Code Pink thinking with its vagina, our apologies in advance for the language

Just kidding, about the anatomical reference giving offense. Not kidding about Code Pink “Women for Peace” thinking with their vaginas, making it the theme to their callout for the Tampa RNC in August. Agreed, men thinking with their reproductive organ is far more common, and generally dishonorable, but turnabout is fair play isn’t it? Usually formidable antiwar powerhouse Code Pink is dropping its protest of drones and military intervention for the RNC, in favor of conferring legitimacy to the GOP’s 2012 wedge issue, the War on Women. Does this presage a tempered message at the DNC, a la DNC 2008, where Barack Obama got a pass from Code Pink though he was the antiwar candidate in hope only?

How much does Occupy not believe in elections? Enough to boycott them?

US Election is election fraudPundits, even friendlies, are infecting the Occupy Movement with direction-waylaying cynicism, so I’ll tell you what I think Occupy should do next. Never mind the usual grievances, leave those to existing advocacy groups, although they do benefit from Occu-proding obviously. No matter what you think Occupy Wall Street’s core issue was, by definition OWS asserted our system of governance was broken, our regime is not responsive, not representative, and immovable by the conventional permitted mechanisms. So right now, which bankrupt democratic mechanism is being paraded before us, taunting a debunking from Occupy? We’ve been paying it lip service already: the fraud of our electoral process. Isn’t it time Occupy said DON’T VOTE? Don’t dignify Election 2012 with your buy-in, undignify it with a vote of no confidence. I don’t mean merely not vote, let’s Get Out The No Vote! Now wouldn’t that separate the men from the Dems!

MoveOn and the 99% Foundation et al, have been co-opting OWS numbers already, herding Occupy’s newly activated citizenry back into the Obama fold. Apparently there’s still hope to be squeezed, that Barack Obama isn’t the people’s nemesis he pretends to be in office.

If we threaten to occupy Obama’s vote, the Dems will roar! They’ll accuse us of ensuring the GOP villain’s win. They’ll be positively shrill, can you imagine? Occupy will go from a nostalgically eulogized Prague Spring, to People’s Enemy Number One, a national threat, inestimably unpatriotic, and suddenly more relevant than anyone’s ever dared admit. Our unoccupied friends will go from politely avoiding talking politics around us to actively begging us to reconsider.

Anyway, how are we going to explain our demonstrations at the RNC and DNC? We protest because the people are given no real choices. We protest because elections are a sham. Do we believe it ourselves? Think of fellow occupiers who’d earlier agreed that elections are mere show. Was all that talk polite patronizing? The inefficacy of voting is in fact a huge contention, and not one of those partisan niceties upon which we can agree to disagree. The illusion of Democracy is WHY WE OCCUPY. Our government is broken, the entire electoral system is election fraud. The presidential race is just a bold Kabuki show-stopper to please the crowd. Maybe Occupy can make it a real show stopper.

Are Colorado Springs Citizens Being Gagged On Fracking Issue?

Our colleague Lotus has initiated some fruitful correspondence on the subject of the still-impending fracking of the Pikes Peak region. In light of the City’s abrupt cancellation of the May 17 public hearing, we’ll present excerpts of his emails and telephone notes here.

Are Colorado Springs Citizens Being Gagged On Fracking Issue?

The fracking hearing was cancelled. The more I learn about how the fracking issue is being dealt with in Colorado Springs, the more it looks like citizens have very little room for input. This even seems to be true of the way the City Council Advisory Committee on fracking was run – very little room for public input.

The letter from Councilman Val Snider below seems to be saying that the public will only be allowed to respond to the recommendations of the advisory committee, will not be allowed general input concerning the issue of fracking.

It appears that 4-5 people from Huerfano/Las Animas Counties, who have been harmed by fracking, may be willing to speak to the city council and the public here in Colorado Springs. But the process seems to be so closed that it does not appear likely that these people who were harmed will be allowed to speak, allowed to warn people here in Colorado Springs what may be in store for them if they allow fracking in Colorado Springs. The informal Council meetings do not allow for public input. The formal meeting only allow for 3 minutes of input on subjects not on the agenda. And what will be on the agenda may not allow for general input, will be limited to discussion of the recommendations of the committee.

I read articles about how the El Paso County Commission dealt with fracking, and they ignored the recommendations of their own planning commission when they watered down their regulations. Where is the protection of our water, land and air when it comes to fracking? There does not seem to be much of any.

Lotus

From Colorado Springs City Councilman Val Snyder:

Hi Lotus,

The city will not be having any public meetings on fracking. The city will have public meetings on the recommendations of the Oil and Gas Committee on areas of potential regulation for oil and gas activities. The first public meeting on this is May 24, 6-8pm, at the City Administration Building.

There will be opportunities for public comment before City Council, as the potential oil and gas regulations work their way through the process. The first is tentatively scheduled for June 12, a formal Council meeting.

Thank you for your writing.

Val

From a telephone conversation with May Jensen:

Anti-Fracking Info From Mary Jensen & Other Info
(From my notes, so hope is accurate.)

I have been wondering why people from other communities who have been harmed by fracking (their land, water, personally, etc) have not been asked to speak to the local Colorado Springs City Council, El Paso County Commissioners, etc. So I finally located the author of a letter to the editor of the CS Independent, Mary Jensen, who has a doctorate in applied clinical nutrition.

Mary Jensen’s March 8-14, 2012 email:

Fracking concoction by Mary Jensen:

Across the state and the country, there is documented evidence of wells being contaminated by chemicals used in oil and gas fracking. Yet Gov. John Hickenlooper recently demonstrated how supposedly safe fracked water is by taking “a swig of it.”

I am incensed at the example he’s setting — playing Russian roulette by drinking water that may or may not have been sanitized for a cheap publicity stunt. He need only look as far as his own state to see the irreparable harm done to our people, our livestock, our air, our water and our lands.
Here are some materials Hickenlooper might have ingested in his fracked beverage:

• Benzene, a powerful bone-marrow poison (aplastic anemia) associated with leukemia, breast and uterine cancer. It may also cause fatigue, skin and mucous membrane irritation, and narcotic behavior including lightheadedness, disorientation, loss of consciousness and coma.

• Styrene, which may cause eye and mucous membrane irritation, neurotoxic effects in the central and peripheral nervous systems, loss of consciousness and death.

• Toluene, which may cause muscular incoordination, tremors, hearing loss, dizziness, vertigo, emotional instability and delusions, liver and kidney damage, and anemia — besides potential harm to developing fetuses.

• Xylene, with cancer-causing and neurotoxic effects, which can cause reproductive abnormalities and death through respiratory or cardiac arrest. More toxic than benzene and toluene!

• Methylene chloride, which may cause cancer, liver and kidney damage, central nervous system disorders and worse.

• Or any of more than 1,000 other safe “food additives” used by the oil and gas industry.

Hickenlooper is welcome to come down to Huerfano and Las Animas counties to talk with the ranchers and other folks who have been irreparably damaged by these poisons.

— Mary Jensen, Ph.D.

From telephone conversation with Mary Jensen on 5-12-12:

Mary especially emphasized that we should get Josh Joswick to speak to our elected leaders. Josh Joswick: commissioner in southern Colorado’s La Plata County, which successfully fought state regulators and companies in court for a say in oil and gas production.

http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Drilling-threatens-nature-Colorado-residents-say-1968302.php

Josh Joswick is now a Staff Organizer, Oil and Gas Issues the San Juan Citizens Alliance Staff Organizer, Colorado Energy Issues josh@sanjuancitizens.org Josh brings nearly 20 years of experience in dealing with the oil and gas industry to the position of Oil and Gas Issues Organizer. He served three terms as a La Plata County Commissioner from January 1993 to January 2005; in that capacity, locally he worked to see that La Plata County’s oil and gas land use regulations were not only enforced but expanded to protect surface owners’ rights. Josh has dealt with numerous agencies, and legislative and Congressional elected officials, to uphold the rights of local governments to exercise their land use authority as it pertained to oil and gas development, and to assert the right of local government to address with the environmental impacts of oil and gas development.

http://www.sanjuancitizens.org/otherpages/contact.shtml

http://www.spoke.com/people/josh-joswick-3e1429c09e597c10008191b9

Mary Jensen said there are probably at least 4-5 people who have been adversely affected by fracking that would be willing to travel to Colorado Springs in order to speak to the Council. Many people have gone to court and signed a settlement that they later learned prevents them from speaking to the press. Many of these people have spent everything they have fighting the fracking companies in court.

