusion that continues throughout indigenous America, to the present.

If this movement is serious about confronting the foundational assumptions of the current U.S. system, then it must begin by addressing the original crimes of the U.S. colonizing system against indigenous nations. Without addressing justice for indigenous peoples, there can never be a genuine movement for justice and equality in the United States. Toward that end, we challenge Occupy Denver to take the lead, and to be the first “Occupy” city to integrate into its philosophy, a set of values that respects the rights of indigenous peoples, and that recognizes the importance of employing indigenous visions and models in restoring environmental, social, cultural, economic and political health to our homeland.

We call on Occupy Denver to adopt, as a starting point, the following:

1. To repudiate the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, to endorse the repeal of the papal bull Inter Caetera (1493) to work for the reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court case of Johnson v. M’Intosh 1823), and call for a repeal of the Columbus Day holiday as a Colorado and United States holiday.

2. To endorse the right of all indigenous peoples to the international right of self-determination, by virtue of which they freely determine their political status, and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural futures.

3. To demand the recognition, observance and enforcement of all treaties and agreements freely entered into `between indigenous nations and the United States. Treaties should be recognized as binding international instruments. Disputes should be recognized as a proper concern of international law, and should be arbitrated by impartial international bodies.

4. To insist that Indigenous people shall never be forcibly relocated from their lands or territories.

5. To acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and teach their spiritual and religious traditions customs and ceremonies, including in institutions of the State, e.g. prisons, jails and hospitals„ and to have access in privacy their religious and cultural sites, and the right to the repatriation of their human remains and funeral objects.

6. To recognize that Indigenous peoples and nations are entitled to the permanent control and enjoyment of their aboriginal-ancestral territories. This includes surface and subsurface rights, inland and coastal waters, renewable and non-renewable resources, and the economies based on these resources. In advancement of this position, to stand in solidarity with the Cree nations, whose territories are located in occupied northern Alberta, Canada, in their opposition to the Tar Sands development, the largest industrial project on earth. Further, to demand that President Barack Obama deny the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, proposed to run from the tar sands in Canada into the United States, and that the United States prohibit the use or transportation of Tar Sands oil in the United States.

7. To assert that Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions. They have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions. Further, indigenous peoples have the right to the ownership and protection of their human biological and genetic materials, samples, and stewardship of non-human biological and genetic materials found in indigenous territories.

8. To recognize that the settler state boundaries in the Americas are colonial fabrications that should not limit or restrict the ability of indigenous peoples to travel freely, without inhibition or restriction, throughout the Americas. This is especially true for indigenous nations whose people and territories have been separated by the acts of settler states that established international borders without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples affected.

9. To demand that the United States shall take no adverse action regarding the territories, lands, resources or people of indigenous nations without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples affected.

10. To demand the immediate release of American Indian political prisoner, Leonard Peltier, U.S. Prisoner #89637-132, from U.S. federal custody.

Finally, we also remind Occupy Denver that indigenous histories, political, cultural, environmental, medical, spiritual and economic traditions provide rich examples for frameworks that can offer concrete models of alternatives to the current crises facing the United States. We request that Occupy Denver actively utilize and integrate indigenous perspectives, teachers, and voices in its deliberations and decision-making processes.

Submitted 8 October 2011

American Indian Movement of Colorado

P.O. Box 292, Sedalia, CO 80135

Today’s Tom Sawyer

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Steve Bass

It’s 4am here and this occurred to me strongly enough just now to have me say it just now. For Vic, Ken and the rest of my Christian friends, as well as Michele, Kathryn, and others who get twitchy when I bring up the Bible.

I had breakfast with my friend Vic a little while ago and we had some of this conversation–I mean this conversation. The one we’ve been having if you’ve read any of this stuff around here, or if you’ve been to see me at my Facebook, or on the sidewalk or whatever. Vic is a Christian, and about as solid a practitioner as I’ve ever met. He “works” as a prayer director for one of the internationally influential untaxed Christian pseudo-businesses one might easily enough find scattered around town here in Colorado Springs. Years ago I lived in Lindale, Texas and I used to say Lindale was the buckle of the Bible Belt. Now that some of the big organizations down in Lindale have disappeared due to fraud and embezzlement and the like and some of the people I knew down in East Texas have moved to this very town I sometimes say America’s waistline has risen with age and the buckle has found a home in Colorado Springs.

Anyhow, Vic is an affable guy and a good friend and we had a good time over our platesful of arterial lubrication such as we Americans like to do at breakfast. He said he had read some here on these e-pages–I aaalmost cringed because of a certain propensity of mine. Then I remembered one of the axiomatic rules I’ve taught my kids since they started picking up English: “There’s no such thing as a bad word, only bad timing.” It’s time for this.

Vic said he found some of the thoughts he’d come across here, “interesting,” and mused that I had a bone to pick with “organized religion,” which is true, but hasn’t really come up at hipgnosis just yet, I don’t think. I cringed a bit at having utilized terms like “motherfuckah” while discussing a Bible tidbit known as the Beatitudes from a longer passage known as the Sermon on the Mount. It’s one of those axiomatic rules for lots of Christians, and for many who’ve never set foot in a Christian edifice as well. One finds the passage, (from the book of Matthew, chapter 5, in the Bible, if you’re interested), hanging on wooden plaques and the like in people’s living rooms and over their toilets and chapel entrances all over the world, and I suppose in every tongue still in print. I felt a twinge of embarrassment at the time that I get now and then from writing strongly about such grand subject matter knowing well that I’m no saint myself. So I brushed my way by that one at the time, and we went on with breakfast, and with other portions of the Conversation. That’s why this is for Vic at the top of the page, not ’cause I mean to point him out as a prime exemplar or anything.

I have lots of Christian friends, and I often claim that very appellation amongst them, (though not so often amongst the “Romans”); some of them may now think of me as shooting my own foot as I continue. I also have friends that are occultist dope fiends. They’ll find this bit rather more amusing, I expect, but I’ll implicate myself with them too, when I get a round tuit. This is not about organized religion–it’s personal, you see, and directed at people I know, among others including myself where it applies, by which I mean, “where it applies.” Not, “where it applies unless it’s uncomfortable to apply it there like Mercurochrome or something.”

Christians are full of shit as a defining point–the idea of Christian full-of-shitness is all over the New Testament. Many if not most of them have not the merest clue about their own doctrine and those that do spend hours and hours at intricately complex and totally reducible discussions about irreducible complexity and such while ignoring the business of Love so central to their own foundations. (Recall my comments about pseudo-statements now, if you will). One of the so-called Ten Commandments reads, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain,” in that poetic old Frank Bacon English I love so much, (Exodus 20:7, if you give a damn). I’m not gonna dig out a Hebrew lexicon to make this point, and some translations say “misuse” or something instead of “take…in vain”. Whatever. You Christians quit tapdancing and think about this.

Just about any Christian will get at least a little uncomfortable if you say, “God damn it.” There are injunctions in their doctrine warning them away from curses, as well as oaths, unpiloted tongues, and “coarse language”. They don’t so often know the difference and figure this sort of thing for “taking the LORD’s name in vain.” Think about this: When a woman marries a man in most contemporary societies, she takes his name, though this is no longer so mandatory as it had been given the slow and incremental abandonment of the notion of women as property in vogue these days. If a woman, say, marries some patriarchal dude and then goes to work for some pimp on the side, she’s taken Dude’s name in vain. So when Christians do their little tapdancing around points in their own bedrock supposedly established by Gawd Himself and endorsed by His Only Begotten where they’ve not-quite-deliberately, (that’s a dance move called an NQD in the studios, BTW), failed even to drill for pylons, they join the Golden Calf Party, and according to their own lore will be consumed in the fires as they fall through the very fissure in that bedrock I describe here now.

This is the same sort of thing going on when a guy zips up his fly after reading about turning the other cheek and steps out to shoot his quota of Afghans for the day. Or votes a “hawk” into office at his 8-year-old’s school assembly room. Or works up a smokin’ hot head of steam about the crackhead that broke into his garage to feed a real live demon that lives in any crackhead’s pocket and gets real hungry and cranky, (snicker), when its belly is empty. And practicing the sort of bullshit Christianity that allows for this sort of Gene Kelly move is like sailing down the mighty Mississip’ on a flat Tom Sawyer raft made of the concrete that you ought to have been using to build your foundation instead. You’re already at the bottom of the river and the Water of Life is flowing right by your drowned bones.

I’ll be danged…the Sun is coming up over a fine Colorado Sunday morning and I’ve just come to wrapping up a genuine sermon, complete with brimstone. Who’da thunk it?

Pay attention Christian: The World doesn’t hate you because you bring Jesus up all the time. It hates you because you sully a beautiful thing. It hates you because you’re an abject hypocrite, the worst variety of an asshole! And they can smell it, even if they can’t articulate the thought. And none of this is wrong; the fact that it’s coarse is a separate matter. I may have blown my disguise for some…it’s ok, I’m still pretty clear with my own notion of where I stand, and this is for you at least as much as it’s for my own amusement. To paraphrase Gandhi, “I’d be a Christian if it weren’t for the God damn Christians.” That nor any of the above has nothing at all to do with whether I’m actually a Christian or not, nor does it have to do with “religion”, organized or otherwise. It’s about that personal relationship you guys keep talking about. It’s dysfunctional, Yo, and it’s up to you to straighten yours out while I worry about my own.

(Reprinted from Hipgnosis)

Pseu Pseu Pseudo-Do-Dah-Day

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Steve Bass

For Rob. Thanks buddy! Say hi to yer Mom.

We’ve been toying with some pretty weird bits of thinking here, and it’s already getting hard to follow. Lemme try and tie a few things together. Also, if you’re still with me, now’s a good time to point out that this humble site is best read in conjunction with the discussions on my Facebook, (Steve Bass), and for this bit, especially within the PPCC Philosophy Club page linked from my Wall or wherever it is.

Remember my mention of Pseudo-statements back at Willie’s story? Elsewhere, in Stage Magick and around about, notably at the PPCC Philosopy Club linked off my Facebook, I put up the business of our inability to prove a negative. The assertion that “This statement does not belong in the set of all true statements,” is a nice example. The statement is internally self-defeating, negated by paradox; it’s internally inconsistent, self-contradictory, neither true, nor false– a pseudo-statement. The “set of all true statements” statement is a tidy example in that attempting an answer produces a nonsense response awfully reminiscent, at least to me, of the sort of thing that happens to those hapless physicists when they try to crunch their numbers beyond the event horizon and into the heart of the Singularity. Lots of PHDs get real pissy if you try and take their numbers and drag them into the “real” world here. Like most of us, abstractions are fine for them. Hanging flesh on the ephemeral turns it into a monster for some. I, on the other hand, have no such qualm. If matter isn’t made of matter, as some rather esoteric physics appears to indicate, that most assuredly effects us, sez me.

The problem of proving a negative is stickier than the “True Statements” statement, because we can somehow tell the essence of the genuinely self-defeating pseudo-statement is True. Something about the very idea is akin to the business of the Singularity–we can’t seem to get there, or even define the nature of that There, but we know there has to be Something, OK? And thinking about it produces notions that resonate in our world.

We’ve also talked some about politics, and here’s the clincher. Our whole system, our World, maybe even our very Selves combine to make a big ol’ Pseudo-statement, overburdened by internal paradox and contradiction, and decorated with infinite concentric, overlapping circles and waves of Pseudo-reality.

The “Doctrine of the Many,” claimed by Zoroastrians, Jains, some Gostics, among others, avers that we humans are compound beings. Some scientists at the fringe have claimed this as well, but let me keep this as political as I can for a moment. The concept surfaces in Western thinking when we speak of “talking to ourselves,” which we all know can be quite an argument at times, and in notions like multiple personality. Most U.S. citizens will agree that we are a “Christian” nation in spite of that pesky 1st Amendment. We’ll acknowledge “diversity” in religious matters, but obviously those other guys are wrong and belong in Hell where they won’t fuck up our Christian Zen, see? The foundational Christian documents upon which the edifice of the world’s biggest group of religions includes a whole lot of admonitions about Love. Yet it is hardly necessary to provide examples of the embarrassing fact that a whole lot of Christians are rabid, violence-loving haters dribbling foam from their chins as the rail about how, “God hates fags,” or whatever. Don’t feel so smug if you’re a Buddhist or an Agnostic or < insert your favorite dogmatic crap here> and you still get that rush of glee when you see Saddam dangling from a rope or hear about the supposed demise of Osama. I may argue that a thing can be both A and non-A at the same time, but you’ll have a hard time convincing me that killin’ a motherfuckah is the same as turning the other cheek. Where is the Love in this set of systems/politicals/religions/nationalisms? It’s in there, but only in the sense that it sets the whole business up as a sort of cosmic, (and often comic), Pseudo-statement.

I spoke a bit with my homeless friend Rob yesterday and he told me about a guy he knows with some brilliant talent–musical, I think–that lives outside. Rob had burned himself accidentally and the topic brought to light his friend’s plight; the guy is a multiple, and periodically his alter will emerge and industriously destroy his life. The fellow named his alter Jack, I think, and knows of his existence from observing the destruction “Jack” leaves in his wake, but the two never interact. The guy blacks out and has no recollection of moving about in the world while Jack is in control. Once Jack put his feet in a campfire til the shared body required a lengthy hospital stay. One day Jack just may kill the both of him.

I’m saying Christendom is just like Jack and his host, and so is American society. So is the whole freakin’ society of the whole freakin’ world. Only we suffer from a far more advanced stage of the condition and our legs are buried in hot coals. Our hair is on fire. Those homeless dudes don’t worry about a house, but we’ve been building a huge edifice on a foundation of shit for so long we think we can’t backtrack, but backtrack we must. This house is collapsing upon us right now, as we speak, so to speak, and we need to get the fuck out, tear down the M.C. Esher thing we’ve been trying to build, and start the fuck over or we’re all going to be buried. Our society, societies, lives, and now even the solid earth is/are collapsing under the weight of internal contradictions of our own making.

Most who’ve read so far won’t need me to explain the function of a keystone–the stone at the top of an arch that concentrates the force and thereby holds the arch in place. When the capstone at the top of an arch at, say, a Medieval cathedral erodes, the arch collapses. The capstone of the Christian faith is supposed to be Love, right? Isn’t that key to a great many doctrines? It seems hard to find a player in all the world that will openly advocate for a doctrine of Hatred. Even the nastiest Devil-worshiping headbanger seeks Love, if only amongst his own within the particular bit of the Chaotic waveform in which he finds himself. Whatever. Our shit is missing its capstone. And its foundation is shit, too.

Don’t you dare get all dogmatically ideological and ignore the fact that I’ve NOT preached Jesus here, or any other tributary. We–and I mean all of us, including those of us clutching the notions of enmity so close to our hearts, and those addicted to power–need to stand back, tear the whole house down, and rebuild something with a thoughtfully drawn blueprint. We need to build an edifice on a foundation of Love, designed toward the capstone of Love. When we do that–oh, what a mansion we’ll have!

What did that one dude John say? “God is Love.” Right? Can I get a witness?

Right. Thus sayeth the housepainter.

http://samaelgnosis.us/books/html/revolutionary_psychology/chapter_12.htm

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

(Reprinted from Hipgnosis)

Yer in the Army Now….

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Steve Bass

So much has been happening lately I’m afraid this will be a big confused mess, but what th’ hey, right?

The world is in a Meltdown. Hell that’s the reason I have time for this crap, ya know? This is NOT a surprise. We’ve all known it’s been coming for a looong time now, though it’s hard to nail down that specific moment when we knew. Maybe we always did. I’ll get to how I think we’ve known, and how we didn’t know we’ve know a different time. For now, a somewhat more imminent thought. Here’s one place to find a buncha bone-chilling stats http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/index.php . The numbers are everywhere. This is only one source, and far more officious, (don’t mess with me, I used that word on purpose), sources are available. YOU look ’em up. Anyone wanting to look fuckin’ stupid can tapdance around them til–well, til the Apocalypse–and they’re not gonna change, cause tapdancin’ won’t change it. If it was gonna, it woulda! I already put it more or less in a nutshell: WE’RE FUCK-ED!!

