http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6070571/Lockerbie-bomber-I-will-prove-I-am-innocent.html
Lockerbie bomber: I will prove I am innocent
The Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, has claimed he will provide evidence that he was not prove he was not responsible for the terrorist attack which claimed the lives of 270 people.
By James Kirkup and Aislinn Simpson
22 Aug 2009
Megrahi, who was released from a Scottish prison on Thursday and returned to a hero's welcome in Libya, would not say who he thought was responsible for blowing up the Pan Am flight in 1988.
Megrahi promised that before he died he would present new evidence through his Scottish lawyers that would exonerate him.
He told The Times at his home in Tripoli: “My message to the British and Scottish communities is that I will put out the evidence and ask them to be the jury,” he said. He would not elaborate.
“If there is justice in the UK I would be acquitted or the verdict would be quashed because it was unsafe. There was a miscarriage of justice.”
He said he understood the anger of victims' families, saying: “They believe I’m guilty which in reality I’m not. One day the truth won’t be hiding as it is now. We have an Arab saying: ‘The truth never dies’.”
When the paper asked who he believed brought down the plane he said: “It’s a very good question but I’m not the right person to ask.” The Times reported that Megrahi insisted that it was not Libya and would not be drawn on suggestions that it was Syria, Iran or the Palestinians.
Megrahi, 57, was released by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice minister, on compassionate grounds as he is suffering from terminal prostate cancer.
Megrahi said he was "very, very happy" to be freed. "This was my hope and wish — to be back with my family before I pass away . . . I always believed I would come back if justice prevailed,” he said.
President Obama has condemned the welcome Megrahi received in Libya as 'highly objectionable'.
Mr Obama's chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, earlier denounced the scenes in the Libyan capital Tripoli when returned home as "outrageous and disgusting".
Speaking before he left the White House to spend the weekend at Camp David, Mr Obama led US condemnation of the bomber's return.
"It was highly objectionable," he said in reference to the release and arrival at Tripoli's airport of Megrahi, where he was greeted by hundreds of people on Thursday night.
Mr Gibbs said: "The images that we saw in Libya yesterday were outrageous and disgusting.
"We communicated with the Libyan government, we continue to watch what they do in the days going forward about this individual, and understand that the video that you saw yesterday was tremendously offensive to the survivors that lost a loved one in 1988."
Relatives of the Americans killed in the 1998 atrocity, when a Pan Am jet was blown up over Lockerbie in Scotland, said they planned to converge on New York to mount a protest at the presence of the Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi when he attends the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 23.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that the reception Libya gave Megrahi was "deeply distressing".
The Foreign Office is now understood to be reviewing a plan for Prince Andrew to represent Britain at celebrations marking 40 years of Col Gaddafi's rule.
The prince, a British trade envoy, has made several previous trips to Libya, where several large British energy firms hold oil and gas contracts.
A Foreign Office source said that the level of Britain's representation at the event is now being reconsidered.
The Scottish decision has triggered a backlash. The Foreign Secretary's comments came amid furious reactions to the decision by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to free on compassionate grounds the biggest mass murderer in British legal history.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Miliband condemned the scenes of celebration and flag-waving in Libya as Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 atrocity, flew home to Tripoli.
"Obviously the sight of a mass murderer getting a hero's welcome in Tripoli is deeply upsetting, deeply distressing," he said.
"Above all for the 270 families who grieve every day for the loss of their loved ones 21 years ago and also for anyone who has an ounce of humanity in them. I think that that is the overriding emotion that people will be feeling today."
Megrahi, 57, a former intelligence agent who has terminal prostate cancer, was greeted in Tripoli by a crowd of thousands along with relatives and the Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al Islam Gaddafi.
Saif al-Islam, who travelled to Scotland to accompany Megrahi back to Libya, said that Megrahi's release was linked to trade deals between Britain and the oil rich African state.
"In all commercial contracts, for oil and gas with Britain, (Megrahi) was always on the negotiating table," Saif al-Islam said in interview to Libyan TV channel Al Mutawassit taped on the flight back to Tripoli.
"All British interests were linked to the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi."
The Foreign Office, however, strongly denied claims that the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi was linked to trade agreements, insisting the decision to release him was made solely on compassionate grounds and was purely a matter for the Scottish authorities.
"There is no deal. All decisions relating to the Megrahi case have been exclusively for Scottish ministers, the Crown Office in Scotland, and the Scottish judicial authorities," a spokesman said.
"No deal has been made between the UK government and the Libyan government in relation to Megrahi and any commercial interests in the country."
After he left Scottish soil, Megrahi, who has served eight years of a 27-year sentence, released a statement protesting his innocence and expressing his "sympathy" for the families of the 270 people he was convicted of killing.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Thoughts on Teddy
Kenn Thomas
Two brothers died in high profile political assassinations. All of a sudden, he finds himself upside down in a car at the bottom of a lake, the person next to him dead. Escaping that situation, what should he do? Call the police? One brother was attorney general; the other was president. No, he spends nine hours understandably calling lawyers and powerful friends for protection.
Even mainstream historians acknowledge that E. Howard Hunt was on the scene--a Bay of Pigs operative; a Watergate burglar; a mysterious plane crash killed his wife, who was carrying pay-off money; some people identify him as one of the rail yard trarmps in Dallas. According to them, Nixon sent Hunt just to gather information, dirt on Kennedy, about Chappaquiddick. Non-mainstream sources suggest that Hunt had a hand in the incident itself.
So many people acknowledge that Ted Kennedy was a maverick responsible for a great deal of socially progressive legislation but they can't give him their full respect because of the irresponsible behavior at Chappaquiddick.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Hedonics Continues to Gain Science Cred
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/editors-blog/hedonics-continues-gain-science-cred
Hedonics Continues to Gain Science Cred
RU Sirius
August 23, 2009
Harvard has its Hedonic Psychology laboratory (the term was first used by former Harvard professor Timothy Leary in a 1971 Psychology Today article, although he is not acknowledged by the current Harvardites). Now two neuroscientists -- Morten Kringelbach of Oxford and Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan hit the pleasure spot with a new book called Pleasures of the Brain.
From Scientific Blogging:
" 'A sense of pleasure generated by the brain’s hedonic neural systems is fundamental to daily life and it's been essential for evolution and the survival of humans and most animals,' say Morten Kringelbach and Kent Berridge, editors of a new book to be published by Oxford University Press in October 2009 called Pleasures of the Brain."
Hedonics Continues to Gain Science Cred
RU Sirius
August 23, 2009
Harvard has its Hedonic Psychology laboratory (the term was first used by former Harvard professor Timothy Leary in a 1971 Psychology Today article, although he is not acknowledged by the current Harvardites). Now two neuroscientists -- Morten Kringelbach of Oxford and Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan hit the pleasure spot with a new book called Pleasures of the Brain.
From Scientific Blogging:
" 'A sense of pleasure generated by the brain’s hedonic neural systems is fundamental to daily life and it's been essential for evolution and the survival of humans and most animals,' say Morten Kringelbach and Kent Berridge, editors of a new book to be published by Oxford University Press in October 2009 called Pleasures of the Brain."
Yahoo Mail still king as Gmail lurks
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10311150-265.htmlTom Krazit
August 17, 2009
Yahoo Mail still king as Gmail lurks
Yahoo is still king of the e-mail market as of June 2009, but Gmail has the most momentum.
Google's Gmail is the fastest-growing e-mail service on the planet, but it has a way to go to catch Yahoo's still-growing market share.
ComScore's latest figures for the e-mail market show Yahoo added almost 20 million users last year, growing its share of the market by 22 percent from 87.2 million users to 106.2 million users in June. Only Gmail grew faster--a 46-percent clip--but just 36.9 million people are currently using Gmail. Microsoft's Hotmail is the second-most widely used e-mail with 47.1 million users, up 3 percent from last year.
Some outlets, such as TechCrunch, zeroed in on Google's performance, noting that it has now surpassed Web 1.0 stalwart AOL's steadily falling share of the e-mail market. Others, such as Daring Fireball, noted that Google has better mindshare among the digerati than Yahoo or Hotmail.
But Yahoo, currently rebranding itself around content and services after dumping its search business on Microsoft, should be thrilled at 22 percent growth starting from such a large number. Now that Yahoo will be dependent on attracting eyeballs to its vast network of Web content, pushing that content to those logging into Yahoo to check their e-mail becomes extremely important.
Google has had to make some changes as Gmail has grown larger, tweaking the "labels" sorting structure it uses inside Gmail to behave more like the traditional folder-based organization used by other e-mail services. Still, there's no doubt that Gmail has breathed new life into the original killer application for the Internet since it made its debut five years ago, and Yahoo Mail will have to make sure to stay on top of evolving usage patterns to maintain its edge.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple.
10 Reasons Snow Leopard Is Ready For Business
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/170679/10_reasons_snow_leopard_is_ready_for_business.html
Tony Bradley, PC World Monday, August 24, 2009
10 Reasons Snow Leopard Is Ready For Business
There are a variety of enhancements and refinements introduced in Snow Leopard, the next version of the Mac OS, which Apple announced will be available this Friday (August 28). The Mac is generally viewed as a consumer or niche platform, but some of the features in Snow Leopard show a maturity that makes the Mac better than ever for the enterprise.
1. Annotations in Preview. New tools enable you to annotate and markup PDF files using Preview. The annotation tools include comments, links, highlighting, strikethrough text, shapes, text, and arrows.
2. Restore deleted items to original locations. This seems long overdue. In Windows data restored from the Recycle Bin is automatically restored to its original location. With Snow Leopard restoring to the original location is now an option on the Mac as well.
3. Sortable search results. Snow Leopard adds the ability to sort Spotlight search results for more efficient searching. You can sort search data by name, date modified, date created, size, type of file, or label.
4. Nearby printers. When printing Snow Leopard displays the printers that are detected nearby, enabling you to identify and configure the best available device for printing your document.
5. Automatic update for printer drivers. When a printer is connected Snow Leopard connects to the Internet and downloads the most current driver for the device. Snow Leopard also periodically checks via Software Update to ensure that the most up-to-date driver is installed.
6. AirPort menu signal strength. Connecting to the best available wireless network is easier with Snow Leopard. The menu bar item for AirPort displays signal strength for all available wireless networks so you can choose the strongest possible connection.
7. HFS+ read in Boot Camp. Users who use Boot Camp to dual boot between Windows and Mac now have support to be able to share data between the two operating systems and access files from the Mac partition while running in Windows. The functionality is read-only to ensure that any Windows-based viruses can not write malicious software or data to the Mac files.
8. Improved 64-bit support. Snow Leopard extends the Mac's support of 64-bit hardware. Key system files and applications have been rewritten in 64-bit code, and the Mac OS is now capable of accessing significantly more memory.