Silencing Communities: How the Fracking Industry Keeps Its Secrets
http://truth-out.org/news/item/9004-silencing-communities-how-the-fracking-industry-keeps-its- secrets

See attached two page fracking information add that was run in the LaVeta Signature and Huerfano County Journal. Organizers paid over $2,000 for these adds.

Mary mentioned that 6 people in her area have died of brain cancer, and another person has brain cancer.

Mary Jensen went on to say that she had heard that drilling down around Trinidad was disastrous in terms of contaminating many wells, but she did not have specifics. Her understanding is that the gas company declared bankruptcy and walked away from it all. (Contaminated wells are not likely to be usable for 100 years.)

In one of the Gazette articles, see below, it said that the Colorado Springs moratorium on fracking ends May 31, 2012. (A reason to extend the moratorium would be in order to provide more time to revise the regulatory structure.)

Mary said that fracking, this dangerous method of oil and gas extraction, is not more effective than simply drilling for oil and gas. Read: Deborah Rogers Transcript of “In Their Own Words: Examining Shale Gas Hype”

http://preservethefingerlakes.org/?p=127

Mary said that there is now a network of 14 anti-fracking organizations. The contact for getting on the Grassroots EnErgy activist Network (GREEN) is Citizens for Huerfano County, Kelly Kringel, kkringel@gmail.com

The CHC website is http://www.huerfanofrack.com/.

Also there is going to be a Colorado Grassroots Fractivist Summit, Jun 9, 2012

Mary stated that it was important that I visit the website TEDX http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/home.php and learn about the 600+ chemical used in fracking hundreds of which adversely affect the endocrine system.

http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/home.php

Mary said another important resource on fracking is A Primer for Local Governments on Environmental Liability

http://www.mrsc.org/subjects/environment/envliabprim.pdf

She said that the president of Citizens for Huerfano County, Kelly Kringel, kkringel@gmail.com , would be able to provide me with access to this document. The CHC website is
http://www.huerfanofrack.com/

On http://www.huerfanofrack.com/ I located POW: Protect Our Wells appears to be a mainly Colorado Springs based group. The president is Sandy Martin, 719-351-1640, sandra@protectourwells.org .

Other board members also seem to have CS area phone numbers

http://www.protectourwells.org/ ,
http://www.protectourwells.org/BOD.html .
http://www.huerfanofrack.com/
also listed the Sierra Club
http://rmc.sierraclub.org/ppg/
and Green Cities Coalition, which I am already familiar with.
http://www.greencitiescoalition.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88&Itemid=30

Both of these organizations have people on the committee advising the Colorado Springs City Council on fracking.

Mary said that Perry Cabot from Colorado State University in Pueblo was helping people in her area with base line water studies. These are needed in order to later prove well contamination.

Mary said the Land Owner’s Guide To Oil and Gas Development by the Oil and Gas Accountability Project was another important document. And also the book Oil and Gas At Your Door: 970-259-3353.

Citizens for Huerfano County President, Kelly Kringel, kkringel@gmail.com, asked in an email if I knew Mary Talbott. I do not, so I did a search and came up with:

Mary Talbott & fracking issue:

Commissioner to energy company: ‘We’re scared of you’

http://www.gazette.com/articles/drilling-127253-county-approved.html

Citizens, county respond to frack attack

(Talbott, who is retired from the El Paso County Department of Health and Environment and does not live near prospective drill sites)

County, city leaders to get a present on Tuesday

(She plans to hand them a copy of “Split Estate,” a 75-minute DVD about drilling issues in Rifle, Colo. )

http://thecountyseat.freedomblogging.com/tag/el-paso-county-commissioners/

Talbott presented fracking report to El Paso County Board of Health (bottom p 3)

http://www.elpasocountyhealth.org/sites/default/files/11_14_11_Minutes.pdf

What has happened in El Paso County…Majority of Commissioners Ignored head of own planning commission, and the recommendations of the Commission!

Gazette article:

County adopts slimmed-down oil and gas regulations

ANDREW WINEKE
THE GAZETTE

http://www.gazette.com/articles/talbott-129368-denver-citizens.html

El Paso County commissioners on Tuesday narrowly approved a basic set of regulations to govern oil and gas drilling in the county.

The Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve a proposal that was significantly scaled down from what the county’s planning commission approved earlier this month. The regulations govern transportation, emergency response, noxious weeds and, controversially, water quality issues related to drilling.

Commissioners Peggy Littleton and Darryl Glenn objected to the water quality regulations, arguing that the county was overstepping its authority because the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission also regulates drilling-related water issues.

“I think it would be irresponsible for us to open ourselves up to lawsuits,” Littleton said.
The Attorney General’s Office and oil and gas commission director Dave Neslin have expressed concern over the county’s proposed rules, both in the version approved by the planning commission and a trimmed-down version the county’s planning staff developed last week, arguing that the county can’t regulate areas where the state has its rules in place.

However, commissioners Amy Lathen, Sallie Clark and Dennis Hisey said that water quality was too important to leave up to the state.

“I really don’t mind pushing the envelope when it comes to our water quality,” Hisey said.
The water quality monitoring regulations adopted by the county are similar to what the oil and gas commission has agreed to in other counties, requiring wells to be monitored initially for a baseline measurement and then at one, three, and six-year intervals after drilling begins.

The commissioners scrapped most of the rules proposed by the planning commission, including measures that would have governed setbacks from structures and property lines, mitigation of visual impacts and noise and impacts to wildlife. The commissioners will instead try to address those issues by working with the oil and gas commission on an intergovernmental agreement.

Getting some kind of oil and gas regulations in place was vitally important for the county, since a moratorium on oil and gas permits expired at midnight Tuesday and the county had no other regulations in place. Houston-based Ultra Resources has applied to drill six wells in El Paso County, four in unincorporated parts of the county and two more in Banning Lewis Ranch, inside the Colorado Springs city limits. The city imposed its own moratorium and set up a task force to study oil and gas regulations. The task force plans to make a recommendation to City Council by early May.
All of this was decided in a meeting that stretched nearly nine hours Tuesday. Several dozen speakers weighed in on the proposed regulations on each side of the issue.

Jeff Cahill, who lives near the Corral Bluffs Open Space, said that the proposed drilling has already hurt his property values and made it difficult for he and his wife to sell their home.
“They say they’re not going to impact us,” he told the commission. “Well, they’ve already impacted me.”

Steve Hicks, chairman of the El Paso County planning commission, urged the commission to pass more stringent regulations such as those approved by the planning commission.

“At times, there needs to be extra regulation where the state doesn’t go far enough, and this is one of them,” he said.

Other speakers praised the economic potential of expanded oil and gas development in the county.
Bob Stovall recounted his experience as an oil and gas lawyer and a city attorney in Farmington, N.M.

“Air is pretty clean there. Water is pretty clean there – and that’s after 100 years of oil and gas,” he said. “If oil and gas is around in this county, it could be good for us and it can be done well.”

Tisha Conoly Schuller, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the county’s new regulations were a good framework to build on.

“The El Paso County commissioners made significant progress today,” she said. “The rules passed are 90 percent within the guidance provided by the Attorney General. There are still a couple of important issues to work through, but I am confident that the county is serious about finding common ground, and after seeing the progress made today, we will continue to work toward county regulations that are protective of the environment and within the scope of the county’s jurisdiction.”

Read more:

http://www.gazette.com/articles/county-132696-water-quality.html#ixzz1ujNiqAjK

Split Estate: an eye-opening examination of the consequences and conflicts that can arise between surface land owners in the western United States, and those who own and extract the energy and mineral rights below. http://splitestate.com/

http://www.splitestate.com/video_clips.html
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?rh=n%3A2625373011%2Ck%3Asplit+estate+dvd&k eywords=split+estate+dvd&ie=UTF8

“split estate,” in which landowners have surface rights but someone else owns the rights to the underground minerals. Josh Joswick : commissioner in southern Colorado’s La Plata County, which successfully fought state regulators and companies in court for a say in oil and gas production.

http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Drilling-threatens-nature-Colorado-residents-say- 1968302.php ;

http://www.spoke.com/people/josh-joswick-3e1429c09e597c10008191b9

Gasland, a documentary on fracking.
http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/whats- fracking/affirming-gasland ,
http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/
http://gizmodo.com/5905909/gasland-the-definitive-documentary-on-fracking

Frack-happy Ultra Petroleum is the city’s largest private landowner. What kind of neighbor might it be?

