Why Danes Are So Much Happier Than Americans.

Kerry Trueman, the author of this article, is the co-founder of EatingLiberally.org

Danish happiness has been attributed to their legendary income equality -- but there's more to it than that

Americans may be deeply divided about what ails our country, but there's no denying we're a nation of unhappy campers.

Danes, on the other hand, consistently rank as some of the happiest people in the world, a fact attributed at least in part to Denmark's legendary income equality and strong social safety net.

Forbes recently cited another possible factor; the Danes' "high levels of trust." They trust each other, they trust 'outsiders,' they even trust their government. 90% of Danes vote. Tea party types dismiss Denmark as a hotbed of socialism, but really, they're just practicing a more enlightened kind of capitalism.

In fact, as Richard Wilkinson, a British professor of social epidemiology, recently stated on PBS NewsHour, "if you want to live the American dream, you should move to Finland or Denmark, which have much higher social mobility."

While we debate whether climate change is real and a tax on unhealthy foods is nanny state social engineering, the Danish are actually trying to address these problems head on.

They can afford to, because they don't spend all their waking hours worrying about whether they're about to lose their job, or their house, or how they're going to pay their student loans, or their health insurance premiums.

Could Danish-style democracy catch on here at home? If the way to a nation's heart is through its stomach, there may be hope. After all, the hottest trend on the culinary horizon these days is the new Nordic Cuisine, "which seeks to turn the culinary dial back toward the natural world," as the New York Times reported a few weeks back.

One of the pioneers of this movement is the dynamic Danish chef and climate change activist Trine Hahnemann, whose latest book is The Nordic Diet. Trine has a genius for creating earthy, easy, elegant meals, but she's equally passionate about cooking up social change while she's at it. I had a chance to get her two cents on our respective cultures when she passed through NYC recently. Following is a condensed version of our conversation:

KT: The cover of your latest book declares that you can "Eat Your Way to Health and Happiness with The Nordic Diet." Americans are so stressed and depressed these days, we're more likely to Eat Our Way to Illness and Misery. And the worse we eat, the worse we feel. Any ideas on how to break out of this vicious cycle?

TH: To change the whole political system takes a long time, so, that's not my first suggestion. Cooking your own meals is essential to staying healthy, because that's the only way you can control your diet. And sharing meals with family and friends, having a sense of belonging, that's a very big part of happiness.

Your meal culture has been blown apart, it's a huge problem. I understand when people say "but I get off work at 8 o'clock and I have to shop and go home and cook," but it's a cycle that just goes around and around and nobody's breaking it. You have to start cooking your own food, and it is doable, even on a lower income.

Danes actually eat a lot of crap, a lot of frozen vegetables, but they cook at home every day and sit down and eat together. This is the main thing in our culture, because take-out and processed convenience foods are more expensive. Fruits and vegetables have to be the cheapest thing, cheaper than eating at McDonald's. It all comes down to economics.

So, we're not these 'holy people' who can manage everything, we just have different ethics. We don't subsidize corn like you do, and also, there is a 25% VAT. And it's socially acceptable to leave work at around 4 or 5 o'clock and pick up your kids from school, go home, share a family meal. From a management point of view, if people have a nice family life, they'll be more productive.

KT: Denmark is famous for having so much less income inequality; do kitchen workers in Danish restuarants make a decent salary?

TH: Yes, a dishwasher in Denmark gets $25 an hour.

KT: Do they get sick days and benefits, too?

TH: Yes, and a pension, and health care, and maternity leave. To me, the more equal your society is, the better it is for everybody. It's not right for a country as rich as yours to have so many poor people. This thing with Americans and taxes, I don't understand it.

I make quite a lot of money, I pay 67% tax on much of it, and I don't mind. I like the idea that the girl who's sitting next to my daughter, whose mother is a cleaning lady, has exactly the same opportunity to get an education that my daughter has. I don't think that's socialism. To me, that's human decency. That girl didn't choose her parents, why shouldn't she have the same opportunities?

KT: The government of Denmark has a very ambitious agenda to eliminate your country's dependence on fossil fuels by 2050. The Danes are early adopters when it comes to conservation and renewable energy.

But Denmark's a relatively small country with a temperate climate, and a homogenous population that doesn't doubt the science on climate change. What lessons do you think the U.S., with all its diversity and division, could learn from your example?

TH: We can't change the world. We're only five million people, but as you say, we're homogenous. Danes trust their government. Over 90% of our population votes. Our news is not as polarized as yours. We're a good place to try out a model.

And cities around the world can draw from our experience. If we don't adapt, there's not going to be water, there's not going to be electricity, why not find solutions now?

KT: How does your role as a climate change activist influence the way you cook?

TH: I use a lot of whole grains, I cut down on meat, I eat very seasonally. In my company, Hahnemann's Køkken, we have a very seasonal profile, our food waste is really low, we use everything that gets into the kitchen.

And I'm working with some engineers to design an energy-efficient professional kitchen. We hope to convince people to buy new equipment. They say, "oh no, it's so expensive," but then you show them how much they could save over ten years on their electricity bill. There are so many old fridges out there that cost a fortune to run.

We need government guaranteed loans to buy new equipment, there are some very interesting models. There's a baker in Germany who has so much leftover bread because people come in at 6 o'clock and demand the same variety he has at 1 o'clock -- that's ridiculous! But he'll lose business if he doesn't cater to that, so all the bread that's left everyday goes into his energy system. He burns it, and that runs the ovens for the next day.

KT: So it's like a kind of biofuel? Does it smell like burned toast?

TH: (laughs) I don't know!

KT: In The Nordic Diet, you note that folks in Denmark bicycle everywhere, to get to work, to go shopping -- entire families routinely go bicycling together, and you don't let lousy weather stop you. You quote the Danish saying, "There is no such thing as bad weather, only wrong clothing."

But even when the weather's fine, you might work up a sweat and get windblown biking around. Here in the U.S., our surgeon general got in hot water when she noted that too many American women don't exercise because they don't want to mess up their hair.

So, is it socially acceptable in Denmark to arrive at one's destination looking like a sweaty, dishevelled mess?

TH: We don't have an obsession with hair like you have over here, we don't have that hair that sits in one place; that's never been in fashion. But if you bicycle ten miles to work on a racing bike, let's say, you'll have your regular clothes in a bag and most work places in Denmark provide a shower and a changing room.

KT: And what about the time that it takes to get changed into your work clothes, are you on the clock? Is it like taking a lunch break?

TH: Yeah, but Danes are like the Swiss, we're always on time. Danes are not late -- being on time is a big part of the culture.

KT: So, it's acceptable to show up with messy hair, but not to be late?

TH: Yes.

KT: How did you feel about the Copenhagen Climate Change talks, and where do you see the climate change movement heading?

TH: I was so disappointed. I was in tears. Our politicians failed us gravely. America and China came with nothing. And Saudi Arabia was working behind the scenes, I'm told, to sabotage it.

It's a shame people aren't more disappointed with the politicians. I am. I'm really disappointed that they can't step up and do the right thing. Why aren't we doing more? I'm not even satisfied with what we're doing in Denmark. I love that we have these goals and I will help to work towards them through the things I can do as a chef and a responsible citizen.

But I think it will have to get much worse before people realize how bad it is. It's potentially just as catastrophic as terrorism -- or worse -- but nobody's paying attention. Everybody's just hoping it will go away.

On the food side, I'm more optimistic, I see a lot of changes, a lot of goodwill, people wanting to cook and eat more ecologically.

We've got to change the way we eat, we've got to change the way we source, we've got to change the way we waste. For me, first of all, it's cutting back on the meat. Eating meat everyday has only been part of our diet since World War II. No matter what, only eat meat twice a week.

