A fantastic summary of the 180 year long history of humans trying to physically send messages to the stars, right here :
“The idea blossomed in the 17th century into the ‘plurality of worlds’ debate, but it remained controversial,” said Dick, who has written several books on the topic.
One of the most influential proponents for extraterrestrial life was Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, who wrote Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds in 1686.
Despite the interest, there was no recorded discussion of how we might locate or contact these potential aliens until more than a century later.
Florence Raulin-Cerceau of the Alexandre Koyre Center in Paris has documented the early attempts at communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (CETI), or what is now often called active SETI.”As early as the 19th century, inventors imagined “sky telegraph” equipment to communicate with the supposed inhabitants of the solar system’s planets,” Raulin-Cerceau recently wrote with her colleague in the French magazine Pour la Science.
The first of these inventors was Carl Friedrich Gauss, the German mathematician. In the 1820s, he spoke of reflecting sunlight towards the planets with his land surveying invention, the heliotrope. He is also credited with the idea of cutting a giant triangle in the Siberian forest and planting wheat inside.
“The size and color contrast should have made the object visible from the moon or Mars, and the geometric figure could only be interpreted as an intentional construction,” Raulin-Cerceau wrote.
Twenty years later, the astronomer Joseph von Littrow came up with a similar idea to pour kerosene into a 30-kilometer-wide circular canal that would be lit at night to signal our presence.
second half of the 19th century saw more realistic proposals, according to Raulin-Cerceau.
In 1869, the French inventor and poet Charles Cros imagined using a parabolic mirror to focus the light from electric lamps towards Mars or Venus. He figured the light could be flashed on and off to encode a message.
” light-based “Morse code” was also considered by the British statistician Francis Galton in 1896. He took care not to assume that Martians would have our same base-10 counting system, as they probably wouldn’t have 10 fingers.
Around the same time, A. Mercier, a member of the Astronomical Society of France, devised a plan to place several reflectors on the Eiffel Tower that could direct sunlight towards Mars. He also considered using the moon as a giant screen on which to project light beams.
Isn’t it interesting that both Israel and Hamas have the same targets for destruction in Gaza?
Israel promised cruel revenge for Hamas rocket attacks, and they delivered it upon the children of Gaza with a psychotic zeal. Even English-speaking, American-funded schools, that allowed boys and girls to be taught side by side, <a href=”http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/v-print/story/60940.html”><span style=”color: #cc0000;”>were not safe from the F-16s and the bulldozers</span></a> :
<blockquote>When President George W. Bush visited the West Bank a year ago, Palestinian militants in Gaza vented their anger by ransacking the American International School here, smashing windows, stealing computers and torching a small fleet of buses.It was just the latest episode in a decade-long string of bombings, kidnappings and lootings at the elite private school, which isn’t connected to the U.S. government but has an American-style curriculum and coed, English-only classrooms, which have made it a favorite target of Islamic extremists.
On Jan. 3, the school finally was destroyed, but not by Islamist extremists. An Israeli airstrike flattened the two-story building and sprayed shards of steel and stone over the manicured lawns and soccer field. The night watchman was killed. Books, computers, science equipment and art supplies were crushed beneath the wreckage.
Within moments, Gaza’s perhaps most pro-Western institution — a symbol of possibility in a sealed-off, war-torn land — was gone.
The Israeli army told McClatchy that its forces hit the school because Hamas militants had launched rockets from the grounds. School officials and neighborhood residents rejected that explanation, however, saying that the hilltop campus offered few places to hide and that the militants themselves often had attacked the campus.
“It seems that targeting our school . . . was one of the very few things that fanatic groups and Israel could agree on,” said Sharhabeel al Zaeem, a member of the school’s board of directors.
…of the 25 schools and hospitals that Israeli forces hit during the 22-day war, according to a tally by Palestinian officials, only the American International School was destroyed. Days after the airstrike,<span style=”font-weight: bold;”> Israeli bulldozers and tanks returned to the campus</span> and plowed over the basketball court and the jungle gym, school officials and residents said.