9. Cisco VPN support. One of the cooler updates for Snow Leopard is built-in support for Cisco VPN connectivity. Cisco VPN's are common in enterprise networks and now Snow Leopard users can connect securely with corporate networks without needing any additional software.
10. Exchange support. Last, but not least. The ‘piece de resistance' of Snow Leopard which arguably makes it more enterprise-ready even than Windows 7: Snow Leopard has native support for connecting with Exchange. That's right. No need for Entourage. It makes Microsoft's announcement to include Outlook in the next version of Office for Mac a little like shutting the barn door after the horses escape.
I am not under any misguided belief that there will be any mass migration of businesses to shun Windows 7 and adopt Mac OS X instead. However, the Mac OS X operating system has come along way from the hip, grunge ‘I'm a Mac' dude on the commercials. Now it's more like if the ‘I'm a Mac' guy put on 25 pounds and wore a suit. It's getting there.
Tony Bradley is an information security and unified communications expert with more than a decade of enterprise IT experience. He tweets as @PCSecurityNews and provides tips, advice and reviews on information security and unified communications technologies on his site at tonybradley.com .
Tony Bradley, PC World Monday, August 24, 2009
10 Reasons Snow Leopard Is Ready For Business
There are a variety of enhancements and refinements introduced in Snow Leopard, the next version of the Mac OS, which Apple announced will be available this Friday (August 28). The Mac is generally viewed as a consumer or niche platform, but some of the features in Snow Leopard show a maturity that makes the Mac better than ever for the enterprise.
1. Annotations in Preview. New tools enable you to annotate and markup PDF files using Preview. The annotation tools include comments, links, highlighting, strikethrough text, shapes, text, and arrows.
2. Restore deleted items to original locations. This seems long overdue. In Windows data restored from the Recycle Bin is automatically restored to its original location. With Snow Leopard restoring to the original location is now an option on the Mac as well.
3. Sortable search results. Snow Leopard adds the ability to sort Spotlight search results for more efficient searching. You can sort search data by name, date modified, date created, size, type of file, or label.
4. Nearby printers. When printing Snow Leopard displays the printers that are detected nearby, enabling you to identify and configure the best available device for printing your document.
5. Automatic update for printer drivers. When a printer is connected Snow Leopard connects to the Internet and downloads the most current driver for the device. Snow Leopard also periodically checks via Software Update to ensure that the most up-to-date driver is installed.
6. AirPort menu signal strength. Connecting to the best available wireless network is easier with Snow Leopard. The menu bar item for AirPort displays signal strength for all available wireless networks so you can choose the strongest possible connection.
7. HFS+ read in Boot Camp. Users who use Boot Camp to dual boot between Windows and Mac now have support to be able to share data between the two operating systems and access files from the Mac partition while running in Windows. The functionality is read-only to ensure that any Windows-based viruses can not write malicious software or data to the Mac files.
8. Improved 64-bit support. Snow Leopard extends the Mac's support of 64-bit hardware. Key system files and applications have been rewritten in 64-bit code, and the Mac OS is now capable of accessing significantly more memory.
9. Cisco VPN support. One of the cooler updates for Snow Leopard is built-in support for Cisco VPN connectivity. Cisco VPN's are common in enterprise networks and now Snow Leopard users can connect securely with corporate networks without needing any additional software.
10. Exchange support. Last, but not least. The ‘piece de resistance' of Snow Leopard which arguably makes it more enterprise-ready even than Windows 7: Snow Leopard has native support for connecting with Exchange. That's right. No need for Entourage. It makes Microsoft's announcement to include Outlook in the next version of Office for Mac a little like shutting the barn door after the horses escape.
I am not under any misguided belief that there will be any mass migration of businesses to shun Windows 7 and adopt Mac OS X instead. However, the Mac OS X operating system has come along way from the hip, grunge ‘I'm a Mac' dude on the commercials. Now it's more like if the ‘I'm a Mac' guy put on 25 pounds and wore a suit. It's getting there.
Tony Bradley is an information security and unified communications expert with more than a decade of enterprise IT experience. He tweets as @PCSecurityNews and provides tips, advice and reviews on information security and unified communications technologies on his site at tonybradley.com .
Whole Foods Boycott
Whole Foods Boycott
Hey Robert,
I read your post today mentioning the Whole Foods boycott that sprung up after the CEO published that op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. I got a chance recently to interview the main organizers of the boycott about how they've been using social media to amass supporters.
Anyway, I thought this was something you and your readers would find interesting.
take care,
Simon
--
http://bloggasm.com
http://twitter.com/simonowens
*
http://bloggasm.com/how-whole-foods-boycott-groups-are-using-social-media-to-organize
How Whole Foods boycott groups are using social media to organize
Posted in Politics Monday, August 24th, 2009
When Mark Rosenthal launched a Facebook group recently supporting a boycott of Whole Foods, he did virtually nothing to promote it. He left his computer for a few hours and when he came back he found that between 50 and 100 people had already joined.
“I was just starting it as a place to get the word out to my friends who I know shop at Whole Foods,” Rosenthal, 39, told me in a phone interview. “I have friends who spend hundreds of dollars a month at Whole Foods in Los Angeles and New York.”
The activist decided to create the group after reading a now widely-circulated Wall Street Journal op-ed from Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. The op-ed argued against a public option and in favor of deregulation of the current health insurance system in the US, and it blasted universal health care systems in other countries like Canada and the UK.
Many of the grocery store’s loyal customers — who tend to be left-of-center — grew angry at the op-ed and have organized boycotts. As of this writing, Rosenthal’s Facebook group has grown to over 26,000 members, and over the past week he and others have branched out to other social media platforms, including Twitter, Wordpress and Flickr.
“[The op-ed] lit a fire under me,” Rosenthal said. “This person was using his company as a sort of Trojan horse for a bunch of discredited, bad ideas that we have said no to over and over again. And it was just really frustrating because we had an election where we voted on these things, and we said no to these stupid ideas about deregulation being the solution to any of our problems. We’ve said no to the notion that ‘I’ve got mine and everyone else can go suck an egg.’”
As the Facebook quickly grew, he was approached by others who offered to help organize the boycott, and within days he added several other administrators to the group. One of those people was Steven Mikulencak, a town planner located in New York. The group soon got on a conference call and planned to expand outside of the Facebook group. Mikulencak registered the domain wholeboycott.com and quickly set up a Wordpress account for it. The group also designed their own special logo for the boycott, effectively creating their own anti-Whole Foods brand.
“I believe [Mackey] set up 99% of the boycott with his op ed,” Mikulencak told me. “All social media has to do is go the extra 1%. As a town planner I’ve studied community organizing and have worked with grass roots efforts, and I’m looking at this as an extremely effective, fascinating way to organize. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Both Mikulencak and Rosenthaul told me that they’re taking their time in promoting the boycott and are refraining from rushing to make any major decisions. They’ve begun posting user-submitted photos from people who are taking pictures of receipts from other grocery stores they’re shopping at and on the blog they’re listing boycott events that are taking place around the country. But they’re doing very little to actually organize these individual events.
“Our strategy is mostly through social media,” Mikulencak explained. “That has to connect with groups on the ground. We’re not organizing those, that’s spontaneous and independent from us. We hope to be a clearing house between all of them. The people on the ground will have to take some initiative, organize their own groups, set up some meetup.com accounts, and picket and leaflet and let their voices be heard.”
The activist said that much of the impetus behind the campaign has had very little to do with his own efforts, and more to do with an organic mass movement that has sprouted up.
“I’m coming to the conclusion that this is much bigger than the group that’s online. It’s growing no matter what we do. We realize that time is on our side, and we’re going to take our time, and let a coherent message evolve from our group. We’re a very patient group; boycotts take a lot of time. So we’re not feeling particularly rushed.”
Einstein's Brain and the Magic Flute
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/neuro/einsteins-brain-and-magic-fluteEinstein's Brain and the Magic Flute
Creativity Linked to Gene in Brain Development
Surfdaddy Orca
August 3, 2009
Einstein’s ability to chase a light beam in “thought experiments” led to the equations of General Relativity. Mozart composed entire operas and symphonies in his head, creating all the parts for all the instruments. He was able to imagine the sounds in his head for masterpieces such as Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) – without hitting a single key or playing a single note.
How do we explain exceptional scientists and artists like Einstein and Mozart? Where does such genius come from? What conditions or personality traits seem to produce exceptionally creative people? Is the association between genius and madness really just a myth?
Perhaps not entirely. New research suggests that a genetic mutation linked to psychosis and schizophrenia influences creativity.
Szabolcs Kéri, a researcher at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, examined a gene involved in brain development called neuregulin 1, that previous studies have linked to a slightly increased risk of schizophrenia. A single DNA letter mutation that affects how much of the neuregulin 1 protein is made in the brain has been linked to psychosis, poor memory and sensitivity to criticism.
According to New Scientist, this finding could help to explain why mutations that increase a person's risk of developing mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar syndrome have been preserved -- even preferred -- during human evolution.
The research also supports psychologist Hans Jürgen Eysenck’s conception of genius, and helps explain why geniuses like Einstein and Mozart are so exceptional – they may have a rare combination of intelligence and “psychoticism,” states in which individuals exhibit some of the qualities commonly found among psychotics.
Intelligence –- often in the form of a high IQ of 150 or above –- is clearly a personality trait of geniuses. Eysenck’s concept of genius blends intelligence with just the right amount of psychoticism. The genius is able “to take frequent excursions from conventional ways of thinking about things, but not so much as to devolve into insanity,” explains computer scientist and neuroengineer Bruce Katz of Drexel University.
This also fits the observations of Szabolcs Kéri: “My clinical experience is that high-IQ people with psychosis have more intellectual capacity to deal with psychotic experiences. It's not enough to experience those feelings, you have to communicate them."
Eysenck’s concept of genius blends intelligence with just the right amount of psychoticism.
Jeremy Hall, the geneticist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK who uncovered the link between the neuregulin 1 mutation and psychosis, agrees that the neuregulin 1 gene's effects are also probably influenced by cognitive factors such as intelligence.
Albert Einstein's brain has often been a subject of much research and speculation, and it was removed within seven hours of his death. Purported irregularities in his brain tissue have been used to support various ideas about the correlation between neuroanatomy and mathematical intelligence.
For example, some studies suggest that the regions involved in speech and language are smaller, while the regions involved with numerical and spatial processing are larger for the mathematically gifted. Other studies have suggested an increased number of glial cells. More recent studies indicate that increased glia/neuron ratio in cortical areas of Einstein’s brain is a sign of an autism disorder rather than the evidence that more glial cells make a genius.
Einstein’s brain, and its link to creative genius, remain a mystery. Pure speculation: could Einstein’s creativity possibly be associated with the neuregulin 1 gene?
