"Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health" C.C. Jung
..................................................................................
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva was born on November 5, 1952 in Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand, India in the valley of Dehradun. Her parents were intimately involved with the natural world; her father was involved in forest conservation and her mother was a farmer. Their love of nature must have played a significant role in shaping her commitment and her devotion to conservation and preservation of those natural resources so essential to life.
Shiva received her early education at St. Mary’s school in Nainital and at the convent of Jesus and Mary. She went on to receive her B.S. in Physics. She was awarded a PhD in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, Canada in 1978. Her academic training was in the area of nuclear physics; the title of her thesis was, Hidden Variables and Locality in Quantum Theory. She is a renowned scientist who has published over 3000 papers in peer-reviewed journals.
She is well known, moreover, for her activism regarding ecological, environmental and economic issues, especially in relation to healthy food and clean water accessibility and safety. She is a staunch opponent of agribusiness. As we shall see, she is an unrelenting critic in regards to the role of globalization in destabilizing local societies, local economies and what she often refers to as the commons.
The commons represents the resources that are collectively owned or shared by a particular society or between societies. These resources can include amenities such as clean water, public land, accessibility to healthy food, essential services such as fire and police protection, emergency medical care, etc. In some societies the commons is more expansive than others. For example, access to medical care is seen by many countries as an integral part of the commons, while others do not.
Through a good portion of her adult life, Shiva has participated in activist movements especially in regards to the deleterious effects of so-called “Globalization.” We will examine her views in some detail.
Shiva participated in the non-violent Chipko movement during the 1970s in the Garhwal Himalayas of Uttarakhand. The Chipko movement practiced non-violent resistance or satyagraha as developed by Gandhi (see the section on Mahatma Gandhi for more detail). The movement, some of whose main participants were women, adopted the approach of forming human circles around trees to prevent their felling. The noteworthy event in this struggle took place on March 26, 1974, when a group of female peasants in Reni village, Hemwalghati, in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, India, mobilized to stop the cutting of trees; they were threatened by the contractor working for the state Forest Department. In spite of these threats, hundreds of such grassroots level actions blossomed throughout the region and eventually throughout India. This movement was significantly successful in its original mission.
Shiva is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization, (along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, et al.), and a key figure in the global solidarity movement known as the Alter Globalization Movement. She has long been a staunch and vocal opponent of globalization as epitomized in the policies of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). What follows is a brief history of these organizations.
It all began in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1944. Economic leaders from the Allied powers met to plan for the aftermath of the Second World War. The institutions that were created are with us to this day exerting enormous influence over the economies of the nations of the world. The IMF and the World Bank had their beginnings here. The IMF is a specialized agency whose stated purpose is to stabilize exchange rates and facilitate international trade. Each member contributes to the fund in gold and currency. The World Bank is otherwise known as the International bank for Reconstruction and Development. The Bretton Woods Conference set up the World Bank, GATT and the IMF so that the US dollar would take the place of gold as the medium of international exchange once the war was over and provide long-term loans to countries devastated by the war. The essential ingredient of the Bretton Woods policies was the dollar, which would replace gold and which the US government could print as much as needed. In October, 1947 GATT was created to ensure the dismantling of trade barriers.
The World Bank lends money to the so-called third world so that they can use that money towards development. The nations that agree to the terms of these loans often find themselves so deeply in debt that they find it difficult to repay. The usual response of the lending institution is to insist that the debtor nation cut back on its social programs. A Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) is often proposed which basically calls upon the debtor nation to make cuts in programs that benefit the poor and often to privatize industries and services if they expect to receive additional loans to stay afloat. Shiva and outspoken opponents of these institutions claim that the net effect of this relationship is that money is loaned to build the appropriate infrastructure to allow access to natural resources and ultimately export these resources to the wealthy countries that have financed the loans. Nations caught up in this relationship find that they have lost much of their economic base especially in agriculture that had previously afforded them a modicum of self-sufficiency.
