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29 July 2006

Robert Newman's History of Oil

I don't think I can heap enough praise on this fantastic video of a stand-up comedy performance/history lesson. I promise you you'll be amazed and highly entertained. It's 45 minutes long and you won't want to miss a second of it.


For those that haven't seen it yet and for those that remember the cognitive dissonance that occurred in school when they told you that the first world war happened all because Franz Ferdinand happened to be assassinated, spend your last 45 minutes waiting for Iraq's WMD to land watching the pedal-powered History of Oil according to Robert Newman (the talented half of the Newman/Baddiel combo).



Edit: Embedded video link fixed and added tags.

28 July 2006

Blogging Beirut

Scribbles of incendiary hate, from Israel to Lebanon:

hitler youth #1


hitler youth #2

Blogging the bloody aftermath, from Beirut to the world.


political/factual:

art & literature:

Thanks to Beirut Update for putting the list together, and from whose blog the following inspiring comment is sourced:
Anonymous said...

(Charlie Chaplin's character): "Hope... I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish...

Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written " the kingdom of God is within man " - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah! look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.

The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up Hannah look up."

My prayers are with you and all the people in Lebenon and Palestine as well as Iraq who are being terrorized by governments who are supposedly "fighting terror"

My heart is heavy and my stomach sickened by injustice that is being commited.

If I could give you my strength I would.

I've taken up to much room as it is.

*The above quote is from Charlie Chaplins "The Great Dictator"

Save the Lebanese Civilians Petition
Do whatever you can; whatever you must.

It's the holiday season, ant bully

Ant Fact No. 7: While humans have only one stomach, the ant has TWO stomachs. One stomach holds the ant's personal food supply and the second stomach holds food to be shared with other ants.

Ants certainly stomach a lot!

As the extended summer holiday season begins, pair-ants will no doubt be on the look-out for something to keep their pupa(e) entertained. For the worker ant classes, here's a holiday activity for which no passport is required:

10 year old Lucas is the new kid on the block and the local bullies make sure he knows it. Tired of being a punching bag, Lucas takes out his frustration on the ants living in his lawn. But when the ants strike back, shrinking Lucas down to their size with a magic potion and forcing him to live like an ant with the colony, an astonishing new world opens up to him. Lucas learns first hand the value of friendship and teamwork, ultimately leading the ants in an effort to save their colony from annihilation and in the process, obtains the things he wants the most: friends, companionship, acceptance and the courage to stand up for himself.




"Everything in the colony is a team effort!"

25 July 2006

George Galloway's brief history of time

Courtesy of Davide Simonetti's The Nether World, here is a clip of Galloway's speech at the Stop The War march in London on the first anniversary of the extra-judicial, Mossad-style execution of Jean Charles de Menezes, which also just so happened to be the anniversary of more terrorism in a Zionist-stylee, some 60 years ago:
George Galloway gave a rousing speech. Love him or hate him he’s a great orator. I don’t agree with everything he said but he certainly illustrated the hypocrisy of the Israeli position by mentioning the glorifying of the bombing of the King David Hotel on its 60th anniversary by the current Israeli leadership.



Every action has an opposite and equal reaction and, as the true nature of the beast reveals itself, nobody can fail to see it for what it really is.

19 July 2006

"Israel is a mistake"

How's that for a headline in the Washington Post? Via Rolled-Up Trousers, and how is the following for the opening paragraph, of the article that followed:
The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now.


Pretty controversial indeed.

An honest, well-intentioned mistake, for which nobody is culpable.

14 July 2006

Lord Levy - Twisted Firestarter?

Follow the money and you'll find the perp. But the trouble with following the money is that money, like any other paper trail, burns.

Back in November 2005, well before police investigations began into New Labour treasurer, Lord Levy, his Marylebone offices were devastated by a mysterious fire.

On Wednesday of this week Lord Levy was arrested.

The same day two massive fires also broke out in London.

So remote are the chances of this occurring, the London Fire Brigade said it was "extraordinarily rare" to get two fires requiring 100 firefighters each, within the space of 24 hours.

One of the fires occurred at the Bow offices of Iron Mountain, the not-so-fine purveyors of 'Information Protection and Storage'. The building held "archived, inactive business records" but there was no mention of whose records. At the time it was reported that the building, in Twelvetrees Crescent, would be alight for two to three days.

This was the second of the two fires that occurred on the day Lord Levy was arrested.

The first happened much earlier at a building site in Colindale, North-West London, where two buildings blazed for hours. So large were the fires that roads were closed off and hundreds of local residents in the surrounding area were evacuated, including staff at the Hendon Police College.

Coincidentally enough, the other notable place that was evacuated as a result of the Colindale fire was the very police station to which Lord Levy had been taken for questioning by the plod after his arrest.

Levy was released on bail of £250,000, but who put up the cash? Who is the firestarter, the twisted firestarter? And how many coincidences does it take to constitute a conspiracy?

--
Update: Not only was this the second London fire in a day that required the attendance of over 100 fire-fighters, it was also the second fire to befall the Iron Mountain company in as many days, the previous one having occurred a day earlier in Ottawa, Canada. In his analysis of the two fires that hit Iron Mountain facilities, John Webster, writing for Computer World, wrote in summary:

However, there's another significant clue that points in a different direction. It turns out that the London facility contained the records of several prominent attorneys.

Here's my take: The two fires were in fact coincidental. One was an accident (Ottawa) and one was set (London). The London fire was set by a prominent socialite bent on destroying his recently late father's will -- one that did not include him.


Curiouser and curiouser.