But we’re not. We’re still breathing, still eating, drinking, fucking, pumping out babies, and so on. I have two accidental children whom I love without bounds. I genuinely thought it would be rude, at best, to sire a new Person and foist all this bullshit upon him16 years ago when the pertinent romantic interlude took place. Maybe it is, in way, but in plenty of other ways life is as always a thing of such great, broad, deep beauty that I think all potential for its fulfillment ought to be pursued. (Don’t imagine I’ve converted to Catholicism or something–that though was rather more metaphysically driven, and you should put on a raincoat if it looks like rain. Or waders if it looks like–you know ;)) Look around, though. We’re ALIVE!! More than we know. And life shows us in every discrete packet of light entering our retinas that it will rise, no matter what. We can’t kill the Earth. I rather think she’d prefer us to work this out, but she’ll be fine. We can certainly destroy our ability to live here as Humans, though.

In Consider the Lilies, I started to explain what I’m up to here. Every time I approach that question, the answers that come to me sound more and more absurdly grandiose. Save the world? I mean, reeealy! when I was a young child, like in the 3rd grade or something, (no shit–ask Mom), I was politicized and set in a frame of mind opposed to fascism, oppression, and unkindness, for lack of a better term. Everyone knows this is the course of idealism, though, right? I got out in the “real” world and it struck me that one must make some pragmatic concessions to get by. Right? We all learn this, don’t we? Usually when it “strikes” us it’s like a brick in the head. It’s usually thrown at us by some cog in the Fascist machine.

If you’ve read the earlier posts, or caught my live rant, you’ve likely been puzzled by my carryings on about money being a bad metaphor. It’s outdated poetry, good for a time, now hopelessly outdated like that ridiculous, overwrought Victorian romance shyte you may have read in college or high school. (Leave them kids alone, teacher!). “All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling, ” wrote Oscar Wilde, and the old thing has gotten us a long way, in fact, it’s gotten us right here. Fucked. Or on the cusp of some spectacular event(s).

We live in a competitive world. Whichever doctrinal approach one embraces, whether scientifically mechanistic or holding out for divine fiat, it’s the scrabbling over game pieces that has us in this sinking boat. Everyone has to have a buncha shit they don’t need, in order to display for all the other poor losers how dominant they or their team has been in the Game. This isn’t a fuckin’ game anymore, though. Look at those numbers again. Do you really think a little half-assed reduction in increase in greenhouse gas emissions over the next 100 years or whatever is going to save the human race? Get real! Do you really think we might someday pay off our $23 trillion debt, or whatever it is? What’s that shit, anyways? To whom do we owe it? When did we sign that contract? Didn’t someone steal that from us last month? Do we really think we can survive a collapse of the oceans, the food chain, the watersheds, etc, etc, and so on?

I may be grandiose and ridiculous, but I can read the writing on the wall, in the sky, on the face of the Moon. We’re gonna need to stop fiddle-fuckin’ around and wrestle this shit to the ground, or we’re all gonna die. Our kids are gonna die. Our grandkids, if we live to see them, will be mutant freaks like Goldbloom’s fly monster, just like the poor fucked up three-eyed fish around Chernobyl and downstream of a BHP Billiton mine , (BHP: Broken Hill Properties. It’s only a secret if you close your eyes, kids). They’ll die miserably, and the Earth will breathe a sigh of relief, having fought off a pestilent Virus. Or we can CHANGE EVERYTHING.

I saw a panel discussion at the community college yesterday, (PPCC). A Bahai, a Buddhist, a Pagan, and a Christian philosopher walked into a bar and the bartender said, “What is this, a fuckin’ joke?” Oh–sorry. They actually sat behind a table and spoke as cogently as they were able, and we all took them fairly seriously, if with the standard portion of salt–you know it’s still all bullshit, right? A thematic keystone was the notion that we’re all One, that it’s all All-One. You’ll notice me playing that riff for all I can wring from it. It’s got a lot of Soul, and it sounds good. When I say we’re all gonna die, I don’t mean all us minor league players. The whole stadium is collapsing. It’s already collapsed in a lot of ways. Check out my friend Skip’s posts about the Federal Reserve. Don’t be tapdancing when you read. The Fascists will die with us. Their secret bunkers won’t do. Competition is over; the game pieces are reduced to Parker Bros. parts. Cooperative living is at hand.

Only LOVE will save us. That’s right, y’all.Think that’s hokey? Sure. It is. But that’s a view from the old game. I put this shit up because I believe it. I’m just as much like water as anyone else. I’d stay comfortably here at the lowest level if it seemed for one second to me like that might be an option. It does not. It is not. Change or die. Right now. Today. Look me up. I have a couple ideas, and I bet you do too, if you were to stop concentrating on that tapdance.

There are many, many more things to say about all this. Come back and see us, eh?

Viva la rivoluzione!
Viva l’Esercito dell’Amore!

(Reprinted from Hipgnosis)

Consider the Lilies

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Steve Bass

My friends are no doubt a scrappy bunch. It’s no big surprise that guys like Jon and Adam and–holy shit–Skip, are pissed off and ready to burn a few barns down, so to speak. I don’t think I need to look up a bunch of fancy references to convince anyone that things are dire, dire, dire. The college students I went hiking with yesterday afternoon will have to live what, like 20,0000 years to pay off the stupid shell-game debt they supposedly owe. Some guy on Adam’s page was trying to convince me the whole business is thus because we never pay our bills. Bullshit. It’s like this because a buncha paranoid Fascist clowns have set up a little magick trick to try and convince us they have some legitimate claim to all the cheese. THEY DO NOT!!!

So there’s a fight working alright, and I’ve been in it since I was a potential in my Granddad’s genetic line. But I recently noticed–this is so weird–we’re all fighting the wrong guy, and he is us. If we collapse our little bubble here in our little gob of the quantum foam, we’re all screwed; not just us little guys. And we really do have enough guys to kick their Fascist asses on the way down. But guess what, we’ve all got it wrong!

Like it or not we’re all in this together. We’re each and every one of us as fucked up as the Devil!!! Shit he may have been the only sane one all along–but now I’m just picking at scales. Sorry. Didn’t meant to. Ahem. Point is some of us are fucked up differently than others. It doesn’t matter. That crackhead? Fuck-ed. The cop beating him down? Fuck-ed. Dominique Kahn-Strauss? Fuck-ed. Who else? The Pope? Me? You? Yeah, you’re starting to anticipate if not grok me.

I’m a tool. Sometimes I’m also a dick and an asshole. That’s another matter–I’m happy about being a tool.

A while ago I came back to Colorado from a trip back to Cleveland for the great John Covert’s 95th birthday party. The moment I returned to my adopted home town, every television set in the danged known Universe began to trumpet the imminent falling of the sky, talking heads of every political stripe and linguistic camp bewailing the unavoidable collapse of the American dollar and the entire foundation of all civilization along with it. I found myself with time on my hands, so I started tinkering with this blog as nothing more than an outlet for some frustrations, and a place to sling a bit of my ordinary schtick, mainly just at myself, assuming I’d be the only one reading. I played around on Facebook a little meaning nothing more than to hunt down a few friends from the distant past. That’s what FB is for, right? A series of rapidly developing events took place and I soon found myself in the position I mean to describe right now, as best as I am able.

I guess I can’t recall the first moment I was told I could write. It hasn’t really mattered til recently–everyone knows writing is one of those career choices pursued by quixotic artsy-fartsy types that were willing to sacrifice creature comforts on the off chance someone might give a shit, and that the big bucks might roll in, easy-pleasy. Like hitting the lottery or breaking into the billboard charts with your high-school garage band, right? Besides, writers as a breed must, by necessity, possess a form of self-deluded arrogance that they have things to say of such verity and import that people will be compelled to actually pay money to subject themselves to the grief of listening to the blather produced in the effort to be a big deal. It was never like that. I just wanted something to fill the time that wouldn’t dissolve my brains like the all to comfortable slide into awareness of regularly scheduled TV programming was beginning to do.

Somewhere in the midst of Facebooking about how we need a new econo-political paradigm it became apparent that bitching about this need had long been a habit of mine, as well as of many of my friends. I’ve always been a pretty good bitcher, too, in fact, when I entered the foundationless world of a self-employed remodeler it was a sense of the futility of bellyaching about how paint companies were managed. My brother and I had enough faith in our pooled abilities to believe we could do things better than the people running outfits for which we had worked to strike under our own banner. The key words in this were and remain “faith” and “believe”.

So it occurred to me that if I really believe my own drivel, I ought to live it out.

Well that was an eye-opener. Very little pursuit of that idea led me to examine just what I actually believe, which turns out to be quite a bit, and quite at odds with the established order of things. I started, as is my wont, to contemplate God, and the deeper nature of things. I thought about how this transposes to something manageable in this “real” world. We have to work at a job, right? We have to round up bacon we can trade for goods, services, support for our children, and so on. But wait a minute–20 years of self-employment, and I was broke, money-wise, and most of my relationships were broke in some sense as well, though in most instances I couldn’t tell how, or how to fix it. Seemed the thing I was best at doing was bitching. Where’s the fun in that?

But I do believe in God, right, even though I’ve managed to get myself thrown out of both Christian churches and sorta like devil-worshiping occult groups because my notions of God are…unconventional. Enough so I’m usually inclined to put quotation marks around “God” when I type the word, and to feel compelled to issue tedious disclaimers about how I differ from the general milieu of thinkers on the matter.

An experiment in ontological ideoplasticity.

This whole thing is about stuff I believe. I’m kinda stuck at that level, since there’s not much I know. Some of what I believe has to do with what other folks believe, so I’ll be pretty much doing what a lot of other folks do, in a lot of ways. In some

Whoa!!! Blah Blah F-ing Blah.

Mt 6

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

My apologies to any devil-worshiping freaks I may have just offended. You’re wrong, anyhow–that’s for another moment. Point is–and I’m no ordinary Christian–this is stuff we all learned from the cradle. I’ll be using Christian doctrinal talking points throughout this whole conversation because that’s where I learned this shit. It’s also where I learned it was all crap.

I’ve had a real hard time with this one, cause by now I can usually say, “The point is….” Right now I still can’t do that. The whole collection of thoughts in my head begins to ooze its way into the point when I come at it this way. Bear with a little, OK?

Christians say they believe the book that stuff up the page a little came from is the sacrosanct Word of God, equated with the Logos–God on paper, if you will. With apologies to those real Christian human beings in the world, Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit!!!!! If you shitheels really believed one word of the shit in that book, this conversation would be intrinsically inconceivable. See that at the end of that last sentence? PERIOD.

On the other hand, I believe the Bible to be a beautiful collection of fine literature, some of which may be divinely inspired. We have all these cultural heroes, like Gandhi whom I linked to on FB earlier, Jesus, John Lennon ferchristsake. We pay a bunch of lip service out to them then grab a beer and flick on some stupid nonsense on TV, or punch a child, or throw rocks at a cop, or bust a protester. Fuck that, I decided I believe it. Whatever it is.

You may have noticed me carrying on about a new paradigm, money’s a bad metaphor, we’re all in this together, &c., &c. All that is real, real important to what this is about, but OMG kids! This was a bitch to get off. I’ll be hanging flesh on it all as I go, but be patient. what ended up here just now was way different than what I’d meant to do. A writer has to possess a pretty ridiculous quantity of arrogance in the first place, just to have the motivation to sit here pouring all of it out. I mean, I think this tripe I’m typing is valuable enough, and that you all will want to see it–need to see it–to occupy me at 3:30 in the fucking morning. Even worse, here and round about, (get wit’ me on Facebook, if you came from somewhere else), I’ll be arguing with Hegel, Gandhi, Paul the fuckin’ Apostle. Can you believe it? Whatever, I believe the finer points from all those guys. I’ll explain everything.

This hasn’t been the clarification I’d promised to put up, but it defines some of the questions, I guess. You can have it.

Now don’t forget. A little review: It’s All Bullshit!!!

(Reprinted from Hipgnosis)

Stage Magick

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Steve Bass

For Bruce McCluggage

Had some words with my friend Bruce yesterday–OK, lots of words. In fact, the Spirit moved me, so I was blasting words all over the place like that guy from the X Men, only with a gag instead of a visor. All the way toward the end of much conversatin’–and yes, Bruce held his end respectably in the face of my torrent–we came to a summation.

The idea is already on the pages here, so it’s important, and needing some flesh, but it’s also very simple. We all know we can’t prove a negative. Any third grade philosopher know this as an unshakable verity, right? So who will step up to prove that? No one, that’s who–we can’t do it, and mind you, I don’t hearsee that term coming from myself often. I’ll beat my kids senseless if I hear them using it. (Hi kids! Molto amore!). Hell the notion is generational. My totally outstanding 95 year old Granddad banned the word from his brood’s vocabulary, and he started his family during the Great Depression. But we can’t, and we know we can’t.

We can’t even prove that we can’t prove that we can’t prove a negative. We can add layers to our investigation to Eternity, and never can we prove a negative. And yet we know that we know that we know (&c.) that we can’t do it. What the Heellll!!? This is why: Reason breaks down at a point between proving and knowing right here for us to examine like a fascinating diamond, cut in some diabolically ingenious fashion to as to hide its facets from us like a tesseract or something. There’s math that explains this pretty succinctly. Look up Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, (here’s a good start http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel/). Godel, whose name I’ll be disrespecting til I figure out how to add an umlaut on this thing, wrote a bunch of High Math, way beyond my capacity, that shows us in terms even I can grok, that any closed system can never possibly contain all the tools necessary to fully describe itself. With me so far?

This shows us another Eternal Verity: Truth transcends Proof; and further–our ability to know does the same. Now, Bruce is a philosopher, and kind of a Christian, so this sort of shit doesn’t bother him like it may the Scientific Determinists that may read this. What we are gazing upon, through the lens of our little diamond, is an example of our ability to “jump out of the system”, and view it from outside, in some manner as indescribable as how we can know there’s no proving a negative. (Apologies to Doug Hofstadter for abusing an idea I came across in Godel, Escher, Bach. I’m about to depart from his comfort zone, I think. He did, give him mucho credit, respectably describe the idea within the closed system of those pages). This is an ability we share with God. This, I think, is why some tidbit of western scripture says, “Ye are gods,” (Psalm 82, for you skeptics; read it all and get some context before attempting to argue, please).

This whole line of thought is closely associated with the Ontological Argument as proof of God, if not fully dependent upon it, (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/). For the uninitiated, this is a supremely brilliant bit of philosophical tomfoolery that attemtps to prove the existence of God by reason alone, in an orderly procession of thought utterly divorced from empirical evidence. If anyone would care to take it on, I’d love–no LOVE–to see a genuine debunking. It’s very slippery indeed, and feels for all the world like a stage magician pulling infinite decks of cards from his sleeves. But it’s irrefutable, in my stupid little mind. It jumps the system.

I’ll readdress the crap we’ve mulled over here, but this is good. Put simply–arithmetically, one might say–We can’t prove a negative>We know this>Truth is superior to proof>We are therefore superior to the closed system of All-There-Is>Only god is thus>We are gods. (Yes, I took a leap there at step 6. I only have so much attention span. Roll wit’ it for now, OK? It’s in the Ontological Argument if you feel like getting ahead of me). This is arithmetical, yes, and handily sums up my points from yesterday, Bruce and friends. But, as you’ve seen by now I guess, that doesn’t mean one can’t do a bit of Algebra, Trig, or (Meta)Physics with it.
***
Jeez, I hope you all enjoyed that. Please don’t burn me at the stake yet. There’s more. It’ll take a while to work around the mess of toroidal thinking here. See Bruce–I didn’t forget that part. I’m only human, even if we are all gods. Bear in mind all, that Nothing here is any more valuable than the opinion of one idiot house painter. And any of you who have read the stuff before this will know already: It’s all a bunch of bullshit.