Around July of 1791, when Mozart’s work on The Magic Flute was virtually complete and rehearsals had already begun, Mozart received a visit from a tall, grave-looking stranger dressed completely in gray. The stranger presented an anonymous letter commissioning Mozart to compose a Requiem as quickly as possible at whatever price the composer wished to name.
This ghostly figure is identified with Antonio Salieri in the film Amedeus (although more recent evidence suggests that it wasn’t actually Salieri who commissioned the Requiem). In the movie we meet Salieri in an insane asylum –- apparently driven mad by Mozart’s genius. Although anecdotal, It may be telling that, in real life, Salieri referred to Mozart as bezumets (a madman).
Are psychosis and creativity the same thing? While the neuregulin 1 gene suggests an association between psychosis and creativity, Jeremy Hall remains skeptical, "There's always been this slightly romantic idea that madness and genius are the flipside to the same coin. How much is that true? Madness is often madness and doesn't have as much genetic association with intelligence."
Emotional Freedom Technique
http://blog.lavacocktail.com/2009/08/24/emotional-freedom-technique.aspxEmotional Freedom Technique
by
Jaye Beldo
www.lavacocktail.com
A friend recently recommended trying a rather unorthodox acupressure technique developed by Gary Craig called Emotional Freedom Technique. The technique consists of tapping various points such as the corner of the eye, beneath the eye, beneath the nose, above and under the lips etc. with one's finger, all the while voicing affirmations such as, "Even though I have a fear of scuba diving, I love and accept myself unconditionally." While initially skeptical of EFT, I soon afterwards became convinced of its effectiveness for I had used the scuba affirmation during a recent trip to Mexico, where I had enrolled in a PADI certification course with great trepidation. As a result, I overcame every fear that I had and enjoyed several 60 ft. deep dives in the beautiful barrier reef off the coast of Xcalak. That was pretty much all the confirmation I needed in regards to EFT actually working, considering the enormity of the fear my mind had managed to generate. Thus inspired/convinced, I invested in the entire EFT Key Foundational Library series of DVDs which demonstrates such things as using EFT to overcome addiction, low self-esteem and also how to address health related issues. The DVDs are quite user-friendly and understandable, in regards to the clear and comprehensible demonstrations of EFTs various applications.
EFT has many potentials for not only overcoming fears, but things that block us in regards to our emotional health and well-being-whether they are psychological or somatic or both. So far I have used the technique to improve my abilities to concentrate, maintain my energy levels throughout the day and let go of things held onto in the past that are no longer conducive to growth. Overall, I find myself being more and more present and connected with my immediate surroundings-a very important component, no matter what you are addressing- whether it be a fear of flying or of mathematics. If we're fully present, our awareness is greatly enhanced-we can get to the source of our fears and blocks, addressing the root causes of them instead of surface symptoms. We can prevent falling into destructive patterns whether they be those of addiction or negative, defeating belief systems. It is with this in mind that I highly recommend EFT. If you cannot afford the entire series there are YouTube demos that are sufficient enough for learning this very useful technique. Also consider subscribing to the EFT newsletter at www.emofree.com. There you will glean much useful information. As an example, I recently was forwarded an EFT newsletter that addressed obesity and abundance. Through EFT one can uncover the roots of the "there never is enough" belief system which usually has its roots in not having needs met in childhood- but which still linger in the background memory, creating a perpetual fear of scarcity which then fuels overeating. Using similar affirmations found in this newsletter has enabled me to overcome such things and I already notice the pounds dropping off since I've managed to overcome a peculiar habit of sleep eating, where I wake up in the middle of the night, eat and then go back to bed with unburned calories heading straight for my girth. Repeated use of EFT combined with the affirmations has enabled me to break this habit within a matter of a few days. There really are no limits to how EFT can be applied and this once skeptical reviewer now recommends investing in this DVD series for long term health and emotional well being.
So far, the only qualm I have about the EFT series is that it is stated that the DVDs can be freely copied without any ensuing infringement violations, yet put it on an obscure DVD format that only someone highly knowledgeable/specialized could ever figure out how to copy and burn from. Such a tactic causes me to suspect that they really don't want this series to be distributed freely as they claim they do. If they had burned these DVDs on regular DVD discs they would have been true to their word. My primary reason for investing in the series in the first place was so that I could make copies to give to my friends who otherwise could not afford them.
Check it out @: www.emofree.com
Bush Involvement in Bombing Pan Am 103
From The Konformist Vault:
Sometime in 1996-98, The Konformist published this article, based on excerpts from the book The Crimes of a President: New Revelations on Conspiracy & Cover-Up in the Bush & Reagan Administrations, written by Israeli journalist Joel Bainerman. With the recent news coverage of the release of the alleged Pan Am 103 bomber, it's worth sending out in cyberspace again.
Joel Bainerman can be reached via his bitchin' website: JoelBainerman.com
Bush Administration's Involvement in Bombing Pan Am 103
by Joel Bainerman
If the entire story behind the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988 is ever fully exposed, most people just simply wouldn’t believe it. Not only were various agencies of the U.S. Government at least partially responsible for the terrorist attack, the Bush Administration tried to cover up their involvement; and, as vice president, Bush is reported to have made as many as four secret trips to Damascus offering arms to Syria in return for the hostages held in Lebanon.
If the true story behind Pan Am 103 ever finally does come out, Yuval Aviv can take much of the credit.
I met a lot of strange characters during the research for my book The Crimes of a President (SPI Books, 1992), but Yuval Aviv was by far the most intriguing. I met Aviv for the first time in October 1991. After a three-hour meeting, I walked out of his Madison Avenue office with my head spinning. Aviv had a certain charm about him that made him very likable, even if you didn’t quite trust his information or understand his motives. He claims to be a former Mossad official who immigrated to the U.S. in 1978. Shortly thereafter, he opened his own investigating firm called Interfor.
Aviv told me a lot of stories, some of which I had already checked out and found to be false. Some were verified by other sources. Like most sources investigative journalists come across, some of Aviv’s information was good, some wasn’t. Where Aviv does come through with flying colors though is in his version of what happened to Pan Am 103, the plane that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988.
Aviv’s firm was hired by Pan Am’s insurer in the Spring of 1989 to investigate the crash. Of all the journalists and intelligence sources I met who knew Aviv, all of them agreed that his report on Pan Am 103 is the closest thing yet to the truth. The only problem is that what he has to say about the incident isn’t what the Bush Administration wants to hear. In September 1989, Interfor’s report was made public. In it, Aviv claimed that a CIA team headquartered in Western Germany is largely responsible for the bombing.
That’s not what the U.S. Administration claims. For the first two years after the crash, all the evidence pointed to Syria and Iran as the culprits. It was believed that Iran bankrolled the operation in retaliation for the 3 July 1988 shooting down of a scheduled Iranian airbus in the Persian Gulf by the USS Vincennes, killing 290 people. Previously, U.S. investigators had traced a wire transfer of several million dollars from Teheran to a bank account in Vienna controlled by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command under the leadership of Ahmed Jibril (US News & World Report, 25 November 199l).
The outbreak of the Gulf War changed all that. When Saddam’s troops rolled into Kuwait, the Administration needed to bring Syria into the coalition effort. The following Summer, Bush sat down with Syrian President Hafez Assad in Geneva and ushered in a new era in Syrian-American relations. As a result, focus had to be deflected away from Syrian-sponsored Ahmed Jibril’s terrorist group.
Lo and behold, in November 199l, U.S. prosecutors announced that their three-year investigation produced no evidence that either Iran or Syria were involved. Instead, they believed two Libyan intelligence officials and the Tripoli Government were responsible for the bombing (New York Times, 15 November 199l). President Bush would publicly remark: "The Syrians took a bum rap on this" (Time, 27 April 1992).
The U.S. Government based its case on a tiny piece of plastic embedded in a shirt that had come from the suitcase that held the bomb. Miraculously, it survived two harsh Scottish winters. A British forensic expert matched the fragment of the bomb timer used to destroy a French DC-10 jet that exploded over Africa nine months after the Lockerbie tragedy and found them to be identical. Based on this evidence, indictments were issued for Libyan intelligence officials. (It seems the Justice Department would have looked a little silly asking Mummar Gaddafi to turn himself in to the American authorities.)
American and British investigators speculate that Iran and Libya were plotting simultaneously to blow up an American jet, but the Libyans succeeded first. Gaddafi, it was claimed, wanted revenge for the 1986 bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi by U.S. warplanes. (Why did he wait more than two-and-a-half years to get it?) They say the bomb was first loaded as unaccompanied baggage on an Air Malta flight which departed Lauq Airport in Malta and connected with the Pan Am flight in Frankfurt. Why a terrorist would take such an indirect route and risk detection was left unexplained.
The official U.S. Government’s version of events is quite different from that of the former Israeli intelligence official. Aviv explains that his investigation revealed that the origin of the terrorist attack was actually a rogue CIA group protecting a Syrian drug operation which transported drugs from the Middle East to the United States via Frankfurt. Aviv says the CIA did nothing to break up the drug operation because the traffickers were also helping them send weapons to Iran and to the Nicaraguan Contras.
Part of Aviv’s assertions were backed up by NBC News a year later when it reported, on 30 October 1990, that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was investigating a Middle East-based heroin operation to determine whether it was used by the terrorists to place a bomb on Pan Am 103. NBC said Pan Am flights out of Frankfurt had been used by the DEA to fly informants and heroin into Detroit as part of its sting operation. It claimed the terrorists might have discovered what the DEA was doing and switched one of their bags with one containing the bomb.
The DEA denied any connection to the undercover operation (Barron's, 17 December 1990). Aviv explains that the method of drug smuggling was quite simple. One person would check a piece of luggage onto the plane and an accomplice working in the baggage department would switch it with an identical piece containing the narcotics. He says that on that fatal night, a Syrian terrorist organization knew how the drug operation worked and slipped a bomb inside a suitcase on the plane.
Aviv asserts that Monzer Al-Kassar, a Syrian drug and arms smuggler, set the drug smuggling operation up through Frankfurt in 1987. The CIA, the DEA and the West German secret police, the BKA, observed its activities, but didn’t interfere so as to acquire information. Al-Kassar is well connected. The head of Syrian intelligence, Ali Issa Duba, is his brother-in-law, and his wife is related to Assad.
This was the same Monzer Al-Kassar who helped Oliver North supply Polish-made weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras in 1985 and 1986. Along with his three brothers, Al-Kassar had built a multi-million-dollar empire on military deals in Eastern and Western Europe. Administration officials who discussed these deals said Al-Kassar had clear business links with the Abu Nidal terrorist organization (Los Angeles Times, 17 July 1987).