And everyone should get a composting bucket, so they can see how much they waste. You could save $2,000 a year if you stopped wasting food. Our grandmothers would never have wasted all that food.

We have to take that older mentality and new technologies and put them together for new solutions. I agree with Food, Inc. director Robert Kenner when he says, "Every time you shop, you vote." That's the best thing you can do as an individual who doesn't hold political office.

aziz anom

Obama, a gigantic fraud, should not be re-elected.

Americans would be wise not to elect Obama again. To do so would send a wrong signal to future candidates that they could worm their way to the White House by making false promises. Lying to the electorate by making fancy speeches, like Obama did, should have a price. Unfortunately there are not many "straight" candidates in the opposing party who would be able to defeat Obama except perhaps Herman Cain. It is lucky that Cain too is black because to have a white candidate opposing Obama would drive black Americans into voting for Obama whether they like him or not. So let us hope Cain is chosen to challenge Obama and let us hope he doesn't turn out to be another fake.

An update to the above: Recently I have learnt a bit more about Cain. He is in favour of water-boarding, a method of torturing people and several women have accused him of sexual harassment. 

A better candidate, I now believe, would be Ron Paul. I like some of his pronouncements. So good luck to him.

aziz anom

Fasting can cure cancer.

Actually fasting can cure any kind of disease, not just cancer. When we fast, on just fruit or vegetble juice, we give our body a chance to rid itself of all the toxins that have accumulated over the years. Here is a different explanation presented by a certain Tom Coghill from his website at http://www.fasting.ws/juice-fasting/fasting-for-healing/fasting-cancer:

 

"The wasting away seen in cancer is from the cancer consuming the glucose in the blood. As cancer cells increase, the normal cells get less and less nutrition. At this time, caretakers will try to supply extra calories to slow the wasting process, but this is the opposite of what needs to be done. If cancer requires large amounts of glucose for reproduction, then the first defense needs to be reducing glucose in the blood. Healthy cells can live quite well on small amounts of glucose, while the cancer cells have greater calorie needs and are weakened by the lack of glucose. Fasting reduces glucose in the blood. It works best with a combination of water fasting and juice fasting using 2-5 glasses of juice per day followed by periods of eating small portions of fruits and vegetables. This approach will be the opposite of what doctors recommend, and it may be hard to convince a cancer patient of the wisdom of this. I have watched terminal cancer patients die because they put their faith in modern medicine and gave up any form of natural therapy."

Tony Blair finally upsets the Palestinians.

I have long said that the war criminal, Tony Blair, is not the right person to be a peace envoy in the middle east. The Palestinians have finally realised this. Their leaders are now accusing him of "parroting" Israeli demands and want him out. I hope that before he goes he gets a kick in his butt.

 

 

aziz anom

Hair loss can be caused by electromagnetic radiation.

Some people in the US have moved out to remote locations to escape Electro-Magnetic radiation from power cables, mobile phones and other electrical appliances. They say these radiations make them sick. I think there is a lot of truth in this because I myself have experienced disturbances within my body while being in the vicinity of such radiation, including hair loss. I would therefore advise people going bald (or suffering some other condition) to forget about cures peddled by doctors and hair specialists and simply move out into the country side, far far away from modern gadgetry. If it is at all possible.

aziz anom

The Price of 9/11.

This article is by Joseph E. Stiglitz

                 

NEW YORK – The September 11, 2001, terror attacks by Al Qaeda were meant to harm the United States, and they did, but in ways that Osama bin Laden probably never imagined. President George W. Bush's response to the attacks compromised America's basic principles, undermined its economy, and weakened its security.

The attack on Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 attacks was understandable, but the subsequent invasion of Iraq was entirely unconnected to Al Qaeda – as much as Bush tried to establish a link. That war of choice quickly became very expensive – orders of magnitude beyond the $60 billion claimed at the beginning – as colossal incompetence met dishonest misrepresentation.

Indeed, when Linda Bilmes and I calculated America's war costs three years ago, the conservative tally was $3-5 trillion. Since then, the costs have mounted further. With almost 50% of returning troops eligible to receive some level of disability payment, and more than 600,000 treated so far in veterans' medical facilities, we now estimate that future disability payments and health-care costs will total $600-900 billion. But the social costs, reflected in veteran suicides (which have topped 18 per day in recent years) and family breakups, are incalculable.

Even if Bush could be forgiven for taking America, and much of the rest of the world, to war on false pretenses, and for misrepresenting the cost of the venture, there is no excuse for how he chose to finance it. His was the first war in history paid for entirely on credit. As America went into battle, with deficits already soaring from his 2001 tax cut, Bush decided to plunge ahead with yet another round of tax "relief" for the wealthy.

Today, America is focused on unemployment and the deficit. Both threats to America's future can, in no small measure, be traced to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Increased defense spending, together with the Bush tax cuts, is a key reason why America went from a fiscal surplus of 2% of GDP when Bush was elected to its parlous deficit and debt position today. Direct government spending on those wars so far amounts to roughly $2 trillion – $17,000 for every US household – with bills yet to be received increasing this amount by more than 50%.

Moreover, as Bilmes and I argued in our book The Three Trillion Dollar War, the wars contributed to America's macroeconomic weaknesses, which exacerbated its deficits and debt burden. Then, as now, disruption in the Middle East led to higher oil prices, forcing Americans to spend money on oil imports that they otherwise could have spent buying goods produced in the US.

But then the US Federal Reserve hid these weaknesses by engineering a housing bubble that led to a consumption boom. It will take years to overcome the excessive indebtedness and real-estate overhang that resulted.

Ironically, the wars have undermined America's (and the world's) security, again in ways that Bin Laden could not have imagined. An unpopular war would have made military recruitment difficult in any circumstances. But, as Bush tried to deceive America about the wars' costs, he underfunded the troops, refusing even basic expenditures – say, for armored and mine-resistant vehicles needed to protect American lives, or for adequate health care for returning veterans. A US court recently ruled that veterans' rights have been violated. (Remarkably, the Obama administration claims that veterans' right to appeal to the courts should be restricted!)

Military overreach has predictably led to nervousness about using military power, and others' knowledge of this threatens to weaken America's security as well. But America's real strength, more than its military and economic power, is its "soft power," its moral authority. And this, too, was weakened: as the US violated basic human rights like habeas corpus and the right not to be tortured, its longstanding commitment to international law was called into question.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the US and its allies knew that long-term victory required winning hearts and minds. But mistakes in the early years of those wars complicated that already-difficult battle. The wars' collateral damage has been massive: by some accounts, more than a million Iraqis have died, directly or indirectly, because of the war. According to some studies, at least 137,000 civilians have died violently in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last ten years; among Iraqis alone, there are 1.8 million refugees and 1.7 million internally displaced people.

Not all of the consequences were disastrous. The deficits to which America's debt-funded wars contributed so mightily are now forcing the US to face the reality of budget constraints. America's military spending still nearly equals that of the rest of the world combined, two decades after the end of the Cold War. Some of the increased expenditures went to the costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the broader Global War on Terrorism, but much of it was wasted on weapons that don't work against enemies that don't exist. Now, at last, those resources are likely to be redeployed, and the US will likely get more security by paying less.

Al Qaeda, while not conquered, no longer appears to be the threat that loomed so large in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. But the price paid in getting to this point, in the US and elsewhere, has been enormous – and mostly avoidable. The legacy will be with us for a long time. It pays to think before acting.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, a Nobel laureate in economics, and the author of Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy.

 

aziz anom

Can Muslim countries be democratic?