Shiva’s particular concerns revolve around industrial farming especially as practiced by agribusiness and the role of global institutions in subverting local agriculture. She has spoken out strongly in opposition to industrial agriculture when applied to shrimp farming and its impact on India and what she sees as the rising threat of the use of genetically modified seeds. In response to the application of this new technology to seed production, Shiva started an organization called Navdanya created to stress the importance of biodiversity, practice chemical-free agriculture and free agriculture from monopoly control. According to Shiva, “As farmers are transformed from producers into consumers of corporate patented agriculture products, as markets are destroyed locally and nationally and expanded globally, the myth of “free trade” and the global economy becomes a means for the rich to rob the poor of their right to food and even their right to life.”
To exemplify the deleterious impact of the foreign domination of trade, Shiva sites the horrendous Bengal famine of 1943 (see the section on Muhammad Yunus for further details) that devastated what is now Bangladesh. Three and one-half million Bengalis starved to death as previously described. At the time the region was dominated by the British who engineered the forceful exportation of 80,000 tons of food grain prior to the famine.
In regards to the global economy and agribusiness, Shiva has fundamental and over-lapping concerns. One is the increased use of genetically modified crops worldwide as previously cited. The fact that companies like Monsanto have actually patented genetically modified life forms like soybeans and that the farmers who use these crops cannot legally save seeds creates a serious impediment to small independent farms and the assurance of food safety. An additional concern, from Shiva’s perspective, is the displacement of varieties of agricultural products that have developed over thousands of years of human agriculture by the use of fragile and vulnerable monocultures that may jeopardize food production in the future.
There is the additional pressure of international financial institutions like the World Bank that encourages the shift in the production of food products for the local economy to products intended solely for export. An example of this, and there are many, is the production of cotton for export in the south of India. In addition, there has been an analogous shift in Central and South America towards the production of crops destined for export to be used in so-called “biofuels.”
Vandana Shiva continues to be an outspoken critic of agricultural policies that have been dictated by international financial institutions in the name of globalization. The preservation of the commons is of fundamental importance to her and she has been a strong and powerful advocate for the powerless worldwide.
Shiva received her early education at St. Mary’s school in Nainital and at the convent of Jesus and Mary. She went on to receive her B.S. in Physics. She was awarded a PhD in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, Canada in 1978. Her academic training was in the area of nuclear physics; the title of her thesis was, Hidden Variables and Locality in Quantum Theory. She is a renowned scientist who has published over 3000 papers in peer-reviewed journals.
She is well known, moreover, for her activism regarding ecological, environmental and economic issues, especially in relation to healthy food and clean water accessibility and safety. She is a staunch opponent of agribusiness. As we shall see, she is an unrelenting critic in regards to the role of globalization in destabilizing local societies, local economies and what she often refers to as the commons.
The commons represents the resources that are collectively owned or shared by a particular society or between societies. These resources can include amenities such as clean water, public land, accessibility to healthy food, essential services such as fire and police protection, emergency medical care, etc. In some societies the commons is more expansive than others. For example, access to medical care is seen by many countries as an integral part of the commons, while others do not.
Through a good portion of her adult life, Shiva has participated in activist movements especially in regards to the deleterious effects of so-called “Globalization.” We will examine her views in some detail.
Shiva participated in the non-violent Chipko movement during the 1970s in the Garhwal Himalayas of Uttarakhand. The Chipko movement practiced non-violent resistance or satyagraha as developed by Gandhi (see the section on Mahatma Gandhi for more detail). The movement, some of whose main participants were women, adopted the approach of forming human circles around trees to prevent their felling. The noteworthy event in this struggle took place on March 26, 1974, when a group of female peasants in Reni village, Hemwalghati, in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, India, mobilized to stop the cutting of trees; they were threatened by the contractor working for the state Forest Department. In spite of these threats, hundreds of such grassroots level actions blossomed throughout the region and eventually throughout India. This movement was significantly successful in its original mission.
