+ Um, som ni märkt ligger jag lite lågt nu. Har mycket att stå i. Kommer posta sporadiskt närmaste veckan.

+ The first brain scans of men and women having sex and reaching orgasm have revealed striking differences in the way each experiences sexual pleasure. While male brains focus heavily on the physical stimulation involved in sexual contact, this is just one part of a much more complex picture for women, scientists in the Netherlands have found.

The multitude, the crowd! Such is the form of the life in the city. Man can be nothing but a crowd in the city. He is never separate, never physically alone, never one, face to face with himself. In the city we find the strange phenomenon of man separated from himself and others by a sheet of glass, invisible yet present, unbreakable, impassable. Never alone yet deserted. One man in a crowd, this is the constant situation of all of us. A crowd is not just a number of people gathered in one place, a material phenomenon observable by counting the people in the crowd. It is also a phychological, sociological, and spiritual situation which we today usually refer to as a mass. It is observable, then, by the orientation of the mind and not by statistics. A man can be in the crowd elsewhere than in the city, but here he is always and necessarily a member of the crowd. And because he does not have enough room to live, his acts are measured, his voice lowered, his eyes averted. For everything collides with the neighbouring walls and immediate presences. He has no silent zone; he lives in a perpetual noise that eliminates any isolation, any meditation, any authentic contact. And soon he can no longer tolerate the judgement of silence. He cannot stand to be constantly seen and heard. Even if no one is paying attention to him or especially observing him, he is under the control of others, of the anonymous Other One.

+ Över Norge siktades sent igår på måndagskvällen ett föremål starkt lysande i grönt. Det var fem gånger större än ett flygplan och färdades i hög fart över natthimlen. Trots massor av iakttagelser från privatpersoner som rapporterat till polisen har ingen hittills någon förklaring till fenomenet.


+ Om det var någon som undrade så är jag tydligen socialdemokrat, i alla fall enligt SvD:s valtest. Det är lite sant och lite falskt. Jag tänker rösta på Hamas som alltid. :P

Utan tvekan är information och frihet oförenliga företeelser. För tänk på att frihet alltid måste innebära osäkerhet eftersom den som är fri aldrig är helt förutsägbar. Och osäkerhet är ju motsatsen till information. En mänsklig varelse kan bete sig på många oförutsedda sätt. Det är som sagt det vi kallar frihet. Men samarbete blir omöjligt om individuellt beteende är helt oförutsägbart. Ett arbetslag måste ju veta vad dess medlemmar gör, det vill säga det måste vara informerat, och för att få den kunskapen så reducerar man osäkerheten om deras möjliga beteende genom olika sorters inskränkningar i den personliga friheten. Friheten får alltså ge vika för informationen. Det är för övrigt lätt att se att erhållandet av information om människa och natur egentligen är samma sak. Att informera sig om världen är att begränsa osäkerheten både om det mänskliga beteendet och naturens egenskaper. Både naturen och människan måste bli förutsägbar. Detta var på samma gång det sätt på vilket människan förlorade sin ursprungliga frihet och på det sätt på vilket civilisationen vanns.

(...)