Look at Muslim countries and ask yourself which ones are truly democratic. My guess is you will say Turkey and Malaysia but you will be wrong. Turkey has made great strides in recent years but it is still autocratic as the long suffering Kurds, among others, will testify. And as for Malaysia, just ask Anwar Ibrahim and the peaceful protesters who were brutally suppressed by the police. Those are not acts we would expect in a democracy. The fact is Muslims are incapable of tolerating viewpoints opposed to their own, particularly as ragards their religion. So how can they have functioning democracies. Just watch and see what happens in Arab countries after they have overthrown their dictators. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years they are back to square one with new dictators lording it over them.  

 

aziz anom

Corn flakes and sex.

Seeking to provide sanitarium patients with meatless anti-aphrodisiac breakfasts in 1894, Michigan Seventh-Day Adventist surgeon and anti-masturbation activist John Kellogg developed the process of flaking cooked grains. Hence Corn Flakes. Hence Rice Krispies. Enjoy your breakfast, guys! And don't complain if you can't screw around or screw yourself!

 

aziz anom

The best movies.

10 Best Movies Where Humanity Gets Its Comeuppance

By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

 

Humanity does terrible things to the earth and to each other. But Hollywood loves to depict our punishment.

August 25, 2011  

 

 

Photo Credit: ssoosay at Flickr.

 

Humankind's intelligence combined with our unrelenting desire to live longer and dominate the planet is, ironically, our fatal flaw. Pop culture forever reminds us that we are disgusting creatures with deplorable habits that will ultimately be the end of us, and fortunately for fans of the apocalypse, cinema in particular loves to depict our agonizing deaths in vivid, epic color.

The latest movie to do so, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, shows how animal cruelty—combined with advanced science—could lead us all to early graves. The film follows a team of scientists working on a cure for Alzheimer's disease, who develop an experimental retrovirus that imbues chimpanzees with human-level intelligence. But when one of the chimps breaks out the stungun, there's hell to pay—and the ultimate end of humankind, at least over the course of some sequels. (For more on this, with spoiler alerts, read Sarah Jaffe's funny Tumblr post.) 

Since there are a thousand ways for humanity to die, here are some of the more creative films in which terrible, irresponsible humanity gets its final comeuppance. Our end may be imminent, but at least we get to watch some awesome stuff beforehand. Enjoy!

1. The Day After Tomorrow

This recent-classic film about the effects of global warming is so terrifying it should be shown before Congress. The plot: paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is drilling for core samples in Antarctica when an ice ridge, spurred by rising temperatures, cracks and pulls apart, leaving a huge crevice. Hall freaks out and tries to convince a UN panel that the shit is seriously about to hit the fan, but they poo-poo him and send him on his way. Turns out that was a dumb idea, because uh-oh, rapidly melting polar ice is totally making ocean levels rise while dropping their temperature, causing complete weather havoc across the world. That little earthquake on the eastern seaboard this week was nothing: try a massive tsunami washing through Manhattan, and super-sized tornados crushing Los Angeles skyscrapers like twigs. The CGI is awesome! (Amid all this death and destruction, though, perhaps the scariest part is that the guy who winds up being president is disconcertingly Dick Cheney-esque.)

Granted, Day After Tomorrow's vision of climate change coming home to roost is pretty extreme—an accelerated depiction of what might eventually happen to us if we continue on our path. It's hard to imagine giant hurricanes whose eyes freeze everything in their path, Sub-Zero style. But after the spate of recent devastating earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and droughts around the world, it's a little easier to imagine such a blown-out scenario in 2011 than it was upon the film's release in 2004. Which brings us to....

2. 2012

The crux of 2012 is not man-made per se, but based on the theory of the Mayan Apocalypse, which says the world will end on the day the ancient Mayan calendar ends: December 21, 2012. But the film certainly doesn't waste a chance to scold humanity for its misdeeds to its backdrop of elaborate apocalyptic visual effects, like redwoods-obliterating solar flares and, awesomely, a giant crack in the Sistine Chapel separating God's finger from Adam's. Ultimately the film becomes about the race to reach secret arks in China, created by world leaders to save at least a fraction of humankind in order to propagate the species. Along the way, though, our worst qualities—greed, avarice, selfishness—pop up and threaten to keep the protagonist family, led by ever-likable John Cusack, from surviving. So while it's a movie based on ancient Mayan prophecy, they still managed to sneak in a little Judeo-Christian moralizing. Touche!

3. Outbreak

In the 1990s, slash-and-burn agriculture was one of the issues at the forefront of the environmental movement, as forests across South America and Africa were being decimated by logging and ranching. Deforestation worried climate scientists, but it also alarmed biologists, who argued that the dense rainforest likely contained organisms we've never identified—not just animals and insects, but viruses as well. Enter Outbreak, a cautionary tale against clearing uncharted territory.

The setting is Congo, 1967. A monkey or monkeys carrying a deadly virus has been unleashed in a village. The US, instead of developing a vaccine or cure, opts to completely destroy the infected with napalm (obviously). Fast-forward 30 years, and the virus wasn't gone, just sleeping... and it's soon transmitted to the US by an illegal exotic animal trader who ships an infected monkey to California (sub-moral: don't illegally trade exotic animals). The trader is infected, and spreads it around to several others, including his girlfriend, all of whom die gruesome deaths in which their eyeballs bleed out of their skulls and their internal organs melt like cheese in a microwave. (Clearly, the virus was based upon Ebola, which emerged in the mid-'70s before experiencing a brief renaissance in the 1990s.) Who will save us all? Why, Dustin Hoffman, of course!

4. Children of Men

One of the most profound and best-made films on this list asks a philosophical question: if we knew we were soon to become extinct, how would we behave? The answer is deplorably—our instinct to survive is only dwarfed by our instinct to dominate each other. We are all just piddling animals with tools too advanced for our tiny brains. In Children of Men's grim near-future, it is 2027, and no person on earth has been able to reproduce for two decades. Our end is imminent, and we have become a planet of nihilists. Governments are collapsing, terrorism is rampant, and Britain has devolved into martial law, with troops that hate everyone, but immigrants in particular. There is one hope, though: Kee, a beautiful Ghanaian immigrant (played by Clare-Hope Ashitey, now a real-life anthropologist), who is the first human on earth known to be pregnant in 20 years. Obviously, humans have on the whole lost their compassion, but Theo Faron (Clive Owen) vows to save Kee from crazed revolutionaries, mentally deranged mobs and the British army. Another question: can one child save all humanity?

This is also a good time to point out that Chiwetel Ejiofor, a great actor, is also a veteran of the end-of-days film, having starred in this, 2012, and the reality apocalypse movie Tsunami: The Aftermath. Hopefully there are more in his future!

5. Battle Royale

This Japanese cult classic is a microcosm of what could happen if we all continue procreating willy-nilly... and a warning to children never to trust adults. At the turn of the millennium, amid dire global overpopulation, a group of teenagers embarks on a class trip. As their bus pulls away, they are gassed to sleep, and when they wake up, the once-happy schoolmates have been dispatched to an island and fitted with electrical collars, which will explode if they are tampered with. They are instructed by an impossibly joyful TV host that they have been randomly selected to compete in Battle Royale: a scheme concocted under the "Millennial Education Reform Act," which is in fact a survivalist fight to the death. Each schoolchild is given a random weapon and instructed they must murder each other; the final kid left gets to leave the island, but Japan has become simply too populated to sustain all of the children being born. Creative population control! The cruel game pits best friends and lovers against one another, while others opt for suicide, and portrays humanity at its basest (and goriest). It also casts adults as spiteful, cowardly bastards so cold they would dupe happy teens rather than come up with a more humane way to keep population down. Like, say, birth control? Let this be a lesson to you, conservatives!

Interesting anecdote: Kinji Fukasaku, Battle Royale's director, translated the novel to film because it reminded him of an experience that made him distrust adults forever. In 1945, when he was 15, his class was forced to work in a World War II munitions factory. After the factory was attacked and many of his classmates died, the survivors were made to clean up the bodies, and he realized the Japanese government had been lying about its involvement in WWII.