Ultra Petroleum Corp., which owns subsidiary Ultra Resources…has most of the leases and permits in El Paso County and Colorado Springs

http://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/close-up/Content?oid=2422410

It’s not a recession, it’s a robbery.

It's not a recession, it's a robberyThis image gets my vote for the KILLER APP of internet memes to explain what the “economic crisis” and its global banking “austerity measures” are really about: pure greed.
All the rich have ever wanted is everything. Damn the middle class, the working class and the poor. Economists are part of their getaway illusionist crew, if you want to understand Milton Friedman and the banking economy, call CSI.

Ayn Rand SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me first begin with how I was exposed to Ayn Rand. I am in high school and awhile back my teacher was doing a course on homelessness. In a ‘prompt’ that she gave me as to what are the causes of homelessness, I answered CAPITALISM. A week later I was astonished to get back my paper with a Zero. I showed this to many people all of whom agreed that it was in no way deserving of a zero. My dad and I took this question as to why I had gotten a zero on  my paper to the teacher. I wasn’t expecting much but even after one hour of asking my English teacher why I had gotten a zero on my paper she had no reasonable answer other than that I had not followed the ‘format’ correctly, even though I had a previous organizational sheet on which I based my writing on following her format. she ended by saying I was a horrible writer;  we gave up trying to get to through to such a numbskull.

I didn’t quite understand why she had given me a zero until a couple months later, and so began my experience with Ayn Rand. My teacher took us to get the book. As I read the summary I knew it would be some sort of method for her and d-11 to push their politics on students;  however I had no previous knowledge of who Ayn Rand was.  The next day in class she gave us a powerpoint on the background of Ayn Rand and what the book Anthem was about. It was filled with negative comments on communism including that communism supposedly takes away knowledge, individuality and free expression.   As I was assigned to read more and more of Ayn Rand I realized how horrible of a writer she was. I started to listen to Ayn Rand’s interviews. I then understood that  they were forcing me to read a writer who didn’t believe in helping anyone, because she was a racist, a nationalist and a pure evil witch. These interviews can be found on <youtube> and <bluecorncomics> among many other articles revealing Ayn Rand to be a racist.

The more and more I read into the book the more i was infuriated at the pure ridiculousness and hypocrisy of it.  In the ending chapters it is written by Ayn Rand that

“The word WE is the lime poured over me, which sets and hardens to stone, crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?”

As i read this I wasn’t sure whether to laugh, throw up, or rip the book apart . I was sickened by how when I had expressed my “free speech” I was given a ZERO; by how I had to read an author who believes being selfish is  a virtue. And by how every day, whenever I went to class instead of being taught English literature I got the teachers Right Wing, anti-communist politics thrown into my face. Each time a question on the book was asked I didn’t hear an opinion on whether the book was good or bad i only heard questions on how communism takes away individuality and how  Ayn Rand is right on what her idea of what communism is? I said the teacher was expressing personal opinion and the whole class started to yell at me to shut up. I got so alienated and depressed after they  said that communism makes robots, and brain dead people  even though I couldn’t find more brain dead robots as hard as I looked than the ones that were sitting right next to me.

I couldn’t take the class anymore as it was an insult to who I was, what I believed in, and all the people I respected were continually insulted and lied about. I started skipping the class after my dad not only talked at a school board meeting but also to my assistant principal, in both cases we were given the cold shoulder and treated horribly rude. I decided to go to the class again and deal with it. As I read the quote given above in that class and as I looked around i became terrified of being like them. I was torn between staying and swallowing my believes and to be JUST LIKE THOSE SHEEP or to get up and leave. The overwhelming fear of being lost into them made me get up and walk out of the class. Later that day the assistant principal took me out of a class and made me feel like an outsider, like a weird person that needed to be put in a psychiatric hospital. I complained that I was being pushed politics in a public school and his response was that no other students felt like I did. When I told him that the teacher had given me a zero and was now failing me out of the course, who had said I was a horrible writer; he said He didn’t believe me and that I was wrong. He told me that if I was to walk out again I would have to deal with the consequences even though he wouldn’t deal with a teacher pushing politics.   He smiled as I cried for being  looked at as being an idiot and a weirdo kid ; it took me about two hours to get with it. We continued to try to get me switched out of the class, which finally we did only to find that Ayn Rand was being taught in that course too and  in all English classes for that matter.

I realize I will probably never get them to change, to respect students, parents and INDIVIDUALITY. But this  continuing fight which is probably the hardest I’ve ever had to fight proved to me that I would stand up for myself against a herd of flesh eating zombies, that I would NEVER BE LIKE THEM . And I felt pride in knowing I stood up to being brainwashed by  anti communist right wingers.

By defunding Planned Parenthood, Komen Breast Cancer Foundation shows its true colors aren’t pink

Is the all-things-pink breast cancer impresario bowing to Right-wing anti-abortion pressure in pulling their financial support for low-income breast exams provided by Planned Parenthood? That a nonprofit industry heavyweight like the Komen Foundation would shift its emphasis from helping the poor on quasi-moral grounds is deplorable, but hardly surprising. Their ubiquitous “breast cancer awareness” campaign is all about duplicity and greed. Instead of raising funds for awareness of where cancer comes from, research we could all use, Komen shifts the focus on mitigation. What would you think about a rape “awareness” campaign that emphasized victim convalescence over chasing down the rapists? Looking after the victims while rapes escalate? That’s practically enabling.

Say goodbye to 2011 and bad bad Walmart


OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Occupy Walmart continues today at Platte and Chelton. JOIN US. Why Walmart — where have you been?! If the 99% can come together on anything, it’s against capitalism’s most despotic retailer. Judging by the support from traffic passing on Platte Avenue, 99% agree, this new year will not sustain such a greedy business model. Here are photos from Friday’s protest.


Friday’s action attracted four CSPD cruisers right from the start, followed by periodic drive-bys, videotaping and parking nearby.


When the popo try to intimidate us, we occupy them.

SATURDAY UPDATE:

High winds were a challenge for everything but Jack’s snare drum.

The Last Girl Scout

Yesterday marked an invigorating shift for me.
 
I’ve been beset by the common malady among Occupiers, wherein the sheer weight of the task at hand and the sly, evasive Jung Fu practiced by the adherents of the Darkness has been a bit stifling. Given the way the City Court in Colorado springs has been summarily dismissing cases arising from the local Occupation, i genuinely feared they would simply drop my camping ticket as a way to sweep the whole business under their now incredibly lumpy rug. After all, when Nic G. was arrested for setting up an occupation at City Hall, his case was summarily dismissed for “lack of evidence.” Nic, Michael, and Kristie then drove to the police station to retrieve the three carloads of evidence they had confiscated and were storing there. It seems likely that the real reason the case was dropped was the lack of any legitimate crime. Nic has reported that none of the cops on the scene for his incident had any clue what they were doing. In fact they are recorded by their own equipment responding with befuddlement when asked for what he was being arrested. No shit. “What am I being arrested for; what are the charges?” “We don’t know.” Apparently even our city’s lawyers aren’t stupid enough to take that one, though it may well have been simply a harassment strategy. If so, its effectiveness is as yet undetermined. No one has set up any tables or anything at City Hall since, but we’ve been busy, many of us simply finding ways to avoid freezing to death. The idea is hardly off the table though, one might say.

Some weeks back we contacted the National Lawyers’ Guild office in Denver and Chuck Nadler from that office sent out a mass email, blah, blah, blah, and i was put in touch with local attorney Patty Perello. Perello had presented difficulty to connect, and in the weeks leading to the rescheduled pre-trial conference yesterday, i developed a sense that she may be of a mind to steer the procedure toward the simplest solution and try to get the charges dropped on technicalities or to persuade me to take one of the cheesy deals the city attorney offered. I was pleasantly disabused of my unwarranted impression when we finally met, 10 minutes past the scheduled moment for the conference to start.

We spoke hurriedly for a few minutes about more or less unrelated topics before they called my name and Perello motioned for me to wait while she conferred in the inner sanctum of banal constitutional deconstruction to be found at any courtroom. I held my previous view at this point, that Perello was likely not so different from other overworked and over-avaricious solicitors with whom i’d had previous experience. When she reappeared with not one but two potential lame-ass deals posited by the city, i knew the moment was at hand. “So,” i say, bracing for the worst, “just how deep into this pond do you want to wade.” “I want to do what you want to do,” Perello says. “I want to take this on as a Constitutional and human rights thing,” sez me. Perello then launches into an enthusiastic rant, peppered with my favorite sort of coarse language, touching on subject matter like appeals, constitutional motions, and hustling for one of our Occupy Colorado Springs T-shirts. Before we were called again, she’s Patty, and one of us.

