The Doors vs Hardfloor vs Apocalypse Now, more on thesmokeeaters's channel
24 Feb 2012
The Eerie and Disturbing Similarities Between Rick Santorum and Satan
Satan rose to power after being cast out of Heaven. Rick Santorum has risen to power after being cast out of the Senate. But if you think the similarities stop there, think again, heathen!
Syria: the horror of Homs, a city at war
A French photojournalist reveals graphic pictures of what is happening to people in the under-siege e Syrian city of Homs.
23 Feb 2012
British doctors agreeing illegal abortions based on the sex of their unborn baby
Doctors at British clinics have been secretly filmed agreeing to terminate foetuses purely because they are either male or female. Clinicians admitted they were prepared to falsify paperwork to arrange the abortions even though it is illegal to conduct such “sex-selection” procedures.
The disclosures will add to growing concerns about the regulation of abortion clinics and the apparent ability of women to secure terminations “on demand”. The Daily Telegraph carried out an investigation into sex-selection abortions after concerns were raised that the procedures were becoming increasingly common for cultural and social reasons.
Would We Have Drugged Up Einstein? How Anti-Authoritarianism Is Deemed a Mental Health Problem
Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Evaluating the legitimacy of authorities includes assessing whether or not authorities actually know what they are talking about, are honest, and care about those people who are respecting their authority. And when anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority—sometimes aggressively and sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes wisely and sometimes not.
Some activists lament how few anti-authoritarians there appear to be in the United States. One reason could be that many natural anti-authoritarians are now psychopathologized and medicated before they achieve political consciousness of society’s most oppressive authorities.
Albert Einstein, as a youth, would have likely received an ADHD diagnosis, and maybe an ODD one as well. Albert didn't pay attention to his teachers, failed his college entrance examinations twice, and had difficulty holding jobs. However, Einstein biographer Ronald Clark (Einstein: The Life and Times) asserts that Albert's problems did not stem from attention deficits but rather from his hatred of authoritarian, Prussian discipline in his schools. Einstein said, “The teachers in the elementary school appeared to me like sergeants and in the Gymnasium the teachers were like lieutenants.” At age 13, Einstein read Kant's difficult Critique of Pure Reason—because he was interested in it. Clark also tells us Einstein refused to prepare himself for his college admissions as a rebellion against his father’s “unbearable” path of a “practical profession.” After he did enter college, one professor told Einstein, “You have one fault; one can’t tell you anything.” The very characteristics of Einstein that upset authorities so much were exactly the ones that allowed him to excel.
22 Feb 2012
Die Weiße Rose
The White Rose (German: die Weiße Rose) was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943, that called for active opposition to dictator Adolf Hitler's regime.
The six most recognized members of the group were arrested by the Gestapo and beheaded in 1943. The text of their sixth leaflet was smuggled by Helmuth James Graf von Moltke out of Germany through Scandinavia to the United Kingdom, and in July 1943 copies of it were dropped over Germany by Allied planes, retitled "The Manifesto of the Students of Munich."
Today, the members of the White Rose are honoured in Germany amongst its greatest heroes, since they opposed the Third Reich in the face of death.
On 18 February 1943, coincidentally the same day that Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels called on the German people to embrace total war in his Sportpalast speech, the Scholls brought a suitcase full of leaflets to the university. They hurriedly dropped stacks of copies in the empty corridors for students to find when they flooded out of lecture rooms. Leaving before the class break, the Scholls noticed that some copies remained in the suitcase and decided it would be a pity not to distribute them. They returned to the atrium and climbed the staircase to the top floor, and Sophie flung the last remaining leaflets into the air. This spontaneous action was observed by the custodian Jakob Schmid. The police were called and Hans and Sophie Scholl were taken into Gestapo custody. Sophie and Hans were interrogated by Gestapo interrogator Robert Mohr, who initially thought Sophie was innocent. However, after Hans confessed, Sophie assumed full responsibility in an attempt to protect other members of the White Rose. Despite this, the other active members were soon arrested, and the group and everyone associated with them were brought in for interrogation.