The officials said that Al-Kassar maintained offices in Warsaw and was a major broker of the Polish-owned weapons company, Cenzin. The first arms purchase by North from Al-Kassar totaling $1 million was sent by boat to an unidentified Caribbean port in the Fall of 1985 and was later distributed to the Contra fighters. In April of that year, a second shipment of Polish arms was sold to the CIA as part of this transaction (Los Angeles Times, 17 July 1987). In another part of the deal, more than $42 million was laundered through BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) accounts in the Cayman Islands. Al-Kassar earned more than $1 million (Private Eye, 25 October 199l).
Aviv wrote in his report that a special hostage rescue team was on the doomed aircraft, led by Army Major Charles McKee, who had discovered that a rogue CIA team in Frankfurt, called COREA, was protecting the drug route. According to a special report in Time (27 April 1992), COREA used front companies for its overseas operations: Sevens Mantra Corp., AMA Industries, Wilderwood Video and Condor Television Ltd. The report revealed that Condor did its banking through the First American Bank, a subsidiary of BCCI.
After explaining what he had learned to CIA headquarters in the U.S. and receiving no response, McKee decided to take his men home without the required permission. He planned to bring back to the U.S. proof of the rogue intelligence team’s connection to Al-Kassar. If the government tried to cover it up, he would release it. Al-Kassar discovered this and reported McKee’s attempt to make their own "travel arrangements" back to the U.S. through the rogue CIA team in Frankfurt (Covert Action Information Bulletin Number 34, Summer 1990).
Although neglected in the American press, there were at least four, and possibly as many as eight, CIA and other U.S. intelligence agency operatives from Beirut aboard Pan Am 103 (ibid.). Could they have been the target? In his book, Lockerbie: The Tragedy of Flight 103, David Johnson disclosed that CIA investigators removed a suitcase from the crash site that belonged to McKee. It was returned a few days later, and "found" empty.
The PBS investigative program Frontline reported in January 1990 that the bomb was put on the plane at London’s Heathrow Airport where a baggage handler switched suitcases belonging to CIA officer Matthew Gannon. According to the Frontline investigation, the only piece of luggage not accounted for from the flight belonged to Gannon.
Frontline claims the intelligence officials were a "strong secondary target." A May 1989 report in the Arabic newspaper Al-Dustur revealed that McKee’s teams’ movements were being monitored by David Lovejoy, "an American agent" whom Aviv claims was passing information to the Iranian embassy in Beirut which told the Iranian charge d’affaires of the team’s travel plans (Time, 27 April 1992).
Aviv believes that the CIA team in Frankfurt allowed Al-Kassar to continue to smuggle drugs into the U.S. in return for help in arranging the release of the American hostages. The drug operation, he says, went as far back as Spring of 1987.
In the Fall of 1988, Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, discovered the operation. So as not to interfere with Al-Kassar’s activities, Jibril originally targeted an American Airlines plane, but the Mossad discovered this and tipped off the airline. When the plan changed and the target became a Pan Am airliner, once again a Mossad agent tipped off German secret police 24 hours before the flight. When a BKA surveillance agent keeping watch over the suitcase supposedly filled with drugs noticed that this time the luggage was a different color and size, he passed this information on to the CIA team, who relayed it to their superiors. They reportedly said, "Don’t worry about it. Don’t stop it — let it go" (Barron's, 17 December 1990).
Aviv says the BKA did just that.
A lengthy article on Aviv’s report in the financial weekly, Barron's, quotes one Mideast Intelligence specialist in the government as suggesting, "Do I think the CIA was involved? Of course they were involved. And they screwed up. Was the operation planned by the top? Probably not. I doubt they sanctioned heroin importation — that came about at the more zealous lower levels. But they knew what was going on and didn’t care." The expert went on to say that his agency has "things that support Aviv’s allegation, but we can’t prove it. We have no smoking gun. And until the other agencies of the government open their doors, we will have no smoking gun."
These government agencies didn’t open their doors. In September 1989, Pan Am subpoenaed the FBI, CIA, FAA, DEA, National Security Council, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department, requesting documents relating to the case. According to Pan Am’s attorney, Gregory Buhler, "the government quashed the subpoenas on grounds of national security" (ibid.).
Further signs of a cover up were revealed by investigative columnist Jack Anderson, who claimed that President Bush and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher held a transatlantic phone conversation after Bush’s inauguration in which they agreed that the investigation into the case should be "limited" in order to avoid harming the two nations’ intelligence communities. Thatcher has acknowledged that the conversation took place, but denied she and Bush conspired to interfere with the investigation (Covert Action Information Bulletin Number 34, Summer 1990).
In its investigative report, Time revealed that a former agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lester Knox Coleman, III, has signed an affidavit which described the CIA-sanctioned operation. In 1987, Coleman was transferred to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and was assigned to Cyprus, where he witnessed the growing trade in heroin originating in Lebanon. Coleman’s DEA front in Nicosia was the Eurame Trading Co. Ltd., located near the U.S. Embassy. His job was to keep track of Al-Kassar’s movements and report to the DEA attaché in Cyprus, Michael Hurley. Coleman says he was paid in checks drawn on the BCCI branch in Luxembourg (27 April 1992). (Read Trail of the Octopus: Behind the Lockerbie Disaster, Donald Goddard with Lester K. Coleman, 1994 — although this was only published in Great Britain and is a bit hard to get a copy of. ARH.)
A number of investigative journalists believe that Aviv stumbled onto just one piece of a larger puzzle. In August 1991, Larry Cohler, a writer for the Washington Jewish Week, reported on a set of secret negotiations which took place between Syria and the United States Government over the release of the hostages and which led to a number of covert trips by Bush to Damascus.
Over an all-you-can-eat Indian lunch one afternoon, Larry told me an incredible story that compliments Aviv’s conclusions.
According to a confidential Pentagon memo that Cohler gained access to, for reasons still unknown, officials in the Reagan Administration failed to pursue a series of Syrian offers to free the American hostages held in Lebanon. The Syrian overtures began in 1985 and continued through mid-1989.
A number of former government officials involved in the secret Syrian negotiations say they were never told why the Syrian offers were not acted upon, while others say the Syrian offers were not genuine. Still others claim there was too little preliminary action by the U.S. Government to determine for certain whether the initiatives were genuine or not (San Francisco Chronicle, 21 July 199l).
The center of the controversy was a memo dated 17 March 1987, which described a meeting attended by Lawrence Ropka, Jr., a principal deputy of Assistant Secretary of Defense for National Security Affairs Richard Armitage. Written by Ropka’s military assistant, Lt. Andrew Gambara, it claimed that American businessmen and a former executive secretary to Richard Nixon, Robert D. Ladd, told Pentagon officials in December 1985 that he had a contact with a Lebanese businessman who introduced him to Fasih Makhail Ashi, a judge in Syria’s inspector general’s office. The judge claimed he had information regarding the fate of the seven American hostages held in Lebanon. Ashi said: "the Syrians were prepared to assist in the release of the hostages if Reagan called Assad and requested his support" (San Francisco Chronicle, 21 July 199l).
Syria’s aims were simple enough: It wanted closer ties with the United States. The memo said that once Reagan called, "Syria would facilitate the release and transfer of the hostages without any quid pro quo from the U.S." It said further that Ladd had already brought this to the attention of Oliver North at the National Security Council (NSC) and that someone would follow it up. A former official in Armitage’s office said the memo was sent to a special government agency, the Vice President’s Task Force on Terrorism, a group of high-ranking officials from the White House, State Department, NSC and the CIA.
Two of Armitage’s aides acknowledged that the Syrian initiative was discussed during a number of interviews with Ladd and his attorney. Ladd said that, after hearing the Syrian offer, he arranged for Ashi to come to the United States; he was then questioned over a period of a number of days by the Task Force. Ashi asserts he spoke in the name of General Ghazi Kenaan, head of Syrian military intelligence, and even passed on details about the fate of kidnapped CIA chief in Beirut, William Buckley.
Ashi returned to Syria but received no reply. In February 1987, he contacted Ladd and again said Syria would help the Americans release the hostages. Ladd tried unsuccessfully to persuade government officials to meet in Paris with Ashi. A longtime senior aid to Armitage claimed Ashi could not prove the offer was genuine. "It was my sense there was nothing there," he said (San Francisco Examiner, 21 July 1991). "I was told there wasn’t enough information from Ashi to run it upstairs."
However, a former official in Armitage’s office said that he thought Ashi’s overtures should at least be checked out, as the American Government could have sent someone from the Paris embassy to meet him. Ladd said that, only because of his persistence, U.S. intelligence officials eventually agreed to meet with Ashi. Then, in the early part of the Summer of 1989 the CIA, without any explanation, canceled the meeting.
Despite the cancellation, Ashi called Ladd back saying that the hostages would be released if Ladd would come to Damascus for them. In August, Ladd was prepared to fly to Damascus when Ashi called back to take back the offer, saying that a tug of war over releasing the hostages had developed between Kenaan and other factions of the Syrian army.
The Congressional investigators did look into why the Administration didn’t follow up on these initiatives and why, when Syria offered to help release the hostages, they were put on hold. They questioned a number of individuals, including a former Pentagon official, Peter Probst, who took part in some of the meetings; he told Cohler that it was one of several he and other officials had with Ladd on the Syrian overture. He said nothing further on the matter.
Could the Administration have been pursuing another path to free the hostages? Cohler learned from different sources that Bush made as many as four secret trips to Damascus in early 1986, allegedly offering arms to Syria in return for the hostages. Congressional investigators were told by their sources that in the Spring of 1988, in the middle of the presidential campaign, Bush made one final trip to Syria, telling the Syrians that the time was right to make a deal. Then, the Syrians stalled.
At that point, the Syrians might have grasped the leverage they actually had over Bush and wanted to up the ante (In These Times, 7 August 1991). It’s also possible that Bush might have been attempting an "October Surprise" of his own by having the hostages delivered to a Republican White House just in time for the Presidential election in November 1988.
Aviv says that when these overtures failed, Bush and the CIA turned to Al-Kassar as a middlemen. (A covert deal made with drug smugglers is less likely to be exposed than one with a government or head of state.) Al-Kassar had some experience in these types of operations and at least one victory under his belt: He was used by the French Government in March 1988 to free its hostages held in captivity in Lebanon.
George Bush may have wanted the same deal.
Debt: The first five thousand years
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2009-08-20-graeber-en.htmlDavid Graeber
Debt: The first five thousand years
8-20-9
Throughout its 5000 year history, debt has always involved institutions – whether Mesopotamian sacred kingship, Mosaic jubilees, Sharia or Canon Law – that place controls on debt's potentially catastrophic social consequences. It is only in the current era, writes anthropologist David Graeber, that we have begun to see the creation of the first effective planetary administrative system largely in order to protect the interests of creditors.