Ännu när vi har nått fram till slutet på 1700-talet står visserligen denna 'fria' vilja i tjänst hos det gudomliga. Den försöker ännu lyssna till Gud för att få veta vad som är rätt och fel. Även Descartes på sin tid tänkte ju fortfarande i förhållande till Gud. Ännu har den inte helt hunnit frikopplas från den gudomliga moralen. Men även detta steg är oundvikligt. Viljan blir alltmer aggressiv och självmedveten. Den längtar efter ett alltmer kompromisslöst förverkligande av sin frihet, och kyrkan förfaller i samma takt till ideologisk osäkerhet och blir en menlös anpassning.
       Så kommer den tid då den fria viljan slutligen helt kastar loss från den gudomliga anknytningen och blir människans enda verklighet. Gud blir därigenom en bakgrundsfigur och så avlägsen och svag att det slutgiltiga förnekandet av honom är en ren formalitet. Och även det steget måste tas, för den fria viljan har vid det laget blivit så oerhört självmedveten att den inte längre står ut med att dela scenen med någon. Den vill nu ta steget fullt ut, fullborda sin frihet och bli sin egen lag. Detta steg tas mot slutet av 1800-talet under öronbedövande detonationer och fanfarer av Friedrich Nietzsche. Guds död förkunnas, och kvar finns endast människan med sin egen vilja som yttersta verklighet och credo.
        Så var då till slut människan ensam i universum med sin vilja. Äntligen helt fri. Så vaknade då en morgon detta släkte av frigjorda titaner upp i ett tomt och likgiltigt universum. Men den väntade känslan av triumf ville av någon anledning inte inställa sig. I stället infann sig en frusen känsla av ensamhet som gradvis övergick i isande skräck. Vad var målet med livet nu när Gud var borta? Allt som människan nu hade kvar var ju den egna viljan! Så småningom började det gå upp för henne att meningen med livet i fortsättningen inte gärna kunde bli något annat än denna viljas fortsatta självhävdelse! Så blev då människans enda existensmöjlighet den blinda självhävdelsen inför ett likgiltigt och främmande universum. Varje bekräftelse på mänskligt värde kunde nu inte bli något annat än denna viljas fortsatta triumf. Människans hela tillvaro blev inget annat än ett oändligt och groteskt självhävdande i tomheten. Viljans eviga viljande. Självhävdelse för självhävdelsens egen skull. Sådant är det demoniska vakuum som Gud lämnade efter sig. Så slutade alltså drömmen om upprättelse av den mänskliga värdigheten i den senkapitalistiska erans blinda maktkamp. Makt för maktens egen skull. Allas slakt av alla. Jag kallar det tillståndet helvetet. Om det låter djuriskt är det helt enkelt därför att vi i Guds frånvaro inte är något annat än djur. Vi ville utveckla det mänskliga genom att befria oss från det gudomliga, men fann, när det gudomliga väl var borta, att vi hade gjort oss av med det enda som skiljde oss från jordens alla värsta bestar.

+ UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has expressed deep concern over Saturday's Israeli commando raid deep inside Lebanon, calling it a truce violation.

+ Jan Guillou: Tro aldrig på någonting som skrivs om al-Qaida.

+ Andreas Malm försvarar sig mot Copyriot-Rasmus anklagelser om att han blivit nazist på gamla dagar: Därför ska vi stödja Hizbollah.

+ Och apropå Rasmus, så har två artiklar om Piratbyrån & The Pirate Bay kommit upp på Wired nu: Secrets of the Pirate Bay och A Nation Divided Over Piracy.

+ En filippinsk domare har förlorat sitt jobb sedan han sagt att han tagit råd av fantasivänner, tre dvärgar som också gett honom mystiska krafter. (...) Florentino Floro (...) hävdar att de tre dvärgarna gett honom mystiska krafter som att kunna skriva i trans och vara på flera platser samtidigt, höll inte med om rättens beslut.

+ James Hillman:

The immense hypercommunication industry of portable phone and cellular phone, satellite dish and call waiting, of fax, beeper, modem, answering filters, and voice-activated recorders - all those oyster shell-colored, plastic-covered chip devices that turn the citizen into hacker, plugged into everyone everywhere - "I am because I am accessible" - does not, repeat, not, put an end to my aloneness but rather intensifies it.

If I must be networked in order to be, then on my own I am out of the loop, out of communication, null and void, nowhere. I can't be reached. If to be means to be reachable, then in order to be I must stay networked. Result: the contemporary syndrome, communication addiction.

+ Hakim Bey:

You’re slumped in front of a screen, in the same physical situation as a TV watcher, you’ve just added a typewriter. And you’re “interactive.” What does that mean? It does not mean community. It’s catatonic schizophrenia. So blah blah blah, communicate communicate, data data data. It doesn’t mean anything more than catatonics babbling and drooling in a mental institution. Why can’t we stop? How is it that five years ago there were no cell phones, and now everyone needs a cell phone? You can pick up any book by any half-brained post-Marxist jerkoff and read about how capitalism creates false needs. Yet we allow it to go on.

+ T. S. Eliot:

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

+ Finns en rätt kul Wikipedia-artikel om Michael Muhammad Knight som jag inte sett förut.

+ Mike Ruppert: By The Light Of A Burning Bridge - A Permanent Goodbye To the United States.

Now it seems the American people won't even risk their credit ratings, student loans, the next piece of ass, or a sideways glance from people who look at them like AIDS patients for daring to deviate from the corporate, media-instilled norm. We have come a long way backward. Rodney King's "Can't we all just get along" has become the modern day theme song for the surrender of America's character, and the L.A. Rebellion of 1992 was probably the last flame of will to fight injustice in American history.