In conservative Gaza, it was one of the only schools in which boys and girls sat side by side in classrooms, and older students even dared to date.
“This was not a base of terror,” Zaeem said. “We are trying to bring the best education to Gaza.”
Khalid Ghanan, a senior who’s on a full academic scholarship, sat in his family’s living room in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza one morning last week — a day he should have been in class — and cursed Israeli forces and Gaza militants.
“The militants are stupid. They’re unhappy with this place because of the word ‘American’ and they don’t even know what it’s doing for the students,” the poised 17-year-old said. “And Israel bombed us just because they don’t want us to be well educated.”
“It’s really very sad to see Israel target a place that Gaza needs to reach a common understanding between cultures and promotes openness and diversity,” Salem said. “We should have a hundred schools like ours in Gaza, not one.”</blockquote>
Now they have none.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Alerting people to the fact that they may soon be driving through swarms of the living dead, who will stop at nothing to feed on your skull innards, is a Class C misdemeanour in Texas.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
The British Tories appear to believe there are potential votes in backing UFO disclosure. They’re probably right. Tory leader David Cameron takes a question from the audience during a public meeting in North Tyneside….
Question :
“In July last year the respected scientist and astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell, who was the sixth man to walk on the moon, spoke on a British radio station.
“He said the American government had had contact with extra terrestrials on multiple occasions and that these were ongoing.
“He spoke about the Roswell event in 1947 where wreckage of a downed UFO was recovered and found to contain alien bodies.
“He said this event was real but was covered up by the government for many years.
“Do you agree with me that the British people have a right to know if we have been visited, and if so, when you become prime minister will you seek to lift the veil of secrecy and give the public the truth that they deserve?”
David Cameron :
“I have no idea there is intelligent life out there and no idea whether any of the sightings which have taken place or whether any incidents which have taken place have any basis in truth.
“When people have looked at the Roswell incident, or when people have looked at pictures… a rational explanation tends to be produced to try and show what has happened is not what those who believe in UFOs suggest.
“But I think we should be a open as possible, so I would be quite happy to give you a guarantee that if I became prime minister I would always be entirely open and frank about these things.
“I don’t think any of us have any clue whether there’s intelligent life out there and it is certainly not something that any government should seek to hide from anyone.”
The BBC ran the following photo with the story on its website, but didn’t include an explanation for what the image is showing :
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
The Loitering Missile knows you will be leaving the house, eventually. It flies in and circles, high above you, for ten hours, always locked and poised to hone in on you within 60 seconds of its cameras making a positive identification.
A revolutionary missile that can stalk a target until the perfect moment to strike is being developed by the Ministry of Defence for use against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The so-called lurker bomb will also be able to shadow British troops for up to ten hours or 100 miles, ready to take out enemy targets with surgical precision at a minute’s notice.
Fire Shadow’s ability to ‘stooge’ above the troops means it can be guided to a target within seconds. And its deadly precision requires only a small warhead of 50lb, compared with the RAF’s smallest bomb of 500lb.
Fire Shadow can be guided to its target by troops on the ground with lasers, by operators in aircraft or helicopters, or by the Army’s new Watchkeeper surveillance drone.
The concept of a lurker bomb is the cornerstone of the MoD’s Indirect-Fire Precision Attack project. Fire Shadow is one of six projects that include an artillery shell that can electronically ‘sense’ its target, a new anti-aircraft missile for the Royal Navy, and advanced guidance for the new Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS).
It will also make one hell of a convincing blackmail-extortion weapon.
You get a phone call, you’re told to deposit $5 million into an account, the missile is flying, you can’t escape it, it knows exactly where you are, you have six hours to come up with the cash or the missile takes you, and whoever happens to be around you, out.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Even though I haven’t looked at it in years, it’s kind of reassuring to know that after all these decades Mad Magazine is still around, and still turning out excellent covers like the one above. Go Here For The Mad Magazine Site
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
In 2007, 99 children were killed and 2000 injured when cars reversed over them. These accidents most often occurred in residential driveways.