Shiva is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization, (along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, et al.), and a key figure in the global solidarity movement known as the Alter Globalization Movement. She has long been a staunch and vocal opponent of globalization as epitomized in the policies of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). What follows is a brief history of these organizations.
It all began in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1944. Economic leaders from the Allied powers met to plan for the aftermath of the Second World War. The institutions that were created are with us to this day exerting enormous influence over the economies of the nations of the world. The IMF and the World Bank had their beginnings here. The IMF is a specialized agency whose stated purpose is to stabilize exchange rates and facilitate international trade. Each member contributes to the fund in gold and currency. The World Bank is otherwise known as the International bank for Reconstruction and Development. The Bretton Woods Conference set up the World Bank, GATT and the IMF so that the US dollar would take the place of gold as the medium of international exchange once the war was over and provide long-term loans to countries devastated by the war. The essential ingredient of the Bretton Woods policies was the dollar, which would replace gold and which the US government could print as much as needed. In October, 1947 GATT was created to ensure the dismantling of trade barriers.
The World Bank lends money to the so-called third world so that they can use that money towards development. The nations that agree to the terms of these loans often find themselves so deeply in debt that they find it difficult to repay. The usual response of the lending institution is to insist that the debtor nation cut back on its social programs. A Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) is often proposed which basically calls upon the debtor nation to make cuts in programs that benefit the poor and often to privatize industries and services if they expect to receive additional loans to stay afloat. Shiva and outspoken opponents of these institutions claim that the net effect of this relationship is that money is loaned to build the appropriate infrastructure to allow access to natural resources and ultimately export these resources to the wealthy countries that have financed the loans. Nations caught up in this relationship find that they have lost much of their economic base especially in agriculture that had previously afforded them a modicum of self-sufficiency.
Shiva’s particular concerns revolve around industrial farming especially as practiced by agribusiness and the role of global institutions in subverting local agriculture. She has spoken out strongly in opposition to industrial agriculture when applied to shrimp farming and its impact on India and what she sees as the rising threat of the use of genetically modified seeds. In response to the application of this new technology to seed production, Shiva started an organization called Navdanya created to stress the importance of biodiversity, practice chemical-free agriculture and free agriculture from monopoly control. According to Shiva, “As farmers are transformed from producers into consumers of corporate patented agriculture products, as markets are destroyed locally and nationally and expanded globally, the myth of “free trade” and the global economy becomes a means for the rich to rob the poor of their right to food and even their right to life.”
To exemplify the deleterious impact of the foreign domination of trade, Shiva sites the horrendous Bengal famine of 1943 (see the section on Muhammad Yunus for further details) that devastated what is now Bangladesh. Three and one-half million Bengalis starved to death as previously described. At the time the region was dominated by the British who engineered the forceful exportation of 80,000 tons of food grain prior to the famine.
In regards to the global economy and agribusiness, Shiva has fundamental and over-lapping concerns. One is the increased use of genetically modified crops worldwide as previously cited. The fact that companies like Monsanto have actually patented genetically modified life forms like soybeans and that the farmers who use these crops cannot legally save seeds creates a serious impediment to small independent farms and the assurance of food safety. An additional concern, from Shiva’s perspective, is the displacement of varieties of agricultural products that have developed over thousands of years of human agriculture by the use of fragile and vulnerable monocultures that may jeopardize food production in the future.
There is the additional pressure of international financial institutions like the World Bank that encourages the shift in the production of food products for the local economy to products intended solely for export. An example of this, and there are many, is the production of cotton for export in the south of India. In addition, there has been an analogous shift in Central and South America towards the production of crops destined for export to be used in so-called “biofuels.”
Vandana Shiva continues to be an outspoken critic of agricultural policies that have been dictated by international financial institutions in the name of globalization. The preservation of the commons is of fundamental importance to her and she has been a strong and powerful advocate for the powerless worldwide.