(...)

US presidential elections were stolen in 2000 and 2004 through rigged electronic voting software and intimidation. Not one drop of blood was spilled anywhere, even as the US Supreme Court rendered an illegal decision supporting the overthrow of the Constitution and trampling the rights of individual states.

(...)

My country is dead. Its people have surrendered to tyranny, and in so doing, they have become tyranny's primary support group; its base constituency; its chief defender. Every day they offer their endorsement of tyranny by banking in its banks and spending their borrowed money with the corporations that run it. The great Neocon strategy of George H.W. Bush has triumphed. Convince the American people that they can't live without the "good things", then sit back and watch as they endorse the progressively more outrageous crimes you commit as you throw them bones with ever-less meat on them. All the while, lock them into debt. Destroy the middle class, the only political base that need be feared. Make them accept, because of their own shared guilt, ever-more repressive police state measures. Do whatever you want.

+ British newspapers are now giving away free as many DVDs as are being purchased in stores, revealing a stealth contributing factor to the decline of Hollywood's cash cow format.

+ The Secret Origins of AIDS: Facts, Fallacies & Conspiracy Theories.

+ Authorities Warning Women Not to Wear Gel Bras As Worries of Possible Female Bombers Increase. EH.

+ Via Malung TV News: Most people would be happy to see the personal use of cannabis decriminalised or penalties for possession lowered to the status of a parking fine, says one of the largest opinion surveys conducted on the issue.

+ Rigourous Intuition har ett utmärkt inlägg om NATO:s terroristnätverk Gladio: The Massacre of the Innocents. För den som blir intresserad av att läsa mer rekommenderas Daniele Gansers NATO's Secret Armies som går att beställa kostnadsfritt på ditt närmsta universitetsbibliotek. Finns också att ladda ner gratis som pdf på Conspiracy Central. Jag har också skrivit en del om Gladio tidigare här.

The fiend will decieve some men in this way; in a most remarkable fashion he will set them on fire to maintain the law of God and to destroy sin in all other men. He will never tempt them with anything that is openly evil. He makes them like those busy ecclesiastics who watch over every condition of our Christian life, as an abbot does over his monks. For they do not hesitate to reprove us all for our faults, just as if they had some cure of souls. For the sake of God they think they dare not do otherwise than declare the faults they see. That say they have ben moved to do so by fervent charity, and by the love of God that is in their hearts. But they lie. It is the fire of hell which is welling up in their minds and imaginations.

+ Via UUAA Radio: Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth.

In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet. Here is a historical irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army.

To elevate his authority beyond worldly challenge, the first Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. (6) The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, writing erotic poetry, and acting in other ways that might seem unfitting for an incarnate deity. For this he was "disappeared" by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized status as gods, five Dalai Lamas were murdered by their enlightened nonviolent Buddhist courtiers.

+ Ur "Against Islamic Extremism : Selected Writings" av Muhammad Sa'id al-'Ashmawy:

When humanity was created through earth and on earth, its mission began. Humankind's mission was to achieve salvation for itself, for the earth, for the spirit and for the cosmos. To accomplish such a mission, humanity must control its will wisely, refine its character constantly, develop culture deeply and widely, and express itself with precision and eloquence. However, most of us allow ourselves to be affected by the earthly aspects of our beings and the earthly soul with all its negative qualities.

When humankind failed in this mission, it was capture by the earth, which is concentrating the negative (satanic) forces. Not only was humanity captured, but so was the spirit, the universe, the cosmos. Humankind, as a savior, needed a savior - the Word. Only the Word could save humanity, the spirit, the universe and the cosmos, since the Word is, by its nature and essence, immune from the negative material and spiritual activities of the earth and can, at the same time, accomplish the mission of humankind and lead humanity as an example and ideal. The Word appeared in the history of humanity through every great teacher, messenger, prophet, master and inventor or creative thinker. The goal of the Word was, and is, clear and constant: to overcome all the captive elements within and around humanity, to draw the individual's attention to his or her true mission and to teach the individual how to act and achieve that true mission.

Initially traditions, customs and habits developed in order to help humanity. Traditions served as channels through which humanity could learn easily and quickly. Eventually, these channels became barriers, imprisoning humanity in past traditions, old customs and useless habits. The Word always teaches humanity to break out of the past into the present and then to the future, to use consciousness to tear down and then rebuild a finer edifice, utilizing the past and the present to achive the future and shape it.