221 Americans in total were killed in “backovers”, with 14,000 injured.
….393 people were killed and 20,000 were injured in crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists in driveways, parking lots, private roads and trails in 2007.
…168 people were killed from 2003 to 2004 when they were pinned or trapped under vehicles, usually while working on a vehicle that fell from its supports.
….147 people were killed from unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning from vehicle exhaust.
And from a study of non-traffic car-versus-human victories in 2003-04 :
….88 deaths from falling from a vehicle, typically from the tailgate or roof
…57 fatalities from vehicle fires
…44 deaths from being struck by an object such as a tree, a rock or cargo
…37 deaths from excessive heat
…14 deaths from excessive cold.
And 150,000 people slammed the car doors on their fingers or hands hard enough to cause injury, more than 80,000 more were injured trying to unload overloaded cars, or pushing vehicles that had broken down.
Incredibly, five people were killed when they got their heads caught in closing windows.
Deaths from this bizarre accident are frequent enough that there is an official term for it :
The Humvee-mounted Laser Avenger can take out UAVs
According to Boeing, American taxpayers have to hand over billions of dollars they don’t have to fund the development of Humvee-mounted laser weapons because enemy UAVs (flying killer robots) “increasingly threaten U.S. troops deployed in war zones.”
Since when have Al Qaeda or the Taliban been attacking American troops with armed UAVs?
Is this the same ‘War on Terror’ that we read about in the news, or is there a whole other WoT going on we don’t hear about, where Afghan insurgents are piloting Flying Killer Robots from their caves in Waziristan?
While decades of Hollywood imagery may conjure up a vision of a target disintegrating in a sparkle of light, the actual workings of the laser beam are probably more prosaic. For instance, the beam from Boeing’s much, much larger Airborne Laser, which is intended to disable long-range missiles in flight, uses heat to create a weak spot on the skin of the missile, causing it to rupture in flight.
Maybe Boeing is getting in early selling the next generation of weapons to fight the Flying Killer Robot war, the war that hasn’t begun, yet.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
It appears as long as people keep doing illegal drugs, or, more importantly, as long as those drugs are kept illegal, some banks will not go under during the Greater Depression :
The United Nations’ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday.Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of control last year.
“In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital,” Costa was quoted as saying by Profil. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had found evidence that “interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities,” Costa was quoted as saying. There were “signs that some banks were rescued in that way.”
(snooorrrrt)
“Are you getting high again?”
“Yes, but I’m just doing my bit for the economic recovery. If I don’t snort the rest of this shit, and buy some more, more banks will go under.”
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
I have no wife nor children good or bad to provide for. A mere spectator of other men’s fortunes and adventures, and how they act their parts, which methinks are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre or scene.
I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c., daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies and sea-fights; peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms.
A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances are daily brought to our ears. New books every day, pamphlets, corantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion,…Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical, then tragical matters. Today we hear of new lords and officers created, tomorrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned; one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps….
This I daily hear, and such like, both private and public news, amidst the gallantry and misery of the world; jollity, pride, perplexities and cares, simplicity and villainy; subtlety, knavery, candour and integrity, mutually mixed and offering themselves; I rub on….as I have still lived, so I now continue…left to a solitary life, and mine own domestic discontents: saving that sometimes, as Diogenes went into the city, and Democritus to the haven to see fashions, I did for my recreation now and then walk abroad, look into the world, and could not choose but make some little observation, not as they did, to scoff or laugh at all, but with a mixed passion.
Three and a half decades ago, Burton so perfectly described a life of a news-junkie blogger in 2009.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Some of the editors make the pertinent observation that during Bush’s final press conference, when he was asked if he regretted anything, he only chose those dramatic moments that didn’t come out looking so good for him in news photographs.