(Reprinted from Hipgnosis)

I know where Congressman Lamborn is – because no one is telling OR asking. Re: media blackout on junkets to Israel

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Calls to Doug Lamborn’s office inquiring as to his whereabouts produces this charade: “Um, I don’t know. Let me ask. They don’t know. I’m not certain who would know. Could you hold please?” And we never get an answer. That his office won’t say, coupled with the media’s strange incuriosity, points to a self-enforced news moratorium on where a fifth of US congress is spending the August recess: as guests of Israel and the most powerful DC lobby. It’s been reported that a record 81 members are on an all-expense-paid junket to Israel, but their identities are a closely guarded secret. The US TV audience can be let to see their representatives give standing ovations to the Israeli prime minister, but visit Israel? The media blackout would have you think there’s something wrong with that.

Middle East peace groups and Palestinian rights organizations have had to painstakingly gather the information from stray news reports out of Israel, or from congressional offices reluctant to let it be know. So far 45 names are known to be on this year’s junket. Doug Lamborn is not on the list, but his office probably has a lower self-respect threshold for playing dumb.

You’d think with the recent furor about calling Obama a Tar Baby, that the media would want to be calling Lamborn to the hot seat. Apparently not. All that’s said is that he hasn’t surfaced to meet with constituents, or give interviews. Last week Lamborn issued a press release unrelated to his recent trouble, probably preplanned, in collaboration with fellow Colorado Congressman Tipton. Tipton, by the way, is among the officeholders known to be in Israel.

Lamborn vacationing in Israel would not be a far-fetched possibility. He attended the junket in 2007 and since then has acted on Israel’s behest in lobbying to drop charges against an accused Israeli spy, in removing legislation which prevented the US from relocating its Tel Aviv Embassy to Jerusalem, and this Spring Lamborn was made co-chair of the Israel Allies Caucus.

What a damn missed opportunity to press them on contacting Tar Baby Lamborn. It would appear that keeping the congressional Israeli lobbying junket on the QT outweighs making Lamborn squirm on camera to explain his non-racist remark. Never mind complicating the issue. What’s a racist WASP doing in the land of Apartheid racism? Well, of course, they’re absolutely related. Oooh, terrible timing. And Lamborn’s a Christian Zionist, so he “likes” Jews, but come the end times, he won’t touch them either.

How is it American elected officials are allowed to behave as agents of a foreign government would be one question, but the more glaring one would be why it is the media is complicit in keeping citizens in the dark?

Partial list of 81 US congressmembers on Israel junket over August recess, according to MoveOver AIPAC

Gus Bilirakis R-9 FL
Mo Brooks R-5 AL
Anne Marie Buerkle R-25 NY
Eric Cantor R-7 VA
Russ Carnahan D-3 MO
Kathy Castor D-11 FL
Steve Chabot R-1 OH (went last month)
Judy Chu D-32 CA
David Cicilline D-1 RI
Yvette Clarke D-11 NY
Mark Critz D- 12 PA
Scott DesJarlais R- 4 TN
Bob Dold R-10 IL (unconfirmed)
Jeff Duncan R-3 SC
Blake Farenthold R-27 TX
Stephen Fincher R-8 TN
Mike Fitzpatrick R-8 PA
Chuck Fleischman R-3 TN
John Garamendi D-10 CA
Kay Granger R-12 TX
Michael Grimm NY-13
Janice Hahn D-36 CA
Jaime Herrera Buetler R-3 WA
Steny Hoyer D-5 MD
Jesse Jr. Jackson D-2 IL
Hank Johnson D-4 GA
Kevin McCarthy CA-22
Gwen Moore D-4 WI
Bill Owens D-23 NY
Steven Palazzo R-4 MS
Ed Perlmutter D-7 CO
Tom Price R-6 GA
Tom Reed R-29 NY
Peter Roskam R-6 IL
Dennis Ross R-12 FL
Loretta Sanchez D-47 CA
David Schweikert R-5 AZ
Terri Sewell D-7 AL (not confirmed)
Adam Smith D-9 WA
Steve Southerland R-2 FLA
Betty Sutton D-13 OH
Scott Tipton R-3 CO
Allen West R-22 FL
Frederica Wilson D-17 FL
Kevin Yoder R-3 KS

Are you there God? it’s me Anders. The impersonal diary of Oslo Bomber and Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik.

Posted on July 25, 2011 by NMT

So there’s a Mexican vigilante drug ring declared itself a law-keeping fraternity of the Knights Templar, now the Oslo gunman/bomber claims accreditation. The “2083” manifesto which Anders Behring Breivik released through a carefully harvested email list includes a curious diary/progress log, including this passage after a technical setback on day 42:
“I prayed for the first time in a very long time today. I explained to God that unless he wanted the Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom within the next hundred years he must ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom prevail.”

That’s about as much as God, spirituality, or conscience make an appearance. Breivik’s candid musings share the desensitized voice of his favorite TV show. And he may be the first real serial killer to use emoticons.

I think that Breivik’s affable, sometimes self-deprecating, mostly aggrandizing voice comes straight out of DEXTER, obviously not by chance his favorite show. Though the television character means to depict a loner, there’s a discordant charm which Breivik, probably like a typical Dexter fan, doesn’t have any idea is a horribly ironic incongruity.

Most relevant perhaps is that Breivik is a veteran of the occupation of Iraq. You wonder if Norway will now think hard about its role in the continuing occupation. Maybe sending its mercenary-mentality personalities to sow their oats in a war zone contaminates more than their young men’s consciences.

Breivik’s favorite computer game, a first person shooter, involves racially-variated combatants.

What the media is calling Breivik’s “manifesto” is mostly copy-and-pasted information he gathered from the net: the history of the Knights Templar and lots of how-to for aspiring allies. We’ve bypassed the explosives how-to to present the account of his day to day travails, including this gem, Day 70:

it is hard work for one person and I am really beginning to understand why Mr. McVeigh limited his manufacturing to 600kg. He probably encountered much of the issues I did and he probably had to learn everything the hard way just as I have done.

However psychologists will choose to describe him, Breivik isn’t stupid, or religious. We’ve annotated this excerpt by highlighting some of the cultural supplements with which Breivik was augmenting his diet, with intentional consequences and perhaps not.

April – 2011
On April 6th I leased a car (short term lease), from AVIS; a silver grey Fiat Doblo van with 735kg of carrying capacity. They would charge my credit card with 810 euro per month. I needed this car as I had an introduction meeting with a farm owner the next day. I removed all the AVIS insignias so the car would pass as my own.

I had previously made initial contact with the owner of an appropriate farm through an online real estate forum for farms etc. At this point in time I had regularly searched for farms with 30-100 decare of farmland the past 6 months and had around 10 potential leads, all within 4.5 hours driving from the capitol [Oslo].

I had an introduction meeting with the owner, Petter and his girlfriend Tonje, around April 7th. They were around 37 years old and it turned out Petter was renting out the farm for the next 2.5 years due to the fact that he was going to jail for the specified period. He was reluctant to state exactly what he was being incarcerated for but he mentioned something about renting the place to someone who had used it as a marijuana farm. So I assumed that he was somehow implicated. I presented myself in an optimal way and it paid off; the couple seemed to love me, considering me to be the ideal candidate. It is times like these that your acquired experience/competence in sales will pay off. A good salesperson is also a very talented psycho-analyst. So it’s all about identifying the persons pains/problems/worries and saying what the individual wants to hear.

I wanted to move in as fast as possible, for example from April 1st, but as he was scheduled to leave for prison on April 19th and Tonje wanted to live there until May 1st, this wasn’t a possibility. Petter came to Oslo on April 10th and we signed the contract. I was now significantly closer to initiating the manufacturing phase…!

At this point in time I lived with my mom, in order to conserve as much of my funds as possible.

On April 9th, I was inflicted with a virus by my mother and I came down with something that later appeared to be a very resilient throat infection. FFS, this is what happens when you live with people hanging out with hypochondriacs…! It was the third time she had infected me the last two years and I was very pissed off and frustrated. The manufacturing phase was SO close, in only 20 days and now I’m potentially neutralized for the next three weeks… I decided to ride the illness out as I thought it would pass within the week, but it proved to be very resilient. My energy levels dropped by more than 50% and I eventually ended up with an antibiotics treatment.

It was now April 25th and I was finally back to normal. I had spent the past couple of weeks playing through Dragon Age II and a couple of other newly released games. Awesome! The good news was also that I would be practically immune to any bacterias and viruses for the next 3 months, in the most critical of all phases, as my immunity system had been boosted and rejuvenated significantly by the virus. My training regime had suffered and I had lost a couple of kilograms of muscle mass but most if not all other practical things were now in place for the manufacturing phase.

On April 27th I made the order for the fertilizer which were to be delivered a week later. Prior to making this order I had officially registered my company as an agricultural entity, with emphasis on the growing of specific crops, and I had gotten my official production number (a farming number) allowing me to make orders from the national farming supplier. If they were to screen me they would see that my company was linked to a farm that had 90 decares of fertile land so all was well.

The last week in the capital I spent a lot of time with friends, partying and attending various social events. I knew that it would be the last chance, for a very long time, I would enjoy their presence.

I had somewhat of a liquidity problem though, as I had to transfer a deposit equivalent to three months rent – 3,750 euro in addition to the rent for May; 1,250 euro.

This payment ate up a great deal of my remaining liquidity so I would shortly solely rely on my 10 credit cards with a total of 29,000 credit… As the weekly cap on all credit cards are capped at around 800 euro, I started withdrawal of funds from 3 cards.

Events on the farm from May 2nd 2011 to June 23rd 2011

This log contains a lot of what can appear as “wining” but it serves to reflect my mental state during the stay, a relatively detailed log of events and how I overcame the obstacles that arose. It can also serve as an educational guide or a blueprint for which the goal is to create a more efficient time budget. Learning from other people’s mistakes is always preferable to making them all yourself. It should be possible to drastically reduce the time spent on preparation, assembly and manufacturing based on the experiences shared in this log.

Monday May 2 – Day 1:
I drove up to the farm (2-2.5 hours from the capitol) with my newly leased Fiat Doblo with all the equipment and gear/clothing I needed. I spent most of the day moving and getting my equipment and gear into place.

Tuesday May 3 – Day 2:
I built the fume hood from the PVC plates and screws that was enclosed in the box. It was like an IKEA set and after a few hours I had completed it. Despite of the suppliers assurances they had forgotten to include the 10 cm diameter plastic fume hood tube so I wasn’t able to plug in the dust collector fan. I placed the hood on a regular 50 cm wooden living room table. I placed the 25kg heavy fan on a 1.5 meter high shoe shelf that I just flipped over. I placed it next to one of the living room windows so that I could cut out a plastic sheet using the same measurements as the window. I opened up one of the windows and taped the plastic sheet with duct tape on the window frame and cut a 10cm diameter hole where the tube was supposed to come out. This is the optimal way of doing it as you won’t have to cut in the wall or other surfaces.I would have to pick up a bendable vent tube tomorrow. I also covered the rest of the windows with curtains to block anyone trying to peek through. The fume hood was a very simple construction so if I had more time I would probably just build one myself and save 500 euro in the process.

Wednesday May 4 – Day 3:
Finished creating the metal skeletons for the blast devices and completing other practical issues relating to gear and equipment.

Thursday May 5 – Day 4:
I started to grind the aspirin tablets today, at first using a mortar and pestle. After a few hours my hands hurt and I realized this method wasn’t going to work out for this quantity. I decided I wanted to try an untraditional method by pouring the tabs on a large plastic sheet on the floor, using gravity to crush them with my 20kg dumbbell. This method worked excellently and I was done in about 4 hours. Tonje, the owners girlfriend, called me that evening. Apparently she was taking a 2 week vacation to Gabon and she was leaving this Monday. What a blessing! She said she would come and pick up some equipment from their storage room in the barn once she came back. I reckon I can manage to complete everything within the next two weeks, providing I work hard and efficient!

Friday May 6 – Day 5:
Started to synthesize acetylsalicylic acid from aspirin. Failed badly and ended up with converting the acetylsalicylic acid to worthless salicylic acid goo (at this point in time I didn’t know it was salicylic acid but It seemed very difficult to dry the substance). The guide I was using was significantly lacking. I realized I didn’t have any other contingency plan and I began to somewhat panic. As I was unable to find any solution online the next two hours I began to lose heart. As I had discarded my digital library of explosives guides I tried to locate guides, searching online with anonymizer software, for a completely different booster compound. As I realized that this task could take a week or maybe two my motivation and morale at plummeted. If I couldn’t even synthesize the first phase of the easiest booster how on earth would I manage to synthesize DDNP?! My world crashed that day and I tried to develop an alternative plan. I went to a restaurant in the northern town that evening and enjoyed a three course meal. I later watched a few episodes of “the Shield”.

Saturday May 7 – Day 6:
The only rational approach to this problem is to search online until I find a proper guide to synthesize aspirin powder into pure acetylsalicylic acid. After several hours of research my findings were extremely discouraging. All the guides I had found; mainly university level chemistry projects, required a suction filter pump and a chemistry air dryer. The even more discouraging news was that even with this equipment none of the university students managed to get a better yield than 30%! Omfg, this would mean that even with the equipment I would never acquire, my total yield would not surpass 30% which would severely cripple the overall plan… I went to another restaurant that evening (I find it an effective method for getting my morale up) to create a new plan. In any case; I appear to be fundamentally fucked If I cannot manage to find a solution soon.

Sunday May 8 – Day 7:
Failure is not an option for me. I continued my search on methods for the purification of salicylic acid online. After many hours of searching the net, using various search phrases, I managed to locate a single YouTube clip, with very few hits, which explained in detail an unconventional method for synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid from aspirin. However, the guy was using a suction filter pump and a laboratory air dryer but I figured I could bypass this requirement by using more funnel filters and by using an air drying method. According to the guy on the movie, he managed to achieve a 70-80% yield! This method seemed to be viable and I would try to create a batch the next day.

Monday May 9 – Day 8:
I tried the unconventional method for synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid with a promising result. I couldn’t actually confirm that the product I had was in fact purified acetylsalicylic acid so should I take a chance and manufacture it all using this method? Considering the fact that I had wasted so much time, I decided that I had no other choice than to initiate mass production even though I risked ruining all my aspirin. Because if I were to wait for a small batch, It would simply take too long, so I had no other choice than to take this calculated risk.

Tuesday May 10 – Day 9:
Considering the fact that I had wasted so many days and literally been at a standstill I felt a sudden need to create an evacuation plan as I didn’t have any. What would I do if the owner’s wife caught me, or the neighbor or anyone else? I needed to work out a plan for this potential scenario. The evacuation plan involved a 10 minute evacuation. I would have to pack my largest backpack with survival gear and related equipment, including survival rations, 10L of water, weapons, ammo and suitable clothing. I started to prepare the above.

Wednesday May 11 – Day 10:
I completed packing an evacuation kit. I felt a lot more safe and prepared for any emergency once I was done. When I returned from the southern town later that day, I saw two military 12 man teams, armed to the teeth, just 2,000m south of my farm. The largest military base in the country is located just a few kilometers north-east of my farm and their territory extends almost all the way down to my property. They have notified all their neighbors, me included, that they are conducting a large military training session as to prepare a new division of soldiers for the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. It’s quite ironic being situated practically on top of the largest military base in the country. It would have saved me a lot of hassle if I could just “borrow” a cup of sugar and 3kg of C4 from my dear neighbor 🙂

Thursday May 12 – Day 11:
As the acetylsalicylic acid purification and the rest of the picric acid production required a substantial amount of mineral and distilled ice cubes I spent the whole day converting water to ice cubes; a total of 50L converted whereas 20% of it was from mineral water. I ended up completely filling up a very large freezer with ice-cube-plastic-pocket-sheets.

Friday May 13 – Day 12:
As the acid manufacturing went too slow I bought more funnels at the local store, to up the production rate. I continued to synthesize acetylsalicylic acid from aspirin that day.

Saturday May 14 – Day 13:
I continued to synthesize acetylsalicylic acid from aspirin.

It’s the Eurovision finale today. I just love Eurovision…! 🙂 It’s a lot of crap music but I think it’s a great show all in all. I’ve seen all the semi finals and will take the time of to watch it later today, online. My country has a crap, politically correct contribution as always. An asylum seeker from Kenya, performing a bongo song, very representative of Europe and my country… In any case; I hope Germany wins!