Patty also agreed to take on Jack’s cases, and Amber’s, too, i think, although our conversation continued to proceed in a fashion too scattered for me to be sure. I still suffer under a preconception about lawyers deep enough to cause lingering doubt, but Patty’s demeanor is so out of place it’s kind of disorienting. After spending an hour and a half or so at the courthouse handling cases for which she actually pulled money from her own pocket for discovery, she offered to give me a ride home in the snow, 12 miles away. During the drive we continued to cement simpatico perceptions of one another. Any other lawyer i’ve ever interacted with would send me a bill for $1500 and then sue me for all my coveted nothing when i couldn’t pay. Patty’s ready to fight the genuine base issues, “All the way to the Pope’s office.”

We’ll keep you posted!

Birth Pains

Apologies to readers not at hand or interested so deeply in Colorado Springs’s silly affairs.
 
Last night , it appears more cops were called in to arrest or press charges against one of our own, Jack Semple, by one of our own, the identity of which latter individual seems muddled to some extent. It’s simple enough to determine that Jason W. and Kristie W. are the only individuals that have any sort of legitimacy, however dubious, for cop-calling, but we all know from experience that the cops possess a grasp of nuances like this one below a genuinely operable threshold. Some have been bandying about terms like “tyranny,” “hater'” and other such inflammations. I’ll note that, though Jack and Jason will serve as specific personifications for this piece, others have made alignments according to the differences described. More than one observer has noted the inanity of all this, both from here in Colorado Springs, and from afar. Holy mackerel.

Our unique, permitted status has presented problems left to fate at other Occupy locations. Jack Semple has, no doubt, insisted on performing behaviors of at least somewhat scurrilous foundation. To the best of my knowledge, no “rules,” or even “guidelines” have been adopted by the overall group “Occupy Colorado Springs, ” which i must insist on noting to be separate by definition if not in spirit from “Occupy Colorado Springs,” the permitted entity. Last Thursday, (9 Nov), a rather large and representative group of us agreed to adjust wording in our set of rules to reflect their nature as guidelines. Neither rules nor guidelines have been accepted by any consensus, to my knowledge. Jason has proffered the notion that other groups are more stringent in enforcement actions than ours has been, though no set of guidelines for either enforcement or encouragement have been adopted. Most of the sets of guidelines i have been able to dredge up from other sites online have been heavy on terms like”respect,” and “mindfulness.” Jason’s assertions that “the group” reached a consensus on the permit are unfounded, which i know because i myself with others in agreement objected to the permit on the grounds that the law it was meant to skirt is bad in the first place. There was and remains a group of like opinion in opposition to supporters of the permit–a predictable scenario, in light of the hasty disregard for consensus building at the start.

Jack has, in fact, “pushed the envelope” in his approaches both in GAs and in independent action, as have other group members, including at times, me. Jason has also pushed envelopes, and though his responsibility is unclear at certain points, he has it seems signed tickets and pressed charges in the two incidents involving mavericks in “his” tents. No small number of OCS participants have observed the detrimental effect of the behavior of both Jack and Jason. Jack has stubbornly insisted on proceeding without consensus, and given the leaderless, undefined nature of Occupy! worldwide and here, no real authority exists to prevent his behavior. Jason has stubbornly insisted on proceeding without consensus, and given the leaderless, undefined nature of Occupy! worldwide and here, no real authority exists to prevent his behavior. Hmm.

Jack has proceeded from his insistence on peace and love to his own occupation of places and resources to which his claim is at best undecided. There exist legitimate questions concerning what belongs to whom on our street corner, and it seems to me Jack’s self-installation as the Robin Hood of Acacia Park has been a detriment to his own stated motivation. At the same time, Jason’s insistence on a rather dictatorial approach based on his status as permitted signatory is at odds with the consensus model in general, and the overall spirit of Occupy!

Other than vituperative ad hominem attacks between both parties and their adherents, hardly communicative of either loving or peaceful sentiment, very few of the actual issues have been addressed. It must be granted that Raven, yet another aggressively expressive player in this little conflict, has the backing of fact in that those few consensus agreements to have been adopted have been soundly ignored by Jason, who must be named personally in this given that his name at the top of the permit and that he has apparently issued questionable edicts and instructions to “security” people. Some bits of definition have remained untouched to our detriment, for example, the fact that the tents in question were demonstrably in place well prior to the magical creation of the permitted entity, “Occupy Colorado Springs” by the City’s placing that name on the permit. Another example is Jason’s admonition to some complaining against his actions to come participate in the securing of the site. I can speak only for myself on this, but even though i have regularly helped build, supply, secure, clean, etc, i have not signed a waiver, so my welcome is in some ways disingenuous, leaving me to believe “permission” to enter tents is a matter of fiat. I’d love to spend regular nights at the Park, but as much as i’ve promised to do so, i’ve been stymied by the fact that it becomes necessary to abandon sleep entirely and pace the sidewalk all night, with no option for relief. I’ve found the prospect more detrimental to motivation than i’d initially imagined.

With or without this foundational uncertainty, it’s clear that the permit, or at least its handling in our group, has been the focus of a great deal of friction, as may well have been anticipated. The permit can be a good thing if utilized correctly. It allows us, for the time being, to Occupy the corner without fear of pepper gas wielding police bulldozing the site with their spiffy new urban assault vehicles we all know they simply must find some justification for owning. It’s also been the source of an authoritarianism bearing an awfully clear resemblance to at least one strong aspect of the problems that brought Occupiers to the streets in the first place. It’s also clear that the one truly solid consensus–to avoid calling cops in non-violent scenarios–has been ignored. There seems to be a lack of awareness of the fact that chair-swinging wrasslin’ moves and police action are no more prone to building consensus than impulsive disruption of group thought processes. The permit itself may well be a casualty of insistence on bad behavior from each quarter.

I simply can’t believe we in CSprings are the only Occupy outpost wrestling with these very fundamental matters, even if we have an unusual factor in the mix, especially with the introduction of a “security” guy from out of town crowing about tent-slashing escapades.

None of this will kill the Occupy Movement. We all seem to be in agreement that our time for ignoring the issues that brought us together has come to an end. The abrupt gathering of millions–no shit–of disgruntled citizens across the entire planet is an expression of the expiration of patience over an unjust, unkind, and self-servingly dictatorial status quo. A renewal of perseverance and, yes, patience while we learn to manage some very intractable problems with our common natures is necessary if we are to avoid actual bloodshed in this existentially unavoidable conflict. We’ll learn this, or we’ll die.

Practically speaking, no amount of voting or “telling” will solve the problems at hand. To an extent, events are proceeding in a predictable fashion. I suggest we consider with grave lucidity what a consensus process really is, and learn to abide by those few clear points of consensus at which we’ve come to agreement. Some discussion of broadening the list of permit-holders took place at the Thursday GA. If the permit holders in place are too burdened by liability to allow themselves to be governed by consensus, this question should be examined in detail, with consideration for alternatives. If the permit represents its own final word, then it seems unlikely consensus is attainable, and it will likely become a moot issue when it disappears, which will occur on our present course. If permit holders insist on arbitrary decision-making based on the dictates of the permit, we must recognize the equally sovereign nature of OCS (Permitted) in juxtaposition with OCS the leaderless movement gathered in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. That is to say, if consensus is ignored, it is done so on an individual basis, and the permitted OCS separates itself from the Movement to the extent to which it is able. We’re still forced by the fact that we have no choice but to learn to cooperate. In the meantime, let us not neglect the many deeply compelling reasons for being together, or the various projects our self-identified membership have undertaken, particularly internal educational projects which appear especially crucial.

Nothing about this is going to be simple. We will not be solving the problems of the World in a couple of weeks from our Acacia Park vantage. These issues represent the selfsame internally conflicted bits of human nature that have caused us to develop the drastically and fatally flawed social constructs we have come together to oppose. Breathe deep, kids. Learn to love Jack Temple and his half-cocked impulses while he learns how to manifest peace and love without starting a fight. Learn to love Jason Warf, C.J., and Rick the Tent-Slasher as they learn whatever it is they’re learning. Learn to love even me as i continually throw thought-wrenches in the cogs. Turn your most critical eye inward, because as i well know of myself, the only way to change the world is to enlighten ourselves to our own flaws and start right there.