A lot of the photos are familiar – Bush & Mission Accomplished, standing on the wreckage pile at Ground Zero on 9/11, struggling to open a locked door, being told that New York City was under attack – but there are some I’ve never seen before. Like this one of Bush and Obama :
From the Morris piece, here’s a screencap of the stunning ‘What The Fuck Have I Done?’ expression on Bush’s face during the final White House gathering where he said goodbye to friends and staffers at the end of his presidency.
Recently I had the good fortune to come into contact with Cynthia Basinet. Some of my readers may be familiar with Ms. Basinet from her rendition of Santa Baby – a song by the late Eartha Kitt that has become a Christmas staple, Ms. Basinet’s version often mistakenly credited to Marilyn Monroe.
Others may be aware of the humanitarian work that Ms. Basinet has done for the Saharawi people and Africa. That work includes an appearance before the U.N. in 2008 and a nomination for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize (she was 1 of the 1000 women nominated together that year).
I found Ms. Basinet to be an interesting, compelling, and intelligent woman. She has had a life of many achievements and challenges. She has made strides to improve the world, created a career in music, film, and modeling, and is a mother. In talking with Ms. Basinet I learned many things I would never have guessed about her. And that compelled me to ask her for an interview to share with you. She graciously agreed.
I hope that this interview will entertain you and spark a desire to know more. About Ms. Basinet, Africa and humanitarian aide, and the choices in life that you can make.
“There are no limits beyond those you set for yourself.”
I was told that long ago. I believe it. And Ms. Basinet is proof of it. And so I present my interview with Cynthia Basinet.
Michael Vass: For a bit of background for those not familiar with you, please share with us where you were born, what growing up was like, and your early influences.
Cynthia Basinet: One day, my son then much younger was looking at a photo album of my childhood… and asked if life was like the photos or was that just the film?
You know, life was like that. I was born in the Valley ( Los Angeles ) and raised in Silicon Valley (the Bay Area). My parents drove Peugeots, an orange Volvo and host of other car oddities. My father also rode a motorcycle and had a vintage, “retired” MG TD. He used to smoke a pipe or sneak a cigar outside. Talk to me about the White Owl girl but mostly, he listened to jazz. Every moment of my childhood was filled with music and art. Mom with her classical AM station in the kitchen and jazz on Dad’s. Later, he added country. Mom a BA in the Arts. My earliest influences were three things, all from posters in the house.
First, the serenity prayer. The second, a poster shot in Harlem with all these kids holding instruments. Third, the infamous Indian poster.
MV: You started your career as a model, working mostly in Paris and London . How did that happen?
C: Got on a plane and expatriated for various reasons nearly five years.
MV: Education is a theme I’ve always felt as being important in life. How has your education affected your life?
C: There are two kinds of education. One you give yourself and the other one [life] gives you. Two of the best things that ever happened to me were the education of music in public schools and private catholic high school. A school that within its walls thought was allowed and diversity respected. I truly thank my parents for both.
MV: Music is something that seems to have always been a part of your life. You are trained as a flautist and play the saxophone (I learned the Alto sax myself). How did you transition from modeling to music?
C: First, kudos on your sax education. Second, music never left me but it was in this safe little box deep inside, ‘till I could finally pursue it. Think a lot of moms can agree… following your dreams kinda comes after you drop the kids off at basketball practice.
MV: What drew you to Jazz?
C: Well, other than being raised on Jazz… and it racing like a language in my veins? Would say the second time around was love.
MV: What first brought the needs of the Saharawi people to your attention?
C: It’s no secret that my music career, like so many others, required self-determination. This concept intrigued me when applied to whole societies. That perhaps my experiences could help others on a larger scale.
MV: In 2001 you visited the Western Sahara and those living in refugee camps there. What compelled you to do this?
C: Wanted to give a voice to their society living under a peaceful resolution, that were also self-determined and under represented.
MV: You have been an outspoken advocate for the Saharawi people and Africa in general for almost a decade now. What drives you in these causes?
C: Believe Oprah said it best when she basically stated if you are a woman born in America, you are among the luckiest. That during my entire life… there was no struggle that didn’t lead me to realize others had it worse and they needed to be heard. They needed access.