Sunday May 15 – Day 14:
At the last batch of preparing pure acetylsalicylic acid my hot plate stirrer broke down. The magnetic mechanism stopped working. Fuck, Chinese piece of shit equipment, I should have rather paid more to get good European quality machinery…! What should I do now? Creating picric acid and DDNP without a magnetic hotplate stirrer would be very labor intensive and difficult and ordering a new product from a national supplier would take at least two weeks… I really don’t have much choice in the matter. I’m ordering a new plate today and I can focus on the non-chemistry tasks until I receive it.

I managed to completed to synthesize the last batch of acetylsalicylic acid from aspirin without my hot plate stirrer. I now had to dry it. After scraping out all the content from the filter papers I spread the content evenly on several plastic boards. At first I put the boards in normal room temperature, but as this proved to be a very slow method I ended up placing the boards in a small room with a oven at maximum temperature (around 30ªC). In retrospect I realize I would have saved several days by just drying the purified acetylsalicylic acid in a Pyrex dish in the oven at 50-70ªC, but even now I am not sure what effect heat above 30ªC would have on the acid. I am 70% certain it would be the optimal method though as this oven method works (confirmed) on drying both PA and DDNP.

Monday May 16 – Day 15:
Mixing up and further drying all the acetylsalicylic acid on the plastic boards.

Tuesday May 17 – Day 16:
Since I cannot continue on the chemistry phase, due to the lack of a hot plate stirrer, I started boiling my sulfuric acid outside. I initially bought 3 specialty induction plates (flat porcelain) but they didn’t function as my 2L beakers didn’t cover the minimum diameter required for the induction plates to function. I began with one hot plate and created boiling stones by crushing a few small lab beakers. The boiling stones only made the boiling more difficult and complicated so ended up without the use of boiling stones.

Wednesday May 18 – Day 17:
Continued boiling, now with three regular plates for maximum efficiency. Boiled after dark as the smoke generated as the acid surpassed 70% was so thick and compact that it would surely alert neighbors even several miles away.

Thursday May 19 – Day 18:
Wanted to set on a plate, boiling sulfuric acid, while I did some shopping in the northern town. I noticed someone lurking outside the door and saw the neighbor. There was a BMW in the upper barn area he was going to fix up for the owner. As I was about to go outside in full protective suit, he almost saw me before I saw him. I helped him push out the car and gave him the gasoline required to drive it to his place. I’m going to stick to nighttime boiling from now on to reduce my exposure to any unwanted surprises. I was very lucky today, something I cannot take for granted in the future.

It’s essential to create as much goodwill you can from the neighbors. Use any opportunity to generate goodwill from them. This goodwill will be returned indirectly by them not probing and investigating. If you get a visit from neighbors, be polite and friendly, offer them sandwiches and coffee, unless it will jeopardize the operation. The goodwill generated is likely to be to your benefit later on.

Friday May 20 – Day 19:
Finished boiling sulfuric acid

Saturday May 21 – Day 20:
Went to the capital to pick up a few parcels; 5 large packages of micro balloons and 50 more liters of distilled water. I also purchased a 50kg weight dumbbell set for fertilizer grinding, costing 700 euro, as it would most likely be the best way to crush the fertilizer prills using this method.

On my way home to the farm I noticed what I believed to be a civilian police vehicle south of the southern town (30km from the farm). At this point in time I remembered I had forgotten to turn on the lights on the car since I tested out my blue LED lights the day before. Hmm, they should have stopped me for this violation. Very weird. As I came closer to the farm I noticed what I believed to be another civilian police car. Damn, I got a really bad feeling about this and my instincts told me I was about to be apprehended. Too many red flags were lit. I stopped 500 meters before the farm entrance and had a smoke, preparing mentally for a potential welcoming party at the farm. What should I do if I was about to be SWAT raped by a 6 or 12 man team? I didn’t have any weapons available as they were all inside the main house. Should I make a run for it, if so, where would I go? Would I have time to fetch my evacuation kit, and should I try to get it and shoot my way out?

After the break I approached the farm, and turned on the fog lights on the car so that I could have an advantage should they approach me from the front. I stopped 50 meters north of the main house and I was shocked at the sight that awaited me…! The barn door was wide open!!! Someone was here! They were probably circling me right now or waiting for me inside the main house! I waited 20 minutes with the fog light aimed straight at the direction I expected them to come from. Perhaps they are not here, maybe they just installed monitoring equipment like they often do? I entered the house, picked up the glock and searched the house and the barn. Nothing. I began searching for monitoring equipment, nothing…

Paranoia can be a good thing, or it can be a curse. The barn door had probably been opened by the wind. I decided then and there that I would not allow paranoia to get the best of me again. If they were to come for me one day, there was really nothing I could do about it, so it would not be constructive to worry about it.

Sunday May 22 – Day 21:
Started relocation of fertilizer. Broke down a 600kg bag into 13-14 x 50kg bags, loaded in the truck, drove 100 meters and carried them with a “carry trolley” into the barn. Did a full 600kg bag. Was exhausted.

Monday May 23 – Day 22:
Initiated the fertilizer grinding phase. I was unsure whether I had to pulverize the fertilizer or not. Most guides said it was a positive thing as some fertilizer prills are coated with an anti-absorbing layer. I crushing a small batch, placed it in a plastic bag and soaking it in diesel, I also prepared another small bag of prills and soaked that in fuel to see whether it would absorb any liquid. Updated log

Tuesday May 24 – Day 23:
The prills had not absorbed any diesel at all, during the last 24 hours, so I concluded that the only approach is to pulverize the 5 x 600 bags of 27-0-0 AN fertilizer. I cleaned the concrete floor in the barn thoroughly and poured 50kg of fertilizer prills on it, spreading it evenly so that I could roll the 50kg dumbbell back and forth to crush it, and then use a broom and spade to gather up the pulverized AN before it had absorbed a lot of moisture from the air. I was sure that this method would work as I managed to semi-crush the prills with my 20kg dumbbell. If a 20kg dumbbell almost could do it, then surely, a 50kg dumbbell would ensure excellent grinding. I estimated that I could grind 50kg within 20 minutes, 3 times faster than any other method I had heard of.

To my great disappointment, crushing the prills with the dumbbell failed miserably. The prills were only partially crushed and rolling the dumbbell proved to be an especially labor intensive experience. Also, the crushed prills absorbed moisture much faster than anticipated so the time required for me to crush 50kg (2 hours) would result in more or less AN powder fully saturated with water moisture… Fuck, why can’t anything go as planned???? And the dumbbell set cost me a total of 750 euro and now it has proven to be worthless… What do I do now?

Wednesday May 25 – Day 24:
As this was a big setback, I decided to seek comfort and attempting to erect my morale, which was currently in the toilet, at the restaurant in the northern town, ordering a three course meal while readjusting the plan. I had previously heard of a Marxist terrorist traitor in the early 70s. I believe he was called Baader or could it have been Meinhof, terror prostitutes for the Soviets and loyal dhimmi whores of the Islamic Ummah. Anyway; I remember reading about him using electrical mixers to crush AN prills in his apartment. Apparently, he had purchases several crates of these mixers and used several simultaneously for efficiency. I’m going to test this out shortly. If electrical mixers/blenders from the 70s could do it then surely; new modern blenders can!

Thursday May 26 – Day 25:
Shopping for blenders. Bought around 12 – stationary and handheld, different brands for testing.

Friday May 27 – Day 26:
Started crushing fert prills, testing out the various blenders. More than half of them where completely useless as the shape of the container prevented proper circulation of the prills after crushing them. A suitable blender will ensure flawless circulation and result in a fully crushed batch within a reasonable time frame. Found a perfect blender; Electrolux. which was able to fully crush 95% of the prills, in portions of 0.5-0.7kg within 20-35 seconds.

Saturday May 28 – Day 27:
They had the Electrolux stationary blender in limited supply so I had to drive all day to purchase 6 from three different cities.

Sunday May 29 – Day 28:
Continued relocation of the fertilizer. Did another 600kg bag.

Monday May 30 – Day 29:
Completed the third 600kg bag. I could hardly move my fingers and I was certain that I had damaged them permanently. I decided to limit the process to three bags as the work required to process 5 bags (3000kg) would simply be too exhausting for one person…

Tuesday May 31 – Day 30:
I had to rest the whole day as I was completely exhausted…

Wednesday June 1 – Day 31:
Updating log

Thursday June 2 – Day 32:
I saw a car driving through the property while I was surfing the net. As I went to greet him I noticed he was taking pictures of the farm. He, around 50-60, said he was a tourist wanting to take landscape pictures. His actions and body language indicated however that he was lying. My instinct told me that he was a police officer. I offered him coffee and suggested he should go down to the river bank as it was the optimal place for taking photos. I noticed that he continued to take pictures of the farm. When he approached the house I chatted with him again. From what I understood, reading his body language and between the lines, he worked for the police and he was following up on the “marijuana farm” case. He disclosed that his daughter was a drug-sniffer-dog trainer. He was probably taking pictures in relation to this case. I told him that some people had set up a marijuana farm here a few years back. He seemed surprise, although he probably knew that already. This encounter was a concern for me for a few days, but I decided to just forget it as it wasn’t anything to do about it if he was to return. I’m just glad I gave him a good impression.

I decided to begin crushing the fertilizer using four Electrolux blenders simultaneously. However, it made a lot of noise so I decided to do this work from 23:00 to 07:00. I managed to complete 5 x 50kg bags, mixing in diesel 4 times per bag to distribute it evenly, then closing both the inner and outer bags properly using 5 individual pieces of duct tape. It is essential to hurry to place the crushed AN into the bag as it will begin to draw moisture from the air immediately after it is crushed, even while being inside the blender container.

Friday June 3 – Day 33:
Continued crushing prills and mixing with diesel. I got into a good routine and managed to complete 10 bags. Very exhausting. I spent around 1 hour for each of the first few bags the day before, but managed to increase efficiency so that I completed 1 bag every 40 minutes (optimal achievement was 1 bag per 32 minutes). 20 bags to go… 2 of the blenders broke after processing 12 bags, even though I used it on the lowest power alternative. Replaced them with new ones.

Saturday June 4 – Day 34:
Completed 6 bags.

Sunday June 5 – Day 35:
Completed 4 bags. 2 more blenders broke down. I have to buy a couple of new ones tomorrow.

Monday June 6 – Day 36:
Bought two more blenders. Completed crushing 1,600kg of fertilizer prills and mixing with diesel. I’m going to save the last 200kg and possibly use it as an “inner charge” mixed with purified RC fuel (nitro methane). I will most likely only have enough nitro for 1 x inner charge though. After completion of the grinding, it was prills and AN dust all over the place :)) My green AN-crushing clothing were now grey… Surely, I’m going to die from cancer within 12 months as I must have gotten a lot of this crap into my lungs even though I used a 3M mask… It took a while to clean it all up to prepare for the next phase.

Watching “The Shield”, a couple of episodes each day on average. I downloaded all 7 seasons in the start of May.

Tuesday June 7 – Day 37:
Went to the capitol and picked up the new hot plate stirrer that had arrived.

Wednesday June 8 – Day 38:
Started synthesizing picric acid, completed 1 out of 10 batches.

Thursday June 9 – Day 39:
I heard someone parking their car outside the house today. It was one of the neighbors wanting to buy the current crop as animal food. As I hadn’t had the time to plant a crop of my own, the current one was primarily timotei [Timothy Grass] and clover – used for food to cows and sheep. We discussed the issue for a while and I explained my situation to him. We agreed that he could harvest the current crop. He would return within 14 days to initiate the harvesting. I offered him a good price. As we strolled down to the field I was somewhat concerned that he would notice the fume hood fan pipe sticking out of the living room window…

Continued synthesizing 2 and 3 of 10 batches of picric acid and placing the finished compound to dry. It took a long time to complete the nitration of the acid due to the fact that I only had 1 hot plate stirrer. If I had 3 I would be able to complete all the PA within 2-3 days. Damn, something went wrong with these two batches. The solution was red and it failed to nitrate properly. I concluded that I must have used a bottle containing 37% sulfuric acid, instead of the required 90% +…

Friday June 10 – Day 40:
Continued synthesizing 4 and 5 of 10 batches picric acid and placing the finished compound to dry. I placed 50g of my best batch in the oven to prepare for testing and to use it for DDNP manufacturing. Potent PA should burn when lit with flame.

To my great disappointment, nothing happened when I did the fire test…! What the hell, how is that possible, it was completely dry and that particular batch was manufactured perfectly according to specifications!? I did everything according to specifications… Could the compound I have manufactured be inert???? Unfortunate circumstances rams cock in arse once again…! I started to have serious doubts and my morale and motivation started to shatter…

I concluded that given the recent events, I would now have to move forward with operation B, at least continue to complete all preparations for this as the primary operation seemed to wither away.

Saturday June 11 – Day 41:
As I was doing research on the net, a thunder storm approached, but it was still very far away. I have never had any problems with electrical overcharges the last 15 years because I always use specialty electrical outputs with gas cylinder electrical overcharge protection. Suddenly my PC made a relatively large bang, and the electricity went out. Once electricity was back on I noticed that my PC was dead. FFS, not again… As it was in the evening, I couldn’t fix it until Monday…

I prayed for the first time in a very long time today. I explained to God that unless he wanted the Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom within the next hundred years he must ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom prevail. He must ensure that I succeed with my mission and as such; contribute to inspire thousands of other revolutionary conservatives/nationalists; anti- Communists and anti-Islamists throughout the European world.

Sunday June 12 – Day 42:
Although highly demoralized, I decided to do one last test of the PA compound. I decided to create a batch of DDNP using my best batch of picric acid. This was to be my last attempt to move ahead with operation A. I didn’t have much faith in creating such a difficult compound as DDNP when I couldn’t even manage to create a decent batch of PA… I spent most of the day preparing that batch of DDNP, then drying it in the oven for 4 hours.

Monday June 13 – Day 43:
I prepared a test device today and drove off to a very isolated site. The test bomb was composed of a 3g DDNP primary and a 30g PA secondary. If this test would fail, I would abandon operation A and move forward with the non-spectacular operation B.

I lit the fuse, went out of range and waited. It was probably the longest 10 seconds I have ever endured…

BOOM! The detonation was successful!!! 🙂 I quickly drove away to avoid any potential unwanted attention, from people in the vicinity. I would have to come back a few hours later to investigate the blast hole, to see if both compounds had detonated.

A few hours later, after returning from a restaurant in the southern town to celebrate this success, I went back to the blast site to evaluate the detonation. The DDNP primary detonated successfully but the dry picric acid booster did not detonate at all. So I confirmed that the PA was not inert, just of a very low purity grade. This could be sorted as I would now move forward with purification after completion of the last PA batches. Today was a very good day as I really needed this success.

Tuesday June 14 – Day 44:
Continued synthesizing picric acid and placing the finished compound to dry.

Wednesday June 15 – Day 45:
Continued synthesizing picric acid and placing the finished compound to dry.

Thursday June 16 – Day 46:
Began purification of the PA compound.

Friday June 17 – Day 47:
At this point in time, considering that this project has taken much longer than anticipated, I was in a serious liquidity squeeze. The fertilizer invoice on 4,500 euro should have been paid on May 19th. I had called to the company and asked for an increase grace period and they said it was ok as long as I paid before June 8th. This was almost 10 days ago and I received a follow up notice today stating that they would forward the invoice to the credit collection company on June 22nd. In addition to this; the farm rent for July, 1,250 euro, was due on June 25th and the invoice for the fume hood, the hot plate stirrer and my secondary fan, which I wasn’t even going to use, 2,800 euro, was due on June 26th. This would mean that I would officially default on the payment and receive a credit warning, which would basically blacklist me and thus preventing me from renting a car, as the car rental companies always perform a credit check. Needless to say; this problem could sabotage the whole operation and I needed to sort this out asap or the operation would be over before it had even started… I needed to acquire 8,550 euro within a week! As I had 1,500 in cash and in my primary account, I decided my only choice was to aggressively withdraw funds from all my 10 credit cards but even that wouldn’t be enough because of the weekly capacity limit. I called the farming supplier and made an agreement where I would pay half the amount now and the rest in July. They agreed. After aggressive cash withdrawal I managed to acquire the necessary funds, which allowed me to keep my head above the water until mid July.