6. Knowing

Oh, Nicholas Cage, how wonderful and over-the-top you are! He should probably star in every end-of-days film from now until... the end of days. When his sweet, deaf son begins going into trances and writing down indecipherable numerical sequences, Cage's character goes on a mission to figure out what they mean. Telling too much of the plotline would involve multiple spoilers—barring the fact that this film is the second on this list involving the dread solar flare—but let's just say this guy can now predict the dates of disasters, humanity has been messing up, and whomever gave us all this wonderful technology we've got (starting from the pyramids, clearly) is about to take it away since we cannot play nice. Also, Christians are not feeling it!

7. Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

A Cold War-era classic, it's nice to know that after the Cuban Missile Crisis there was room for a little gallows humor in America. Directed and written by the genius Stanley Kubrick, the film follows crazed Air Force General Jack Ripper as he tries to start a war with the USSR over fluoride in the water. (Hey, countries have been bombed for less.) Meanwhile, a coalition of rather more sane military leaders and, um, the president (who's been duped out of red-button jurisdiction thanks to an obscure rule that transfers powers to the military in wartime) attempts to stop Ripper—but his main roadblock is the Russians' "Doomsday Device," which will obliterate all life on earth should the Soviets be bombed. Kubrick, plus genius actor Peter Sellers, really put the nuclear establishment to the needles with this one, ridiculing the arbitrary rules of war and the stupid power-hunger of the government—while transforming the nation's fear of end times into a real laugh riot. If there was a remake (there shouldn't be), Dr. Strangelove should make his grand exit to Lenny Kravtiz's "It's Not Over Till It's Over."

8. Soylent Green

Before Nicholas Cage, there was Charlton Heston. Try to separate yourself from his politics and imagine this dystopia: the world is overpopulated, violent, struck by famine. New York, of course, is the garbage dump of the world, and in 2022, the population of the city has skyrocketed to 40 million. Solar flares (again!) are imminent. But before the world ends, Heston's character, an NYPD detective, must discover why a wealthy businessman was killed in his apartment... and how he was able to obtain so much pricey food. Another classic example of how we are vile.

9. The Day After

As the Cold War entered the 1980s, this little TV movie was the first to depict the horrors of nuclear folly in any close-to-accurate terms. If the Soviets finally decided to unleash the big ones, it asks, what would happen 24 hours later? If you're unfortunate enough to be far away from ground zero, the answer is: gross radiation poisoning, looting, severe grotesque burns, painfully slow death. Et cetera. As a kid in the early 1990s, I accidentally saw on satellite television a video of an anti-nuke protester getting his legs severed by a train carrying nuclear weapons (he survived, thankfully). Shout out to that guy for keeping us from worse. 

Reportedly, Ronald Reagan watched this film before it aired and it forced him to change his concept of nuclear war—proving culture really does have an impact.

10. The Happening

Mother Nature is pissed at us. We have become a "surface nuisance," as George Carlin once put it, and "the planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas." Only in The Happening, instead of shaking us off, the earth induces us to off ourselves. Spurred by a ripple in the trees—an electromagnetic current, perhaps, or an imperceptible soundwave?—people across the Northeastern US begin killing themselves, one by one. A girl in Central Park shoves a pencil into her ear, impaling her brain. Dozens of hapless suits climb to the roof of a building and leap to their deaths. (Its release date was seven years after 9/11, but that one felt a little too soon.) Turns out, after centuries of mistreatment, the planet is releasing a deadly neurotoxin to eradicate us so it can save itself. Can protagonists Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel lead their family to safety?

Frankly, this is probably the worst movie in this list, and certainly the most painful M. Night Shyamalan film, which is saying a lot. But it's worth watching for the sheer creativity of the concept—just one more way to visualize humanity going down, not with a bang but with a very pathetic whimper.

 

aziz anom

Petrodollar Scam.

I have no idea who the author of the following is. I leave it to the reader to decide what to make of it.

"
1.
Petrodollar Scam .
2.
The fall of US Dollar
3.
Back in 1971, the USA printed and spent far more paper money than it could cover by gold.
4.
Few years later , French demanded redemption of its paper-dollar holdings in gold . But the USA rejected as it actually didn't have enough gold for the dollars it had already printed and spent all over the world, thus committing an act of bankruptcy .
5.
So the USA went to the Saudis and cut a deal – OPEC denominate all sales of oil in US dollars.
6.
From that point, every nation that needed to buy oil had to firstly hold US dollars , which meant that they exchanged their goods and services for dollars, which the Americans just printed.
7.
The Americans bought their oil literally for free by printing those dollars. The ultimate free lunch for the Americans at the expense of the rest of the world.
8.
However, the scam began to unravel when Saddam Hussein started selling Iraq's oil directly for Euro , abrogating the cozy arrangement the Americans had with OPEC. Thus Saddam had to be stopped. How?
9.
USA concocted a pretext to wage war (drama of twin tower blast) and invade Iraq and the first thing the Americans did was to revert sales of oil back to dollars . The currency crisis was averted for the moment.
10.
But Hugo Chavez (Venezuela President) also started selling Venezuelan oil for currencies other than dollars , so there were a number of attempts on his life, traceable right back to the CIA. The petrodollar cat was out of the bag.
11.
Iran President (Ahmedinejad), watching all of this, decided to kick The Great Satan in the arse and do the same thing - sell oil for every currency EXCEPT US dollars .
12.
The game is coming to an end for the Americans. As the nations of the world find that they can buy oil for their own currencies instead of holding paper US dollars , more OPEC nations will abandon the dollar.
13.
The worst thing for the Americans is that eventually, they will also have to buy their oil with Euro or Rubles instead of just printing paper money to get it.
14.
That will be the end of the American Empire, the end of funding for the US military and the destruction of the US economy.

The great scam is coming to an end and there is not a lot that the USA can do about it, except start another world war!!!
Wait and Watch… Only few years/months ahead. "

The stupid Egyptians and the stupid Turks.

Why are the Egyptians and the Turks so naive and acting as though the evil deeds of the occupiers of Palestine, the Zionists, can be excused. The Turks saw what kind of animals the Israelis are when nine of their flotilla activists got murdered some months ago and now five Egyptian soldiers lost their lives while doing their guard duties on their side of the border. The Turks and the Egyptians still want to have relations with these inhuman bastards! Can you imagine yourself wanting to do that if you had suffered the same act of violence at the hands of somebody? Certainly not me. I would break off all relations with such an evil entity. I would tell them to go to hell.

It seems only Iran has the right attitude towards the Zionists.

 

aziz anom

India is totally corrupt.

• The following is by Jason Burke writing in the Guardian. UK.

Corruption in India: 'All your life you pay for things that should be free'

As Anna Hazare leaves prison to continue his protest, residents in Delhi explain how bribery forms part of everyday life

Vishal is an ordinary man with an ordinary story of corruption in India. He lives in east Delhi, part of the traffic-choked sprawl of India's capital. He owns a fried chicken takeaway similar to thousands of others that have sprung up in recent years to serve the new tastes of the burgeoning middle class.

And he faces an ordinary Indian daily routine of petty corruption. The number of people Vishal has to pay off is bewildering. There are the local beat constables who take free lunches, and the more senior police officers who can cause problems with opening hours. They take 10,000 rupees (£130) on the 10th of each month to allow Vishal to stay open late.

Then there are the officials from various local authorities who also receive regular payments – around £50 per month – to ensure that health, safety and hygiene inspections go smoothly.

"Of the 40,000 rupees (£520) I earn a month from my restaurant, I pay at least a third in bribes," Vishal, 26, said. But bribery also extends into his personal life. Vishal has two young children and to get the eldest in to the best local school he paid a "donation" of 25,000 rupees (£3,400) in cash to the headmaster.