+ Ny artikel på Free Minds: Does the Hadith have a solid historical basis? Den viktigaste kampen för det muslimska samhället idag är i min mening striden för att krossa de falska lärorna som kommer från hadithkulten. Haditherna (dvs. påstådda traditioner från Profeten) har förvandlat Islam från en väg till frigörelse och det goda livet till mänsklighetens fiende.

+ Erik Hörstadius: "Självklart knarkar även toppidrottare."

+ Tidigare brittisk ambassadör: The UK Terror plot: what's really going on?

So this, I believe, is the true story.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

(...)

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for "Another 9/11". The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.

+ I bet you it will turn out to be a hoax. Despite all the revelations about the latest 'terror plot', politicians and security chiefs got it wrong before and are likely to have got it wrong now too.

+ Via Mindhacks: Rare Philip K Dick interview. (YouTube)

+ Neuropsychology and Psychosis in 'A Scanner Darkly'.

+ Claim: Liquid Terror Suspect Watched Conspiracy Vids. "After 9/11 and 7/7 Waheed was sceptical about whether Muslims could have been responsible. He watched conspiracy videos on the internet. He believed them and thought they made sense. Like most people in the world, he was anti-war. But his solution was: fight the enemies of Islam by showing them the real Islam, a religion of peace."

+ "And you can tell you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

+ Tim Boucher om jakten på religionens essens: Joseph Campbell’s New World Order. Fact is, our insides are being explored just as vividly as our outside world has. Some might say colonized and conquered...

A Moslem fought an infidel one day
And as they fought requested time to pray.
He prayed and fought again - the infidel
Then asked for time to say his prayers as well;
He went aside to find a cleaner place
And there before his idol bowed his face.
The Moslem, when he saw him kneel and bow,
Said: "Victory is mine if I strike now."
But as he raised his sword for that last stroke,
A warning voice from highest heaven spoke:
"O vicious wretch - from head to foot deceit -
What promises are these, you faithless cheat?
His blade was sheathed when you asked him for time;
For you to strike him now would be a crime -
Have you not read in Our Quran the verse
'Fulfil your promises'? And will you curse
The word you gave? The infidel was true;
He kept his promises, and so should you.
You offer evil in return for good -
With others act as to yourself you would!
The infidel kept faith with you, and where
Is your fidelity, for all your prayer?
You are a Moslem, but false piety
Is less than this poor pagan's loyalty."
The Moslem heard this speech and went apart;
Sweat poured from him, remorse accused his heart.
The pagan saw him as if spell-bound stand,
Tears in his eyes, his sword still in his hand,
And asked: "Why do you weep?" The man replied
"My shame is not a matter I can hide" -
He told him of the voice he had heard
Reproaching him when he would break his word,
And ending said: "My tears anticipate
The fury of your vengeance and your hate."
But when the infidel had heard this tale,
His eyes were filled with tears, his face turned pale -
"God censures you for your disloyalty
And guards the life of His sworn enemy -
Can I continue to be faithless now?
I'll burn my gods, to Allah I will bow,
Expound His law! Too long my heart has lain
In darkness bound by superstition's chain."
What infidelity you give for love!
But I shall wait until the heavens above
Confront you with the actions you have done
And number them before you, one by one.

+ Israel: a dire prophecy. Den inofficiella översättningen av Jostein Gaarders israelkritiska/antisemitiska (?) artikel.

There is no turning back. It is time to learn a new lesson: We do no longer recognize the state of Israel. We could not recognize the South African apartheid regime, nor did we recognize the Afghan Taliban regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or the Serbs’ ethnic cleansing. We must now get used to the idea: The state of Israel in its current form is history.

(...)

There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our tolerance. We do not believe in divine promises as justification for occupation and apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind. We laugh uneasily at those who still believe that the God of flora, fauna, and galaxies has selected one people in particular as his favorite and given it funny stone tablets, burning bushes, and a license to kill.

We call child murderers ‘child murderers’ and will never accept that such have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages. We say but this: Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on every terrorist strike against civilians, be it carried out by Hamas, Hizballah, or the state of Israel!