Wake Up America!
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives............read more
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
my eyes
I wish my eyes weren't opened
because now that they are
I will have to do something
about the evil I see in the world
The Euro Game Is Up - Nigel Farage MEP
Nigel Farage Member European Parliament tells it like it is!
More like this please :>)
Oh, oh, oh It's Magic!
Global day of action, on the 24 November there is a call for a loving day to raise energies for the awakening ahead, on this day we ask that you share your orgasm globally. Take a moment to think about this divine and wonderful moment, the energies you raise and how in touch you are with the universe when you come, yes! Yes! Yes!
All that is asked from you that as you come you expand energies to include the whole world, the energies we are calling for are Courage and Clarity, so we can all face the days ahead with courage and things will be clearer to all of us.
Please join us, with your loved one, by yourself, whatever feels good to you.......give it up for Global love :>)
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
the first man killed on live television
An official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), conducted from 1976 to 1979, concluded that Oswald shot President Kennedy as a result of a probable conspiracy. This conclusion of a likely conspiracy contrasts with the earlier conclusion by the Warren Commission that the President was assassinated by a lone gunman.
In the ensuing four decades since the assassination, theories have been proposed or published that detail organized conspiracies to kill the President. These theories implicate, among others, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the anti-Castro Cuban community, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Mafia, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), E. Howard Hunt, and the Eastern Bloc – or perhaps some combination of these.
Others claim that Oswald was not involved at all. Shortly after his arrest, Oswald insisted he was a "patsy". Oswald never admitted any participation in the assassination and was murdered two days after being taken into police custody.
Many researchers have found fault with the official Warren Commission version of events, identifying what they say are inconsistencies and errors in the panel's findings. Some of the authors include Mark Lane, Penn Jones, Jr., Jim Garrison, Jim Marrs, David S. Lifton, Gerald McKnight, Henry Hurt, Michael L. Kurtz, and David Kaiser.
Penn Jones, Jim Marrs and Ralph Schuster have suggested that the number of deaths of people connected with the investigation of the assassination is suspiciously large. Polls have indicated that large numbers of Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved. A 2003, Gallup poll reported that 75% of Americans do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. (read more) (zapruder film) (murder solved)
love, forgiveness and compassion
The founder of the Fetzer Institute, (John Earl Fetzer), was familiar with the call of the sacred within the secular. Trained as an electrical engineer, John E. Fetzer began his career in 1931 by designing, building, and operating his own radio station that he then expanded into a Michigan-based, multistate broadcasting empire including radio, television, cable, and closed-circuit music transmission. In his private life, John Fetzer had an intense intellectual curiosity about the "unseen elements" of life. He studied various forms of meditation, prayer, philosophy, and positive thinking, and explored other ways of healing. Throughout his life he was also passionately interested in baseball, an enthusiasm that led him to purchase the Detroit Tigers baseball club. In his later years, the sale of the team and his media holdings resulted in the endowment of the Fetzer Institute. The interests that shaped John Fetzer's life can be seen as the seedbed for the questions that define the work of the Fetzer Institute: How can the secular and sacred elements of life be better integrated? How can the insights of science and the powers of technological innovation be utilized to explore the capacities of the mind and spirit? How can the wisdom and insight gained through inner exploration be used to better our individual and collective health? And how can the entrepreneurial spirit and financial resources gained from the American business sector be used in the service of creating a better world?
During World War II, he was appointed the national radio censor for the U.S. Office of Censorship and created voluntary censorship of more than 900 radio stations so that they would not broadcast information that would be beneficial to the enemy. When the war started to wind down, Fetzer began asking for smaller and smaller budgets to run the office and began firing the 15,000 people employed by the office. When the war ended, he closed up shop and stored all the information in the basement of the National Archives. He said, "I'm convinced if we hadn't, the Office of Censorship would still be with us today, and I shudder to think how powerful it might be." (read more) (fetzer.org)
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Pablo Picasso - "Guernica"
"Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth"
...Pablo Picasso...