What follows is a fragment of a much larger project of research on debt and debt money in human history. The first and overwhelming conclusion of this project is that in studying economic history, we tend to systematically ignore the role of violence, the absolutely central role of war and slavery in creating and shaping the basic institutions of what we now call "the economy". What's more, origins matter. The violence may be invisible, but it remains inscribed in the very logic of our economic common sense, in the apparently self-evident nature of institutions that simply would never and could never exist outside of the monopoly of violence – but also, the systematic threat of violence – maintained by the contemporary state.
Let me start with the institution of slavery, whose role, I think, is key. In most times and places, slavery is seen as a consequence of war. Sometimes most slaves actually are war captives, sometimes they are not, but almost invariably, war is seen as the foundation and justification of the institution. If you surrender in war, what you surrender is your life; your conqueror has the right to kill you, and often will. If he chooses not to, you literally owe your life to him; a debt conceived as absolute, infinite, irredeemable. He can in principle extract anything he wants, and all debts – obligations – you may owe to others (your friends, family, former political allegiances), or that others owe you, are seen as being absolutely negated. Your debt to your owner is all that now exists.
This sort of logic has at least two very interesting consequences, though they might be said to pull in rather contrary directions. First of all, as we all know, it is another typical – perhaps defining – feature of slavery that slaves can be bought or sold. In this case, absolute debt becomes (in another context, that of the market) no longer absolute. In fact, it can be precisely quantified. There is good reason to believe that it was just this operation that made it possible to create something like our contemporary form of money to begin with, since what anthropologists used to refer to as "primitive money", the kind that one finds in stateless societies (Solomon Island feather money, Iroquois wampum), was mostly used to arrange marriages, resolve blood feuds, and fiddle with other sorts of relations between people, rather than to buy and sell commodities. For instance, if slavery is debt, then debt can lead to slavery. A Babylonian peasant might have paid a handy sum in silver to his wife's parents to officialise the marriage, but he in no sense owned her. He certainly couldn't buy or sell the mother of his children. But all that would change if he took out a loan. Were he to default, his creditors could first remove his sheep and furniture, then his house, fields and orchards, and finally take his wife, children, and even himself as debt peons until the matter was settled (which, as his resources vanished, of course became increasingly difficult to do). Debt was the hinge that made it possible to imagine money in anything like the modern sense, and therefore, also, to produce what we like to call the market: an arena where anything can be bought and sold, because all objects are (like slaves) disembedded from their former social relations and exist only in relation to money.
But at the same time the logic of debt as conquest can, as I mentioned, pull another way. Kings, throughout history, tend to be profoundly ambivalent towards allowing the logic of debt to get completely out of hand. This is not because they are hostile to markets. On the contrary, they normally encourage them, for the simple reason that governments find it inconvenient to levy everything they need (silks, chariot wheels, flamingo tongues, lapis lazuli) directly from their subject population; it's much easier to encourage markets and then buy them. Early markets often followed armies or royal entourages, or formed near palaces or at the fringes of military posts. This actually helps explain the rather puzzling behaviour on the part of royal courts: after all, since kings usually controlled the gold and silver mines, what exactly was the point of stamping bits of the stuff with your face on it, dumping it on the civilian population, and then demanding they give it back to you again as taxes? It only makes sense if levying taxes was really a way to force everyone to acquire coins, so as to facilitate the rise of markets, since markets were convenient to have around. However, for our present purposes, the critical question is: how were these taxes justified? Why did subjects owe them, what debt were they discharging when they were paid? Here we return again to right of conquest. (Actually, in the ancient world, free citizens – whether in Mesopotamia, Greece, or Rome – often did not have to pay direct taxes for this very reason, but obviously I'm simplifying here.) If kings claimed to hold the power of life and death over their subjects by right of conquest, then their subjects' debts were, also, ultimately infinite; and also, at least in that context, their relations to one another, what they owed to one another, was unimportant. All that really existed was their relation to the king. This in turn explains why kings and emperors invariably tried to regulate the powers that masters had over slaves, and creditors over debtors. At the very least they would always insist, if they had the power, that those prisoners who had already had their lives spared could no longer be killed by their masters. In fact, only rulers could have arbitrary power over life and death. One's ultimate debt was to the state; it was the only one that was truly unlimited, that could make absolute, cosmic, claims.
The reason I stress this is because this logic is still with us. When we speak of a "society" (French society, Jamaican society) we are really speaking of people organised by a single nation state. That is the tacit model, anyway. "Societies" are really states, the logic of states is that of conquest, the logic of conquest is ultimately identical to that of slavery. True, in the hands of state apologists, this becomes transformed into a notion of a more benevolent "social debt". Here there is a little story told, a kind of myth. We are all born with an infinite debt to the society that raised, nurtured, fed and clothed us, to those long dead who invented our language and traditions, to all those who made it possible for us to exist. In ancient times we thought we owed this to the gods (it was repaid in sacrifice, or, sacrifice was really just the payment of interest – ultimately, it was repaid by death). Later the debt was adopted by the state, itself a divine institution, with taxes substituted for sacrifice, and military service for one's debt of life. Money is simply the concrete form of this social debt, the way that it is managed. Keynesians like this sort of logic. So do various strains of socialist, social democrats, even crypto-fascists like Auguste Comte (the first, as far as I am aware, to actually coin the phrase "social debt"). But the logic also runs through much of our common sense: consider for instance, the phrase, "to pay one's debt to society", or, "I felt I owed something to my country", or, "I wanted to give something back." Always, in such cases, mutual rights and obligations, mutual commitments – the kind of relations that genuinely free people could make with one another – tend to be subsumed into a conception of "society" where we are all equal only as absolute debtors before the (now invisible) figure of the king, who stands in for your mother, and by extension, humanity.
What I am suggesting, then, is that while the claims of the impersonal market and the claims of "society" are often juxtaposed – and certainly have had a tendency to jockey back and forth in all sorts of practical ways – they are both ultimately founded on a very similar logic of violence. Neither is this a mere matter of historical origins that can be brushed away as inconsequential: neither states nor markets can exist without the constant threat of force.
One might ask, then, what is the alternative?
Towards a history of virtual money
Here I can return to my original point: that money did not originally appear in this cold, metal, impersonal form. It originally appears in the form of a measure, an abstraction, but also as a relation (of debt and obligation) between human beings. It is important to note that historically it is commodity money that has always been most directly linked to violence. As one historian put it, "bullion is the accessory of war, and not of peaceful trade."[1]
The reason is simple. Commodity money, particularly in the form of gold and silver, is distinguished from credit money most of all by one spectacular feature: it can be stolen. Since an ingot of gold or silver is an object without a pedigree, throughout much of history bullion has served the same role as the contemporary drug dealer's suitcase full of dollar bills, as an object without a history that will be accepted in exchange for other valuables just about anywhere, with no questions asked. As a result, one can see the last 5 000 years of human history as the history of a kind of alternation. Credit systems seem to arise, and to become dominant, in periods of relative social peace, across networks of trust, whether created by states or, in most periods, transnational institutions, whilst precious metals replace them in periods characterised by widespread plunder. Predatory lending systems certainly exist at every period, but they seem to have had the most damaging effects in periods when money was most easily convertible into cash.
So as a starting point to any attempt to discern the great rhythms that define the current historical moment, let me propose the following breakdown of Eurasian history according to the alternation between periods of virtual and metal money:
I. Age of the First Agrarian Empires (3500-800 BCE). Dominant money form: Virtual credit money
Our best information on the origins of money goes back to ancient Mesopotamia, but there seems no particular reason to believe matters were radically different in Pharaonic Egypt, Bronze Age China, or the Indus Valley. The Mesopotamian economy was dominated by large public institutions (Temples and Palaces) whose bureaucratic administrators effectively created money of account by establishing a fixed equivalent between silver and the staple crop, barley. Debts were calculated in silver, but silver was rarely used in transactions. Instead, payments were made in barley or in anything else that happened to be handy and acceptable. Major debts were recorded on cuneiform tablets kept as sureties by both parties to the transaction.
Certainly, markets did exist. Prices of certain commodities that were not produced within Temple or Palace holdings, and thus not subject to administered price schedules, would tend to fluctuate according to the vagaries of supply and demand. But most actual acts of everyday buying and selling, particularly those that were not carried out between absolute strangers, appear to have been made on credit. "Ale women", or local innkeepers, served beer, for example, and often rented rooms; customers ran up a tab; normally, the full sum was dispatched at harvest time. Market vendors presumably acted as they do in small-scale markets in Africa, or Central Asia, today, building up lists of trustworthy clients to whom they could extend credit. The habit of money at interest also originates in Sumer – it remained unknown, for example, in Egypt. Interest rates, fixed at 20 percent, remained stable for 2,000 years. (This was not a sign of government control of the market: at this stage, institutions like this were what made markets possible.) This, however, led to some serious social problems. In years with bad harvests especially, peasants would start becoming hopelessly indebted to the rich, and would have to surrender their farms and, ultimately, family members, in debt bondage. Gradually, this condition seems to have come to a social crisis – not so much leading to popular uprisings, but to common people abandoning the cities and settled territory entirely and becoming semi-nomadic "bandits" and raiders. It soon became traditional for each new ruler to wipe the slate clean, cancel all debts, and declare a general amnesty or "freedom", so that all bonded labourers could return to their families. (It is significant here that the first word for "freedom" known in any human language, the Sumerian amarga, literally means "return to mother".) Biblical prophets instituted a similar custom, the Jubilee, whereby after seven years all debts were similarly cancelled. This is the direct ancestor of the New Testament notion of "redemption". As economist Michael Hudson has pointed out, it seems one of the misfortunes of world history that the institution of lending money at interest disseminated out of Mesopotamia without, for the most part, being accompanied by its original checks and balances.
II. Axial Age (800 BCE – 600 CE). Dominant money form: Coinage and metal bullion
This was the age that saw the emergence of coinage, as well as the birth, in China, India and the Middle East, of all major world religions.[2] From the Warring States period in China, to fragmentation in India, and to the carnage and mass enslavement that accompanied the expansion (and later, dissolution) of the Roman Empire, it was a period of spectacular creativity throughout most of the world, but of almost equally spectacular violence. Coinage, which allowed for the actual use of gold and silver as a medium of exchange, also made possible the creation of markets in the now more familiar, impersonal sense of the term. Precious metals were also far more appropriate for an age of generalised warfare, for the obvious reason that they could be stolen. Coinage, certainly, was not invented to facilitate trade (the Phoenicians, consummate traders of the ancient world, were among the last to adopt it). It appears to have been first invented to pay soldiers, probably first of all by rulers of Lydia in Asia Minor to pay their Greek mercenaries. Carthage, another great trading nation, only started minting coins very late, and then explicitly to pay its foreign soldiers.