At first, I thought I would manage to create enough picric acid booster material (1.5kg in total) to disregard the addition of AL powder. But considering the fact that I would only manage to produce aprox 200-300g of booster I had no choice than to continue to prepare my 150kg of aluminium powder for addition in the ANFO.

The 150kg of AL came in 4 hermetically sealed drums each containing around 37kg of AL. After reading the “security precautions”, however, I was completely freaked out. The drum openings where wielded with a soft metallic substance so it would be difficult to open them without taking extreme risk. The warnings stated; contact with oxygen will risk detonation of the AL powder, contact with metal, concrete and even plastic will significantly increase the chance of static electricity which can cause a detonation. Friction and shock can also cause detonation. Close proximity of oxidizers (gas, diesel) or close proximity to electrical outputs etc. can cause detonation.

I first planned on creating an outdoor mechanism that allowed me to thrust a steel spear like object, by using gravity, creating a 3 cm hole in the top of the drum. However, I ended up taking a regular knife and starting to file down the wielded enclosement, even if it involved high risk. At this point in time I was very concerned for a potential detonation. If the barrel of AL powder was to detonate and I somehow survived, I would probably lose both arms instantly severely. The blast wave/flame would probably cauterize my wounds resulting in an extended and extremely painful death. The most pragmatical approach to solving this potential problem was to place my loaded glock 34 close to the work area. And if I survived a detonation, losing both my arms, I could still fire a round to my head, in order to prevent un-necessary suffering using my toe to trigger.

Eventually, I manage to file open the enclosement. I then considered putting the drum upside down in one of my empty fertilizer bags to prevent the presence of high levels of oxygen.

This method proved to be too exhausting since I had to hold up the 37kg drum with my hands. I ended up with putting a large 3 x 4m plastic sheet on the concrete floor and carefully pouring the AL powder out of the opening. Small clouds of dust began to generate but nothing happened. I carefully continued until the drum was empty rolling the side of the drum in a circular pattern from the center of the AL powder already poured out, until the drum was empty. There were small clouds of AL powder generated but the biggest one was aprox 20 cm in diameter, which settled down after a while. I continued after the small clouds had settled. It’s also worth noting that I had closed all the windows of the cellar basement so the humidity was relatively high, while oxygen level was below average.

In any case, this method worked well and I had gathered all the AL powder on the sheet, and thus preparing it for the addition to the ANFO.

Since I had solved the AL problem, I continued the purification of the PA.

Saturday June 18 – Day 48:
I woke up at 11:00 and checked my phone. There was an SMS sent 09:30 from Tonje, the owners girlfriend. She said she was ON HER WAY UP to pick up some equipment from the barn!!! Omfg; considering the fact that it’s a 2-2.5 hour’s drive from the capitol she would be here in about half an hour!!! I’m so fucked! She has a large storage room in the back of the barn and she would need to pass all my ANFO bags to get there. I would need 12 hours minimum to relocate the 1.2 tons of ANFO, not to mention de-construct my chemistry rig, fume hood, fan and clean up all the beakers etc spread all around. And the living room is full of yellow stains. It seems I will be left no choice than to use my glock and initiate the evacuation plan!

I called her up. Luckily she hadn’t left yet. Thank God! I fed her a story which resulted in us agreeing that she would come on Monday around 20:00. That was a real close one… I spent the rest of the day on purifying another batch of picric acid and relocating 1.2 tons of ANFO bags, storing them in the storage area between the corn silo and another room. I refer to this area as the spider cave or the spider room as there is no lighting there and it is spider webs all over the place. It is a lot of old junk in this room covered with spider webs.

Sunday June 19 – Day 49:
I spent much of the day relocating equipment and storing them in the second floor of the house. I covered all the stains on the floor with a rug and covered the living room table with a blanket.

Monday June 20 – Day 50:
I spent the day purifying a batch of PA and cleaning all the beakers for storage. I went all over the property to ensure that it would be presentable for today’s visit. There was a 37kg pile of aluminium powder on plastic sheet I was unable to move so I covered it up as best as I could. There was also a lot of stains on the work bench in the barn I was unable to do anything about. Then there was the 1.8 tons of ANFO bags and equipment stashed in the spider cave. I covered it up properly but she would easily notice the diesel smell from the bags and uncover it if she went in there… The fate of the whole operation relies on her not noticing. She came to the farm around 20:30. We talked for a while and she said she wanted to stay the night, sleeping in one of the outhouses. It was late in the evening so she wanted to spend the next day getting things from her storage room. I said it was fine and I fed her a story about me having to salvage much of the fertilizer for long term storage, seeing that I would not be able to sow the planned crop (sugar beets) due to too much rocks in the soil. I needed her to be prepared in case she went into the spider room. I just hope she would let me know if she got suspicious the next day so I could take necessary action…

Tuesday June 21 – Day 51:
I woke up earlier that day to ensure that she didn’t start sniffing around in the house without me being there. At this point in time I figured it was a 50% chance she would get suspicious enough to contact the authorities. I made her some sandwiches and coffee later that day and we chatted for a couple of hours in the living room of the main house. It would seem as she hadn’t noticed anything, at least this is how I interpreted her tone, body language and judging from the topics we discussed. She went off later that day, and I figured that I would very shortly get a visit from the authorities if she forwarded her potential suspicions. In any case; there was nothing I could do if it came down to that…

Wednesday June 22 – Day 52:
I reinstalled Windows 7 on my PC hoping that it would solve my network problems. It didn’t work and I figured it had to be the network card or the phone line itself. I drove to the PC-repair guy in the local town and delivered it. It should be ready by tomorrow. I continued to prepare the chemistry equipment for getting ready to manufacture all DDNP batches. When I was done I completed the last purification batch of the unpurified picric acid and ended up with several liters of PA liquid that had to be chilled. I then drove to the local town and bought three portions of Chinese takeaway. Beef with noodles and fried rice, yummy!. I took an early night as I didn’t have any PC.

Thursday June 23 – Day 53:
I went to the PC-repair guy in the local town today and he brought very good news. Apparently, it was only the network card that had short circuited so he had replaced it with a new one and I should now finally be able to get online. Once back at the farm I got online and paid the outstanding on the remaining of my 9 credit cards so I wouldn’t default on any of the outstanding amounts. When I was about to log into the site of the 10th and last credit card provider my PC went poof and the power went down in the house! Seconds later I heard a large thunder. What the hell, not again!!! And it isn’t even raining ffs. I was able to get the PC running again without problems but my DSL-modem short circuited from the lightning strike as an electrical surge went through the phone line again. How is it possible to be this unlucky?! Only two hours after I’ve had my PC fixed nature comes and rapes me again… Thank god it was only my DSL-modem was destroyed as I have two extra DSL-modems left… ;P Nevertheless, my morale took a small dent and I decided to get it back up by watching two episodes of Rome and enjoying nice Chinese takeaway. Later that day set up the fume hood and fan, carrying it down from the second floor, carried down the PA liquid in all the beakers down to the cold cellar, awaiting further chilling in the refrigerator. I then prepared for the first large batch of DDNP, halfway completing it before putting the semi finished product in the fridge.

Friday June 24 – Day 54:
I continued on the second stage of the first large DDNP batch today, relocated some of the containers with PA liquid from the cellar to the fridge and updated the log. I couldn’t start another badge due to the fact that I only have two 2 liter beakers, very annoying. The worst part about synthesizing formulas with a lacking amount of equipment is the downtime due to waiting for natural heating or chilling of compounds. The whole house is stinking of chems now. DDNP liquid smells like fresh egg fart… <3 And I had to close all the windows to contribute for the liquid to reach room temp faster. All these chemical fumes can't possible be very healthy... I would have probably died from cancer within the next 12 months ;P Saturday June 25 – Day 55:
Finished first large batch of the DDNP today. The result, after drying should be approximately 5-12g after purification. As the first half of the PA liquid had been chilled in the fridge for 18 hours I went ahead and funnel filtered out the crystals. As this was supposed to be the best batch of PA I was extremely disappointed to see that there had been minimal precipitation of crystals in the liquid. It should have been 15g of crystals for each liter but it turned out to be 2g per liter. The only rational explanation is that the purification method I am using is significantly flawed. However, considering the fact that I tried putting ice in the beakers and even putting them in the freezer with poor results, I really do not know what has gone wrong. The only alternative reason would be that I used a flawed manufacturing method of PA or that I should have purified the acetylsalicylic acid prior to initiating the PA manufacturing. As I can’t really do anything at this point regardless, I would like to think it’s the purification method and not the manufacturing method.

After I had scraped out the yellow PA crystals and the brown DDNP crystals putting them in plastic boxes and placing them in the cold cellar I went to do some shopping in the northern town. There is a festival and there was a lot of things happening, a fair, various food stands, concerts etc. Since this town has a limited variety of fast food I decided to drive down to the southern town, eat and pick up some Chinese takeaway. There was a relatively hot girl on the restaurant today checking me out. Refined individuals like myself is a rare commodity here so I notice I do get a lot of attention in both the southern and the northern town. It’s the way I dress and look. There are mostly unrefined/un-cultivated people living here. I wear mostly the best pieces from my former life, which consists of very expensive brand clothing, LaCoste sweaters, piques etc. People can see from a mile away that I’m not from around here.

Later that day I initiated a new batch of DDNP. As I completed the first phase I noticed one of my two 2L beakers had a large crack in the bottom and drops of liquid was coming out. I was very lucky the beaker hadn’t completely cracked open as it would have destroyed my hot plate stirrer for sure. I remember there was a tiny crack that appeared during sulfuric acid purification when I was boiling as a madman outside. Now the beaker is ruined. To be honest; I’m surprised this hasn’t happened earlier as I’ve abused these two beakers excessively. I made a mistake by buying only two 2L beakers instead of 4-5. That mistake has cost me at least 3-4 days in total. The loss of this beaker poses a significant problem as I relied on these two beakers to take me through the whole manufacturing process. If I go down a size and use the last 1L beaker I have left (I managed to break one during washing after boiling all the sulfuric acid outside. it will take me an extra day to complete the DDNP manufacturing. I’ll see what I’ll do later today.

While waiting for the liquid to reach 4ªC in the fridge I went to train for the second time since I came to the farm. I used two backpacks, one in front and one on the back, with a total weight of 27kg. In addition I filled a container with 5L of liquid and held it with my left and then right arm partly stretched out in front of me. I took a 20 minute walk with these weights and it was a great exercise. As always I take protein powder + creatine before and after the exercise to maximize the outcome. I’m almost out of my steroid/winstrol tabs now as this project has taken significantly longer than expected. I only have a few days left worth of tabs so I have to sort this out in the coming days. I was thinking of traveling back to the capitol and restock after I complete the DDNP production. Damn, the most annoying thing about synthesizing DDNP is that you have to wait 12 hours for the liquid to reach 4ªC in the fridge, later on you have to wait 3-5 hours for the compound to chill from boiling to room temperature and at the last phase you need to wait 12-18 hours for the liquid to go from 4ªC to room temperature. In other words, one batch of DDNP takes approximately 40 hours. If I had 6 x 2L beakers instead of 2, it would allow me to complete 3 batches in less than 2 days (45 hours), instead of having to spend more than 5 days (120 hours) due to lack equipment…

Sunday June 26 – Day 56:
Completed the second and third phase of the second batch of DDNP. I moved the last batch of PA liquid from the cellar to the fridge. Updating log.

I am noticing increased pressure from my friends and family to come visit me at the farm. I am countering by saying I will be done with this seasons work within x weeks, and that they are more than welcome to visit me then. This has worked for 2 months now, but this pressure will increase progressively as I delay.

Monday June 27 – Day 57:
Filtered out the pure PA crystals from the last batch of PA water after chilling it in the fridge for 12+ hours. Cleaned out all the beakers. Completed the last stage of the second batch of DDNP. Initiated the first stage of the last batch of DDNP. As I have now re-initiated my training I did a workout later that evening.

Tuesday June 28 – Day 58:
Continued on the last DDNP batch. Went to the northern town to do some errands. Updating log. Later when searching online for efficient DDNP purification methods; I just learned that when acidifying the sodium picramate solution during DDNP manufacture, H2S and SO2 is released, which is potentially deadly. Crap, and I’ve been inhaling that diarrhea gas for three days now! I didn’t even bother turning on the fan in the fume hood on a couple of occasions during that stage…

Wednesday June 29 – Day 59:
Completed last batch of DDNP. I was now facing the task of purifying it, but was uncertain how to approach this. Was it necessary to purify it at all? How much would the VOD (velocity of detonation) suffer from not purifying it? Would it cut the VOD in half? My whole operation depended on the VOD from my primary being able to detonate the secondary explosive. After a few hours of research online I found that mixing the unpurified DDNP in acetone, then filtering it to another beaker with a lab filter or alternatively two coffee filters and then boiling the acetone away over a hot water bath, would be the optimal approach as the precipitation method with ice cold water method apparently didn’t work for those that tried it. The problem now was that I only had one conical flask and one porcelain boiling dish (100ml) suitable for this type of purification method. I feared that this method would take a very long time with the lack of equipment. As I didn’t have much choice I began the purification process. I managed to purify 1/3 of a batch (I had three batches) in 3 hours. As I got the hang of it I managed to reduce the time spent to 2 hours. Watching Spartacus – Blood & Sand, a brilliant series :-). It’s my favorite one, in addition to Rome, Battlestar Galactica, Caprica and Stargate Universe! <3. The Shield, Dexter, Sleeper Cell, Vampire Diaries and True Blood are good as well. All the series adhere to the multiculti ideology but such is life for the time being.

Thursday June 30 – Day 60:
This house is infested with beetles. Just now I was about to reach for a chocolate in my goodie bag and a beetle had crawled in, ffs. And an hour ago, when I was putting on my nitril gloves to do another DDNP purification cycle, something was crawling in one of the fingers 🙁 Needless to say, I freaked out… After that I started killing every little insect in view. And I’m up to 18 just in the last hour… Parts of this house is from 1750 so it’s probably several bug colonies in the walls.

I haven’t slept at all since yesterday, trying to complete the last DDNP purification. That will complete the chemistry phase and I can move on to the last ANFO –>ANALFO phase. Addition of aluminium and micro balloons to the 1.8 tons of ANFO. But before I start the last phase, I need to travel to the capitol for resupply.

When I went inside the barn yesterday, a window had loosened and laid smashed on the floor. There are several signs of noticeable wear outside as well. Three large trees has blown down and two panels on the side of the barn has blown off. Anyone seeing this must think I don’t give a damn… I haven’t had the time or energy to sort that out yet. Perhaps when I’m done with the chemistry phase…

As I’ve now completed the purification process of 25g of DDNP (I will save an additional batch of unpurified 12g as backup), it’s time for me to wrap up the chemistry phase. I do have 50L of impure nitro methane (30% RC fuel) in the barn but it’s a bit tricky to purify it. I will see what I can do about it tonight. If I can’t find an appropriate purification method I’ll just skip the NM altogether. In any case; I can now dismantle the lab, again…

I talked to my friend, Peter, after missing one of his inc. calls earlier. He is visiting his girlfriend in a nearby town and wanted to stop by the farm… I fed him a story about me going to the capitol and it worked, for now… However, it would not be suitable to receive visitors here as anyone stopping by would eventually understand that things are not what they seemed. I have to be careful not to answer his calls while he is so close to the farm. Manipulation and deceit can quickly turn around and act in your disfavor, if you are not careful. I guess I have been somewhat reckless in regards to maintaining my social network. Choosing complete isolation and asocial behavior, in phases like these, would probably be a more pragmatical approach for ensuring secrecy. However, complete isolation and asocial behavior can also defeat the whole purpose if you end up losing the love for the people you have sworn to protect. Because, why would you bless your people with the ultimate gift of love if every single person hates you?

Friday July 1 – Day 61:
Ok, I have now completely dismantled the lab and stored all the equipment in boxes on the second floor. Removed all the glass from the broken window near the work bench in the barn and fastened a plastic sheet with duct tape.