Or stock up on bullets. You can find me standing in the Light without any if they start to fly.

Defined:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/consensus?region=us
A start at the notion of consensus-building:
https://www.msu.edu/~corcora5/org/consensus.html?pagewanted=all
A couple sets of Occupy guidelines:
http://occupydc.org/about-us/guidelines/
http://c1ecolocalizercom.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2011/10/occupyguidelines.jpg

Growth Busters’ all white cast asks dark skinned people not to have kids

COLORADO SPRINGS- Local filmmaker, city council candidate, and critic of urban sprawl, Dave Gardner, screened his new doc GROWTHBUSTERS to a receptive hometown audience last night, on the heels of its world premier in Washington DC. Gardner has long defined his personal mission as questioning the wisdom of “growth”. Finally his unpopular theme is gaining traction. With GrowthBusters Gardner addresses economic growth, rampant consumption, carbon footprints and over-development, building to what he’s decided is the most elephantine challenge in the room, global population growth. Except, I’m sorry, that’s an elephant of another color. I resisted the Q & A, not wanting to pull down the evening’s celebratory curve. A giddy panel of white folk is for me as much a temptation as the easy target Gardner chose. In the privacy of the internet, we at Not My Tribe don’t have bubbles we’re too reluctant to burst.

Dave Gardner’s long unrewarded campaign against our city’s recidivist, graft-driven, and ever tragically unsustainable growth is so damn laudable, and his chopping away at the Capitalist assumptions of neoclassical economists is so urgently pertinent. But by folding both into the Inconvenient Truth of exponential global population rise, does Gardner mean the Colorado Springs audience takeaway to be we must distribute condoms to our Machiavellian land developers?

Let me first applaud Gardner’s critique of our region’s imbecilic growth. It’s ugly and residents are unhappy but powerless to depose the greedy exploitative speculators in charge. A memorable segment describes the Southern Delivery system being built to bring Pueblo water northward to serve El Paso County’s endless eastward developments. The energy to pump that water uphill will require the output of an average coal fired power plant, that much more emissions, pollution and coal ash.

Over the years Gardner has proven to be more than a gadfly battling our land barons. When he challenged Jerry Heimlicher, a pro-growth incumbent for a seat at the city council, the otherwise like-minded progressive adversary beat him, only to resign after his victory to make a sudden move out of town, leaving the position to be chosen by the usual undemocratic powers, looking suspiciously like his campaign had been a desperate measure to keep Gardner’s anti-growth voice off the council. There’s more to applaud about Gardner locally, but first–

I know this is easy to overlook in Colorado Springs, but Dave, the demographic character of the Stargazer Theater audience was what, last night, entirely white? It was, and probably not coincidentally, the dozens of experts you interviewed onscreen were also with one single exception white. Further, I’m sure we can agree the economic class represented was equally homogeneous; let’s call it comfortable. Tell us then, Dave, what does Middle America’s middle class white birthrate add to the worrisome arc of population growth?

Not that I think any socioeconomic group should address itself to out-breeding the next, but an audience with a zero or negative birthrate hardly needs to concentrate on curbing its numbers. Anticipating the challenges of exponential population growth is important, but HOW UNSEEMLY for a white community to plot counter-reproductive measures for the larger masses, specifically the darker-complected Global South, virtually all of its peoples lesser advantaged?

And let me add, how embarrassing that a Grist Magazine editor wants to brag about her lifestyle choice not to have a family, exchanged for the benefit of a “more dynamic schedule” which leaves her more easily free to join three similarly unencumbered friends for coffee.

We’re trading our biological imperative to live a Seinfeld episode?

I am not accusing anyone of deliberate racism, unlike the Sierra Club, who was certain this documentary took aim at Hispanic Americans. This was a detail we learned from the post-screening panel discussion. The local Sierra Club chairperson who sat on the panel last night told us that the national office was alarmed to learn that its Colorado Springs chapter was cosponsoring a documentary which called for curbing population growth. She assured her headquarters that she knew Dave Gardner personally and that GrowthBusters‘s thesis was above reproach. In particular, she explained, it didn’t target illegal immigration, which she presumed was their worry. To clarify, she was thinking: not birthrate but immigration rate, not global population growth but national population growth.

Population growth as it threatens America.

Once again we are reminded of the provincial brain freeze that characterizes our community. Even progressive ideals become distorted by the gravitational pull of our Tea Party tendencies. We support national reformist campaigns, but only to the limit of our stunted conservative comprehension.

Yes, discussing how to limit the birthrate of people of color is racist. It’s White Man’s Burden theology to believe that it is the privilege of the developed white world to decide for our lesser brethren whether they can procreate.

How is rushing to Dave Gardner’s defense, vouching for him that no racist insensitivity was intended, very much different from the excuse given by Congressman Doug Lamborn when he called President Obama a Tar Baby? Lamborn explained that he didn’t know black people were offended by “Tar Baby”. Would it really surprise Gardner that his call for White America to be alarmed about population growth, would threaten the of-color communities whose cultures still encourage having children?

Dave Gardner partnered with strange bedfellows when he took his anti-growth message to what he thought was the next level. The experts he interviewed are well aware their prognostications invite accusations of racism. I found it rather odd that one of them, speaking for the Club of Rome, was not introduced with his organization’s repute fully disclaimed.

If I were to guess, hitting upon the population question is where Gardner’s production finally took wing. Friends were recounting last night how he’d labored on the project for over half a decade, one scene shows Gardner lamenting the lack of financing available for a subject such as his. In the local sequences of GrowthBusters, the subject was about development and sustainability, while all the national interviews concerned population growth. When Gardner described the last year spent immersed in the project, I’m guessing that’s when underwriting for the population meme kicked in. The small cadre of usual suspects advancing today’s equivalent of eugenics theory were probably eager to add a fresh name to their roster. Yesteryear’s infamous population doomsayer Malthus was reviled because people inherently equated dire population projections with depopulation solutions. Malthus’ inheritors are accustomed to the same heat.

It is hard not to wonder if the First World’s cavalier disregard of climate change is because depopulation programs are being readied on the front burner. Peak oil, diminishing resources, declining agricultural yields and higher ecological toxicities cease to threaten human survival with the implementation of depopulation scenarios. Presentations like Gardner’s which reinforce the imperative of reducing the world population, create the popular consent with which population control compliance can be manufactured.

I’d have no problem with population growth engineering if it meant applying in the Third World, the proven method that has subdued the birthrate in the First World. Prosperity. If developed nations could share their abundance and education with the developing world, rendering the wealth of Africa’s natural resources back to Africa’s people for example, they’ll arrive at zero birthrates just like ours.

SPOILER ALERT: Redistribution of resources is not in the cards among the solutions which GrowthBusters suggests. Instead the feel good conclusion of this movie revolves around local applications of sustainability measures. Here I should confess I have a prejudice to corpulent over-eaters lecturing others on sustainability. Austerity measures are danced around, and a suggestion of cutting work hours to twenty one hours a week masks obviously a 50% cut in income.

Just as Gardner celebrates a return to hands-on farming, the oversimplified doubt he casts on the benefit of financial growth ignores the technological progress we all enjoy as its result. Gardner lampoons government planners who look to compensate for trends toward zero birthrates. They’re not “pro-growth”, they mean to fill diminishing labor pools. This is why the US invites its illegal immigrant workers. An increasingly idle population, mostly aging, needs people to service it. The benefit of growth and development was by design at least a rising tide for all.

I say we all, but who is comforted by Gardner’s thesis? How many of us have the savings to invest in a house with land to farm, install an orchard and solar panels to take ourselves off the grid, prepared to barter with our neighbors for the necessities we cannot make ourselves? Few of us live near an American dairy brave enough to defy government regulations against raw milk, I dare say that demographic has shrunk to approximate, no coincidence, the currently proverbial “one percent”. How many of us have access to community shared farms? I’ll hazard a guess you probably can’t afford to buy shares in the farms we have already, Grant Farms or Venetucci.

Let’s be honest about who’s supposed to be cutting back on having babies, and who’s in the position to weather the austere future mankind faces. One of the final scenes of Gardner’s domestic sustainable bliss depicted a model family unit belonging to one of the population growth think tanks. I’d like to think this was an oversight, but in a passing bit of the b-roll footage the audience was let to see that one of the white affluent women was pregnant.