MV: In 2005 you were recognized as 1 of 1000 women nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. How was that experience?
C: Being included with such amazing women that literally have done such “nobel” work; many times working in danger to achieve what is necessary for improvements in others lives, was incredible.
MV: What has that recognition allowed you to do?
C: The recognition allowed me to speak on behalf of the Saharwian people and other political activities.
MV: October 2008, you petitioned again to the UN to gain help against the difficulties to life in the Western Sahara including: Diabetes, Tuberculosis, Acute Malnutrition, Landmines, and many others. How was that experience?
C: It’s frustrating. They, the UN, are paid stewards of the Saharwian people amongst others and yet…
MV: You have used your jazz recordings to highlight your humanitarian efforts, especially your acclaimed rendition of the late Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby. Was this always your intention or did it grow out of your compassion?
C: Originally, had always entertained the idea to release a song that all could sing to at the Millennium (inspired by the Coke jingle, “If I Could Teach The World To Sing“). Then as it was “Santa Baby” that gave me the exposure, figured [I] should do something that she would have done. So when the invitation came to help raise awareness for the Saharwian people, did not skip a beat in accepting their plea.
MV: As a woman what challenges have you faced in your life?
C: It’s all in my mind. But will say, that being a mom, specially a single mom, is so isolating and requires endless pools of unconditional love and care… that that challenge alone needs us all working together. Like a village. That is what my time in France gave me.
MV: You have also had a career in movies; is that something you will pursue more in the future?
C: Sure be nice.
MV: One of the humanitarian efforts that I find important is the ongoing actions to end the genocide in Darfur. How do you feel about this tragedy?
C: Truly a tragedy. It is so difficult in these modern times where we can see the problem in real time, but we can’t seem to really stop it. I am truly horrified by the continued barbarity perpetuated on the already demeaned, demoralized and displaced citizens of Darfur. If this new century and millennium could be about one thing, it needs to be humanity. The right to live a humane life. And in peace.
MV: How about the Child Soldier Prevention Act?
C: I am so impressed this is one of your featured causes because these are the future fathers of Africa. No amount a pain and suffering inflicted in one area of the World, does not eventually affect us all. Whether it be the prevention of child soldiers in Africa, street children in Brazil or children sold into various forms of slavery [it] has no place. We are all too aware and affluent to do nothing. We can boycott, petition and finance so much change. We can stand as a shining example for other leading nations, like China to follow suit.
MV: In recent years women have taken important positions in business and politics. For my female readers what might you advise them about following their passions?
C: I know… what a trip the past few years have been. Interesting because it’s also a time when so much media and advertising attention is played to the distractions in women’s lives. Weight, beauty… and the unclearness of the opposite sex. Like SO much time is spent, derailed. No product or ideas produced. The key is to be of good mind and form and you can accomplish anything.
MV: What might you suggest for those looking for more information or ways to provide humanitarian aide?
C: Pick a cause or a country, look for non-profits that aid your cause or contact directly the embassy near you for your country of interest. So much can be found by research through the Internet.
MV: Among your many accomplishments you have found the time to have and raise a son. Is their any secret or technique you can pass on to mothers that wish to balance their career and family?
C: Every mom needs time for a good bath. Seriously, believe moms can ask for more help from their children, partners, etc.
MV: And finally what is the next project my readers can look forward to see and/or hear from you?
C: In the studio now… stay tuned.
I want to thank Ms. Basinet for taking the time to share her thoughts with me, and you my readers. I hope that this has helped spark an interest in education, humanitarian aide, self-improvement, and at the same time given you some entertainment.
Speculating on terror attacks, with an aim to profit, is one of the many dark secret of the current Age Of Terrorism finally getting a little illumination :
It was a day of carnage that left 56 people dead and a dark shadow for ever cast over the history of London. But for Jérôme Kerviel, the French rogue trader, 7/7 was the jackpot.Mr Kerviel, whose wild bets on the stock market ended with record losses, celebrated as Britain’s worst terror attack helped him to register a €500,000 profit and to continue a winning streak that brought him “orgasmic pleasure”.