A driving licence needed another bribe. Getting an appointment with a competent public doctor cost a substantial amount. And then there are the traffic police. Every other week Vishal says he is stopped, told he has committed an offence and made to pay 100 rupees (£1.25), the standard fee to avoid "too much bother".

"I am so disappointed [about] everything you have to pay," he said. "And no one does anything. The politicians won't do anything because they are all corrupt too."

Such sentiments are widespread in India and explain the sudden outpouring of anger over recent days as tens of thousands of people took to the streets across the country to protest about the arrest of anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare.

Though a string of major corruption scandals such as the telecoms licence scam that cost the country up to £26bn, and the alleged fraud surrounding the high-profile Commonwealth Games in Delhi, has fuelled some of the fury, it is the grinding daily routine of petty corruption that is at the root.

"You pay for a birth certificate, a death certificate," said Varun Mishra, a 30-year-old software engineer and one of thousands who marched in Delhi to support Hazare. "All your life you pay. And for what? For things that should be free."

Hazare, 74, has harnessed this grassroots frustration to launch a popular movement. Having been jailed as a threat to public order, he went on hunger strike and refused to leave prison when released. He has finally left jail, having been granted permission to hold a 15-day fast in a public park.

His public relations team has run rings around clumsy and slow official spokesmen. India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has an impeccable reputation for personal probity but has looked distant and out of touch.

Hazare is campaigning for a powerful new anti-corruption ombudsman with the right to investigate senior politicians, officials and judges. His critics say this would be undemocratic, and worry about the division of powers. But for people like restaurateur Vishal, Hazare is a hero. "At least he is doing something," he said. "No one else is."

Though bribery, or "graft", is a fact of life for more or less everybody in India, the demonstrators are largely urban, educated and relatively well-off. "What you are seeing on the street is a middle-class rebellion," said Mohan Guruswamy, a former senior official in the ministry of finance and founder of the Centre for Policy Alternatives thinktank.

There are reports in local media that call centres and other back office operations in IT hubs such as Gurgaon, a satellite town of Delhi, and Bengaluru, the southern city, have faced staffing problems with up to half of workers joining the protests. Teachers, lawyers and medical professionals have also featured prominently.

Support for Hazare is particularly strong among those who have benefited most from India's recent breakneck economic development but are frustrated by a largely unreformed public sector that delivers poor and haphazard services. They are often the young.

Many of those who waited outside Tihar jail in Delhi to greet Hazare on his triumphant exit were in their teens or even younger. One 12-year-old carried a placard saying "save my future".

Tens of millions of school and college-leavers pour into the Indian jobs market each year. State institutions have not kept pace with aspirations raised by years of rapid economic growth and with skill levels low and good jobs scare, unrest could rise.

Senior Congress party politicians this week argued that some level of graft was "inevitable" in a developing economy. However, analysts said the extent of the problem in India – which ranks at 87 out of 178 on the campaign group Transparency International's index of corruption – is unique. "India is comparable to China, doing better than Russia, less well than Brazil," said Robin Hodess, the group's research director. "But bureaucratic and petty corruption is extreme in India."

Some say India's generally patchy law enforcement is to blame. "We are politically advanced in terms of institutions," said Guruswamy. "We have courts, a parliament and a long tradition of democracy ... but very few people are ever held to account." Last week a senior judge faced unprecedented impeachment proceedings 25 years after the alleged offence.

Others say those who pay the bribes are to blame too. One supreme court lawyer who refused demands for commissions in return for sanctioning payment for work he had done for the government, said giving in to corruption could be down to "deep powerlessness" or simply a "I just want to get on with my day" type of attitude. "As Indians we see corruption as something that permeates our lives, like air pollution, but we need to think much more carefully about it," he said.

Raghu Thoniparambil, who runs the website ipaidabribe.com, pointed out that corruption in the private sector was just as prevalent. "All these protests are very inspiring but will people really change? I don't know," he said.

Less ambitious and spectacular measures could have more impact than the ombudsman office Hazare and his followers want to create, Thoniparambil argues.

As well as perceptions of general corruption, Transparency International also compiles an index of nations where bribes are paid most frequently, particularly in business. India ranks 19 out of 22, above Mexico, Russia and China.

Manu Joseph, editor of the news magazine Open, speaks of "hypocrisy". "The Indian relationship with corruption is very complex and politicians are representative of society as a whole," he said.

But the widespread anger is also due to a sense that modern India not only deserves better but needs to at least moderate rampant corruption to compete on the world stage.

The most high profile cases have already damaged the nation's image sufficiently to slow economic growth. One text message circulating in India last week focused on the huge sums of "black money" illegally stashed by wealthy Indians in overseas assets and bank accounts. The return of these funds could pay for "Oxford-like universities", borders stronger than "the China wall" and roads "like in Paris", it said.

"We want a great country, stronger than the US, UK and Australia," said 18-year-old Sushil Kumar as he waited for the protest march from Hazare's jail to start. "India will be great, with its traditions, its culture. But we have to beat corruption."

The anti-bribery website

Launched last October, ipaidabribe.com is the brainchild of Raghunandan Thoniparambil, a retired official from the elite Indian Administrative Service.

By Friday 12,076 people had posted their personal stories of graft for all to see. They included businessmen forced to pay 50 rupees (70p) to traffic police, 300 rupees (£3.20) paid for a passport verification, 40,000 rupees (£540) handed over to have property registered, 5,000 rupees (£67) for a birth certificate and travellers who had to give 100 rupees (£1.30) to get berths on otherwise full express trains. Software takes names off the site.

"The aim is not to identify people but to identify the problem," Thoniparambil said. In June, after a BBC report about ipaidabribe.com several similar sites opened in China. Within two weeks they were shut down.

"In India we are sometimes a little slow or dysfunctional but civil society, simple democracy can make a huge difference," added Thoniparambil.

 

aziz anom

Dr. Zakir Naik. popular with less educated Muslims.

This man, I understand, belongs to a sect of Islam that resembles the one in Saudi Arabia, and he is hated by a lot of educated Muslims. Some of my relatives have fallen prey to him and, aware that I have given up Islam and am now an agnostic, they constantly bombard me with the writings of this idiot. It irks me a lot, especially because one of these relatives, the head of that household, is a Muslim only in name, his obnoxious behaviour having alienated him from a large section of the Memon community in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Dr Naik, 43, a medical doctor from Mumbai and president of the Islamic Research Foundation, came into the limelight only recently when, at the urging of some clerics, the Uttar Pradesh government of India barred him from addressing meetings in Allahabad, Kanpur and Lucknow.

"I do not consider him a Muslim," said Maulana Hashim Kachauchwi, a Sunni scholar in Lucknow, India.

Is Islam compatible with capitalism?

Guy Sorman: Is Islam Compatible with Capitalism?

Guy Sorman, a City Journal contributing editor, is the author of Children of Rifaa: In Search of a Moderate Islam and many other books.

The moment you arrive at the airport in Cairo, you discover how little Egypt—the heart of Arab civilization—is governed by the rule of law. You line up to show your passport to the customs officer; you wait and wait and wait. Eventually, you reach the officer . . . who sends you to the opposite end of the airport to buy an entry visa. The visa costs 15 U.S. dollars; if you hand the clerk $20, though, don't expect any change, let alone a receipt. Then you make the long hike back to the customs line, where you notice that some Egyptians—important ones, apparently—have helpers who hustle them through. Others cut to the front. It's an annoying and disturbing welcome to a chaotic land, one that has grown only more chaotic since the January revolution. It's also instructive, effectively demonstrating why it's hard to do business in this country or in other Arab Muslim lands, where personal status so often trumps fair, universally applied rules.

 

 

Why is London burning?