The Scholls and Probst were the first to stand trial before the Volksgerichtshof—the People's Court that tried political offenses against the Nazi German state—on 22 February 1943. They were found guilty of treason and Roland Freisler, head judge of the court, sentenced them to death. The three were execAuted the same day by guillotine at Stadelheim Prison. All three were noted for the courage with which they faced their deaths, particularly Sophie, who remained firm despite intense interrogation (however, reports that she arrived at the trial with a broken leg from torture are false). She said to Freisler during the trial, "You know as well as we do that the war is lost. Why are you so cowardly that you won't admit it?" When Hans was executed, he said "Let freedom live" as the blade fell.
President of Abkhazia Survives Assassination Attempt
Unidentified assassins tried on Wednesday to kill the president of Abkhazia, a Russian-backed rebel Georgian enclave, employing automatic rifles, grenade launchers and a powerful roadside bomb in an assault that raised fresh questions about Moscow’s ability to preserve order there.
The president, Aleksandr Z. Ankvab, survived the attack without injury, but at least one bodyguard died and two more were seriously wounded. It was the sixth attempt on Mr. Ankvab’s life in less than a decade, a testament to the volatility of the enclave, Abkhazia.
Reached by telephone at his office in Abkhazia’s capital, Mr. Ankvab’s voice was faint and shaky. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now, especially about this topic, ” he said, when asked about the assassination attempt.
The attack was likely to provoke new anxiety in Moscow, which has been struggling to damper recent political tremors in Abkhazia and another breakaway Georgian enclave, South Ossetia. After its war with Georgia in 2008, Russia defied international condemnation and recognized both regions as independent.
Journalists killed in Homs
Marie Colvin, the respected Sunday Times journalist, was killed today alongside French photojournalist Remi Ochlik in Syria.
The veteran correspondents were killed by a rocket as they fled the house they were staying in, which was hit during shelling in Homs, a witness told Reuters. Colvin, the only journalist from a British newspaper in the besieged city, had covered conflict for The Sunday Times for the past two decades. French government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse confirmed the deaths.
At least two other Western journalists, and seven activists were reported to have been injured after in excess of ten rockets hit the house. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was investigating reports that a British photographer was also injured in the incident.
Yesterday government troops heavily shelled the districts of Baba Amr, Khaldiyeh and Karm el-Zeytoun in Homs, which is considered to be a stronghold of resistance. Ochlik, the founder of the picture agency IP3 Press, was an award-winning photojournalist who covered events including the 2004 rioting in Haiti and last year’s Arab Spring.
Colvins last report on CNN yesterday:
21 Feb 2012
Homs, city of torture
In Bashar al-Assad's Syria, it is not just forbidden to speak, demonstrate and protest: it is also forbidden both to give medical treatment, and to receive treatment yourself. Since the beginning of the uprising, the regime has been waging a merciless war against any individual or institution capable of bringing medical aid to the victims of repression. "It's very dangerous to be a doctor or a pharmacist," a pharmacist from the Baba Amro neighbourhood of Homs tells me.
Medical personnel are imprisoned – like the nurse in the nearby district of al-Qusayr, arrested the day after he showed me around his hidden emergency-care centre, its carpets covered with plastic tarpaulins to protect them from blood – or killed, like Abdur Rahim Amir, the only doctor in that centre, murdered in cold blood in November by military security, while he sought to treat civilians wounded during the army's assault on Rastan to the north. Or tortured.
Meanwhile: Military Sends Tanks To Homs (HuffPost)
Election anger mounts in Senegal
Senegalese are continuing their protests against incumbent president Abdoulaye Wade's decision to seek a third term in office, erecting barricades and pelting police with rocks just days before a presidential election.