“The best trading day in the history of Société Générale was September 11, 2001,” he said.
There’s something you don’t hear admitted in public very often. The July 7 attacks in London were extremely profitable as well.
A few days earlier he had bet on a fall in the share price of Allianz, the German insurance giant, he told Le Parisien. Everyone was losing money when the 7/7 bombings sent the insurance sector into a downward spiral “except for me”, he said. “Thanks to the positions I had, I earned €500,000 in a few minutes. It was the jackpot. I was jubilant.”
Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden, has proven to quite the moneymaker for those who seek to profit from terrorism, and war.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
“No matter what happens, no one will be kidnapped,” the paper quotes one company commander telling his troops before the fighting began.
In the past, there were standing orders, known as “Hannibal mode”, for firing at a vehicle taking Israeli troops into captivity to disable it and permit a rescue team to reach it, even at risk to the captive soldiers inside the vehicle. The new orders tighten those instructions, reportedly by permitting the vehicle to be blown up.
A soldier in a commando unit that operated behind Hamas lines said his unit was equipped with “special weapons”. “We were instructed to use them also against any vehicle carrying a kidnapped soldier,” he said.
Kill yourself, and kill your fellow soldiers, so your government can avoid nasty headlines.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
There’s only one chimp with a passport right now, but you know how these things go, there will be more. And then there will be human rights lawyers shouting “We Are Monkey People, Too!” and demanding the frequent flying simians be allowed to immigrate. Imagine the horror if Al Qaeda worked out how to recruit and jihadise monkeys that hold passports to western nations?
The three-month-old ape had his own animal export documents for the Lufthansa flight from Birmingham to Frankfurt but was given a special pretend passport complete with his name and picture.
Wrapped in the white cotton security blanket he has been nursed in since he was born, Bili could have been mistaken for a baby as he clutched on to his new keeper.
Not really. pygmy chimpanzees are not known for vomiting copious amounts of white fluid from their nostrils and mouth simultaneously onto a stranger’s breakfast tray.
I have no problem traveling on commercial flights with chimps, particularly baby ones, but if they’re going to do all that shrieking and poo-throwing, they must be kept in first class where that sort of behaviour is acceptable.
Yeah, you watch this trailer for the new movie Black Dynamite once, and you just know, in a few months, every kid on every street will be shouting, “You Jive Muthafukka!”
Vietnam: The blaxploitation era sprung out of the post-Vietnam time, where the brothers were not treated right in Vietnam and they came back to no jobs. A lot of the heroes were cats who came from Vietnam and had soldier-type skills that they used to take down The Man or clear the streets of drugs.
Stick it to The Man: Black paranoia is usually right in there. There’s usually this conspiratorial thing that The Man is plotting your doom. There’s a lot of real blaxploitation movies that involve a plot to exterminate black people. It’s a constant storyline. In these movies, white people spend 95% of their time coming up with plots against black people.White people by the pool: Every one of those ['70s blaxploitation flicks] depicted white people beside a swimming pool.
Kung fu: Martial arts is a big thing in blaxploitation movies and that [includes a] love affair with kung fu. A lot of the blaxploitation heroes didn’t know kung fu, but they wanted to try the moves anyway.
The exploding car off a cliff: Cars always exploded for no reason.
Israel’s prime minister (for now) Ehud Olmert, believes the only alternative to hundreds of children in Gaza being ‘War On Terror’-bombed to death was for Israel to lose hundreds of soldiers :
Amira Qirm lay on a hospital bed today with her right leg in plaster, and held together by a line of steel pins dug deep into her skin. For several days after her operation Amira, 15, was unable to speak, and even now talks only in a low whisper.
In her past are bitter memories: watching her father die in the street outside their home, then hearing another shell land and kill her brother Ala’a, 14, and her sister Ismat, 16, and then the three days that she spent alone, injured and semi-conscious, trying to stay alive in a neighbour’s abandoned house before she could be rescued last Sunday.