Arguably Picasso’s most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War—Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, "It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them."
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Comments on -US Drone Strikes in Pakistan-Bill Roggio
Agha,
FYI.
David
The Long War Journal - Charts on US Strikes in
Pakistanas well as reporting from The *Long War Journal*. Given the Taliban's
control *...*
www.*longwarjournal*.org/pakistan-strikes.php -
ANALYSIS OF BILL ROGGIOS DRONE ANALYSIS AND BEAUTIFUL CHARTS
My dear Friend
This is waste of time and ammo . It is not changing the likely outcome of afghan war. From a close angle I see the extremists adopt improved and subtler methods !
Long War Journal is a commercial site and they have to attract readers and thus the beautiful charts ?
What has the US dine to eradicate drugs in last ten years ?
Has these drone strikes made the Afghan roads in the areas south of line Kabul Shindand safer for Afghan civilians ?
The whole premise that the extremists should present themselves as sitting ducks to US drone strikes in an area some 20 miles x 50 miles is fallacious !
Suicide bombers and IEDs can train in any area other than the above narrow strip !
How correct is Roggios data ! The charts are beautiful and Roggios site attracts traffic ! But is that the strategic objective of US military in Afghanistan ? To make Roggios site commercially viable ?
How reliable is the Humint ? We have had the Muslim 786 Drone attack on the CIA Quixotes in Khost last December 2009 !
Lets be frank that the perception on the Pakistan side is that USA wants to destroy the Pakistani state and this is their real objective while Al Qaeda is only the stated objective ?
What has the US done to change this perception ? This is being reinforced every day ! As they said “fear made men believe in the worst “ ?
To say that Russia will support the USA fight a victorious war in Afghanistan is fallacious !
Support a country designing missile shields and attempting to encircle Russia in every manner ! Constantly holding dry runs of war against Russia !
If Afghanistan is trumpeted by USA as its victory over USSR , WOULD RUSSIA ALLOW A 100,000 US MUSKETEERS TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN VICTORIOUS ?
One fact is clear ! The US casualties are low which means that there is no real fight ! US companies in Afghanistan are making big bucks !
The defense contractors you have like RONCO,Dyncorps,Xe, SSSI ,Global ,MPRI etc are making good money selling HUMNIT to the US Government ! These companise are hiring Pashto interpreters , Balochi interpreters and what not !
Louis Burger , Fluor,Black and Veach ,Red Star , Mina Corps ,TRYCO ,Halliburton,KBR and Seven Seas may your Afghan success stories ! Certainly private business did well in Afghanistan ! But what about the soldiers real job i.e the war ?
What is the on ground situation ? From 2001 to 2007 I could travel all the 1050 kilometres from Kabul to Herat in my private vehicle without a single weapon to defend myself ! Since 2007 I cannot ! How easy it is to enter Kabul ! I have driven many times from Jalalabad to Kabul after 2200 hours !
How good is the military virtue of the Afghan Army ? A military machine that the US and its hirelings destroyed in between 1978 and 1992 has still not been created ?
The question is how good is Roggios data in real tangible terms ?
You have a US force in Afghanistan surrounded by all Afghanistans neigbours who want the US to fail for various reasons ?
You pound flies with hammers with your mighty drones ? And this is the cause for a martial celebration !
The americans need to read more about the greatest army in history the Wehrmacht or the Red Army which did the real fighting for the US ! War is not New York Stock exchange and the enemy is not Dillinger who the FBI or BATF can overwhelmingly outnumber and outgun !
Datta Khel is not Ruby Ridge where neo NAZIs from BATF , FBI etc can shoot a man of honours wife like a partridge !
No war in history was won by air power alone while the 100,000 overpaid , over fed musketeers have failed to pacify Afghanistan , failed to interdict the flow of 90 % of worlds heroin to Europe and the states !
Perhaps there is a method in this madeness !