If you are not one of the pink-colored Caucasians from Europe or America you would know the answer to the above question. It is called racial discrimination and it has existed in England since the beginning of colonization and beyond. The following quote is from the website Alternet giving the point of view of the 'rioters':

 

People have no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalized and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

 

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you? Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

 

 

Fox News, OReilly and the T-shirts.

If you have (by mistake) watched the very unfair and very unbalanced TV channel Fox news you would know that one of its presenters, a man who likes to opine but does not listen to his guests, Bill O'Reilly, has made some T-shirts with the logo on them that screams "Navy Seals 1 -- Bin Laden 0". It is a celebration of the killing of Bin Laden by US military's Navy Seals. Let us tell this man that it is time to update that logo. It should now scream: "Navy seals 1 -- Bin Laden 22", after the shooting down by Bin Laden's friends of a helicopter carrying some 31 soldiers, among them 22 Navy Seals. 

 

aziz anom

swines pretending to be saints.

Just imagine Saudi Arabia and Bahrain criticizing Syria for its violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators demanding democracy. Have these two dictatorships forgotten how they employed even worse methods to quash a similar uprising in Bahrain? Such humbugs! So sickening.

 

aziz anom

America's secret wars.

    Last year it was reported in the Washington Post that  U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency.  By the end of this year that number will likely reach 120.This global presence is far larger than previously acknowledged. Is it any wonder that America has so many enemies? All that country has to do is to stop interfering in other people's affairs and it wouldn't have to spend so much money fighting. Just look at some other western countries, like Denmark or Austria; are they not living in peace and enjoying a much better lifestyle than the US? But I suppose that's too much to ask because violence is in America's blood. It all began, as we all know, with the slaughter of native Americans.

 

aziz anom

Do viruses enter the body through our ears?

In 1927 Richard Simmons, M.D. hypothesized that colds and/or the flu virus enter the body through the ear canal and not through the eyes, nose or the mouth . He started putting one or two drops of 3% H2O2 in the ears of his young patients. The patients recovered quickly. He practiced this technique in his clinic for several months. When he wrote a paper on the results, the medical community dismissed his findings. Were they justified in doing so?

 

 

Ramadan fasting.

 The month of fasting has arrived for the Muslims. It is a healthy practice for it rids the body of all the junk that has accumulated over the preceding months. The question that runs through my mind though is: Is it a good idea to fast even without water? I don't think it is. Some health specialists go even so far as to say that it might be dangerous.

 

aziz anom

Proof that halal slaughter is painful.

A study proving Jewish and Islamic methods of slaughtering animals are painful has led to renewed calls for a ban in Britain

By Tim Edwards

LAST UPDATED 6:23 PM, OCTOBER 16, 2009

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Scientists are used to being attacked by anti-vivisectionists for causing unnecessary suffering to animals in the course of research. But a new study into the pain felt by dying animals has animal rights groups on side – and has led to renewed calls for Islamic and Jewish slaughter rituals to be brought into line with secular practices.

UK law requires that all livestock be stunned prior to slaughter – with the exception of those animals intended for consumption by members of certain religions. Islamic halal and Jewish kashrut law require that animals are slaughtered by having their throat cut – a relatively slow means of death. The Sikh ritual – chatka – is much quicker when done correctly, involving a clean sword strike to the neck.

Practitioners of ritual slaughter say the animal must be alive to facilitate the draining of blood – and that throat slitting is humane.

But the new research suggests otherwise. Dr Craig Johnson and his colleagues at New Zealand's Massey University reproduced the Jewish and Islamic methods of slaughter in calves. The calves were first anaesthetised so although their pain responses could be detected, they wouldn't actually feel anything. They were then subjected to a neck incision. A pain response was detected for up to two minutes following the cut, although calves normally fall unconscious after 10 to 30 seconds.

The team then stunned the calves five seconds after cutting their throats: the pain signal detected by electroencephalography ceased immediately.

Johnson told the New Scientist he thought this work was "the best evidence yet that [ritual slaughter] is painful". However, he observed that the religious community "is adamant animals don't experience any pain so the results might surprise them".

The findings have earned Johnson the inaugural Humane Slaughter Award from the Humane Slaughter Association. Dr James Kirkwood, the charity's chief executive, said: "This work provides significant support for the value of stunning animals prior to slaughter to prevent pain and distress."

Adam Rutherford, an editor of Nature, wrote on the Guardian website: "It suggests that the anachronism of slaughter without stunning has no place in the modern world and should be outlawed. This special indulgence to religious practices should be replaced with the evidence-based approaches to which the rest of us are subject."

Some European countries, such as Sweden, require all animals to be stunned before slaughter with no exception for religions. But such a ban in Britain would be hugely controversial – and would draw inevitable comparisons with the ban on kashrut enacted by Nazi Germany in 1933.

Johnson thinks the way forward is best exemplified by Muslims in New Zealand, who use a reversible form of electrical stunning that animals can recover from if they are not immediately slaughtered. This proves the animal is alive when killed and is therefore halal.

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/54850,news-comment,news-politics,after-scientific-proof-of-pain-should-we-ban-islamic-and-jewish-religious-slaughter#ixzz1Taca0xml

 

aziz anom

The Big Lie At The Heart Of Rupert Murdoch's Media Empire

 

The following article is by Jay Rosen

 

 Watching the phone hacking crisis crack wide open over the last few weeks has left me puzzled about its ultimate causes: what is it about News Corp that has produced these events?

I don't think we understand very much about this. We can say things like, "Ultimate responsibility goes to the man at the top," meaning Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO. And that sounds right, but it still doesn't explain how any of it happened. "The key people are criminals, liars, or willfully blind..." We could say that, but then we would have to explain how so many of them ended up at one company.

Puzzles like these have led many people to the conclusion that there's a culture inside News Corp that is in some way responsible, and I basically agree with that. Mark Lewis, lawyer for the family of Milly Dowler, said after Rebekah Brooks resigned: "This is not just about one individual but about the culture of an organization." Carl Bernstein agrees. He wrote this in Newsweek a few days ago:

As anyone in the business will tell you, the standards and culture of a journalistic institution are set from the top down, by its owner, publisher, and top editors. Reporters and editors do not routinely break the law, bribe policemen, wiretap, and generally conduct themselves like thugs unless it is a matter of recognized and understood policy.

Private detectives and phone hackers do not become the primary sources of a newspaper's information without the tacit knowledge and approval of the people at the top, all the more so in the case of newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch, according to those who know him best.

Bernstein tells us that one of his sources is a former executive at News Corp, who says: "Murdoch invented and established this culture in the newsroom, where you do whatever it takes to get the story, take no prisoners, destroy the competition, and the end will justify the means."

I think this is correct as far as it goes, but now I want to introduce my theory of how this culture works and why it exists in the first place.

When the news broke that the Murdochs had hired the Edelman firm to handle public relations in the UK, I thought to myself, "Edelman has a crisis response practice, but do they have a denial division?"

Because to me that is the most striking thing about the way News Corp has reacted to these events from the beginning. Denial! Not only in the sense of deflecting questions with "move along, nothing to see here..." (when, in fact, there is something) but that deeper sense of denial we invoke when we say that a woman is in denial about her unfaithful husband or a man about his coming mortality.

Denial is somehow built into the culture of News Corp, more so than any normal company. It isn't normal for the CEO to say, as Murdoch said on July 15, that his company had handled the crisis "extremely well in every way possible," making just "minor mistakes," when the next day the executive in charge (Rebekah Brooks) resigns, then a day later gets arrested, followed by Murdoch's closest aide, Les Hinton, who also resigned in hopes of reversing the tide of defeats.