Only now, after most of the dead have been buried, is the first properly researched reckoning of the toll emerging. What already stands out is the striking cost borne by the children of Gaza, who make up more than half of the 1.5 million people living in this overcrowded strip of land.The Palestinian death toll after three weeks of Israel’s war was 1,285, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, or 1,268, according to the al-Mezan Human Rights Centre. Among those dead were at least 280 children.
The impact will be felt by many more for years to come. Among the more than 4,000 people injured more than a quarter were children, some left with severe disabilities. The Gaza Community Health Programme estimates that half Gaza’s children – around 350,000 – will develop some form of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Imagine if that even came close to becoming true. Hundreds of thousands of traumatised children going on to hit full maturity in the Gaza cage.
And yet the standard question with the same ugly truth will be pointlessly asked for years to come : Why Do They Hate Israel So Much?
Despite watching her family getting massacred by the soldiers of “the only real democracy in the Middle East”, 15 year old Amira Qirm just can’t wait to embrace all the western freedoms and blessings of Democracy that she can get, when she recovers from her massive injuries. For now there’s her dream :
“I want to be a lawyer,” she said today, “and to stand in court facing the Israelis for what they have done.”
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
January 2nd of this year Jacqueline Caron made a comment to my post about rapper TI and his charity on Thanksgiving. It was not directly related to TI, or charity, but to the plight of ex-convicts.
The comment went verbatim as follows:
It is wonderful to hear possitve for a change. Lets not forget about people who have made mistakes but turned their lide around. They are a forgotten population until this past election. Let’s not forget:
HOW LONG IS LONG ENOUGH?
For any man or woman convicted of a crime, successfully completing their
sentence, along with any assigned parole or probation, is just the
beginning. After their release from confinement, they are faced with re-
integrating themselves back into their community – often in the same area
and with the same influences that provided them opportunity to break the law
in the first place.
Their search for employment is often stonewalled by the fact that they now
have a conviction on their record. Employers performing a routine search
find the negative information, and unless they are part of a progressive
federal or state program, or willing to give the applicant a second chance,
the applicant is put at the bottom of the list of candidates – if they
remain on the list at all.
The goal of improving their own economic status and fighting the impulse to
return to their former ways is complicated further by the fact that even
advanced education – like a master’s degree – is often not enough to
convince a potential employer to give them another chance.
Apartment leases, home mortgages, opening a bank account or a credit card,
and many other processes that non-offenders take for granted are often
closed to these individuals. This situation continues for as long as the
conviction stays on their record, and with the advent of computers, the
information is even easier to find.
How long is long enough for a person convicted of a crime, who has
successfully completed their parole and / or probation, to continue to pay
for that crime? Support this and lets work to make a nationwide effort to give someone who has turned their life around a 2nd chance. Without it some who has a record and tries to move forward can’t because their record is like paying for their crime in life time installments
Jacqueline Caron, Founder / Chairwoman
Connecticut Pardon Team, Inc.
P.O. Box 807 ~ 307 Main Street
Norwich, Connecticut 06360
Toll-free: 1-866-251-3810
Local (Norwich): 1-860-823-1571
Now I will first note that I commend the efforts of Ms. Caron. Few speak out about the difficulty that ex-cons have. And it is quite true that they are punished long after having served their time in prison.
But I must say that I have no sympathy, empathy, or care. Specifically for those involved in crimes that contained violence and/or drugs. Yet even to a major degree for any criminal.
There is an old saying
“If you cannot do the time, do not do the crime.”
Simple and easy enough to understand. Even criminals understand this concept.
I honestly don’t care that an ex-con has a more difficult life than the average person. They made a choice and will have to suffer the consequences of that choice. No one made them become criminals, and they knew full well what repercussions would come from the choice they made.
It is not the burden of society to take care of those that have abandoned societies rules. Yes they have paid their debt to society, but they deserve the marking they receive in their communities. Because it is within those communities that they did the most damage, in general. And contrition cannot be assumed, nor considered done when an individual has been forced into penance.