How is that Ali Jalali the most outstanding Afghan professional had to be sacrificed by the US to please the drug mafia in Afghanistan ?
I am not a religious man and this is not about religion !
The bottom line is that US policy since many years is manipulated by the US businesses may it be Oil and Gas, Wall Street or construction ! The sacred business of war has been sub letted to commercial businesses !
There is a deep question mark about Drones and I will base my assessment that God may not be with both drones or the characters that they are targeting !
The other side has an independent will and all may not proceed as Field Marshal Petraeus may desire or as a Wall Street sponsored political supremo may decide !
You have a secretary of state more fit to be in the Wallmart , clueless about strategy or war and a naieve spinster (philosophically) who has never set a squadron in the field !
This is war and it has less or good luck and bad luck and more of logical consequences of our actions and our adversaries actions !
best regards
Agha
--
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." --
Albert Einstein !!!
FYI.
David
The Long War Journal - Charts on US Strikes in
Pakistanas well as reporting from The *Long War Journal*. Given the Taliban's
control *...*
www.*longwarjournal*.org/pakistan-strikes.php -
ANALYSIS OF BILL ROGGIOS DRONE ANALYSIS AND BEAUTIFUL CHARTS
My dear Friend
This is waste of time and ammo . It is not changing the likely outcome of afghan war. From a close angle I see the extremists adopt improved and subtler methods !
Long War Journal is a commercial site and they have to attract readers and thus the beautiful charts ?
What has the US dine to eradicate drugs in last ten years ?
Has these drone strikes made the Afghan roads in the areas south of line Kabul Shindand safer for Afghan civilians ?
The whole premise that the extremists should present themselves as sitting ducks to US drone strikes in an area some 20 miles x 50 miles is fallacious !
Suicide bombers and IEDs can train in any area other than the above narrow strip !
How correct is Roggios data ! The charts are beautiful and Roggios site attracts traffic ! But is that the strategic objective of US military in Afghanistan ? To make Roggios site commercially viable ?
How reliable is the Humint ? We have had the Muslim 786 Drone attack on the CIA Quixotes in Khost last December 2009 !
Lets be frank that the perception on the Pakistan side is that USA wants to destroy the Pakistani state and this is their real objective while Al Qaeda is only the stated objective ?
What has the US done to change this perception ? This is being reinforced every day ! As they said “fear made men believe in the worst “ ?
To say that Russia will support the USA fight a victorious war in Afghanistan is fallacious !
Support a country designing missile shields and attempting to encircle Russia in every manner ! Constantly holding dry runs of war against Russia !
If Afghanistan is trumpeted by USA as its victory over USSR , WOULD RUSSIA ALLOW A 100,000 US MUSKETEERS TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN VICTORIOUS ?
One fact is clear ! The US casualties are low which means that there is no real fight ! US companies in Afghanistan are making big bucks !
The defense contractors you have like RONCO,Dyncorps,Xe, SSSI ,Global ,MPRI etc are making good money selling HUMNIT to the US Government ! These companise are hiring Pashto interpreters , Balochi interpreters and what not !
Louis Burger , Fluor,Black and Veach ,Red Star , Mina Corps ,TRYCO ,Halliburton,KBR and Seven Seas may your Afghan success stories ! Certainly private business did well in Afghanistan ! But what about the soldiers real job i.e the war ?
What is the on ground situation ? From 2001 to 2007 I could travel all the 1050 kilometres from Kabul to Herat in my private vehicle without a single weapon to defend myself ! Since 2007 I cannot ! How easy it is to enter Kabul ! I have driven many times from Jalalabad to Kabul after 2200 hours !
How good is the military virtue of the Afghan Army ? A military machine that the US and its hirelings destroyed in between 1978 and 1992 has still not been created ?
The question is how good is Roggios data in real tangible terms ?
You have a US force in Afghanistan surrounded by all Afghanistans neigbours who want the US to fail for various reasons ?