Throughout antiquity one can continue to speak of what Geoffrey Ingham has dubbed the "military-coinage complex". He may have been better to call it a "military-coinage-slavery complex", since the diffusion of new military technologies (Greek hoplites, Roman legions) was always closely tied to the capture and marketing of slaves. The other major source of slaves was debt: now that states no longer periodically wiped the slates clean, those not lucky enough to be citizens of the major military city-states – who were generally protected from predatory lenders – were fair game. The credit systems of the Near East did not crumble under commercial competition; they were destroyed by Alexander's armies – armies that required half a ton of silver bullion per day in wages. The mines where the bullion was produced were generally worked by slaves. Military campaigns in turn ensured an endless flow of new slaves. Imperial tax systems, as noted, were largely designed to force their subjects to create markets, so that soldiers (and also, of course, government officials) would be able to use that bullion to buy anything they wanted. The kind of impersonal markets that once tended to spring up between societies, or at the fringes of military operations, now began to permeate society as a whole.
However tawdry their origins, the creation of new media of exchange – coinage appeared almost simultaneously in Greece, India, and China – appears to have had profound intellectual effects. Some have even gone so far as to argue that Greek philosophy was itself made possible by conceptual innovations introduced by coinage. The most remarkable pattern, though, is the emergence, in almost the exact times and places where one also sees the early spread of coinage, of what were to become modern world religions: prophetic Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Taoism, and eventually, Islam. While the precise links are yet to be fully explored, in certain ways, these religions appear to have arisen in direct reaction to the logic of the market. To put the matter somewhat crudely: if one relegates a certain social space simply to the selfish acquisition of material things, it is almost inevitable that soon someone else will come to set aside another domain in which to preach that, from the perspective of ultimate values, material things are unimportant, and selfishness – or even the self – illusory.
III. The Middle Ages (600 CE – 1500 CE). The return to virtual credit money
If the Axial Age saw the emergence of complementary ideals of commodity markets and universal world religions, the Middle Ages[3] were the period in which those two institutions began to merge. Religions began to take over the market systems. Everything from international trade to the organisation of local fairs increasingly came to be carried out through social networks defined and regulated by religious authorities. This enabled, in turn, the return throughout Eurasia of various forms of virtual credit money.
In Europe, where all this took place under the aegis of Christendom, coinage was only sporadically, and unevenly, available. Prices after 800 AD were calculated largely in terms of an old Carolingian currency that no longer existed (it was actually referred to at the time as "imaginary money"), but ordinary day-to-day buying and selling was carried out mainly through other means. One common expedient, for example, was the use of tally-sticks, notched pieces of wood that were broken in two as records of debt, with half being kept by the creditor, half by the debtor. Such tally-sticks were still in common use in much of England well into the 16th century. Larger transactions were handled through bills of exchange, with the great commercial fairs serving as their clearing houses. The Church, meanwhile, provided a legal framework, enforcing strict controls on the lending of money at interest and prohibitions on debt bondage.
The real nerve centre of the Medieval world economy, though, was the Indian Ocean, which along with the Central Asia caravan routes connected the great civilisations of India, China, and the Middle East. Here, trade was conducted through the framework of Islam, which not only provided a legal structure highly conducive to mercantile activities (while absolutely forbidding the lending of money at interest), but allowed for peaceful relations between merchants over a remarkably large part of the globe, allowing the creation of a variety of sophisticated credit instruments. Actually, Western Europe was, as in so many things, a relative late-comer in this regard: most of the financial innovations that reached Italy and France in the 11th and 12th centuries had been in common use in Egypt or Iraq since the 8th or 9th centuries. The word "cheque", for example, derives from the Arab sakk, and appeared in English only around 1220 AD.
The case of China is even more complicated: the Middle Ages there began with the rapid spread of Buddhism, which, while it was in no position to enact laws or regulate commerce, did quickly move against local usurers by its invention of the pawn shop – the first pawn shops being based in Buddhist temples as a way of offering poor farmers an alternative to the local usurer. Before long, though, the state reasserted itself, as the state always tends to do in China. But as it did so, it not only regulated interest rates and attempted to abolish debt peonage, it moved away from bullion entirely by inventing paper money. All this was accompanied by the development, again, of a variety of complex financial instruments.
All this is not to say that this period did not see its share of carnage and plunder (particularly during the great nomadic invasions) or that coinage was not, in many times and places, an important medium of exchange. Still, what really characterises the period appears to be a movement in the other direction. Most of the Medieval period saw money largely delinked from coercive institutions. Money changers, one might say, were invited back into the temples, where they could be monitored. The result was a flowering of institutions premised on a much higher degree of social trust."
IV. Age of European Empires (1500-1971). The return of precious metals
With the advent of the great European empires – Iberian, then North Atlantic – the world saw both a reversion to mass enslavement, plunder, and wars of destruction, and the consequent rapid return of gold and silver bullion as the main form of currency. Historical investigation will probably end up demonstrating that the origins of these transformations were more complicated than we ordinarily assume. Some of this was beginning to happen even before the conquest of the New World. One of the main factors of the movement back to bullion, for example, was the emergence of popular movements during the early Ming dynasty, in the 15th and 16th centuries, that ultimately forced the government to abandon not only paper money but any attempt to impose its own currency. This led to the reversion of the vast Chinese market to an uncoined silver standard. Since taxes were also gradually commuted into silver, it soon became the more or less official Chinese policy to try to bring as much silver into the country as possible, so as to keep taxes low and prevent new outbreaks of social unrest. The sudden enormous demand for silver had effects across the globe. Most of the precious metals looted by the conquistadors and later extracted by the Spanish from the mines of Mexico and Potosi (at almost unimaginable cost in human lives) ended up in China. These global scale connections that eventually developed across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans have of course been documented in great detail. The crucial point is that the delinking of money from religious institutions, and its relinking with coercive ones (especially the state), was here accompanied by an ideological reversion to "metallism".[4]
Credit, in this context, was on the whole an affair of states that were themselves run largely by deficit financing, a form of credit which was, in turn, invented to finance increasingly expensive wars. Internationally the British Empire was steadfast in maintaining the gold standard through the 19th and early 20th centuries, and great political battles were fought in the United States over whether the gold or silver standard should prevail.
This was also, obviously, the period of the rise of capitalism, the industrial revolution, representative democracy, and so on. What I am trying to do here is not to deny their importance, but to provide a framework for seeing such familiar events in a less familiar context. It makes it easier, for instance, to detect the ties between war, capitalism, and slavery. The institution of wage labour, for instance, has historically emerged from within that of slavery (the earliest wage contracts we know of, from Greece to the Malay city states, were actually slave rentals), and it has also tended, historically, to be intimately tied to various forms of debt peonage – as indeed it remains today. The fact that we have cast such institutions in a language of freedom does not mean that what we now think of as economic freedom does not ultimately rest on a logic that has for most of human history been considered the very essence of slavery.
Current Era (1971 onwards). The empire of debt
The current era might be said to have been initiated on 15 August 1971, when US President Richard Nixon officially suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold and effectively created the current floating currency regimes. We have returned, at any rate, to an age of virtual money, in which consumer purchases in wealthy countries rarely involve even paper money, and national economies are driven largely by consumer debt. It's in this context that we can talk about the "financialisation" of capital, whereby speculation in currencies and financial instruments becomes a domain unto itself, detached from any immediate relation with production or even commerce. This is of course the sector that has entered into crisis today.
What can we say for certain about this new era? So far, very, very little. Thirty or forty years is nothing in terms of the scale we have been dealing with. Clearly, this period has only just begun. Still, the foregoing analysis, however crude, does allow us to begin to make some informed suggestions.
Historically, as we have seen, ages of virtual, credit money have also involved creating some sort of overarching institutions – Mesopotamian sacred kingship, Mosaic jubilees, Sharia or Canon Law – that place some sort of controls on the potentially catastrophic social consequences of debt. Almost invariably, they involve institutions (usually not strictly coincident to the state, usually larger) to protect debtors. So far the movement this time has been the other way around: starting with the '80s we have begun to see the creation of the first effective planetary administrative system, operating through the IMF, World Bank, corporations and other financial institutions, largely in order to protect the interests of creditors. However, this apparatus was very quickly thrown into crisis, first by the very rapid development of global social movements (the alter-globalisation movement), which effectively destroyed the moral authority of institutions like the IMF and left many of them very close to bankrupt, and now by the current banking crisis and global economic collapse. While the new age of virtual money has only just begun and the long-term consequences are as yet entirely unclear, we can already say one or two things. The first is that a movement towards virtual money is not in itself, necessarily, an insidious effect of capitalism. In fact, it might well mean exactly the opposite. For much of human history, systems of virtual money were designed and regulated to ensure that nothing like capitalism could ever emerge to begin with – at least not as it appears in its present form, with most of the world's population placed in a condition that would in many other periods of history be considered tantamount to slavery. The second point is to underline the absolutely crucial role of violence in defining the very terms by which we imagine both "society" and "markets" – in fact, many of our most elementary ideas of freedom. A world less entirely pervaded by violence would rapidly begin to develop other institutions. Finally, thinking about debt outside the twin intellectual straitjackets of state and market opens up exciting possibilities. For instance, we can ask: in a society in which that foundation of violence had finally been yanked away, what exactly would free men and women owe each other? What sort of promises and commitments should they make to each other?
Let us hope that everyone will someday be in a position to start asking such questions. At times like this, you never know.
[1] Geoffrey W. Gardiner, "The Primacy of Trade Debts in the Development of Money", in Randall Wray (ed.), Credit and State Theories of Money: The Contributions of A. Mitchell Innes, Cheltenham: Elgar, 2004, p.134.
[2] The phrase the "Axial Age" was originally coined by Karl Jaspers to describe the relatively brief period between 800 BCE – 200 BCE in which, he believed, just about all the main philosophical traditions we are familiar with today arose simultaneously in China, India, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Here, I am using it in Lewis Mumford's more expansive use of the term as the period that saw the birth of all existing world religions, stretching roughly from the time of Zoroaster to that of Mohammed.
[3] I am here relegating most of what is generally referred to as the "Dark Ages" in Europe into the earlier period, characterised by predatory militarism and the consequent importance of bullion: the Viking raids, and the famous extraction of danegeld from England in the 800s, might be seen as one the last manifestations of an age where predatory militarism went hand and hand with hoards of gold and silver bullion.
[4] The myth of barter and commodity theories of money was of course developed in this period.