It is now 8 days since I was forced to drastically reduce my winstrol intake and 2 days since I ran out of both winstrol and DBOL tabs. I’m noticing slight symptoms of withdrawal resulting in loss of muscle mass (down 3kg from my peak at 96kg). I’m also low on no-Xplode and protein powder. I need to restock in the capitol. Damn, Peter is visiting his girlfriends sister in central Norway and Marius is unavailable due to work.

Saturday July 2 – Day 62:
Going over the travel route for both plan A and B for the upcoming event, familiarizing myself with the driving routes and plotting in destinations in my Garmin GPS. I went to the gym and did a really hard workout. I was surprised I managed to lift as more or less as much as I could when I was at my best, in late April. However, I had to cancel the program half way because I was getting dizzy. Damn, just too long since I properly worked out.

Nice, I have enough winstrol for 20 more days (10mg x 100 tabs). I should have ended this cycle after 6-7 weeks though and I am now on my 9th week… Not healthy at all and I’m concerned about my liver values.

I took my mom out to dinner this evening, then hooked up with Axel for a coffee afterwards, discussing politics. Oh, how I missed these discussions… 🙂 Went back to the farm late in the evening.

Sunday July 3 – Day 63:
Raining again… I planned to extract the armor cache today (the Pelican 1620 case I buried July 2010) or initiate evaporation purification of my 50ish liters of nitro methane, RC fuel. But I will have to wait for the first sunny day. Will have to begin the final phase shortly, the mixing of AL and micro balloons in the ANFO. I think I’ll take a day off prior to the upcoming phase shift and just download some new trance tunes. Lange feat. Sarah Howells (amazing voice) has three songs I haven’t yet downloaded;

Lange Ft. Sarah Howells – Fireworks (Club Mix),
Lange Ft. Sarah Howells – Out of the Sky (Original Mix) and
Lange feat. Sarah Howells “Let It All Out” (Lange)

Noticing that the testo withdrawal is contributing to increased aggressiveness. As I’m now continuing with 50mg it will most likely pass. I wish it would be possible to somehow manipulate this effect to my advantage later on when it is needed. Because the state seems to very efficiently suppress fear. I wonder if it is possible to acquire specialized “aggressiveness” pills on the market. It would probably be extremely useful in select military operations, especially when combined with steroids and ECA stack…! It would turn you into a superhuman one-man-army for 2 hours! <3 Monday July 4 – Day 64:
Updated log for a few hours. I then began the preparations for a trip to extract the armor cache, I had dug down a year ago in July 2010. I am really concerned that someone has somehow found the cache. It would be a significant setback if that was to be the case. Or what if moisture had somehow penetrated the pelican case I used. It would be possible considering the fact that the area where the cache is located has permafrost during winter.

I did not look forward to this extraction trip as I had nightmarish memories from digging down the case in the first place, 12 months ago. The location is in a mosquito infested area and combined with the labor intensive nature of this sub mission, I remember it as a painfully exhausting and dreadful experience.

After packing the necessary supplies for the trip, I went by a hunting store and purchased upgraded ammunition (200 SP rounds, costing 300 euro) for my .223 Ruger Mini 14.

After a few hours driving I reached the destination. It took me around 30 minutes to locate the grave as I had camouflaged the dig sight very thoroughly, covering it with tree stumps etc. As expected, there was a big welcoming party waiting for me… Oh my, apparently, due to their great feast a year ago the mosquito population had seemed to triple for that particular spot… To counter this, I wore a raincoat which served to protect me from insect bites. However, laboring intensively in an air tight raincoat is extremely painful, even dangerous. I generated at least 2L of sweat by the time I was done so I had to constantly hydrate from my camel back. After two and a half painful hours I had extracted the armor crate and its content. Considering the fact that I do not have a secondary pistol, I disregarded filling up the crate with survival gear which was the original plan.

As for the content of the crate, it was in perfect condition. Not a single drop of liquid had penetrated the crate and no moisture had entered the rubber seal whatsoever. This means that one can bury electronic devices as well without it being affected at all!!! 🙂 These Pelican cases are simply amazing for this purpose. I’m sure you can bury it for several years, even below permafrost, perhaps up to 10 years, before the rubber seal rots away. I’m very impressed!

I arrived at the farm late in the evening. My neighbor had started harvesting my crops, as was the agreement made earlier.

Tuesday July 5 – Day 65:
Spent a few hours on ammunition administration. Replaced most of the .223 HP (hollow point) rounds with SP rounds. According to my research; HP rounds for .223 tend, 80-90% of the time, to not mushroom as intended, which defeats much of their purpose. SP (soft point) on the other hand, at least for the .223 caliber, are more suitable for the purpose of inflicting maximum damage to vermin. I did other practical tasks this day including coloring some of my equipment black with permanent markers of various sizes. Emptied the armor case. Lol, I forgot I had put a batch of DBOL, winstrol and ECA stack in the case :-). Nice, now I don’t have to make more ECA stack tabs from scratch.

I realize that if I am apprehended with all this equipment I will have serious problems trying to explain its intended usage…

Wednesday July 6 – Day 66:
Changed the tertiary charge setup, and planned the last manufacturing phase accordingly in regards to ANALFO mixing. I will be creating 19 x 50kg bags containing 43kg of ANFO, 6.45kg of AL (15%) and 1.2kg of micro balloons (2.7%). After that I will create 13 x 50kg bags containing 46kg of ANFO, 2.3kg of AL (5%) and 1.2kg of MB (2-3%). Re-located most of the ANFO from the spider cave to the processing bench.

Thursday July 7 – Day 67:
Re-distributed the micro balloons from the 16kg bags into 13 individual plastic bags each containing 1.2kg. Prepared 35 such bags – equivalent to 2.5% of the 50kg fertilizer bags. Started to do the same with the aluminium powder, re-distributing them from the 36kg metal drums to individual plastic bags each containing 6kg. Finished 6 such bags, but after further consideration I will use 5kg instead of 6. I realize now that many of the warnings concerning aluminum powder is nothing more than scare mongering, probably to limit the legal liability of the producer. It is much safer to handle than people might expect, even in the micro fine 400 mesh (63 microns) powder I have. I have generated multiple clouds of aluminium and nothing has gone wrong. Just be very careful and you’ll be fine.

As I was working on weighing the micro balloons on my gram weight, using my 3M full face mask, I noticed an itch on my nose. That’s when I saw a large black beetle on the inside of the mask…FFS. Freaked me out. I usually check for insects every time I wear gloves or the mask, but I must have missed it this time.

The neighbor is still harvesting my field outside. He originally told me it would only take 6 hours total but it’s the third day now… As long as he is lurking around on my property he is going to slow me down significantly as I have to take extra security precautions. Not to mention I have to delay the nitro methane evaporation outside until he’s done. I could probably have done it inside, but considering the fact that methane forms potentially explosive/flammable vapors I’m not readily keen on evaporating the RC fuel inside.

Friday July 8 – Day 68:
I opened the remaining two aluminium drums and re-distributed the content in plastic bags (regular shopping bags). I then completed to weigh the content of the bags on a gram weight resulting in 18 bags a 5kg (10-12%), 10 bags a 2.35kg (5-6%) and finally two bags a 6.5 kg for the inner drum charge.

Saturday July 9 – Day 69:
I started mixing the ANFO with the micro balloons and the aluminium powder. I completed 2 bags a 50kg. It was very labor intensive, much more than I imagined as I had to first open the ANFO bags, then distribute 12.5kg of the content into a plastic 50L masonry bucket. I then poured the content into a plastic 100L masonry bucket. As much of the ANFO was packed into hard lumps I had to crush them with a rubber hammer. I then started to crush the smaller lumps with my hands until the ANFO was powdered. I then poured 25% of the micro balloon bag inside the bucket and mixed it (it will create clouds of micro balloon dust as you mix it), following by doing the same with the aluminium powder. Clouds of aluminum powder will be generated and the whole area will be covered in AL dust including your clothing, your hair, and every item you might have in a 5m radius. This is problematic as you end up spread AL dust everywhere as you walk around. I ended up assigning “mixing clothing and shoes” which I took off every time I left the room. It’s the only thing you can do to prevent spreading it somewhat but you will still get stained by AL. I considered using a hazmat suit or my different kind of lightweight dust suit but the problem is that it gets too hot when combined with intensive labor like mixing.

As the ANALFO mix was complete I then poured the mix into an empty 50kg fertilizer bag. This took 30 minutes so processing a full 50kg bag of ANFO creating ANALFO took 2 hours. After I had prepared 2.5 bags of ANALFO I was exhausted and decided to take a break. Mixing ANALFO is very messy and it’s especially annoying that you get aluminium dust everywhere.

Later that day while I was enjoying a meal, the neighbor stopped by. As I had just completed the mixing session I still had AL stains in my face and powder in my hair. I tried the best I could to quickly wash it off but my hair still had a silver tone and it looked very weird. The neighbor asked if he could fertilize my fields and remove some rocks as this would increase the yield of animal fodder by 100% (the current crop). As this meant that he would get several people to work on my property for a week’s time I declined telling him that I had plans of my own.

Later that day, while I was watching an episode of True Blood, I saw a large van driving by the house and parking next to my car. There were at least 4 people inside. Nice, I thought; it’s probably a SWAT team coming to skull-fuck me. The farmer must have tipped them off… Thank God, it was only 4 Polacks looking for worked and I sent them on their way. It would have been tempting to hire them to mix my ANALFO… <3, hadn't it been for the fact that they would have understood what was up :-) Later that evening I put a large plastic container box with 8L of 30% nitro methane/18% oil/52% methanol outside to test the evaporation method. Theoretically; the methanol should evaporate before the nitromethane starts to evaporate. As such; you just let the mix evaporate down from 8L to aproximately 4L. This should leave you with aprox 60% nitro and 36% oil which is, according to my sources, 100% more efficient as an oxidizer as diesel when mixed with ANFO or ANALFO. According to my source; 25-40% nitro is as efficient as diesel, so anything higher purity is better. Sunday July 10 – Day 70:
I mixed one more bag of ANALFO manually. There must be a better way than this… One single bag in 2 hours!? I will try to use my electrical concrete mixer instead. I bought it second hand for 150 euro. I am just very worried about three things when using a concrete mixer; the friction caused by the electrical stirrer, ANALFO/ANFO/AL in direct contact with metal, a spark from the electrical system. As these three factors can cause a detonation, I will keep my glock 34 close by in case I somehow survive an explosion… I feel I don’t have a choice as mixing manually is just too fatiguing and time consuming. I need a method that allows me to mix at least 1 x 50kg bag every hour or faster. In any case; let me die another day…

The use of my electrical concrete mixer to blend the ANALFO went without much complication. As usual, I worry too much about safety… <3 I poured in 46kg of ANFO and activated the mixer. The large and small lumps would not be crushed so I had to crush them with my hands manually. I then went on to mixing in the 1.2 kg of micro balloons and the 5kg of aluminium powder (400 mesh/63 microns, leafed). It generated significant AL dust clouds and it didn't mix optimally. However, I was able to complete one bag of ANALFO in 90 minutes so I was able to improve my blending per bag by 30 minutes compared to the manual method. Also, using the concrete mixer is much less fatiguing. Perhaps with time, I will be able to reduce this to 60 minutes per bag. In any case; it is hard work for one person and I am really beginning to understand why Mr. McVeigh limited his manufacturing to 600kg. He probably encountered much of the issues I did and he probably had to learn everything the hard way just as I have done. My RC fuel (30% nitro methane, 18% oil, 52% methanol) has been allowed to evaporate for 26 hours now (average 20-25C daytime, 10-15C nighttime) and the mix has now reduced its mass by 50%, from 7.8 liters to 3.9 liters. I poured the liquid into a 4L container. I noticed that the evaporation took considerable longer during the night. I'm a bit concerned regarding the exothermic nature of methanol. Methanol absorbs moisture from the air and the water it absorbs has the same evaporation temperature as nitro methane. I have been unable to research exactly how much the absorption ratio is compared to the evaporation ratio as little information is found online regarding this purification method. If my assumptions are grossly incorrect, and the research I found was false, I will end up with an inert goo which will ruin the detonation completely. If I'm right, however, the oxidizer I will end up with will be more than twice as powerful than diesel and will reduce the need for a booster to detonate the ANFO/ANALFO. The inner charge I will end up with will be 50kg of ANALNM (Ammonium Nitrate ALuminium Nitro Methane). Regarding the purification of RC fuel; I did however find dozens of distillation methods from advanced to less advanced but the problem is that you need a decent distillation rig and even if you have the equipment, it is quite complicated and very dangerous to isolate the nitro methane that way. According to my overall research regarding nitro methane purification the most pragmatical approach, given my limited resources, is to just do an evaporation purification. I have a total of 72 liters of RC fuel with an average nitro methane percentage of 28%. In any case; I feel I've been really slacking the last week and I really need to step up the pace now. At least now, everything is set so I don't have to research any more techniques and methods. Monday July 11 – Day 71:
Mixing 3 bags (alr done 4)

I reserved a rental car today, from AVIS, the same company I’m already renting my primary car from. There was not enough credit on the card for a deposit so I had to go to the northern town and transfer 2000 euro to it.

Considering the fact that I am currently working on the most dreadful task, I bought a lot of exquisite food and candy today. I really need to recharge my batteries and increase my morale before initiating the ANALFO mixing. Good food and candy is a central aspect of my reward system which keeps me going. It has proven efficient so far. Occasionally, if I’m really not keen on doing a specific sub task, I take a red bull, a shake of noXplode or an ECA stack – to get a jump start before jumping into something I’m not looking forward to – f example extremely lame or labor intensive tasks or tasks involving great risk of injury or death.

I continued to purify, through evaporation, the RC fuel today, pouring 32L into four different plastic containers. I had marked the containers with a permanent marker for 2L, 4L and 8L which allows me to see how many percent it has evaporated. I put one in the outhouse, to test whether inside evap would be better, and three outside. I placed them all in the outhouse before I went to bed to prevent the batches from being ruined in case of rain during the night. I noticed the batch I left in the outhouse (at around 15C) had only evaporated by 1L, in comparison to the others (20-25C) which had evaporated by 3L, which indicates that outside evap is preferable.

The mixing of AL powder and micro balloons with the ANFO is a truly dreadful task. Not only is it extremely messy; it is very labor intensive as well, not to mention that you have to work using the 3M gas mask. I hate this task. It’s the most dreadful job I’ve encountered during the whole operation… However, I’ve finally managed to find a good mixing routine for the ANALFO. Basically; considering the fact that the whole process with mixing is extremely messy, I could not take any smoking breaks or leave the work bench area at all. As soon as I initiate the mixing I literally turn into the tin man…, with a layer of AL dust all over me. As it is really difficult to remove this dust from the surfaces it touches, I end up smearing the stuff on my face (it gets on the inside of my mask when it touches the rubber straps) and on my fingers etc. To keep an acceptable pace I am therefore forced to work without a break for 5 hours (or until I complete 4 x 50kg bags). I’ve managed to reduce the work needed to complete one bag from 1.5 hours to 1.2 hours. The most time consuming aspect are all the ANFO lumps I have to crush manually with my fingers. The electrical cement mixer is really helpful though, and not dangerous to use at all, and will reduce the amount of time spent on each bag by 40 minutes (from 2 hours manually, to 1.2 hours with a cement mixer). I realize this is a vulnerable phase though, as it will be hard to conceal AL dust and hard to clean surfaces with AL smearing.

Tuesday July 12 – Day 72:
Evaporated RC fuel outside and mixed 4 bags (200kg) of ANALFO.

Found a good method to determine nitromethane vs. methanol content:

The boiling point of methanol is aprox 63ªC while the BP of nitromethane is aprox 100ªC. However, there is an even easier way to determine NM content. Just weigh it! Methanol is extremely light and nitromethane extremely heavy.

Methanol = 800g per liter
Motor oil = 875g per liter (might be wrong)
Nitromethane = 1195g per liter
(Water = 1000g per liter)

A gallon of Methanol = 3.78L * 800 = 3024g
A gallon of Motor Oil = 3.78L * 875 = 3307.5g
A gallon of Nitromethane = 3.78L * 1195 = 4517g
(A gallon of water = 3.78L * 1000 = 3780g)

I added water just in case due to the exothermic nature of methanol (it absorbs water/moisture from the air). In any case; it will now be easier to figure out which of my completed 8 batches of purified RC fuel has the highest NM content, simply by using a gram weight.