You pound flies with hammers with your mighty drones ? And this is the cause for a martial celebration !
The americans need to read more about the greatest army in history the Wehrmacht or the Red Army which did the real fighting for the US ! War is not New York Stock exchange and the enemy is not Dillinger who the FBI or BATF can overwhelmingly outnumber and outgun !
Datta Khel is not Ruby Ridge where neo NAZIs from BATF , FBI etc can shoot a man of honours wife like a partridge !
No war in history was won by air power alone while the 100,000 overpaid , over fed musketeers have failed to pacify Afghanistan , failed to interdict the flow of 90 % of worlds heroin to Europe and the states !
Perhaps there is a method in this madeness !
How is that Ali Jalali the most outstanding Afghan professional had to be sacrificed by the US to please the drug mafia in Afghanistan ?
I am not a religious man and this is not about religion !
The bottom line is that US policy since many years is manipulated by the US businesses may it be Oil and Gas, Wall Street or construction ! The sacred business of war has been sub letted to commercial businesses !
There is a deep question mark about Drones and I will base my assessment that God may not be with both drones or the characters that they are targeting !
The other side has an independent will and all may not proceed as Field Marshal Petraeus may desire or as a Wall Street sponsored political supremo may decide !
You have a secretary of state more fit to be in the Wallmart , clueless about strategy or war and a naieve spinster (philosophically) who has never set a squadron in the field !
This is war and it has less or good luck and bad luck and more of logical consequences of our actions and our adversaries actions !
best regards
Agha
--
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." --
Albert Einstein !!!
COUNTERPOINTS
The Exceptional and the Mundane
The dreamer and the realist
The non-conformist and the boyscout
The believer and the skeptic
The romantic and the pragmatic
The obedient and the truant
Each the antithesis of the other, not understanding but strangely drawn to each other.
seeking that which is beyond them, that which sparks their curiosity but their nature cannot allow,
The Mundane, such simplicity and satisfaction with life that mediocrity is acceptable,
The exceptional, such ambition and a thirst for excellence that nothing else is accepted or expected,
Maybe its the beauty in honesty that brings about such purity,
When pretences are put aside, and guards let down.
when people look beyond the obvious, the superficial, that which wasn't built to last
that counterpoints allow themselves to see each other and see themselves in each other,
Falling hopelessly and hopefully for one another, one riding riding on the dreams of the other, the other finding stability in the other's certainty.
The skeptic fascinated and at the same time awed by the believers blind faith in that which he cannot control,
the believer intrigued by the skeptics never ending questions and curiosity about that which he cannot understand,
The obedient secretly admiring the courage of the truant and openly despising his folly,
The non-conformist impressed by the discipline and obedience of the boyscout.
When we learn that we alone cannot suffice, we put away selfish pride, and learn to compromise.
the essence of life lying not in the success of the entity but rather the whole,
if only we could adopt humility, avoid the ambiguity of duplicity, encourage simplicity, and learn to live in perfect symmetry.
~ Kevin Koech
The dreamer and the realist
The non-conformist and the boyscout
The believer and the skeptic
The romantic and the pragmatic
The obedient and the truant
Each the antithesis of the other, not understanding but strangely drawn to each other.
seeking that which is beyond them, that which sparks their curiosity but their nature cannot allow,
The Mundane, such simplicity and satisfaction with life that mediocrity is acceptable,
The exceptional, such ambition and a thirst for excellence that nothing else is accepted or expected,
Maybe its the beauty in honesty that brings about such purity,
When pretences are put aside, and guards let down.
when people look beyond the obvious, the superficial, that which wasn't built to last
that counterpoints allow themselves to see each other and see themselves in each other,
Falling hopelessly and hopefully for one another, one riding riding on the dreams of the other, the other finding stability in the other's certainty.