Fear and Loathing in Colorado Springs

Those readers following the Occupy! Movement in its many forms around the world and in Colorado Springs will be glad to hear that Tuesday culminated a difficult week for us here with a resolution of many contentious issues, and an overall commitment to unity.
 
The subject matter behind this particular post is closely associated with the Movement in general, but it’s more a humanity thing than an Occupy thing, overall. I hope i can get the associations to make sense, and that readers will restrain themselves from developing the erroneous notion that this is meant to be a pitch for some sort of religion. It’s not.

I went to the Municipal Court in Colorado Springs to enter a plea of “not guilty” to the charge of camping on public property because of actions executed as a part of Occupy! Actually, i was camping on public property, to put it quite plainly, and the idea behind the plea is that the action does not engender guilt even if it violates a silly and badly unAmerican, (read, “oppressive,” if we’ve become a little unrecognizable in this regard), statute. A couple dozen supporters made it to the courtroom with me, and raised enough ruckus to get Municipal Judge Spottswood W. H. Williams to threaten them all with contempt charges. The whole thing was kind of a lot of fun, really. Made me feel a little like Hoffman or Hayden, in a much smaller sense. There comes a first time for everything, and this was my first visit to a courtroom during which i was able to feel utterly unencumbered by the dark nature of my own action that had led me there. My deepest thanks to all the OCS members and especially Dennis Apuan, who put his political credibility on the line to stand with us, and brought a good deal of patriotic weight to the room as State Rep for the fine soldiers of Fort Carson.

The hearing was only that, after all, and after entering the plea, we scheduled a pre-trial conference with the City Attorney, for 22 Nov, at which a government lawyer will make me an offer i’ll most assuredly refuse and we’ll schedule a jury trial. I’ll keep you news hounds posted as things progress.

The point to this post, though, is an underlying root to the no-camping ordinance, as well as to most of the woes of the day: The Fear.

Most of us don’t acknowledge the Fear because, well, it’s scary. Instead we get angry, or attempt to maneuver ourselves into a position to control uncontrollable factors like society or competitive economies. We eschew cooperation because we’re afraid of our fellows. We make assumptions about others’ behavior and how it will effect us. We bewail the corruption of society, and begin looking over our shoulders for the punishment of God, or black-clad mercenaries coming over the horizon to herd us into frigid winter FEMA camps. We worry about hunger, poverty, inglorious death. We develop elaborate political systems and foment revolution in order to establish “security” of dubious credibility. Look around. These tactics have not ever worked after attempting repeated, redundant permutations, and there is no reasonable expectation that they ever will.

The Fear has driven all this cutthroat competition. It’s what motivates folks to be sure they have more, more, more. It’s what causes us to petulantly demand our right to burn as much gas in our Hummers as possible, and to constantly engage in useless commerce. It motivates the lowest guy competing for some crappy job at Taco Bell just as surely as it motivates conspiratorial Rothschild backroom bankers. It motivates us to enact stupid, oppressive no-camping ordinances when someone that scares us becomes visible, oh my! We’re all deathly afraid of some horrible outcome, like someone else getting our stuff, or scaring tourists away, or enjoying some habitual pleasure we find repugnant.

The Fear is irrational! What’s the very worst that can happen to us in this life? We die? We find ourselves incarcerated or tortured? Consider, if you will, that we live our little spans, maybe a hundred years or so at the outside limit, surrounded at both ends by an unfathomable mass of toroidally twisted, multi-dimentional Eternity that not one of us will ever grasp while we live. What possible fear can be valid under this circumstance other than that we fail to live according to our own perceived Truths? I say “perceived” since only those afflicted by the Fear are afraid to examine those truths for the errors all honest thinkers know to exist within our own perceptions. If I knew my own blind spots they wouldn’t exist, right? We don’t even know what we’re afraid of mostly, though we can usually list a few if we set ourselves to the task. No one is to blame for his or her own irrational fears, especially cultural fears such as seem to be more or less universal. Many have been established by the direct influence of media that may well have been designed by nefarious folk for exactly the purpose of invoking unfounded fears in various populations. OMG! Now i’m making myself afraid! Not really–but what to do about the Fear?

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear,” reads a certain religious text, (1 Jn 4:18, for those with a source fetish like me). I won’t be digressing into a religious sermon here. The principle holds without the doctrinal baggage surrounding it in the context in which it nests. No matter how evil the Ideas we oppose as Occupiers, or as human beings in general, they can’t overwhelm a spirit of love. No matter the spiritual foundation or lack thereof, love can dissipate greed, fear, disappointment, embarrassment, and in fact any of the various bases for the secondary anger response we are all prone to manifesting in situations as apparently dire as the one we’re seeing now. As much as i can plainly see the bogus nature of the moves made in, say, the financial industry, (inseparable from other key industries at a certain level), applying some genuine empathy causes a mental process that can not end in hatred or vengefulness. Look guys like Greenspan or Geitner in the eyes next time you see them. They’re deeply miserable, and completely trapped in their own Fears. When it all collapses, i really hope they’re still available so we can feed them a plate of food, even if we can’t resist the temptation to ask, “What the fuck were you thinking!?”

We can’t fight fire with fire here. Battling greed with more greed, as some seeking to restore an “American Dream” involving bigger slices of a rotten pie seem to do. Revolution only spins us in circles: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” We always seem to find ourselves standing in the same spot we started, except standing in pools of blood with fewer resources after every revolution we’ve ever effected. We don’t have these options any longer. The planet is in a condition that will not permit us to continue on the deeply ingrained, competitive course we’ve followed for so long. Learning to love, to let go, to tolerate, to work together for our futures which are common whether we like it or not is the only way out of this. It’s not easy, only necessary.

I can’t tell anyone how to save anyone else, or how to convince the next guy that any of this is true. I can’t even describe the mental processes that led to these conclusions. All i seem able to do is to proceed in the direction the thoughts lead, as they come to me in a fashion that very often seems external. Examine the assertions that continue to spill out of me at 2 in the morning like this. Notice with joy that there seem to be many others reaching similar conclusions: Things are terminally fucked up and only Love can save us. If it turns out that we’re not saved, that the whole human experiment is doomed to fail, i’ll breathe my last breath in the knowledge that i walked the talk spoken by all my heroes in tongues long lost to history, or new today, or unspoken yet understood by common nature. I don’t think i’m alone. I don’t know how to be afraid of that.

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

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

Hey Pikes Peak Region lazy bones, #OccupyColoradoSprings is calling!

By lazy bones I don’t mean the average inattentive public, I’m talking about you do-gooders out there trying to right wrongs and effect political change, usually. A growing gatherings of youthful idealists are “occupying” hometowns across the country, focusing on the heart of all problems, corporate greed, and you’re carrying on as if no one’s taken the bull by the horns. They’re inexperienced youth, but they know enough not to get pulled off message by Tea Partiers or partisan Dems. Daily General Assemblies at noon and 7pm refortify them that the movement is about LOVE. Of course they could use your help, opportunity’s knocking, but apparently your regular routine says “do not disturb.”

What makes you any different from the bankers, corporate brigands and their armies of minions, except that you’re not accessories to their crimes? You’re still part of the unactivated mass. Your petitions, your fundraising, your lobbying, your vigils, are as routine as the pushback you get from your adversaries. It’s a dance where your partner always leads, and you get nowhere, every. single. time. The colloquial definition of insanity comes to mind. Finally a youth movement emerges that might tip the scales, and you’re waiting for what? It’s hard not to conclude that actually rocking the boat is too much rocking for you. Faith in Democrats over Republicans, electoral equality, politicians to defy their sponsors, a corporate media open to the truth, justice for ordinary people, wars that will respond to reason, these are delusions. People not even smarter, nor as educated as you have figured this out. What’s happened to you? Tomorrow, WEDNESDAY, OCT 5, the occupiers of Wall Street will be marching with several of New York City’s largest unions, and NY campuses have declared a walk out in solidarity. Are you going to be sitting on the fence?