Published 2009-08-20
Original in English
First published in Mute 12 (2009)
Contributed by Mute
© David Graeber/Mute
© Eurozine
Q&A: Michael Moore
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/features/interviews_profiles/e3i85f38c299a3a459a9f350da8eb4a3674
Q&A: Michael Moore
By Matthew Belloni
Aug 18, 2009
Since bursting onto the documentary scene 20 years ago with "Roger & Me," a blistering critique of General Motors, Michael Moore has directed the highest-grossing documentary of all time (2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11") and become a professional populist provocateur. The Flint, Mich., native is now busy finishing "Capitalism: A Love Story," his take on the U.S. financial crisis, which will premiere next month at the Venice and Toronto film festivals ahead of its wide release Oct. 2.
The Hollywood Reporter: Your new film was announced in May 2008 as a follow-up to "Fahrenheit 9/11" that would look at America's role in the world. Then the economy tanked. Do you feel pressure to make movies that respond to the zeitgeist?
Michael Moore: That was our cover. From the spring of '08, we were always doing a film about capitalism and corporate America. But, as you've seen from the recent revelations about the health insurance industry's secret campaign to attack my last film (2007's "Sicko"), I have to be extremely dodgy in order to outsmart these corporate guys. I had no way of knowing in May of 2008 that the economy would crash four months later. We were right in the middle of this Wall Street movie when it happened.
THR: The conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that in tough economic times, moviegoers want an escape. Is there a big audience for a film that looks at the financial crisis?
Moore: I have no doubts that people will want to come to a movie that goes after, with humor and reckless abandon, those bastards who've made their lives miserable. They deserve a night out at the movies where the movie is on their side.
THR: Given your history with "Roger & Me," what was your reaction to the initial bailout of GM, its subsequent bankruptcy and the firing of CEO Rick Wagoner?
Moore: All my films, in one way or another, speak to my experience of growing up in the hometown of General Motors. As for GM's demise, I tried to warn people about that some 20 years ago. Nothing made me happier than seeing President Obama fire the head of GM. It was every Flint boy's dream come true. They arrogantly kept making lousy cars that few people wanted to drive. They fought every safety measure from mandatory turn signals to controls that would protect the melting of our polar ice caps. They fired tens of thousands of people over the years for the short-term benefit of making their balance sheet appear to be in profit. That was a fraud of major proportions, and to date, no one has yet to go to prison.
THR: You supported President Obama in the election. How do you grade his response to the financial crisis and the health care issue? How about congressional Democrats?
Moore: I'm still in a stupor of stunned ecstasy that Obama won. And I approve of most everything he's done, from apologizing to the Iranians for America overthrowing their democratically elected president in 1953 to appointing Kumar (actor Kal Penn of the "Harold and Kumar" movies) to a White House position. He is doing the best he can with the mess he inherited, and I and millions of others are counting on him never to forget that he came from the working class and that his people need him now more than ever. As for the congressional Democrats, what a bunch of losers -- weak, scared, stupid. They had better get a clue pretty quick or the Dark Forces will return.
THR: Bill Maher recently said that "America is stupid" and "too dumb to be governed." Do you agree?
Moore: Eight years ago I wrote a book called "Stupid White Men." In that book, I wrote a chapter entitled "Idiot Nation." I think that says it all. Sad, sad, sad.
THR: Have you ever considered leaving the U.S.?
Moore: Thank you for asking! I had never considered this idea until you mentioned it, and now that you have, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea! I guess if I were going to live outside the U.S., I would live in Texas.
THR: What's the No. 1 thing you want to teach your kids?
Moore: Never trust anyone from Texas.
THR: In your opinion, what's the single worst legacy of George W. Bush?
Moore: That he has yet to be arrested for committing the worst crime the leader of a nation can commit: lie to the people and convince them to invade another country and kill its people with absolutely no provocation. There are 8,662 parents who might better answer this question.
THR: Your films are big boxoffice draws, and you won an Oscar for 2002's "Bowling for Columbine," but you've always been considered an outsider to the entertainment community. Do you like Hollywood?
Moore: Yes. I've met only very nice people out here, and if I wouldn't miss the 20-below winters, I'd live here for sure.
THR: What's the last movie you saw? The last book you read?
Moore: A Norwegian film called "Troubled Water." Best drama I've seen this year. The last book was "The Coming Insurrection" (a French leftist call-to-arms manifesto that has been labeled a "manual for terrorism" by the French government). I'm also reading the daily newspaper religiously, considering how there won't be any to read a year from now.
THR: There were reports you were feuding with Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who executive produced "Fahrenheit," "Sicko" and "Capitalism." Will you work with them again?
Moore: In 20 years of knowing the brothers, I have had only one fight with them, and that was over who would get the last cannoli.
Q&A: Michael Moore
By Matthew Belloni
Aug 18, 2009
Since bursting onto the documentary scene 20 years ago with "Roger & Me," a blistering critique of General Motors, Michael Moore has directed the highest-grossing documentary of all time (2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11") and become a professional populist provocateur. The Flint, Mich., native is now busy finishing "Capitalism: A Love Story," his take on the U.S. financial crisis, which will premiere next month at the Venice and Toronto film festivals ahead of its wide release Oct. 2.
The Hollywood Reporter: Your new film was announced in May 2008 as a follow-up to "Fahrenheit 9/11" that would look at America's role in the world. Then the economy tanked. Do you feel pressure to make movies that respond to the zeitgeist?
Michael Moore: That was our cover. From the spring of '08, we were always doing a film about capitalism and corporate America. But, as you've seen from the recent revelations about the health insurance industry's secret campaign to attack my last film (2007's "Sicko"), I have to be extremely dodgy in order to outsmart these corporate guys. I had no way of knowing in May of 2008 that the economy would crash four months later. We were right in the middle of this Wall Street movie when it happened.
THR: The conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that in tough economic times, moviegoers want an escape. Is there a big audience for a film that looks at the financial crisis?
Moore: I have no doubts that people will want to come to a movie that goes after, with humor and reckless abandon, those bastards who've made their lives miserable. They deserve a night out at the movies where the movie is on their side.
THR: Given your history with "Roger & Me," what was your reaction to the initial bailout of GM, its subsequent bankruptcy and the firing of CEO Rick Wagoner?
Moore: All my films, in one way or another, speak to my experience of growing up in the hometown of General Motors. As for GM's demise, I tried to warn people about that some 20 years ago. Nothing made me happier than seeing President Obama fire the head of GM. It was every Flint boy's dream come true. They arrogantly kept making lousy cars that few people wanted to drive. They fought every safety measure from mandatory turn signals to controls that would protect the melting of our polar ice caps. They fired tens of thousands of people over the years for the short-term benefit of making their balance sheet appear to be in profit. That was a fraud of major proportions, and to date, no one has yet to go to prison.
THR: You supported President Obama in the election. How do you grade his response to the financial crisis and the health care issue? How about congressional Democrats?
Moore: I'm still in a stupor of stunned ecstasy that Obama won. And I approve of most everything he's done, from apologizing to the Iranians for America overthrowing their democratically elected president in 1953 to appointing Kumar (actor Kal Penn of the "Harold and Kumar" movies) to a White House position. He is doing the best he can with the mess he inherited, and I and millions of others are counting on him never to forget that he came from the working class and that his people need him now more than ever. As for the congressional Democrats, what a bunch of losers -- weak, scared, stupid. They had better get a clue pretty quick or the Dark Forces will return.
THR: Bill Maher recently said that "America is stupid" and "too dumb to be governed." Do you agree?
Moore: Eight years ago I wrote a book called "Stupid White Men." In that book, I wrote a chapter entitled "Idiot Nation." I think that says it all. Sad, sad, sad.
THR: Have you ever considered leaving the U.S.?
Moore: Thank you for asking! I had never considered this idea until you mentioned it, and now that you have, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea! I guess if I were going to live outside the U.S., I would live in Texas.
THR: What's the No. 1 thing you want to teach your kids?
Moore: Never trust anyone from Texas.
THR: In your opinion, what's the single worst legacy of George W. Bush?
Moore: That he has yet to be arrested for committing the worst crime the leader of a nation can commit: lie to the people and convince them to invade another country and kill its people with absolutely no provocation. There are 8,662 parents who might better answer this question.
THR: Your films are big boxoffice draws, and you won an Oscar for 2002's "Bowling for Columbine," but you've always been considered an outsider to the entertainment community. Do you like Hollywood?
Moore: Yes. I've met only very nice people out here, and if I wouldn't miss the 20-below winters, I'd live here for sure.
THR: What's the last movie you saw? The last book you read?
Moore: A Norwegian film called "Troubled Water." Best drama I've seen this year. The last book was "The Coming Insurrection" (a French leftist call-to-arms manifesto that has been labeled a "manual for terrorism" by the French government). I'm also reading the daily newspaper religiously, considering how there won't be any to read a year from now.
THR: There were reports you were feuding with Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who executive produced "Fahrenheit," "Sicko" and "Capitalism." Will you work with them again?
Moore: In 20 years of knowing the brothers, I have had only one fight with them, and that was over who would get the last cannoli.
Tarantino's top 20 movies since Reservoir Dogs
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2009/08/quentin_tarantinos_top_20_movi.html
Quentin Tarantino's top 20 movies since Reservoir Dogs
By Jim Emersonon
August 20, 2009
A predictably eclectic list of QT's favorite films that have been made since he started directing in 1992. I mean, who else would even do something like this? The guy demonstrates again and again that he lives and breathes movies. One of my own fondest moviegoing experiences was in 1992 or 1993 when (drop, names, drop!) QT took Julia Sweeney, Kathy Griffin and a few others (David Cross? Janeane Garofalo? Phil LaMarr? Margaret Cho? I can't remember who all was there that day...) and me to see Jackie Chan in "Supercop" (aka "Police Story 3") at the Laemmle in Santa Monica. It was my first Jackie Chan movie and I was blown away (as any Buster Keaton devotee would be). I'm forever grateful -- and happy to see that movie on his list, along with some of my personal faves, including "Boogie Nights," "Dazed and Confused," "Fight Club," "The Insider," "Shaun of the Dead," "Memories of Murder," "The Host," "Unbreakable" and... you just have to see him deliver it himself.
Battle Royale
Anything Else
Audition
Tsui Hark's The Blade
Boogie Nights
Dazed & Confused
Dogville
Fight Club
Fridays
The Host
The Insider
Joint Security Area
Lost In Translation
The Matrix
Memories of Murder
Supercop (Police Story 3)
Shaun of the Dead
Speed
Team America: World Police
Unbreakable
Quentin Tarantino's top 20 movies since Reservoir Dogs
By Jim Emersonon
August 20, 2009
A predictably eclectic list of QT's favorite films that have been made since he started directing in 1992. I mean, who else would even do something like this? The guy demonstrates again and again that he lives and breathes movies. One of my own fondest moviegoing experiences was in 1992 or 1993 when (drop, names, drop!) QT took Julia Sweeney, Kathy Griffin and a few others (David Cross? Janeane Garofalo? Phil LaMarr? Margaret Cho? I can't remember who all was there that day...) and me to see Jackie Chan in "Supercop" (aka "Police Story 3") at the Laemmle in Santa Monica. It was my first Jackie Chan movie and I was blown away (as any Buster Keaton devotee would be). I'm forever grateful -- and happy to see that movie on his list, along with some of my personal faves, including "Boogie Nights," "Dazed and Confused," "Fight Club," "The Insider," "Shaun of the Dead," "Memories of Murder," "The Host," "Unbreakable" and... you just have to see him deliver it himself.