Your top people don't quit for minor mistakes, but no one in News Corp seemed troubled by that July 15 statement. The Wall Street Journal reported it without raising an eyebrow. Murdoch was confronted with his "minor mistakes" quote in Tuesday's parliamentary hearing but he turned down the chance to take it back. Where does denial so massive come from?

Here's my little theory: News Corp is not a news company at all, but a global media empire that employs its newspapers – and in the US, Fox News – as a lobbying arm. The logic of holding these "press" properties is to wield influence on behalf of the rest of the (much bigger and more profitable) media business and also to satisfy Murdoch's own power urges.

However, this fact, fairly obvious to outside observers, is actually concealed from the company by its own culture. So here we find the source for the river of denial that runs through News Corp.

Fox News and the newspapers Murdoch owns are described by News Corp, and understood by most who work there as "normal" news organisations. But they aren't, really. What makes them different is not that they have a more conservative take on the world – that's the fiction in which opponents and supporters join – but rather: news is not their first business. Wielding influence is.

Scaring politicians into going along with News Corp's plans. Building up an atmosphere of fear and paranoia, which then admits Rupert into the back door of 10 Downing Street.

But none of these facts can be admitted into company psychology, because the flag that its news-related properties fly, the legend on the licence, doesn't say "lobbying arm of the Murdoch empire." No. It says "First Amendment" or "Journalism" or "Public Service" or "news and information."

In this sense the company is built on a lie, but a necessary lie to preserve certain fictions that matter to Murdoch and his heirs. And that, I believe, explains how it got itself into this phone hacking mess. All the other lies follow from that big one.

Strangely, I do not think that News Corp people like Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch are being insincere when they pledge allegiance to the values of good journalism. On the contrary, they believe that this is what their newspapers are all about. And this is the sense in which denial is constitutive of the company, a built-in feature that cannot be acknowledged by any of the major players because self-annihilation would be the result.

 

 

America's anti-muslim hatemongers.

Bill French
Brigitte Gabriel
P. David Gaubatz
Pamela Geller
David Horowitz
John Joseph Jay
Terry Jones
Debbie Schlussel
Robert Spencer
David Yerushalmi

Watch out for these ten animals.

Auto Shaping

The fundamental principle in behavioural psychology says that an organism only behaves in order to acquire a reward or a reinforcement of some kind or other. That stands to reason doesn't it? For why should we waste our time and energy doing something and getting nothing out of it. However, in an experiment by Williams and Williams (1966), pigeons who were put in a cage where a key could be pecked for food continued to peck even though pecking did not result in food being delivered. In fact pecking was a useless behaviour because it was so arranged that food pellets dropped into the cage only when the birds desisted from pecking. How does one explain this in terms of the reinforcement theory? Back in the seventies there was an American guy working as a lecturer in the psychology department of the university of Copenhagen, Denmark. His name was Melvin Lyon and he had written a paper in a fancy journal in Sweden with an outlandish theory which purported to explain this phenomenon. He sent a copy of it to me because I was a student there. He got quiet offended when I criticized it in my own paper which I submitted to the university as part of an exam, so much so that even though he had previously privately approved my exam paper he now rejected it during the official examination. When I pointed to his duplicity he angrily asked me to explain Auto Shaping. Luckily I had studied Auto Shaping and fired back the following very simple explanation.

The birds, I proudly told him and the censor who was watching intently, were simply pecking and waiting for the reward, which was fully in keeping with the Law of Reinforcement.. Mr. Lyon didn't look happy at all that day. To his credit he sent me a letter of apology.

aziz anom

The worst countries for women.

According to a survey, they are:

Afghanistan
India
Congo
Pakistan
Somalia.

The women in Afghanistan resort to self-immolation after an atrocity.
Domestic violence is endemic in India
Congo is the rape capital of the world
Females are at the receiving end of acid attacks in Pakistan.
And, according to observers, there are no happy women in Somalia.

Turkey and the Kurds.

The Turkish government is speaking out against the human rights abuses in Syria, calling on the despot Assad to introduce reforms in his country. What I would like to ask Erdogan and others in his country is: What about the human rights abuses that you yourself are carrying out against the Kurds in your country, not allowing them even to use their language in public life?? Aren't you a bunch of hypocrites?

 

aziz anom

Bahrain medical staff 'tortured for confessions'.

The following is from the Independent, UK.

By Patrick Cockburn

"Doctors and nurses put on trial in Bahrain yesterday told relatives they were beaten with hoses and wooden boards embedded with nails and made to eat faeces. They also had to stand without moving for hours, or even days, and were deprived of sleep in order to force them to sign false confessions.

The Bahraini authorities have put on trial 47 doctors and nurses before a security tribunal, accusing them of trying to overthrow the government, though they say all they did was treat injured pro-democracy protesters. Relatives of the health workers, who were allowed to speak to them for 10 minutes after the hearing, said the accused alleged that they had been psychologically and physically abused during their confinement."

Anthony Weiner, a very stupid congressman.

Anthony Weiner whose name I understand is a slang for penis sent a girl a lewd photo of himself in his bulging underwear. For a public figure like a US congressman to send something like that on the net shows the level of intelligence of American politicians. The guy has now apologised and says he is firm in his determination to be upright in future. Apparently a stiff task for him.

It's Not Just Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF Itself Should Be on Trial

The following is by By Johann Hari published in the UK's Independent.

So the fact that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is facing trial for allegedly raping a maid in a New York hotel room is – rightly – big news. But imagine a prominent figure was charged not with raping a maid, but starving her to death, along with her children, her parents, and thousands of other people. That is what the IMF has done to innocent people in the recent past. That is what it will do again, unless we transform it beyond all recognition. But that is left in the silence.

To understand this story, you have to reel back to the birth of the IMF. In 1944, the countries that were poised to win the Second World War gathered in a hotel in rural New Hampshire to divvy up the spoils. With a few honorable exceptions, like the great British economist John Maynard Keynes, the negotiators were determined to do one thing. They wanted to build a global financial system that ensured the money and resources of the planet were forever hoovered towards them. They set up a series of institutions designed for that purpose – and so the IMF was delivered into the world.

The IMF’s official job sounds simple and attractive. It is supposedly there to ensure poor countries don’t fall into debt, and if they do, to lift them out with loans and economic expertise. It is presented as the poor world’s best friend and guardian. But beyond the rhetoric, the IMF was designed to be dominated by a handful of rich countries – and, more specifically, by their bankers and financial speculators. The IMF works in their interests, every step of the way.

Let’s look at how this plays out on the ground. In the 1990s, the small country of Malawi in Southeastern Africa was facing severe economic problems after enduring one of the worst HIV-AIDS epidemics in the world and surviving a horrific dictatorship. They had to ask the IMF for help. If the IMF has acted in its official role, it would have given loans and guided the country to develop in the same way that Britain and the US and every other successful country had developed – by protecting its infant industries, subsidising its farmers, and investing in the education and health of its people.

That’s what an institution that was concerned with ordinary people – and accountable to them – would look like. But the IMF did something very different. They said they would only give assistance if Malawi agreed to the ‘structural adjustments’ the IMF demanded. They ordered Malawi to sell off almost everything the state owned to private companies and speculators, and to slash spending on the population. They demanded they stop subsidising fertilizer, even though it was the only thing that made it possible for farmers – most of the population – to grow anything in the country’s feeble and depleted soil. They told them to prioritise giving money to international bankers over giving money to the Malawian people.

So when in 2001 the IMF found out the Malawian government had built up large stockpiles of grain in case there was a crop failure, they ordered them to sell it off to private companies at once. They told Malawi to get their priorities straight by using the proceeds to pay off a loan from a large bank the IMF had told them to take out in the first place, at a 56 per cent annual rate of interest. The Malawian president protested and said this was dangerous. But he had little choice. The grain was sold. The banks were paid.