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks

In honor of Oct 2, the International Day of Nonviolence, which hardly any government of the world honors IN DEED, especially the league of NATO and USA’s coalition of the killing. I thought I’d perseverate further on the role nonviolent dogma plays in squashing dissent. Here’s my theme: If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks the antiwar movement of the 60s might have deposed the military industrial complex before it became supersized, privatized and above the law. Or not, but NV claptrap certainly got us nowhere.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, Gaza might have been liberated already. Nonviolent kabuki demonstrations have spoiled attempted marches from Egypt, have scuttled would-be flotillas, have squeezed out real activists from sailing to Gaza’s rescue. Ask yourself, which brought more attention and sympathy for Palestinians, the Mavi Marmara or “The Audacity of Hope” which didn’t even show audacity enough to confront Greek harbor keepers? The Turkish activists on the Marmara were nonviolent, but not neurotically so. They might have expelled their Israeli boarders, but we have to pretend at least surprise at the brutality of Israel’s massacre. The US Boat on the other hand exchanged indignation over bullhorns without ever leaving the harbor, then stood down. Nonviolence doesn’t mean passivity, really?

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, the Palestinian’s right to defend their homeland from their occupiers would not be an issue. If Palestine was allowed to resist their invaders, Israel would stop trying to take it all.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, Bush could not have stolen a second election and Americans wouldn’t have had to settle for hope instead of change.

If it wasn’t for the nonviolence sneaks with their ultimatums of passivity, who knows how soon the New World Order might have been prevented? It’s the nonviolence sneaks who are the most despicable provocateurs, alienating the 99% by ensuring public protest remain forever ineffectual.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, antiwar movements would end war, social injustices would be righted, and greed brought to justice.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks who enforce public compliance, world governments would respect their people and couldn’t rule by fear.

If if wasn’t for the nonviolence sneaks, the public’s urgent will would be heeded, instead of dismissed for inconsequential whine it’s become.

Want a depressing laugh? See what’s passing for direct action strategy

It begins: “Nonviolence is a great power which, when used correctly, can overturn empires.” You see the hole they’ve dug for themselves… For your reading enjoyment, here’s the entire of the Metta Center’s nonviolence page, unedited, gross assumptions, emphasized.

“Overturn empires” –WHICH? Can you name EVEN ONE? Apparently nonviolence has yet to be “used correctly.”

“that power” –Sorry, unproved.

“it’s our only option” –You wish, I guess. You and the forces of oppression.

“the most effective approach” –So you see the problem here. Every conclusion flows from a false assumption.

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Nonviolence is a great power which, when used correctly, can overturn empires. You will be drawing on that power, the full extent of which comes into our hands when we adopt it deeply and consistently, not because it’s our only option but because it’s the option that allows us to preserve our humanity in the process of struggle, i.e. to not further create the problem we’re trying to solve. Just ends and nonviolent means are a powerful combination, and that becomes clearer the longer the struggle goes on. We also get closer to the full potential of nonviolence when we have trained ourselves to the point where nonviolence is practically a way of life, offering unyielding resistance to injustice but never hostility to the true well-being of any person. Nonviolence is strategically the most effective approach in any situation of oppression particularly; however, its full power comes out when we:

have set a determination to identify core issues for which we are willing to make great sacrifices (and compromises on everything else);

have a well developed program of self-improvement and constructive work, building the world we want without demanding that others give it to us;

have a strategic plan that can carry us forward for the long term, using constructive program whenever possible and active resistance when necessary.

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“great sacrifices” –Martyrdom, victimhood. “compromise” –Punked.

“self improvement and constructive work” –Blame the victim. Onus for change is apparently the responsibility of the oppressed.

I’m sick already. What follows is nothing better than bad religious dogma, based not on morals but psychological engineering. It’s textbook Dale Carnegie, How to Make Friends And Influence People. As if corporations were people.

You can almost smell the crap. What you have here are missionary opportunists seizing upon strife to convert the oppressed to their pie-in-sky-when-you-die spirituality. No different than trying to convert indigenous peoples instead of educating them. Or making drunkards sing church hymns before they get soup.

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Points for Consideration:

I. Nonviolent Strategy Curve

Explanation:
Nonviolent strategies help to create a state of positive peace, restored relations and a higher image of the human being. There are times when conflict is necessary for this process. A nonviolent person will never shun conflict but will always use an opportunity to deepen his or her practice and connection with others.

This curve demonstrates how to create positive peace by advancing nonviolent strategies when relationships deteriorate and dehumanization increases.

II. Anger Under Discipline

Nonviolence is not passivity; it is a power in and of itself. There are three faces of power, according to Kenneth Boulding: threat power, exchange power and integrative power. Threat power is the power of a military force; exchange power is the power of money. Unlike military/threat or economic power, nonviolence is integrative power or love in action. In order to use its power on any scale–small or large–we must as Dr. King said, “harness anger under discipline for maximum effect.”

Anger, like other emotions, is a powerful force. But it does not need to be expressed in destructive or short-sighted action. Anger can be transformed into the fuel for nonviolent, constructive action with a long-term positive effect. What are some ways to “harness anger under discipline?”

1. Respect yourself and respect the goals of the movement by using the means that will achieve the end for the benefit of everybody (aka nonviolently).

2. Never humiliate another human being; all who watch and participate are potential allies, including perceived opponents.

3. Make your movement irresistible, not alienating, through education, professionalism, dialogue, restorative practices and nonviolence trainings.

4. Be willing to take on suffering and insult if necessary rather than inflict it onto others, at whatever the cost to yourself.

5. Be able to articulate clearly and effectively the goals of the movement and see the media as a way to persuade others to join your efforts. This takes reflection and serious strategic planning. Keep the message focused, clear and easy to understand.

6. Take time each day to take care of yourself spiritually. You need to be at your best when emotions and anger are running high. Take time to meditate and enjoy that you are working for a higher purpose.

III. Three Components Needed

Nonviolent struggle has three primary dimensions:

Constructive Programme: This means building the world you want without waiting for others to give it to you, e.g. alternative institutions, local economies, nonviolent leadership models.

Obstructive Program: This is what Dr. King called “non-cooperation with evil.” This includes tactics such as reverse and general strikes, marches, sit-ins, boycotts, etc.

Strategic Overview: In order to have the maximum effect, a movement needs to know when to switch between CP and OP, when to walk away from the police or when to allow for confrontation, etc.. Strategy can be strengthened by an overall commitment to nonviolence, a coherent message to share with those involved and those watching, and disciplined action.

IV. Learning

Take the time to watch other movements. Do not merely imitate but learn from them: understand what worked and why it worked. For instance, if protesters on Wall Street provoked a police struggle, how effective was it for an overall nonviolent goal and how might a different strategy work better?

Constantly assess and re-assess the situation in light of new information and new situations.

Stay in contact with other movements. Share the lessons with one another.

V. Tips for a Long-term strategy:

Sometimes in nonviolence we don’t get what we immediately set out to change, but in the long-term, the situation is more pliable, flexible and change comes more easily. Do not see short term failures as a failure of the method of nonviolence, and do not let anyone convince you that violence would be a better strategy to take. It isn’t. If one needs greater strength, one can “purify” one’s efforts. A simple way is to increase one’s commitment to nonviolence in thought and word. At this point, other practices such as meditation will be tools.

Statistics show that even if violence “works” in the short run, in the long term, it never makes a situation better. As Gandhi said, “violent revolution will bring about violent self-rule.”

The more comprehensive our nonviolence, the greater effect it can have. This means that instead of focusing all of our efforts on outward change, we can learn to deepen our awareness of how nonviolence works, not only on the level of the deed, but in our words and thoughts.

Nonviolence is a form of persuasion and dialogue, not a one-sided form of coercion. Respect the escalation curve model and always try to deescalate a conflict; avoid using the wrong strategy at the wrong time (this is where a strategic overview is essential).

Satyagraha is a last resort strategy for a discussion (looking for a win-win outcome) and can lead to the need for self sacrifice at the highest degree possible. Do not make this sacrifice before it is necessary e.g. promises of fasting unto death without first a willingness to try other strategies are always ineffective. Satyagraha is a method which “compels reason to be free.” We must be reasonable ourselves to awaken the reason of another; we must be willing to take risks and sacrifices (even to our ego) to open the heart of another.

(At Metta, we would like to change the slogan to “Create a New World! Stop the Machine! because in creating a new world, the machine dissolves more readily.)

That’s right, METTA CENTER can’t help themselves from second guessing the OCTOBER2011 slogan. It’s like antiwar detractors insisting message be FOR something instead of ANTI war. You can be AGAINST injustice, inequity, crime, greed, et al, without having to be on the hook for condescending an alternative.

#OccupyColoradoSprings Acacia Park, Tejon & Bijou, against corporate greed

Acacia Park at Tejon and Bijou
The 99% speak out from Acacia Park, downtown Colorado Springs. Favorite posters were: In Capitalist America, Banks Rob You and We The People Are the Solution!
 