Can criminals turn around their lives? Definitely. One of the greatest examples of this is Malcolm X. But what is the difference?
Malcolm X educated himself. That is the first requirement. He dedicated himself to self-improvement, thus negating his need or belief that crime was all he had before him. And few criminals follow in this footstep, though while incarcerated they have more than enough time to do so. I don’t feel bad that they do not seek out the means to release themselves from the ultimate prison, their own minds.
Malcolm X also took another great step. Once released from prison he went out and helped the community. He went about correcting the damage he caused. He tried to help others become educated so that they would not fall into the internal trap he himself had done. He committed acts of penance.
Was it difficult in the 1960’s to do the things that Malcolm X did? Absolutely. Drugs abounded, with virtually no intervention by law enforcement in Black neighborhoods. There were few legal opportunities with the weight of segregation and racial prejudice rampant in the nation. And there was as much, if not far more, distrust in the Black community of ex-cons – which at the time was a far more close-knit community than exists today.
Add to that the religious aspects of his life after prison, which was far less accepted than today, and you have a highly troubling path to follow. Ex-cons of today have exponentially more avenues to success and redemption than existed 40 years ago. The difficulty of reforming today is scarcely the difficulty of then, and it was more common (in my opinion) than today.
If you look at all those that had criminal pasts and today are reformed and successful, I would bet that the majority followed similar steps as those of Malcolm X. They struggled and strived for a better life. In doing so they proved their convictions and were rewarded. Nothing less should be expected.
I don’t want to make the life of an ex-con more difficult. At the same time I will not make it more comfortable. I sleep well at night in full knowledge that ex-cons are troubled. I would not if my taxes, or any involuntary help from myself, were given en masse.
I realize I am throwing a wide blanket. But sometimes that is what is needed. At this moment in America, when our youth are being given every reason to become “ganstas”, reinforcing that thought with the notion that the consequences of their actions will be cushioned by some who have a belief of giving without circumstance is a horrible concept. It does not improve the lives of the community, nor would that help the society at large.
Many may find my view harsh. I fully admit it is. But it is that harsh reality that I believe in that reminds all those around me that criminal acts are not simple, meaningless, nor fun. It is that enforcement of punishment and difficulty that may help keep an individual from straying. And I believe that this view was one more deeply held in decades past.
Our enlightened view of the world today causes more problems than our less technological, less sophisticated past. Vices are more common, and defended, than ever before. Criminals are treated with more compassion than they deserve. And we have more excuses for every individual act against society than justifiable.
So if you ask me how long should an ex-con be punished for their conscious actions, especially but not exclusively those that commit violent or drug related crimes, my only answer is until they have proven beyond doubt they are worthy of trust on any level. If that takes a lifetime, so be it. That is the consequence of the choice they made freely.
But if you believe there is a counter to this, I am open to hear it.
Don’t think aliens in hyperspeedy zoomtronic spacecraft, think time travelers.
Or more specifically, time traveling tourists.
When non-interfering time travel becomes a reality, the Obama Inauguration Spectacular could be a popular choice for the touros. You don’t get to go down and hang out with the locals in 2009, you just sit and watch it all out your little window, hovering off to one side.
Maybe with the cheaper time tourism tickets you only get to see Springsteen singing for Obama, a few weeks out from the inauguration.
Or it could be a package deal. Pay full price for the trip back to the inauguration, get to see some Springsteen and earlier Obama speeches for half price.
So very many UFO clips on YouTube really suck.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Disclaimer:
All American Blog is owned by 1800blogger which is a (for) profit organization. We are not a charity. If you send any money through this button, please understand that the money is being used for working capital for All American Blog and 1800blogger. Please check with your accountant to see if this is a tax-deductible contribution.
But will say, that being a mom, specially a single mom, is so isolating and requires endless pools of unconditional love and care… that that challenge alone needs us all working together. Like a village. That is what my time in France gave me.