The state-owned news service confirmed the death on Monday of a young man in a suburb of the capital Dakar as demonstrations intensified, and the opposition said they would organise more protests.
Several people have been killed since the street clashes began late last month after Wade's candidacy was validated by the country's top legal body.
The 85-year-old Wade, who came to power in 2000, is insisting on running again, despite the deepening unrest and calls from both France, Senegal's former colonial master, and the US to hand power to the next generation.
Wade will face more than a dozen rivals in the election, including former allies Macky Sall and Idrissa Seck. A runoff will be held if no candidate wins more than half the total vote. "We will not give Abdoulaye Wade any rest until he understands that he can't run in these elections.," Tidiane Gadio, an opposition candidate, told Al Jazeera.
20 Feb 2012
Rick Santorum fabricates statistics about euthanasia
Rick Santorum fabricates statistics about euthanasia in the US and Netherlands, appears nostalgic for days when abortions "were in the shadows."
YouTube comments:
You have got to be kidding me. Dear Americans, I try very hard to take you seriously, but HOW exactly did this man become presidential candidate? Every single word he says is untrue.
And still americans wonder why everybody hates them.. I'll give you one tip, americans: stop giving mentally disturbed primates and religious billionaire psychopaths political power.
Richard Dawkins expresses disbelief over slave owner ancestor story
Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist, is used to criticism from those who do not share his views on religion or the origins of mankind. But he has expressed surprise at the latest attack, which claims the scientist faces awkward questions because some of his ancestors were slave owners.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that Henry Dawkins had amassed more than 1,000 slaves in Jamaica by the time of his death in 1744, and quoted campaigners calling on Dawkins to pay reparations. But Dawkins hit back on his blog, describing the interview and subsequent article as "surreal".
"At the end of a week of successfully rattling cages, I was ready for yet another smear or diversionary tactic of some kind," said Dawkins, who clashed on the BBC Today programme with Giles Fraser, formerly canon chancellor of St Paul's cathedral, on Tuesday. "But in my wildest dreams I couldn't have imagined the surreal form this one was to take."
19 Feb 2012
Olympic VIPs take fast lane leaving English patients at risk
Sick and vulnerable NHS patients will be left stranded in ambulances in traffic jams while dignitaries and sponsors race past in a fleet of expensive cars on specially designated lanes during the Olympics, healthcare providers fear.
Games organisers have been accused of risking people's health by banning the routine use by ambulances of the "Games lanes" introduced to ensure that VIPs can travel quickly to events. The decision to reject a request for access from NHS London, the capital's strategic health authority, has led to a storm of anger. Medical Services, an independent business that transports patients for the health service, and whose clients include the hospitals closest to the Olympic stadium, says it fears that the ill, including those on dialysis, will be trapped in vehicles as London suffers unprecedented congestion, with traffic on key routes expected to slow to a crawl.
The Games lanes comprise 30 miles of road in central London on which only the "Olympic family" will be allowed to travel – athletes, officials and sponsors, including Coca-Cola and McDonald's. BMW has donated 4,000 3 and 5 series cars to be used during the Games. Following consultation with the NHS, ambulances will be allowed to use the lanes when they have their blue lights on, but critics say there are many urgent journeys that cannot justify the use of blue lights. They can only be employed in a genuine emergency and those entitled to use them generally require special training.
Stand By Me
From the award-winning documentary, "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music", comes the first of many "songs around the world" being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it travelled the globe.
The Nazis, A Warning From History
Arguably one of the most important documentary series ever made, The Nazis: A Warning from History sets out to show that, far from being a uniquely German aberration, Nazism fed upon and was fostered by the prejudices and lemming-like inclinations of ordinary people. Although culminating with the atrocities of the Holocaust, these programmes are equally good on the motives of otherwise perfectly normal people, who needed only the tacit encouragement of the regime to perpetrate horrors against their enemies, their neighbours, or their own family.