Great pics of #OccupyDenver Saturday march at kallisti.imgur.

Acacia Park at Tejon and Bijou

Acacia Park at Tejon and Bijou

Acacia Park at Tejon and Bijou

Silly honeybee, High Fructose Corn Syrup is for kids, American humans, fat

If you’d like one reason to despise corporate honey producers, how’s this? Humans come by honey because of the largess of bees. Beekeepers harvest the surplus as honeybees go about –what we’ve learned is their more critical responsibility for human interests– pollinating our crops. Unfortunately it’s become more profitable to milk the hives of more of the honey and leave sugar water or High Fructose Corn Syrup for the hardworking honeybees. Yes it’s killing them.

Never mind it’s suspected as the leading cause of why American honeybees are dying off, it’s crude and parasitic. There might have been a time we’d say it was un-American.

HFCS-induced obesity and diabetes is too gentle a fate for greedy beekeepers. Likewise for cattle farmers who sell the milk, leaving their calves to nurse on a concocted dilution containing cow’s blood and other dairy substitutes — care to wager HFCS is not among them?

You can avoid Big Agra honey, and no doubt any processed foods which market themselves as containing honey. Although, you might check the label, most often the corporate nutritionists have already swapped out your honey for HFCS.

Howard Zinn disses civil obedience

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves and the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
–Howard Zinn

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

De Laude Novae Militiae, Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique SolomoniciSo 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.

De Laude Novae Militiae, Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique SolomoniciApril – 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.

Video game, first person shooterIt 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.
Silver commercial cargo vehicle 

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. violent tv series 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, pistol 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:
heavy duty mixerStarted 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:
television seriesCompleted 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. television series 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 storage caseMonday 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.

Semi-automatic assault rifle he called Gungnir

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.

energy drinkConsidering 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.

Rental vanPlanning 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…

ephedrineWent 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.

News of the World crimes belong to Rupert Murdoch, News Corp, Fox News, Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal

The issue of Rupert Murdoch’s lawless news empire isn’t about phone hacking to break news, it’s about surveillance used for the same purposes as intelligence agencies, to control political climates, to effect outcomes based on what you have on the players. Does the FBI have to find evidence of malfeasance in the US to make Murdoch any less guilty? The important point to make is that News Of The World, is News Corp, is Rupert Murdoch, is News International, is Fox, is Dow Jones, is the Wall Street Journal. With the WSJ, Murdoch’s sway over the stock market may mean he dictates the editorial voice of all corporate media properties. Anyway, who can pretend the corporate kleptocracy isn’t a shared agenda? Murdoch may be just one rotten apple, but now everyone can see how rotten. Here’s a chance to wash him out.

If the ‘Left’ is serious about doing something credible to counteract the capitalist class, now is the time. Do the work of informing the public on how News Corp has been twisting the truth not just to sell papers and floor wax, but to promote an agenda of limitless greed at the expense of working and poor people. In reality, Rupert Murdoch is just one cog in a very large propaganda machine, but he is a significant dynamic that binds the corporatists and political right-wing together. Telling the plain truth about Murdoch at this time is the best weapon progressives have at their disposal.

The Angry Indian

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

French cabin cruiser La Dignite - Al Karama
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

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 BastardSpeaking 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.

Was Jesus a Muslim (tee-hee)?

Listening to Islamic studies scholar Robert Shedinger taunt the CC audience with whether Jesus may have been a Muslim reminds me of the not-so-old joke about returning the Statue of Liberty to the French, because we’re not using her anymore. At his fundamental, Jesus espoused what we are accustomed to consider were basic Christian Values, but who are American Christians to lay claim to those anymore?

Islam, on the other hand, is a religion to suit the poor and oppressed, traditionally Jesus’ favorites. Unless we’re talking Embed Jesus.

Shedinger urged “constructive dialog” between Muslims and Christians, that each might learn of our common ideals. But his lesson would seem to be entirely for the Christians. All religions share the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, although one might doubt Americans have given that much thought for awhile.

While many would argue that American religious hypocrisy has been growing fetid over the course of a centuries of imperialist invasions and wars, the Fundamentalist Christian/Moral Majority “WWJD” has taken a turn since 9/11 to mean bomb, maim and torture. Has the American Jesus become Un-Christian, or is this the New World Order Christianity?

In spite of what may be pious America’s best intentions, Capitalism has relegated its moral cover to doublespeak and subterfuge, American churchgoers to dupes, and US missionaries to unwitting cohorts to the deprivations of our businessmen, soldiers and loan officers.

The War on Islam isn’t being waged by Christianity Proper, but by the systemic greed of Western Capitalism, secular and godless, unless you count money to be divine. Capitalism may have Xmas, but it has no claim on Jesus.

James J. Lee, caricature eco-vigilante, assails Discovery Channel offices, puts his money and life where his Malthus

The plus side of eco-vigilante James Lee’s Falling Down routine at the Discovery Channel headquarters is that viewers might be prompted to wonder what’s there to protest. Will the media paint the 43-year-old Lee as a kook, without addressing to what in particular the would- be superhero took offense? Maybe that the cable propagandists purport to inform as they dumb their national audiences to adolescence? No, it turns out Lee’s message is even less palatable, but made to order.

Why did James Lee want to task the Discovery Channel to “save the planet” instead of the major networks? Why Discovery, other than the peculiarity that some of their programs glorify large families, obviously a root cause of overpopulation and thus mankind’s disastrous impact on nature.

So far the reporting has avoided that line of question because it turns out James Lee’s crusade centers on a Malthusian epistemology not off limits to the MSM, in fact it’s right up Bilderberg Alley. Cries Lee:“All human procreation and farming must cease!” as he cites My Ishmael author Daniel Quinn for ideas of how to cut back food production to effect such a strategy.

Quinn’s 1992 “novel” received a one-of-a-kind 1/2 million dollar grant from Ted Turner, for its fearless anti-human prognosis. Which dovetails with the interests of another oligarch eugenicist of the Club of Rome ilk, Bill Gates, proponent of sterilization.

Cutting back on agriculture is no new idea. Genghis Khan had no use for agriculture. It supported city populations which threatened the open range. Modern times have restored the ultra rich who now seek to reestablish hunting grounds void of their subjects. No time like the present to prep the common man on the necessity of sacrificing oneself so that the sustainable few can survive.

What a golden opportunity to have a kook broach the subject, float the balloon so to speak, to set environmental do-gooders on the thought-path of rationalizing having to do themselves in.

The failed hostage-taker left a web page where he explained My Demands. My guess is that James Lee’s exclamation-point-ridden protestations remain unadulterated, a match for his ill-conceived and unpromising armed assault. Instead of elevating the debate, Lee has given America’s security agencies further excuse to demonize environmental activists as “terrorists” under the theme of The Green Scare.

The web page at savetheplanetprotest.com is reprinted below: “the demands and sayings of Lee.”

The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:

1. The Discovery Channel and it’s affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn’s “My Ishmael” pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other’s inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!

2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs’ places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.

3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!

4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn’t, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??

5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)

6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don’t build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!

7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people’s brains until they get it!!

8. Saving the Planet means saving what’s left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You’re the media, you can reach enough people. It’s your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!

9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they take the world to another nuclear war.

10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC. Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!

11. You’re also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.

Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.

For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human’s lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!

It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It’s like a couple are having 30 babies even though it’s just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!

Also, war must be halted. Not because it’s morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!

The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them to breed more environmentally harmful humans.

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

The humans? The planet does not need humans.

You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!

I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it.

These are the demands and sayings of Lee.

When I get my gun

If I had a gun it would serve as my point of meditation.
[Excerpt, Swimming Upstream, Eve Ensler editor]
 
And I would look at it and re-remember Harriet Tubman’s steely whisper and Nanny’s ear-splitting yell, Ida B. Wells’ unrelenting voice and Fannie Lou Hamer’s unwavering glare. I’d remember Nat Turner’s plot and Tony Morrison’s advice.

And when I shot my gun, my target would be well planned, my aim precise. I would know exactly who to shoot, and when and where to shoot them, and how many of their friends needed to be shot too.

And when they were dead, when they were all dead, so would be oppression, globalism, neocolonialism, government, capitalism, enslavement, corporations, greed, hunger, hate, religion, war, poverty, cruelty.

No no, it can’t be too soon for me, the day I get my gun.