The next year, the crops failed. The Malawian government had almost nothing to hand out. The starving population was reduced to eating the bark off the trees, and any rats they could capture. The BBC described it as Malawi’s “worst ever famine.” There had been a much worse crop failure in 1991-2, but there was no famine because then the government had grain stocks to distribute. So at least a thousand innocent people starved to death.

At the height of the starvation, the IMF suspended $47m in aid, because the government had ‘slowed’ in implementing the marketeeing ‘reforms’ that had led to the disaster. ActionAid, the leading provider of help on the ground, conducted an autopsy into the famine. They concluded that the IMF “bears responsibility for the disaster.”

Then, in the starved wreckage, Malawi did something poor countries are not supposed to do. They told the IMF to get out. Suddenly free to answer to their own people rather than foreign bankers, Malawi disregarded all the IMF’s ‘advice’, and brought back subsidies for the fertiliser, along with a range of other services to ordinary people. Within two years, the country was transformed from being a beggar to being so abundant they were supplying food aid to Uganda and Zimbabwe.

The Malawian famine should have been a distant warning cry for you and me. Subordinating the interests of ordinary people to bankers and speculators caused starvation there. Within a few years, it had crashed the global economy for us all.

In the history of the IMF, this story isn’t an exception: it is the rule. The organisation takes over poor countries, promising it has medicine that will cure them – and then pours poison down their throats. Whenever I travel across the poor parts of the world I see the scars from IMF ‘structural adjustments’ everywhere, from Peru to Ethiopia. Whole countries have collapsed after being IMF-ed up – most famously Argentina and Thailand in the 1990s.

Look at some of the organisation’s greatest hits. In Kenya, the IMF insisted the government introduce fees to see the doctor – so the number of women seeking help or advice on STDs fell by 65 per cent, in one of the countries worst affected by AIDS in the world.

In Ghana, the IMF insisted the government introduce fees for going to school – and the number of rural families who could afford to send their kids crashed by two-thirds. In Zambia, the IMF insisted they slash health spending – and the number of babies who died doubled. Amazingly enough, it turns out that shoveling your country’s money to foreign bankers, rather than your own people, isn’t a great development strategy.

The Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz worked closely with the IMF for over a decade, until he quit and became a whistle-blower. He told me a few years ago: “When the IMF arrives in a country, they are interested in only one thing. How do we make sure the banks and financial institutions are paid?... It is the IMF that keeps the [financial] speculators in business. They’re not interested in development, or what helps a country to get out of poverty.”

Some people call the IMF “inconsistent”, because the institution supports huge state-funded bank bailouts in the rich world, while demanding an end to almost all state funding in the poor world. But that’s only an inconsistency if you are thinking about the realm of intellectual ideas, rather than raw economic interests. In every situation, the IMF does what will get more money to bankers and speculators. If rich governments will hand banks money for nothing in “bailouts”, great. If poor countries can be forced to hand banks money in extortionate “repayments”, great. It’s absolutely consistent.

Some people claim that Strauss-Kahn was a “reformer” who changed the IMF after he took over in 2009. Certainly, there was a shift in rhetoric – but detailed study by Dr Daniela Gabor of the University of the West of England has shown that the substance is business-as-usual.

Look, for example, at Hungary. After the 2008 crash, the IMF lauded them for keeping to their original deficit target by slashing public services. The horrified Hungarian people responded by kicking the government out, and choosing a party that promised to make the banks pay for the crisis they had created. They introduced a 0.7 per cent levy on the banks (four times higher than anywhere else). The IMF went crazy. They said this was “highly distortive” for banking activity – unlike the bailouts, of course – and shrieked that it would cause the banks to flee from the country. The IMF shut down their entire Hungary programme to intimidate them.

But the collapse predicted by the IMF didn’t happen. Hungary kept on pursuing sensible moderate measures, instead of punishing the population. They imposed taxes on the hugely profitable sectors of retail, energy and telecoms, and took funds from private pensions to pay the deficit. The IMF shrieked at every step, and demanded cuts for ordinary Hungarians instead. It was the same old agenda, with the same old threats. Strauss-Kahn did the same in almost all the poor countries where the IMF operated, from El Salvador to Pakistan to Ethiopia, where big cuts in subsidies for ordinary people have been imposed. Plenty have been intimidated into harming their own interests. The US-based think tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research found 31 of 41 IMF agreements require ‘pro-cyclical’ macroeconomic policies – pushing them further into recession.

It is not only Strauss-Kahn who should be on trial. It is the institution he has been running. There’s an inane debate in the press about who should be the next head of the IMF, as if we were discussing who should run the local Milk Board. But if we took the idea of human equality seriously, and remembered all the people who have been impoverished, starved and killed by this institution, we would be discussing the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission – and how to disband the IMF entirely and start again.

If Strauss-Kahn is guilty, I suspect I know how it happened. He must have mistaken the maid for a poor country in financial trouble. Heads of the IMF have, after all, been allowed to rape them with impunity for years

A bomb drops on Saleh.

Saleh, the shameless tyrant of Yemen, was praying to his Allah when a rocket slammed into him. Apparently God didn't think much of his prayers. Muslims  (as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus and others)  continue to believe that their particular God must be a bloody fool, that He will not notice the dirty behaviour they display towards their fellow men. Let us hope that Saleh's burnt face and chest will make them think again. 

 

aziz anom

Frequent urination can be caused by Nutritional Deficiencies.

Elsewhere on this blog I have reported that dates are good for combating frequent urination. It now appears that I might have been right because dates are packed with vitamins and minerals. Nutritional deficiency is what causes frequent urination and the dates are helping you to overcome that deficiency. In other words dates are filling the role of nutritional supplements. Lack of vitamin B12 is a known trigger that causes frequent urination. Other nutrients that give you back your bladder control include magnesium, calcium and vitamin C.

Ratko Mladic -- a modern day Hitler.

Did you see the picture of this animal after he was finally arrested. You would think it was some other man. Years on the run and perhaps a little guilt had taken a toll on his body. One wonders what suffering he would have endured while looking constantly over his shoulder. He need not have worried too much for his fellow citizens, the Serbs, would not have given him up were it not for their eagerness to join the EU. Generally speaking the Serbs are a wicked lot. I know that because I have been to Belgrade and experienced their behaviour personally.

Laughing baby.

International criminal court -- a tool of the powerful.

Have you noticed how the International Criminal Court picks on weak and poor countries and leaves alone the crimes committed by countries such as the US, Britain, France, China and Russia. That's because the court is a baby of the big powers and follows their dictates. This body should be disbanded and replaced by a truly neutral court which can mete out justice without fear of anybody, big or small.

Poor Anwar Ibrahim.

His first trial was, by all accounts, a joke, designed to find him guilty by hook or by crook. The one going on now is no different. Yet another Muslim country behaving in a barbaric way. Is it only lip service these people are paying to their religion? That is not unusual of course. Justice and fair play are usually only for those who wield power -- and to hell with the promised heaven in the afterlife!

Zionists versus Arabs.

Did you ever imagine the followers of Muhammad, the Muslims, showing such brutality towards their own people in the autocratic countries now undergoing an upheaval. Are they any different from the Zionists persecuting the Palestinians? Yes, in one little respect: the Jews persecute others, not their own people.

Good riddance to Bin Laden.

This bastard inflicted enormous suffering on innocent people all over the world with his indiscriminate bombings. He didn't even care if his fellow Muslims got blown up. The tragedy is that his disciples will continue to do his dirty work. They will continue even if the Americans were suddenly to declare that they no longer wish to interfere in Muslim affairs and even if the Jews were to declare that they were dismantling Israel and were going back to the countries they came from. For these ignorant fanatics will very likely not rest until they get their Sharia laws in place. Satan, if he does exist, must be sitting back with a huge smile on his evil face.