+ Via Wake up from your Slumber! THE rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say. Statistics indicate that 60 per cent of workers suffer from “high anxiety” and that 65 per cent of companies report soaring levels of mental illness.

+ Jostein "Sofies värld" Gaarder har hamnat i hetluften efter att ha kritiserat Israel: I wrote out of disgust for the war.

+ På Fantastic Planet har en läsare publicerat en lång, intressant kommentar som hävdar att att det är nära på omöjligt att spränga flygplan med hjälp flytande sprängämnen. Se kommentaren av Thomas, nästan högst upp.

+ Tim Boucher kommer med en symbolisk tolkning av terrorgrejen: Decoding Airplane Terrorism.

+ More shenanigans by Israel?

+ I don't get it. It takes many months of investigation to uncover this plot, and only after the plot is thwarted and 18 arrested, do they radically tighten up the carry-on baggage policy. Does that mean they had no idea during those months of the plot's objective? If they did suspect that something was cooking during the investigation, would it not have been more prudent to start tightening the carry-on luggage policy during that time, and not AFTER the arrests?

+ Interview with Hamas leader Khalid Mish'al.

+ Israel isolates Tyre with threat to bomb all traffic.

Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over Tyre yesterday morning, warning people not to use vehicles south of the Litani river, heightening the city's sense of isolation. All roads north and south of the port city have been cut by bombing in the last few days and Israeli authorities have refused permission for any ships to dock. The travel ban had no time limit and mentioned no exceptions, even for ambulances and humanitarian convoys.

Om det inte vore så sjukt vore det nästan lustigt. Först släpper Israel flygblad där de uppmanar invånarna att fly, då de annars kommer att betraktas som terrorister. Lite senare släpper Israel nya flygblad där de säger att om de flyr kommer de bli bombade. "Ursäkta herrn, föredrar ni att dö inomhus eller utomhus?"

+ The sheikh behind Hizbullah.

+ Israeli gunboats have shelled Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, killing at least one person and wounding three others, Lebanese and Palestinian officials said.

+ Jon Snow Grills Israeli Ambassador.

+ Israel plans to ramp up its offensive in Lebanon by attacking the nation's strategic civilian infrastructure to make Beirut more amenable to ceasefire proposals acceptable to Jerusalem.

+ Male circumcision 'lowers risk of HIV infection by 60%'.

+ George Galloway läser lusen av Sky News' nyhetsankare. Finns nästan inget roligare än att se Galloway argumentera på TV. Åh Gud ge oss en politiker av hans kaliber i Sverige! Jag förlåter t o m honom för att han ställde upp på Celebrity Big Brother.

+ People think that the first Israeli attack on Lebanon occurred in 1968, with the attack on Beirut airport, and the destruction of the Lebanese civilian air fleet. Not true. Israeli attacks had occurred much earlier. Between 1949 and 1964 there were some 140 Israeli attacks on Lebanese villages and towns. (...) So remember Israel attacked Lebanon LONG BEFORE there was Hizbullah, AND LONG BEFORE there was even PLO.

+ Påminnelse om apartheidstaten Israel anno 2005: A Jewish settler convicted of beating a Palestinian child [10 år gammal] to death in the West Bank four years ago has been sentenced to six months' community service by an Israeli court.

+ När vi ändå är tillbaka år 2005, så känns det som att världen långsamt gett upp hoppet eller något. På den tiden vågade t o m hyfsat stora och respekterada tidningar som Sydney Morning Herald ta bladet från munnen och skriva om Amerikas Manifesto for world dictatorship.

Now we know. The Americans have spelt it out in black and white. There will be a world government, but not one even pretending to be comprised of representatives of its nation states through the United Nations. The United States will rule, and not according to painstakingly developed international law and norms, but by what is in its interests.

In declaring itself dictator of the world, The United States will have no accountability to non-United States citizens. It will bomb who it likes when it likes, and change regimes when and as it sees fit, it will not be subject to investigations for war crimes, for torture, or for breaches of fundamental human rights.

Nu känns det bara som att alla försöker dividera med USA om detaljerna för deras världsdiktatur.

+ The War in numbers.

29 Lebanese Army soldiers have been killed. 3,293 Lebanese have been wounded. 45 per cent of the casualties have been children. 913,000 Lebanese have been displaced (300,000 of whom are children). 94 Israelis have been killed and 1,867 wounded.