The skeptic fascinated and at the same time awed by the believers blind faith in that which he cannot control,
the believer intrigued by the skeptics never ending questions and curiosity about that which he cannot understand,
The obedient secretly admiring the courage of the truant and openly despising his folly,
The non-conformist impressed by the discipline and obedience of the boyscout.
When we learn that we alone cannot suffice, we put away selfish pride, and learn to compromise.
the essence of life lying not in the success of the entity but rather the whole,
if only we could adopt humility, avoid the ambiguity of duplicity, encourage simplicity, and learn to live in perfect symmetry.
~ Kevin Koech
Global Day Of Action ~ 24 November 2010
Global day of action, on the 24 November there is a call for a loving day to raise energies for the awakening ahead, on this day we ask that you share your orgasm globally. Take a moment to think about this divine and wonderful moment, the energies you raise and how in touch you are with the universe when you come, yes! Yes! Yes!
All that is asked from you that as you come you expand energies to include the whole world, the energies we are calling for are Courage and Clarity, so we can all face the days ahead with courage and things will be clearer to all of us.
Please join us, with your loved one, by yourself, whatever feels good to you.......
Would be lovely if all in favour would say Aye, and share this on your blog or facebook.
Aye!
Friday, November 19, 2010
revolver
During times of universal deceit,
telling the truth
becomes a revolutionary act.
...George Orwell...
"Washington Merry-Go-Round" 1952
The 1952 Washington D.C. UFO incident, also known as the Washington flap or the Washington National Airport Sightings, was a series of unidentified flying object reports from July 12 to July 29, 1952, over Washington D.C. The most publicized sightings took place on consecutive weekends, July 19–20 and July 26–27.
Longtime ufologist Richard H. Hall, who served as the assistant director of NICAP and as the director of the Fund for UFO Research, writes: "The summer 1952 UFO sighting wave was one of the largest of all time, and arguably the most significant of all time in terms of the credible reports and hardcore scientific data obtained."
(read more)
(film footage)
Turritopsis nutricula
Turritopsis nutricula , the potentially immortal jellyfish, is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation. Cell transdifferentiation is when the jellyfish "alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell." In this process the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into the polyps of a new polyp colony. First, the umbrella reverts itself and then the tentacles and mesoglea get resorbed. The reverted medusa then attaches itself to the substrate by the end that had been at the opposite end of the umbrella and starts giving rise to new polyps to form the new colony. Theoretically, this process can go on infinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal, although in nature, most Turritopsis, like other medusae, are likely to succumb to predation or disease in the plankton stage, without reverting to the polyp form.. No single specimen has been observed for any extended period, so it is impossible to estimate the age of an individual, and so even if this species has the potential for immortality, there is no laboratory evidence of many generations surviving from any individual.
Biological immortality
Most jellyfish species have a relatively fixed life span, which varies by species from hours to many months (long-lived mature jellyfish spawn every day or night [the time is also rather fixed and species-specific]). The medusa of Turritopsis nutricula is the only form known to have developed the ability to return to a polyp state, by a specific transformation process that requires the presence of certain cell types (tissue from both the jellyfish bell surface and the circulatory canal system). Careful laboratory experiments have revealed that all stages of the medusae, from newly released to fully mature individuals, can transform back into polyps. The transforming medusa is characterized first by deterioration of the bell and tentacles, with subsequent growth of a perisarc sheet (see hydroid) and stolons, and finally feeding polyps. Polyps further multiply by growing additional stolons, branches and then polyps, to form colonial hydroids. This ability to reverse the life cycle (in response to adverse conditions) is probably unique in the animal kingdom, and allows the jellyfish to bypass death, rendering Turritopsis nutricula potentially biologically immortal. Studies in the laboratory showed that 100% of specimens could revert to the polyp stage, but so far the process has not been observed in nature, in part because the process is quite rapid and field observations at the right moment in time are unlikely. In spite of this remarkable ability, most Turritopsis medusae are likely to fall victim to the general hazards of life as plankton, including being eaten by other animals, or succumbing to disease. (read more)
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