Wednesday July 13 – Day 73:
I cleaned my 3M gas mask today. It was full of AL powder/smearing and the multifilter were full of AL dust. Unfortunately; these are my last multifilters (particle and vapor filter combined) so I can’t replace them. I do have a couple of sets of particle filters but I believe they won’t be of much use to filter the diesel fumes when mixing ANALFO.

Continued to evaporate RC fuel outside and mixed 2 bags of ANALFO. After mixing the second bag I began to experience dizziness, blood pressure elevation and nausea, classical symptoms of excessive short-term exposure of diesel. Diesel is a vicious substance as it is absorbed even through most glove material. Nitrile gloves are best, neoprene somewhat good but vinyl gloves provide little or no protection. At this point in time, the clothing I am using to mix ANALFO are more or less soaked in diesel and I knew it was not healthy. But the problem is that using a hazmat suit for mixing is problematic as it will be very hard to labor while wearing it. I have another chemical suit that are more comfortable than the hazmat suit so I will try using that for the last batch. Diesel poisoning isn’t lethal, but will weaken your body over time. However, excessive exposure over a long period of time can shut down your kidneys, which will obviously be lethal. To somewhat counter all the crap I’ve been exposed to the last two months I’m using anti-toxin tabs (herbal supplements strengthening the liver and kidneys), protein supplements, creatine and a multitude of mineral/vitamin supplements.

Thursday July 14 – Day 74:
I’m not feeling so hot today. I’m in a weakened state atm. most likely due to diesel poisoning. It shouldn’t take more than 24 hours before my immune system has defeated the negative effects of this exposure. I hope I haven’t been overexposed as it may lead to acute kidney shutdown. Needless to say; I’m going to use my protective suit to mix the last 4 bags today. Finished the last 4 bags. Using the protective suit (fertilizer sprayer suit, used by farmers) proved to be better than expected, except the fact that I completely soaked my t-shirt and boxer with sweat by the time I was done.

Planning a train trip to the capitol tomorrow. I have to get up at around 06:00 tomorrow. Will do some errands while I’m there including picking up a van from AVIS car rental company (carrying cap 1340kg).

Damn, I was hoping the last 4 batches of RC fuel would be finished before the trip tomorrow.

Total weight of ANALFO, 18 bags = 900kg + 50kg ANALNM (inner charge) + 130kg (1 person + gear) + 80kg (mini MC) = 1160kg. The max carrying capacity of Volkswagen Crafter is 1340kg but it’s safer to leave a certain safety margin, just in case.

Friday July 15 – Day 75:
I took the train to the capitol today to pick up the car I had reserved. Took a taxi from the train station to the car rental company. Came back to the farm late in the evening.

Saturday July 16 – Day 76:
Took a taxi to the train station in the northern town to pick up the car. Did some errands and went back to the farm. Started removing the car rental sticker with the rubber-eraser-drill-bit. I had bought 4 of these specialty drill erasers which are designed to remove decor from cars. I used one and a half bit before I was done but there were significant traces left on the car. I treated the surface with a spray on de-greasing chemical three times but there were still some quite noticeable traces left. Will try a couple of more times tomorrow. Finished the last evaporation-purification of the RC fuel.

Sunday July 17 – Day 77:
Continued removing traces of the decor on the rental car. Washed twice with acetone then another round of degreasing. There are still significant traces but at this point I do not have time to take additional measures.

An unknown car drove in to the front yard today. As I went out to greet them I noticed it was just two women who had taken a wrong turn.

The neighbor started collecting the animal-fodder-balls from the field today. His activities delayed my work for several hours.

I weighed the 9 batches of purified RC fuel. I have a lot more than I need so I will just use two of the best batches.

Weighing 1.8L in a 2L beaker on a gram weight:

Batches 1-4 were evaporated from: 25% nitro, 12% oil, 63% methanol from 7.8L to 3L

Batches 5-9 were evaporated from 30% nitro, 18% oil, 52% methanol, from 7.8L to 3.9L

All the batches have an unknown water content (exothermic properties of methanol ftl.)

Batch 1: 1759g
Batch 2: 1753g
Batch 3: 1738g
Batch 4: 1730g
Batch 5: 1786g
Batch 6: 1779g
Batch 7: 1784g
Batch 8: 1771g
Batch 9: 1770g

Weight tests were somewhat inconclusive so decided to do an additional fire test, taking 20ml from the best batches and using a stop watch to see how long the flame burns.

Batch 1: 1:49 min Batch 5: 1:53 min

Fire test proved somewhat inconclusive but my gut feeling tells me that I should go for batch 5 and batch 7. It should be more than 50% nitromethane in the two batches.

Will create secondary detonator to be detonated from ANALFO, without booster in addition to the detonator with booster from the ANALNM inner charges). Will add a delay fuse of +30 sec for the secondary detonator. I feel this is the safest option if somehow the ANALNM mix proves to be a disaster.

Needless to say, I’m really not sure about the potency of the RC nitro oxidizer. My calculations indicate that the nitro content can be as low as 30% but I cannot confirm this as my weight estimate for the oil might be incorrect. In addition; I cannot verify the water content of the mix.

In any case; for the ANALNM material I will go for:

38kg AN 6L RC/nitro oxidizer 6kg AL 1.2kg MB

Total: 51.2kg of material

Monday July 18 – Day 78:
I completed the inner charge. However, the drum only had enough space for approximately 40kg of ANALNM. I poured the finished product into 2 x double plastic bags, the inner bags of the 50kg fertilizer bags. There were no problems at all mixing everything together in the concrete mixer. However, since I only made one inner charge I wish I had purchased pure AN (98%) from ice packs as it would be more potent than the 27-0-0 (85%ish) – farmer (C)AN.

Will have less time to update log from now on…

That night, after dark, I loaded in everything in the van. Still need to strap it properly in place though.

Tested gear.

Exhausted!!! Good workout though. I’m drinking 4 x protein shakes per day now to maximize muscle generation. At this point in time I should be fearful, but I’m just too exhausted to think much about it.

Placed PA to dry during the night.

Tuesday July 19 – Day 79:
Dried 1 out of 4 batches of PA/DDNP in the oven at 50-70ª C. First batch took 9 hours, wtf!! This is going to delay everything… Created anti-friction/shock stuffing by cutting up a madras and placing it in three layers in a card board box. I’ll use these to transport the booster and detonators separate from the main cargo.

Started packing down gear, filled diesel/gasoline on cars and mini-MC. Tested mini-MC. Treaded a fuse inside a surgical tube and tested it. There were 75 cm of fuse so it should burn for 75 seconds.

Due to the lack of oxygen in the tube it burnt in less than 2 sec!! Damn, I’m glad I checked this beforehand… No surgical tube then…

Went to a higher quality restaurant in the southern town and feasted. Yummy! Ive been working extremely hard the last few days and I’m completely exhausted. I have been using ECA stack to help keep this pace. Looks like I will have to take one more today…

Currently drying batch 2 out of 4. Hopefully I will complete it before I go to bed.

Dry PA etc. Test PA. Pack and load gear during day, Go to sleep at 22:00

06:30 – drive 1 Small, there 10:00 train back (11:00), there 14:00, taxi, there 14:30 drive 2. (there 17:00) Check area. Go to bed 18:30

Wednesday July 20 – Day 80:
Wake up at 02:30. Start downloading movie at 02:30, 05:30 Eat + pack, start seeding at 06:00. Done 08:30. Leave 08:30 Drive 1, Back 09:30 Drive 2 There 10:00 Leave There 10:45

Thursday July 21 – Day 81:
Drive 11 hours straight to Kautokeino, sort out cheap hotel

Friday July 22 – Day 82:
Initiate blasting sequences at pre-determined sites. Test dirt for gram of gold per kg. Have enough material for at least 20 blasts. Start capitalization of project as soon as I have results. Time is running out, liquidity squeeze inc. Call/email all my investor contacts with updated online prospectus/pdf.

This is going to be an all-or-nothing scenario. If I fail to generate acceptable precious metals yields, in combination with swift initiation of the capitalization for securing the areas I will be heavily indebted. I must complete capitalization of the mineral extraction project within August at latest! When I have the required seed capital I will have enough funds to employ the services of professional blasting engineers.

If all fails, I will initiate my career with a private security firm in conflict zones to acquire maximum funds in the shortest period of time to repay the debts.

First coming costume party this autumn, dress up as a police officer. Arrive with insignias 🙂 Will be awesome as people will be very astonished 🙂

Side note; imagine if law enforcement would visit me the next days. They would probably get the wrong idea and think I was a terrorist, lol :o)

Optimal time budget, one person –
ANFO: 3 x 600kg, PA: 3 x 0,5kg, DDNP: 3 x 10g

If I had known then, what I know today, by following this guide, I would have managed to complete the operation within 30 days instead of using almost 80 days. By following my guide, anyone can create the foundation for a spectacular operation with only 1 person in less than a month even if adding 2 “resting” days! 🙂

Day 1: Moving and getting your equipment and gear into place.
Day 2: Installing all equipment – fume hood, fan etc.
Day 3: Finishing the metal skeletons/cylinders for the blast devices and completing other practical issues relating to gear and equipment.
Day 4: Creating an evacuation/emergency strategy, packing an evacuation kit (survival gear etc.)
Day 5: Grinding 2.5kg of aspirin: 30 minutes with blender, manufacture of acetylsalicylic acid from aspirin (4 hours) + drying in oven (4 hours per batch x 3)
Day 6: Manufacture of acetylsalicylic acid from aspirin (4 hours) + drying in oven (4 hours per batch x 3)
Day 7: Boiling sulfuric acid using 4 cooking plates outside, from 23:00-07:00, 15-18L->5L of 90% +
Day 8: Boiling sulfuric acid using 4 cooking plates outside, from 23:00-07:00, 15-18L->5L of 90% +
Day 9: Creating Picric Acid (6 out of 12 batches using 3 x hot plate stirrers)
Day 10: Creating Picric Acid (12 out of 12 batches using 3 x hot plate stirrers). Completed
Day 11: Purification of Picric Acid
Day 12: Purification of Picric Acid
Day 13: Purification of Picric Acid. Completed
Day 14: Creating DDNP
Day 15: Creating DDNP. Completed
Day 16: Relocation of 27-0-0 fertilizer. Break down a 600kg bag into 13-14 x 50kg bags, load in the truck, drive to location where you are going to crush them if needed.
Day 17: Relocation of fertilizer. Break down another 600kg bag into 13-14 x 50kg bags.
Day 18: Relocation of fertilizer. Break down the last 600kg bag into 13-14 x 50kg bags.
Day 19: Initiate fertilizer grinding phase using 4 stationary blenders simultaneously. It will take aprox. 30-40 minutes to complete a full 50kg bag of ANFO, including the addition of the diesel and sealing the inner and outer bag with pieces of duct tape. It should be done nighttime between 23:00-07:00 as it’s quite noisy. The task also includes filling 20L plastic containers with diesel, and then breaking each 20L container down to 4L containers (empty distilled water containers) Complete 9 x 50kg bags of ANFO.
Day 20: Complete 9 x 50kg bags of ANFO.
Day 21: Complete 9 x 50kg bags of ANFO.
Day 22: Complete 9 x 50kg bags of ANFO. Completed.
Day 23: Mix in 2.5% (by weight) micro balloons and 10-15% (by weight) aluminium powder into the now hardened ANFO.
Day 24: Mix in 2.5% micro balloons and 10-15% aluminium powder into the now hardened ANFO.
Day 25: Mix in 2.5% micro balloons and 10-15% aluminium powder into the now hardened ANFO.
Day 26: Prepare trucks for transportation.
Day 27: Prepare trucks for transportation.
Day 28: Prepare trucks for transportation.
Day 29: Completed

The following chart illustrates labor required vs. risk of apprehension for individuals who are NOT already on any watch list.

Risk vs. Labor Time required to complete Risk of apprehension

1 person 30 days 30%

2 person 20 days 60%

3 person 16 days 80%

4 person 13 days 90%

5 person 12 days 90-95%

The old saying; “if you want something done, then do it yourself” is as relevant now as it was then. More than one “chef” does not mean that you will do tasks twice as fast. In many cases; you could do it all yourself, it will just take a little more time. AND, without taking unacceptable risks. The conclusion is undeniable.

I believe this will be my last entry. It is now Fri July 22nd, 12:51.

Sincere regards,

Andrew Berwick
Justiciar Knight Commander
Knights Templar Europe
Knights Templar Norway

In another section, Breivik anticipated the aftermath of his deed:

I have been thinking about my post-operational situation, in case I survive a successful mission and live to stand a multiculturalist trial. When I wake up at the hospital, after surviving the gunshot wounds inflicted on me, I realize at least for me personally, I will be waking up to a world of shit, a living nightmare. Not only will all my friends and family detest me and call me a monster; the united global multiculturalist media will have their hands full figuring out multiple ways to character assassinate, vilify and demonize. They will possibly do everything they can to distort the truth about me, KT and our true objectives, and attempt to make even revolutionary conservatives detest me. They will label me as a racist, fascist, Nazi-monster as they usually do with everyone who opposesmulticulturalism/cultural Marxism. However, since I manifest their worst nightmare (systematical and organized executions of multiculturalist traitors), they will probably just give me the full propaganda rape package and propagate the following accusations: pedophile, engaged in incest activities, homosexual, psycho, ADHD, thief, non-educated, inbred, maniac, insane, monster etc. I will be labeled as the biggest (Nazi-)monster ever witnessed since WW2.

I have an extremely strong psyche (stronger than anyone I have ever known) but I am seriously contemplating that it is perhaps biologically impossible to survive the mental, perhaps coupled with physical torture, I will be facing without completely breaking down on a psychological level. I guess I will have to wait and find out.

French craft DIGNITY breaks for Gaza, leads Flotilla II until rest allowed to go

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Eric Verlo

UPDATED– In a flurry of conflicting tweets, French Flotilla II member DIGNITE AL KARAMA made for the open sea, beyond the reach of Greek authorities currently detaining the AUDACITY OF HOPE, TAHRIR, LOUISE MICHEL, GUERNICA, JULIANO and others. Reporter Quentin Girard has been communicating the DIGNITY’s progress, its eight activists electing last night to complete their run all the way to Gaza.

The French vessel escaped Greece on a technicality, as a pleasure craft, the Dignity is not confined by the regulations being used to block the larger Flotilla participants. Aboard the Dignity with Girard, are Olivier Besancenot, Julien Rivoire, Omeyyaa Sedic, Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, Annick Coupé, Nabil Ennasr. (Both Coupé and Besancenot are registered on Twitter, but neither has communicated yet.)

Girard’s most recent tweets, translated:

July 5, 3:02
All is well thank you 🙂 but we were in an area where reception was bad.

July 5, 3:15
Despite what we can read, the Dignity is still in international waters. It will be there in one hour.

July 5, 7:41
The passengers of the Dignity have finally come to the decision (only now really) to go to Gaza.

July 5, 8:19
TF1 should attempt to rejoin Dignity and embark.

July 5, 8:43
We’re moving again after a “media” pause on the high seas. 15 hours of sea left before I might go silent. Kisses!

July 5, 12:19
Into the night the DIGNITY continues its advance. In the distance, small lights.

July 5, 13:38
Not really enough beds for everyone, so I sleep under the stars on the upper deck. beautiful sky.

In their original French:

05.07 3:02
tout va bien merci 🙂 mais on était dans un endroit où ça captait mal.

05.07 3:15
Malgré ce qu’on peut lire le Dignité n’est pas encore dans les eaux internationales. Il y sera dans une heure.

05.07 7:41
Les passagers du Dignité viennent de prendre enfin (seulement maintenant vraiment) la décision d’aller jusqu’à Gaza

05.07 8:19
TF1 devrait tenter de rejoindre le Dignité et embarquer dessus

05.07 8:43
On bouge à nouveau après une pause “média” en haute mer. C’est parti pour 15h de mer, où je risque d’être silencieux. Des bises.