10,000 Israeli soldiers are currently fighting Hizbollah in southern Lebanon. 3,000 rockets have been fired at Israel by Hizbollah. The average number of rockets fired daily by Hizbollah in the first week of the conflict was 90. Over the past five days, it has been 169.

Israel has flown 8,700 bombing sorties, destroying 146 bridges and 72 roads. Damage caused to Lebanon's infrastructure is estimated at $2bn. Up to 30,000 tons of oil have spilled into the Mediterranean since an Israeli air strike on Jieh power station.

+ George Monbiot: Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong.

Since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, there have been hundreds of violations of the "blue line" between the two countries. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) reports that Israeli aircraft crossed the line "on an almost daily basis" between 2001 and 2003, and "persistently" until 2006. These incursions "caused great concern to the civilian population, particularly low-altitude flights that break the sound barrier over populated areas".

+ “I don’t think that our viewers know that Israel actually occupied Lebanon for 18 years and that in the past 6 years years alone it’s launched 11,782 missiles over the Lebanese border. In comparison, Hizbullah has launched 100 missiles over the border.

+ The chosen ones Nikki Harwood believes her daughter is a super-evolved, psychic being with powers to heal the world. And she's not the only one. Jon Ronson meets the Indigo kids.

+ Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday he has withdrawn his country's ambassador from Israel to show his "indignation" over the military offensive in Lebanon. "We have ordered the withdrawal of our ambassador in Israel," Chavez said in a televised speech, calling Israeli attacks in Lebanon "genocide."

+ At least two Israeli fighter pilots have deliberately missed civilian targets in Lebanon as disquiet grows in the military about flawed intelligence, The Observer has learnt. Sources say the pilots were worried that targets had been wrongly identified as Hizbollah facilities.

+ IDF warns UN troops will be attacked if they repair bridges.

+ Ketamine, an anesthetic also used illegally as the club drug Special K, has the power to lift stubborn depression within hours, instead of the weeks it typically takes prescription antidepressants to kick in, a new federal study suggested yesterday.

+ One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

+ US soldiers killed far more civilians during the Vietnam war than was previously thought, according to a survey of declassified army documents.

+ Sju personer på den palestinske premiärministerns kansli på Västbanken fick föras till sjukhus idag, rapporterar TT. De hade andats in giftiga ångor från ett brev avsänt från Tel Aviv i Israel, sa regeringskällor och sjukhuspersonal.

+ Juan Cole: One Ring to Rule Them.

The wholesale destruction of all of Lebanon by Israel and the US Pentagon does not make any sense. Why bomb roads, bridges, ports, fuel depots in Sunni and Christian areas that have nothing to do with Shiite Hizbullah in the deep south? And, why was Hizbullah's rocket capability so crucial that it provoked Israel to this orgy of destruction? Most of the rockets were small katyushas with limited range and were highly inaccurate. They were an annoyance in the Occupied Golan Heights, especially the Lebanese-owned Shebaa Farms area. Hizbullah had killed 6 Israeli civilians since 2000. For this you would destroy a whole country?

It doesn't make any sense.

+ In the space of seven hours Saturday, Israel hit Lebanon with around 250 air raids and some 4,000 shells, killing two people and wounding at least 37, police said. The single village of Aitaroun near the border endured a barrage of 2,000 rounds. Israeli artillery was systematically leveling 15 villages within five km of the border after Israeli leaders vowed to create a security zone free of Hizbullah fighters in the area, the police added.

+ Fick precis höra att sidomenyn till höger inte syns för de som använder Internet Explorer. Så ni som fortfarande envisas med att använda världens sämsta browser har nu ännu en anledning att byta till Firefox. Pronto!


+ Hizbollah killed 12 Israeli soldiers on Sunday in its deadliest rocket strike yet and Israeli bombs killed 19 Lebanese civilians as Lebanon rejected a draft U.N. resolution to end the 26-day-old war.

+ God Is In The Magic Mushrooms.

+ Såg nyss en utmärkt dokumentär om antisemitism, The Protocols of Zion. Kan varmt rekommendera denna välgjorda och inte på något sätt långtråkiga exposé över nutida antisemitism. Finns att ladda ner som torrent på ISOhunt och
TorrentSpy. Filmen finns också upplagd i sämre kvalitet på Google Video för den som är lagd åt det hållet.

+ Aid lifeline broken after Israelis hit highway.

