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Vader

Best of the Web: Face of a psychopath



Norman Podhoretz

Neoconservative icon Norman Podhoretz followed up his Commentary article titled "The case for bombing Iran" -- excerpts of which were re-published in The Wall St. Journal -- with an interview elaborating on why he "hopes and prays" that we bomb Iran and how he envisions the bombings.

What Norman Podhoretz is advocating -- blowing Iran into "smithereens" -- is criminal and morally twisted for reasons that should require no elaboration. But the far more significant fact is that such advocacy does not relegate him to the fringes. Quite the contrary, the movement of which he is an integral part, on whose behalf he speaks, is well within the political mainstream as depicted by our political press. And it is doubtful that there is anything he (and his comrades) could do or say which would change that.

Key

Best of the Web: The Path of The Psycho

Dr. Robert Hare, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of British Columbia, has spent more than three decades researching psychopathy. He has developed the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) and its revision, the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) These lists have proven extremely valuable for the proper assessment of psychopathy.

Hare describes psychopaths as "intraspecies predators who use charm, manipulation, intimidation and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs." They lack conscience, they take what they want and do as they please, without guilt or remorse. "What is missing, in other words, are the very qualities that allow a human being to live in social harmony."

Evil Rays

Best of the Web: The Seung Cho "conspiracy theories" are not nearly weird enough

I'm beginning to think the Seung Cho "conspiracy theories" are not nearly weird enough. If there is an occult component to the massacre, which seems likely from his incredible killed-to-wounded ratio, then the powers behind it don't care where his sister works, and they don't need shadowy meetings in the alphabet agencies. All they need is to watch and wait for someone to get in the proper mental state to serve as their host, or "agent." A given operation might have many agents on many levels with many motives, with a control structure that does not exist in the physical world, and uses mechanisms that we would not recognize as "mechanisms."

So instead of saying, "This killer was a Manchurian candidate trained by the CIA, and this one was demonically possessed, and this one was acting on his own," I suggest that all murderous humans and human institutions in history and prehistory have been part of the same pattern, or movement, or being. A half million year old skull split by an axe had the same killer as the victims of Jack the Ripper and the Nagasaki bombing. This being's intelligence exists on levels we do not yet understand, and it perpetuates itself through abuse, trauma, and domination, all of which consume and move through humans the way a fire moves through a forest.

Magnify

Best of the Web: The Neurobiology of Mass Delusion

History is replete with examples of social organizations, whether a business or a nation, that failed to perceive the realities of a changing environment and didn't adapt in time to prevent calamity. Hubris and a self-reinforced dynamic of mass delusion characterize the waning phases of these once powerful groups. In hindsight we ask, "What were they thinking? Wasn't the situation obvious to everyone? The evidence is so clear!" Here's the question we should ask next: "Is history now repeating itself?"

©unk
"Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil"

Vader

Best of the Web: AIPAC Demands "Action" on Iran



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The Jewish Lobby

Former CIA counterterrorism specialist Philip Giraldi, comparing the propaganda campaign against Iran to that which preceded the war on Iraq, has recently declared, "It is absolutely parallel. They're using the same dance steps-demonize the bad guys, the pretext of diplomacy, keep out of negotiations, use proxies. It is Iraq redux." He's only one of many in his field (including Vincent Cannistraro, Ray McGovern, and Larry C. Johnson) doing their best to expose the Bush-Cheney neocon disinformation campaign according to which Iran is planning to produce nukes in order to commit genocide, while abetting terrorists in Iraq who are killing American troops.

Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Is the Deadly Crash of Our Civilization Inevitable?

An interview with author Thomas Homer-Dixon about the social, political, economic and technological crises we face and how long we can sustain the lifestyle that brought them about.

Comment: The guy paints a pretty bleak picture and he isn't even talking about comets and meteors!


Cut

Best of the Web: What 'Israel's right to exist' means to Palestinians

Recognition would imply acceptance that they deserve to be treated as subhumans.

Since the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israel and much of the West have asserted that the principal obstacle to any progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace is the refusal of Hamas to "recognize Israel," or to "recognize Israel's existence," or to "recognize Israel's right to exist."

Monkey Wrench

Best of the Web: God Interviews George Bush at the Pearly Gates

Let's imagine for a moment that George W. Bush is being interviewed by God for entry into Heaven. (and George's replies are actual quotes from Bush.)

God: Okay, George, you're on the bubble here. We allowed Laura in, but we need to clear up a few things about your time spent on earth.

Bush: Okay, Lord. Shoot! Hallelujah.

God: In 1989 you made the following comment: "You know I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office."

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Ben Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah and The Mossad eliminated Jews

Banned in Israel and the United States, Iraqi-born Jew Naeim Giladi's book is again available worldwide. Buy it from this website.

"After reading Mr. Giladi's devastating first-hand account of Zionist pillaging and massacres even of other Jews when necessary, it is not surprising that the book was banned,"states Carol Adler, president of Dandelion Books.

Giladi reports about the crimes committed by Zionists in their frenzy to import raw Jewish labor from the Middle East. Newly-vacated farmlands had to be plowed to provide food for the immigrants and the military ranks had to be filled with conscripts to defend the stolen lands.

States Giladi: "I write this book to tell the American people, and especially the American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors.

Bizarro Earth

Flashback Best of the Web: Will the White House Moron Bring On Armageddon?

John Bolton
© Mike Segar / ReutersJohn Bolton
John Bolton, a notorious neocon warmonger who could not be confirmed as America's ambassador to the UN by even the compliant and corrupt U.S. Senate, got the job as a recess appointment. He is using the platform to push America into war with Iran.

Bolton told the Financial Times (June 9) that the Bush Regime has no intention of reaching an agreement with Iran. Time is running out for diplomacy, Bolton told the Financial Times. Iran has a short time remaining in which it can give up its right under the nonproliferation treaty to enrich uranium for nuclear energy or be attacked. Bolton said that U.S. security guarantees for Iran "were not on the table."