05.07 12:19
Dans la nuit le dignité avance toujours. Au loin, des petites lumières.

05.07 13:38
Pas vraiment de couchettes pour tout le monde, donc je dors à la belle étoile, sur le pont supérieur. Beau ciel

Below is the Girard’s July 5 article in the LIBERTE.FR (auto-translated, sorry, until I can review it)

En route to Gaza, “Dignity” is appealing to the media

The French ship of the “freedom flotilla” sailing in international waters off the coast of Greece. The crew decided to go to Gaza.

By QUENTIN GIRARD special envoy on the “Dignity”

16 hours in Greece, somewhere in international waters, on Tuesday afternoon. After much discussion, the Dignity passengers finally made their decision. They will go to Gaza. A bit surreal moment where the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, they set up banners and make an official statement.

When they left the industrial port of Salamina, Monday morning, they did not really know how far they try to go. There, as they finally arrived in international waters a little to 15 hours – after wet night in a small cove – they say they are determined. “We’re going to Gaza. The French and international community officially announced that they supported us regardless of our decision, “enthuses Julien Rivoire, one of the spokesmen of the campaign. “But to get there, we also need the media, as TV join us to show our work and safety issues,” he continues.

In the distance we see no island, not even a few freighters, these little black spots that usually reassuring scattered throughout the year. “We wanted to show that we could block the Greek blockade, says Julien Rivoire. It once was that we wondered what we were doing then. ”

Return to France? Impossible

That same morning, the discussion was intense as ever on the Dignity. What to do? Return to France? Impossible for them. Go to another country such as Tunisia symbolic to wait, to show that it is a stopover? Why not, it’s better, they say. But no. The only viable solution they think is necessary. Go to Gaza. “You have the dignity to the end represents French and international committees,” argues Olivier Besancenot.

“The important thing that determines the political feasibility, technical feasibility, must be as representative as possible and supported,” Nabil Esnari continues, President of the Association of Muslims in France. “We do not want to be seen as Islamic-leftist Khmer-green-act in our corner,” says the MP-Europe Ecology Nicole Kiil-Nielsen.

“My preference would be to go to Gaza without delay,” takes on Olivier Besancenot position as others. “Our protection is proof that we exist, we continue to move forward. We can not afford to become a ghost ship. ”

There remains the question of technical means. The Dignity is a small yacht of 15 meters long, categorized craft. It was originally one of the smaller boats in the fleet. He has no self to go off the ridge to Gaza. It would necessarily need to be refueled and water en route. Hence the difficulty that there will in the coming hours to coordinate the political ambitions and technical means.

A small creek, goats, and … Sea

But they want confident. The twelve passengers (1) are refreshed by their two days at sea after a week of pitfalls in Athens. Although the coup, the Greek landscapes provide a particular coloration to the adventure. In the capital locked up in meeting rooms to multiply the points and plan protests, the mood was serious and solemn. Not even have time to visit the Acropolis.
There hard to escape the Greek islands. On the night of Monday and Tuesday, the Dignity was anchored in a cove of a small island. In the morning, passengers were woken up by goats with bells tinkle merrily. A shepherd ran along the cliff, the whoop, some small white houses with blue shutters, of steep cliffs, the water so beautiful … “In the morning, you go through three stages,” said Olivier Besancenot. “First you wake up, you do not know where you are, then you look around you and you say,” oh yes, it’s beautiful. ” And just after you wonder what’s next meeting, what is the plan that will be put in place. ”

The Plan: Gaza, having embarked with TVs. Maybe he will change in the coming hours. Meanwhile, the Dignity vogue. Engine noise makes deaf. The smell of fuel oil a little drunk. In front, nothing. The sea, just the sea.

(1) On board were three crew members, eight activists – Olivier Besancenot addition there are Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, MP, Europe-ecology, Annick Coupe, spokesman for the union Solidarity trade union, or Nabil Ennasr, President the Collective of Muslims in France – and a journalist, the author of these lines.

The earlier July 4 Liberte.fr article:

On board the “Dignity”, en route to Gaza

A French ship with a few activists on board, including Olivier Besancenot and Annick Coupé, eventually left Athens and headed to Gaza despite the obstacles. The “flotilla to Gaza” is reduced to its simplest expression. The story of our special correspondent on the deck of “Dignity.”

By QUENTIN GIRARD special envoy on the “Dignity”

“The pins in the plastic, it will not be possible,” said Olivier Besancenot, in full session yourself. 11 hours on Monday, in a small Greek port. The Dignity Al Kamara, one of two ships of the French committee for Gaza, left at dawn the creek near the industrial town of Salamina, where he had hidden for three days. In another cove where he made a first step, the passengers – including Besancenot, so – try to install the satellite antenna to communicate with the outside world.

3 o’clock this morning, Julien Rivoire, a member of the NPA and a spokesman for the campaign called “Wake the captain, we’re back.” Between them and the small annex that links with the boat, watchdogs of the port or adjacent businesses. They bark violently at night. They fail to wake the whole neighborhood. Tunisian Omeyyaa Sedic and Julien Rivoire, equipped with the latest load required, can not pass. Latest in a series of tragicomic events that marked the week of the fleet. “We’re not James Bond, it is OSS 117” is trying to be amused Julien Rivoire finally climbing on Dignity.

Plaisance

Sunday evening, the decision was made. It was long in coming, interspersed with calls to Iniohos Hotel where the rest of the delegation. A consensus is emerging: the Dignity attempt to leave no matter what. This small yacht 13 meters long, having left France ten days ago, has a status of “craft” and is theoretically not subject to the same prohibition to start than other boats of the delegation.

On Friday, an American ship tried starting one. Saturday, the captain was imprisoned. It could several years in prison for having left without permission. After several announcements bullies, to show their determination and their will as strong as ever to go to Gaza to bring humanitarian assistance, the committees have defected last one after the other. Masters of Spanish ships and Canada have announced that they did not want to take as many risks as they were sure they could not be more than thirty meters. The former president of Greenpeace France, Alain Connan, captain of the main French ship Louise Michel, after long hesitation, agreed with this position, some attracted by the Greek jails.

He went to ask permission to start at the harbor. Refused of course. The passengers were then organized a demonstration on the deck of Louise Michel. They simulated a departure. They should all file a complaint for obstruction of freedom of movement in the afternoon.

Parano

5 o’clock this morning, the Dignity springs. The sun is not up yet. Some cargo ships moving in the distance. Around him, two or three carcasses that rust for too many years, the ferry may be ready to leave but which seem, at dawn, desperate still. Twelve boats, twenty-two different nationalities and several hundred passengers announced, the fleet is now reduced to three crew members, eight militants – Olivier Besancenot addition there are Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, MP europe-ecology, Annick Coupe, spokesman for the union Solidarity trade union, or Nabil Ennasr, president of the Collective of Muslims in France – and a journalist, the author of these lines.

The Dignity enters the channel. In the distance, lights, shadows indistinct, but no coastguard. Surprise among the passengers. They believed they were identified and a small star suddenly arise between two cargo ships to stop them. For two days, each gull, each fishing boat, each jet-ski with the big guys who spend every man piss in the night under the white lights of the port is an opportunity when paranoid.

To starboard there. A port, nothing. In the distance behind, already, the lights of Athens. The sun appears between two hills. After a week of failure or disruption, and the blows of fate have joined forces to keep them in port, for the first time the French committee actually managed something in Greece. They feel like defeat stress, even if they are tired, even if the tension is palpable at times between them, although discussions and waiting endlessly sometimes not.

Determination

Of course, they know that this little boat is not much. That Israel, obviously, has won the game this time and that the only issue that remains is to show that they have tried everything, it’s not a “fucking failure”, as stated Besancenot. Certainly they know that it is unlikely to go to Gaza, especially alone. Unless a Greek ship to join them. The committee led by Vengelis Pissias announced that they had a new, third, a “surprise” that the authorities do not know. But they have promised so many things since the beginning of last week …

The Dignity vogue. It will reach international waters in a few hours if not arrested by the Coast Guard before. There, passengers will make official statements. They expressed their determination against the blockade of Gaza and denounced the attitude of the international community against them. They then announce the next steps. If there is a sequel.

June 25 Le Monde article:

Gaza flotilla II imminent departure

A year after the arrest of a murderer off the first convoy of Israel, a new international fleet prepares to sail to Gaza to try to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian enclave. Unlike last year, two French ships involved in the operation.

The first of these ships, the “Louise Michel”, is currently in Greece. The second, “Dignity-Al Karama” sailed this morning from the Ile-Rousse in Corsica. I get on one of them and try to deliver on this blog Monde.fr the story of the expedition.

A campaign launched in October 2010

This project, called “A French boat to Gaza” would not be possible without the 600,000 euros of the money raised during the campaign launched in October under the leadership of the combined platform of French NGOs for Palestine and the National Collective for a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Nearly 70 organizations (associations, political parties and unions) were involved in mobilization. From Lille to Marseille via Strasbourg, Toulouse or Alencon, speakers and activists around the country. Three-week tour in February. “It was a real success,” testifies Julien Rivoire, a member of the New Anti-Capitalist Party and the coordinating committee of the campaign. “It happened in the markets with a sound truck, banners, leaflets and a bank. In Toulouse, the Mirail, 600 euros were collected in two hours. It was during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. There was a particular climate, people were saying ‘it is possible to make a difference “.

SNOWBALL EFFECT

Driven by this momentum, mobilizing snowballed, quickly exceeding traditional activist circles. Events, exhibitions, film screenings or symbolic release of paper boats … In the end, more than 1,500 events are held across France. Donations tributary. “We never imagined that the movement would take on such a scale,” comments Maxim Guimberteau, communications officer of “A French boat to Gaza.”

“I feel that this campaign has awakened people. A real fervor has replaced the fatalism that had won many former activists involved in the pro-Palestinian,” observes Alain Bosc, and member of the Cimade Coordinating Committee of “A boat to Gaza”. Very relayed in associations, the initiative has been enthusiastically received in poor neighborhoods and in particular “to the French families of Arab origin, sensitive to the Palestinian question and the fate of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.”

90% of individual donations

Many structures such as the Christian Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD-Terre Solidarity) or the Christians of the Mediterranean have also mobilized their networks. An appeal, launched at the initiative of the Archbishop of Sens-Auxerre and bishops of Troyes and La Rochelle, was sent to all dioceses to encourage the faithful “to a special place in their personal prayer and a community for the second flotilla of freedom to achieve its objectives in the service of peace. ”

The result of all collected 600 000 euros, 90% of donations come from individuals. According to organizers, “most people participated at 5, 10 or 50 euros.” Added to the contributions of the signatory organizations, grants from several local and payment of the foundation “A world for all.” All support checks were made payable to the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP), which opened a special account to centralize. “Everything was done in a transparent, ensures the collective. We have not accepted money from foreign countries or associations.”

46 PEOPLE IN FRENCH VESSELS

The funds raised were allocated to the purchase of two vessels, the formation of crews, and communications expenses. “Chartering vessels is what has been the most difficult in the end, recognizes Alain Bosc. We’re not owners, there have been some setbacks.”

Finally, 46 people are expected on board. Alongside the militants of the various associations involved in the campaign, carrying several personalities from the political or voluntary, as Olivier Besancenot (NPA), the Communist deputy in Le Havre, Jean-Paul Lecoq, MEP Nicole Kiil-Nielsen (EELV) the Breton sailor Jo Le Guen, or Julien Bayou, the collective “Out of colonialism.”

From June 25 FRANCE3

The “Dignity-Al Karama”, a 19-meter boat flying the French flag, left the waters of the Ile-Rousse to 11:15. It must join in the next ten to twelve days boats that make up the flotilla to Gaza.

“The entire fleet will sail next week from various Mediterranean ports,” Julien Rivoire told AFP a committee member coordinating the French countryside. Ships, including two freighters carrying medical supplies, “should reach the port of Gaza at the end of next week,” he added. Among them, a cargo bought a quarter of France and the rest of Sweden, Norway and France, making the “Dignity” the only boat in the fleet entirely French.

“We hope we can do it so as to breach the blockade,” said Omeyya Seddik, a passenger on the “Dignity”, reached by telephone by the AFP, for whom “joy is the feeling that dominates the time of departure. “This fleet is part of “the natural continuation of the revolution for freedom and democracy,” in Arab countries, said Seddik, of Tunisian origin.

Before taking off, a passenger on the boat at the stern hoisted a Palestinian flag and made the “V” for victory.

IMF pick Christine Lagarde-Obamette updates beau mot Cherchez La Femme

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Eric Verlo

One of the boys, literally
IMF DSK replacement Christine Lagarde assumes leadership of the International Monetary Fund today, the world’s most powerful woman. Will she be the spoonful of sweetness to make austerity cuts go down? How’s your blood-sugar crashing on Obama? My guess is this fairy grandmother gambit will go down in Europe like an Obama Smurfette. To further my sexist analogy, imagine Lagarde the stereotypical bank loan officer, absolutely immovable. But Lagarde is personable, kindly, and maternal, and she’s willing to extend your loan, on the condition that you forfeit your house and all your possessions, and rent them from her. In the end you have nothing, but you don’t starve. By the way, the sheriff outside work for her. The IMF and the paramilitary riot police -that’s whose army. It’s a contract re-up you can’t refuse. That’s “austerity,” larceny with the improbably-legitimated veneer of usury, and it’s her last best offer.

Cherchez la femme or “get the woman”, used to be an investigative phrase meaning, find the extra-marital affair behind the political intrigue. The effect of this strategy was so absolute that it came to mean looking for the obvious. And so, isn’t the appointment of the silver-coiffed woman to front the severely PR-challenged, greed-saturated IMF, the obvious choice for a facelift?

Look at the IMF, an old boys network rivaled perhaps only by the World Bank. The solitary Lagarde is the next best thing to the superior exotic, one black man. They didn’t have one, and that novelty might be playing itself out already across the pond.

Augustin Carstens Fat Bastard Speaking of the New World, with Lagarde, the IMF avoided the challenger touted as the champion of emerging nations, Bank of Mexico nomineee and corpulence personified, Augustin Carstens. You might remember Carstens as the obesity-suited Fat Bastard from Austin Powers, who kept begging to be given Mini-Me for a snack.

What an unfortunately apt personification of the banking system Augusten Carstens would have been. Try to find a single photograph that wouldn’t have made the IMF aims plain: the bankers are licking their chops not only for your last penny, they want your ribs.

Mexicans have to brave illegal status in the United States to flee the economic policies enforced by their Fat Bastard.

Solidarity rally for Gaza Aid Flotilla II called off in Christian-Zionist Springs

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Humanitarian rights activists aboard the Canadian Flotilla II aid ship bravely try to block the pilot’s view as Greek forces commandeer the TAHRIR before it reached international waters. While Greece is denounced for its complicity with Israel, the international press offered no live coverage, so few Americans knew it was happening. Meanwhile predominantly Christian-Zionist Colorado Springs urged Team USrael to #sinktheflotilla! Sorry local Judeo-Christo-holes, no dialog.

While the maritime aid convoy looks sunk, to the degree it received attention, the Flotilla II did raise awareness about the besieged Gazans. But more, the blocking of the aid ships, by USA, Greece, Turkey, litigious NGOs and unknown intelligence operatives, suggests that Israel is not a rogue state after all. The Flotilla II revealed the illusion of democracy, the farce of sovereignty, and the inhumanity of our global governors. By international humanitarian aid being denied Gaza by state power we see: this is what a police state looks like, globalized.

Arrest of those who blocked the wheel house.

A sweet photo of the Canadian activists looking forlorn, for a brief moment. However unceremoniously, by this weekend’s blocking of the Freedom Flotilla II, the cause of freedom for Palestine and for Greece is well advanced.

And best news, precious activists didn’t have to die by the hand of Israeli commandos, and live to repeat their promise, Gaza We Are Coming!

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Not My Tribe

The Myth of Middle Ground

Tag Archives: Christ

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French craft DIGNITY breaks for Gaza, leads Flotilla II until rest allowed to go

IMF pick Christine Lagarde-Obamette updates beau mot Cherchez La Femme

Solidarity rally for Gaza Aid Flotilla II called off in Christian-Zionist Springs