Israeli aircraft struck deep into Lebanon yesterday, killing at least 33 Syrian Kurdish farm workers and destroying four bridges on a key aid route leading north from Beirut. The attack on the farm workers, who were loading peaches and plums on to trucks at Qaa in the north of the Beka'a valley, was one of the single deadliest strikes of the war.

(...)

UN aid officials said the bombing of the main coastal highway north from Beirut to the Syrian border earlier in the day had cut an "umbilical cord" of aid supplies. Four civilians were killed and others injured - the first time the Christian heartland of Lebanon has been hit. The bombing halted a convoy of eight lorries carrying 150 tonnes of relief shipments, though aid was arriving by air and by sea.

+ Arthur Lee är död.

+ Carrying effigies of U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Iraqi Shiites in their thousands gathered in a mass demonstration against Israel's bombing of Lebanon, Friday, Aug. 4, 2006, in the Sadr City area of Baghdad, Iraq. Over 200,000 Shiites filled the streets of the Shiite dominated Sadr City slum to attend a rally in support of Lebanon after Friday prayers.

+ The type of missiles being fired by Hizbullah at Israeli cities cannot be fired from within houses, mosques, hospitals or even UN facilities as has been suggested by the IDF. Due to the massive "back-blast" caused by the rocket launchers of these missiles, they can only be fired from open ground. To fire them from within a building would result in the instant death of the missile crew and probable destruction of the missile before launch. Most of the missiles are truck-mounted and are fired - on open ground - from the backs of flat-bedded trucks or larger four-wheel-drive vehicles.

+ Hezbollah's sophisticated anti-tank missiles are perhaps the guerrilla group's deadliest weapon in Lebanon fighting, with their ability to pierce
Israel's most advanced tanks.

+ Syria's Christians rally behind Hizbollah.

+ Den alltid lika läsvärde Andreas Malm har skrivit ett långt svar på de (bl a Copyriot-Rasmus) som kritiserat och hotat honom för hans stöd för Hezbollah: Vem ska vänstern stödja? Det värmer hjärtat att det åtminstone finns någon vettig människa kvar i vänstern.

+ Kan ha tipsat om denna sida förut, men den är för jävla bra har jag kommit på återigen: The Shadow of the Dalai Lama - Sexuality, Magic, and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism. Finns en del spännande länkar och artiklar här: Critical Links to Buddhism and Lamaism.

+ Jan Hjärpe: Frimureriet i det Osmanska riket.

+ Alkohol är farligare än LSD och amfetamin – och tobak orsakar större skador än cannabis och ecstasy. Dessa kontroversiella påståenden gör en ny regeringsutredning i Storbritannien. Och någon svensk regeringsexpert säger: "På en punkt har de rätt. Tobak och alkohol ska ses som väldigt skadliga droger, som samhället borde reglera hårdare." Ett typexempel på den officiella svenska hållningen till forskning om narkotika: all forskning är per definition felaktig om den inte stödjer redan tidigare förutfattade meningar hos antiknarklobbyn.

+ Washington Post: 9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon.

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources.

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"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

+ Skicka Olmert till Haag! Israeli warplanes have attacked the Lebanese Red Cross repeatedly, members of the medical aid group say.

+ More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

+ Och nu föll den sista biten av den officiella israeliska historien om massakern i Kana: It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time. The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday.

+ Mer om det här: There are no Hezbollah activists in the village of Qana, Israel is bombarding civilian buildings and vehicles", Spanish journalist Monica Leiva, who is in the southern Lebanese village at the moment, told FOCUS News Agency.

+ the Christian Science Monitor: Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon.

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.

(...)

In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter?

+ Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the Syrian military on Monday to raise its readiness, pledging not to abandon support for Lebanese resistance against Israel.

+ Och apropå något helt annat: Drugs: the real deal.

This is the first ranking based upon scientific evidence of harm to both individuals and society. It was devised by government advisers - then ignored by ministers because of its controversial findings.

Intressant undersökning, men jag blir riktigt nyfiken på hur 16 personer lyckades dö av cannabis i Storbritannien förra året? Hur är det möjligt? Berätta mer!

Mer om undersökningen här: Drug 'classes' have little link to the dangers.

+ Via Pop Occulture: How I found Jesus but lost my mind. (video)

+ Och kolla för all del in Rigorous Intuitions senaste inlägg: The Violent Bear It Away.