18 Feb 2012
PowerPoint Shows Drone Industry’s Lobbying Plan To Expand Over Domestic, Law Enforcement Markets
Drones are mainly associated with the Predator airships that patrol the Afghanistan sky. But thanks to a bipartisan vote last week, the public can expect 30,000 domestic drones flying over the United States in the next eight years.
The dramatic change in policy, which has raised concerns with everyone from civil liberties groups like the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation to the pilot association and the Independent Institute, as well as conservative think tanks, occurred thanks to an aggressive and well-organized effort by drone makers and their lobbyists.
Hitler had son with French teen
Jean-Marie Loret, who died in 1985 aged 67, never met his father, but went on to fight Nazi forces during the Second World War. His extraordinary story has now been backed up by a range of compelling evidence, both in France and in Germany, which is published in the latest edition of Paris's Le Point magazine.
Hitler is said to have had an affair with Mr Loret's mother, Charlotte Lobjoie, 16, as he took a break from the trenches in June 1917. Although he was fighting the French near Seboncourt, in the northern Picardy region, Hitler made his way to Fournes-in-Weppe, a small town west of Lille, for regular leave.
There he met Miss Lobjoie, who later told their son: "One day I was cutting hay with other women, when we saw a German soldier on the other side of the street. "I was designated to approach him." The pair started a brief relationship, which resulted in the birth of Jean-Marie, who was born in March 1918 after being conceived during a 'tipsy' evening in June 1917.
His real father would not recognise Jean-Marie, but continued to stay in contact with Miss Lobjoie. Incredibly, Mr Loret went on to fight the Germans in 1939, defending the Maginot Line before it was bypassed during the Nazi invasion which resulted in France being occupied from 1940 until 1944.
Mr Loret even joined the French Resistance, and was given the codename 'Clement'. Just before her death in the early 1950s, Miss Lobjoie finally told Jean-Marie that his father was arguably the most infamous dictator in human history.
17 Feb 2012
IOC and Saudi Arabian Ban on Women in Sport
As the world prepares for the 2012 Olympics, the Saudi government is systematically discriminating against women in sports and physical education, and has never sent a female athlete to the Olympics, with no penalty from the international Olympic authorities, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Human Rights Watch called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to make ending discrimination against women in sports in the kingdom a condition for Saudi Arabia’s participation in Olympic sporting events, including the 2012 London Games.
“‘No women allowed,’ is the kingdom’s message to Saudi women and girls who want to play sports,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The fact that women and girls cannot train to compete clearly violates the Olympic Charter’s pledge to equality and gives the Olympic movement itself a black eye.”
Human Rights Watch - HRW report ‘Steps of the Devil’: Denial of Women and Girls’ Right to Sport in Saudi Arabia
Anger mounts over Honduran prison tragedy
Survivors of a Honduran prison blaze that killed more than 350 inmates have accused guards of leaving prisoners locked inside their cells while the fire burned them to death and even shooting at others who tried to escape the inferno.
The Honduran government has launched an investigation and suspended prison officials over Tuesday's blaze at a prison in the city of Comayagua, as bereaved relatives, survivors and experts blamed massive overcrowding, gross negligence by the prison guards and a failed justice system.
Reynaldo Moncada, a prison chaplain, described the tragic event as "total chaos" in a facility that was built for 250 inmates, but was holding at least 842 when the fire broke out. "People were running for their lives, shots were being fired. People were being burned alive," he said.
Rosendo Sanchez, an inmate of the Comayagua prison, awoke as the blaze started. He escaped his cell block and said he saw guards firing at other inmates trying to escape from. "It was hell here, seeing your friends, people you have known well, burn alive," said Sanchez, who added that firefighters had taken more than half an hour to reach the prison.
Other survivors said guards ignored the cries for help. Prison guards denied they had stopped inmates from escaping, while police say firefighters took only 15 minutes to arrive at the prison.
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