Battle Royale
Anything Else
Audition
Tsui Hark's The Blade
Boogie Nights
Dazed & Confused
Dogville
Fight Club
Fridays
The Host
The Insider
Joint Security Area
Lost In Translation
The Matrix
Memories of Murder
Supercop (Police Story 3)
Shaun of the Dead
Speed
Team America: World Police
Unbreakable
Inglourious Basterds
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090819/REVIEWS/908199995Inglourious Basterds (R)
August 19, 2009
Cast & Credits
Lt. Aldo Raine Brad Pitt
Shosanna Melanie Laurent
Col. Hans Landa Christoph Waltz
Sgt. Donny Donowitz Eli Roth
Lt. Archie Hicox Michael Fassbender
Bridget von Hammersmark Diane Kruger
Fredrick Zoller Daniel Bruhl
Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz Til Schweiger
Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki Gedeon Burkhard
Marcel Jacky Ido
Pfc. Smithson Utivich B.J. Novak
Pfc. Omar Ulmer Omar Doom
Major Hellstrom August Diehl
Perrier Lapadite Denis Menochet
Joseph Goebbels Sylvester Groth
Hitler Martin Wuttke
General Ed Fenech Mike Myers
Francesca Mondino Julie Dreyfus
Sgt. Rachtman Richard Samuel
Master Sgt. Wilhelm/Pola Negri Alexander Fehling
Winston Churchill Rod Taylor
The Weinstein Company presents a film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Running time: 152 minutes. MPAA rating: R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality.
by Roger Ebert
Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” is a big, bold, audacious war movie that will annoy some, startle others and demonstrate once again that he’s the real thing, a director of quixotic delights. For starters (and at this late stage after the premiere in May at Cannes, I don’t believe I’m spoiling anything), he provides World War II with a much-needed alternative ending. For once the basterds get what’s coming to them.
From the title, ripped off from a 1978 B-movie, to the Western sound of the Ennio Morricone opening music to the key location, a movie theater, the film embeds Tarantino’s love of the movies. The deep, rich colors of 35mm film provide tactile pleasure. A character at the beginning and end, not seen in between, brings the story full circle. The “basterds” themselves, savage fighters dropped behind Nazi lines, are an unmistakable nod to the Dirty Dozen.
And above all, there are three iconic characters, drawn broadly and with love: the Hero, the Nazi and the Girl. These three, played by Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and Melanie Laurent, are seen with that Tarantino knack of taking a character and making it a Character, definitive, larger than life, approaching satire in its intensity but not — quite — going that far. Let’s say they feel bigger than most of the people we meet in movies.
The story begins in Nazi-occupied France, early in the war, when the cruel, droll Nazi Col. Hans Landa (Waltz) arrives at an isolated dairy farm where he believes the farmer (Denis Menochet) is hiding Jews. He’s right, and a young woman named Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) flees into the woods. It is for this scene, and his performance throughout the movie, that Christoph Waltz deserves an Oscar nomination to go with his best actor award from Cannes. He creates a character unlike any Nazi — indeed, anyone at all — I’ve seen in a movie: evil, sardonic, ironic, mannered, absurd.
The Hero is Brad Pitt, as Lt. Aldo Raine, leader of the Basterds. Tarantino probably wants us to hear “Aldo Ray,” star of countless war films and B pictures. Raine is played by Pitt as a broad caricature of a hard-talking Southern boy who wants each of his men to bring him 100 Nazi scalps. For years, his band improbably survives in France and massacres Nazis, and can turn out in formal eveningwear at a moment’s notice. Pitt’s version of Italian is worthy of a Marx brother.
The Girl is Shosanna, played by Laurent as a curvy siren with red lipstick and, at the film’s end, a slinky red dress. Tarantino photographs her with the absorption of a fetishist, with closeups of shoes, lips, a facial veil and details of body and dress. You can’t tell me he hasn’t seen the work of the Scottish artist Jack Vettriano, and his noir paintings of the cigarette-smoking ladies in red.
Shosanna calculatingly flirts with Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), a Nazi war hero and now movie star; he persuades Joseph Goebbels to hold the premiere of his new war film in her theater. This sets up a plot that includes Tarantino breaking several rules in order to provide documentary footage about how flammable nitrate film prints are.
A Tarantino film resists categorization. “Inglourious Basterds” is no more about war than “Pulp Fiction” is about — what the hell is it about? Of course nothing in the movie is possible, except that it’s so bloody entertaining. His actors don’t chew the scenery, but they lick it. He’s a master at bringing performances as far as they can go toward iconographic exaggeration.
After I saw “Inglourious Basterds” at Cannes, although I was writing a daily blog, I resisted giving an immediate opinion about it. I knew Tarantino had made a considerable film, but I wanted it to settle, and to see it again. I’m glad I did. Like a lot of real movies, you relish it more the next time. Immediately after “Pulp Fiction” played at Cannes, QT asked me what I thought. “It’s either the best film of the year or the worst film,” I said. I hardly knew what the hell had happened to me. The answer was: the best film. Tarantino films have a way of growing on you. It’s not enough to see them once.
Propofol Killed Michael Jackson
http://www.popeater.com/2009/08/24/documents-propofol-killed-michael-jackson/
Propofol Killed Michael Jackson; Death Reportedly Ruled a Homicide
Monday 24 August
Lethal doses of the powerful anesthetic propofol caused the death of Michael Jackson, according to newly unsealed legal documents. Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray said the King of Pop Jackson was suffering from insomnia, and that he had been giving Jackson 50 milligrams of propofol nightly.
Also, an Associated Press source says the Los Angeles County coroner has ruled Jackson's death a homicide.
The Jackson family released a statement Monday afternoon commending the authorities on their hard work. "The Jackson family has full confidence in the legal process, and commends the ongoing efforts of the L.A. County Coroner, the L.A. District Attorney and the L.A. Police Department," the statement said. "The family looks forward to the day that justice can be served."
Murray, who has been at the center of the investigation into Jackson's death, says he dropped the dosage because he feared Jackson was forming an addiction.
He then gave Jackson 25 milligrams of propofol mixed with other sedatives. On June 25, Murray says he gave Jackson valium, lorazepam, midazolam and other drugs. When Jackson still wasn't able to sleep, Murray gave him 25 milligrams of Propofol after Jackson demanded it.
According to the unsealed documents, Murray told police that Jackson was medicated when he left to make phone calls to family members, but was not breathing upon his return. He performed CPR on Jackson, who was rushed to UCLA Medical Center where he was declared dead.
An Associated Press law enforcement claims the death has already been ruled a homicide, reporting the coroner determined a fatal combination of drugs was given to Jackson, causing his death. The AP reports that Murray is already the target of a manslaughter investigation by the LAPD.
According to TMZ, Murray reported Jackson wasn't breathing at around 11 AM, but a 911 call wasn't made until 12:21. Murray made 3 separate calls from 11:18 to 12:05 according to the documents. Murray also refused to sign the death certificate at the UCLA Medical Center, TMZ is reporting.
Authorities said they could find no evidence that Murray ordered or obtained the drugs under his medical license or DEA tracking number. Police did spot at least eight bottles of propofol in the house along with other prescription drugs prescribed to Jackson by Dr. Murray, Dr. Arnold Klein and Dr. Allan Metzger.
Other drugs confiscated in the search of Jackson's house include Clonazepam, Lorazepam, Lorazepam, Tamsulosin, Temazepam, Tizanidine, Trazodone and Valium.
The investigation of Murray's involvement has focused on whether he was negligent in giving Jackson the drug to Jackson outside a hospital setting and whether that justifies an involuntary manslaughter charge.
Last week, Murray released a video in which he claimed he "told the truth and I have faith the truth will prevail."
Propofol Killed Michael Jackson; Death Reportedly Ruled a Homicide
Monday 24 August
Lethal doses of the powerful anesthetic propofol caused the death of Michael Jackson, according to newly unsealed legal documents. Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray said the King of Pop Jackson was suffering from insomnia, and that he had been giving Jackson 50 milligrams of propofol nightly.
Also, an Associated Press source says the Los Angeles County coroner has ruled Jackson's death a homicide.
The Jackson family released a statement Monday afternoon commending the authorities on their hard work. "The Jackson family has full confidence in the legal process, and commends the ongoing efforts of the L.A. County Coroner, the L.A. District Attorney and the L.A. Police Department," the statement said. "The family looks forward to the day that justice can be served."
Murray, who has been at the center of the investigation into Jackson's death, says he dropped the dosage because he feared Jackson was forming an addiction.
He then gave Jackson 25 milligrams of propofol mixed with other sedatives. On June 25, Murray says he gave Jackson valium, lorazepam, midazolam and other drugs. When Jackson still wasn't able to sleep, Murray gave him 25 milligrams of Propofol after Jackson demanded it.
According to the unsealed documents, Murray told police that Jackson was medicated when he left to make phone calls to family members, but was not breathing upon his return. He performed CPR on Jackson, who was rushed to UCLA Medical Center where he was declared dead.
An Associated Press law enforcement claims the death has already been ruled a homicide, reporting the coroner determined a fatal combination of drugs was given to Jackson, causing his death. The AP reports that Murray is already the target of a manslaughter investigation by the LAPD.
According to TMZ, Murray reported Jackson wasn't breathing at around 11 AM, but a 911 call wasn't made until 12:21. Murray made 3 separate calls from 11:18 to 12:05 according to the documents. Murray also refused to sign the death certificate at the UCLA Medical Center, TMZ is reporting.
Authorities said they could find no evidence that Murray ordered or obtained the drugs under his medical license or DEA tracking number. Police did spot at least eight bottles of propofol in the house along with other prescription drugs prescribed to Jackson by Dr. Murray, Dr. Arnold Klein and Dr. Allan Metzger.
Other drugs confiscated in the search of Jackson's house include Clonazepam, Lorazepam, Lorazepam, Tamsulosin, Temazepam, Tizanidine, Trazodone and Valium.
The investigation of Murray's involvement has focused on whether he was negligent in giving Jackson the drug to Jackson outside a hospital setting and whether that justifies an involuntary manslaughter charge.
Last week, Murray released a video in which he claimed he "told the truth and I have faith the truth will prevail."
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