Best of the Web:


Eye 1

Best of the Web: China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp

Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:57 UTC
The human rights issue has become the centerfold of media disinformation.

China is no model of human rights but neither are the US and its indefectible British ally, responsible for extensive war crimes and human rights violations in Iraq and around the World. The US and its allies, which uphold the practice of torture, political assassinations and the establishment of secret detention camps, continue to be presented to public opinion as a model of Western democracy to be emulated by developing countries, in contrast to Russia, Iran, North Korea and the People's Republic of China.

Human Rights "Double Standards"

While China's alleged human rights violations in relation to Tibet are highlighted, the recent wave of killings in Iraq and Palestine are not mentioned. The Western media has barely acknowledged the Fifth "anniversary" of Iraq's "Liberation" and the balance sheet of the US sponsored killings and atrocities perpetrated against an entire population, in the name of a "global war on terrorism".
There are more than 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths, 3 million wounded. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) indicates a figure of 2.2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their country and 2.4 million "internally displaced persons":
"Iraq's population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003 was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23 million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population of Iraq are either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead." (Dahr Jamail, Global Research, December 2007)
Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Best of the Web: Climate change confirmed but global warming is cancelled

Owen McShane
National Business Review
Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:18 UTC
Unlike so many of the hapless victims on TVOne's daily Crimewatch (also known as One Network News) I have recently been lucky enough to be in two right places at the right time.

In December last year, at the UN conference in Bali, I heard Viscount Monckton present a paper prepared by himself, the Australian Dr David Evans and our own Dr Vincent Gray (who were at Bali, too) that showed while the IPCC models predict that greenhouse gases would produce an extensive "hot spot" in the upper troposphere over the tropics, the satellite measurements show no such hotspots have appeared.

Monckton and Evans found a large part of this discrepancy is the result of some basic errors in the IPCC's assessment of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. When they applied their revised factor to the effect of greenhouse gases, the temperature rise was about a third of that predicted by the IPCC.

So by late last year we not only knew IPCC forecasts of atmospheric global warming were wrong; we were beginning to understand why they are wrong.
Read More...
Heart - Black

Best of the Web: Ruthlessness gene discovered

Michael Hopkin
Nature.com
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:38 UTC
Dictatorial behaviour may be partly genetic, study suggests.

Selfish dictators may owe their behaviour partly to their genes, according to a study that claims to have found a genetic link to ruthlessness. The study might help to explain the money-grabbing tendencies of those with a Machiavellian streak - from national dictators down to 'little Hitlers' found in workplaces the world over.

Dictators
©Nature.com
Could a gene be partly responsible for the behaviour of some of the worlds most infamous dictators?

Comment: These researchers would benefit greatly from studying psychopathy and ponerology.

Read More...
Black Cat

Best of the Web: Cheaters sometimes prosper

Matthew Jewkes
The Ubyssey
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:46 UTC


cheaters
©Stephanie Findlay and Oker Chen

It is literally the stuff of nightmares and horror movies. Charming and often powerful, they seduce you to get your guard down. And then, without a second thought or any trace of remorse, they are able to cold-bloodedly thieve, rape, or murder you. Robert Hare, UBC's world-renowned professor emeritus of psychology, goes so far as to say that while they look and sound exactly like us, they are functionally a different species from human beings. And seven years ago, Hare estimated that up to one in one hundred Canadians is one of these people: psychopaths.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Best of the Web: America's Silent Killing Fields

Barbara Peterson
OpEdNews.com
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00 UTC
America's silent killers are deadly, and do not discriminate. They target babies, the elderly, teenagers, young adults, middle-age housewives, and businessmen alike. They poison livestock, pets, and wildlife, and the people behind them deny complicity in the carnage. Who or what are these silent, deadly killers? They are the beautiful, green, uniform, and seemingly beneficial, killing fields of genetically modified (GMO) crops. The people behind them are the U.S. government, the Rockefellers, Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, and Syngenta.
Read More...
Vader

Best of the Web: Political Ponerology: A Science of Evil Applied for Political Purposes

Time for Change
Democratic Underground
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:45 UTC
Ponerology
"Many people believe that man is evolving; society is evolving; and that we now have control over the arbitrary evil of our environment; or at least we will have it after George Bush and his Neocons have about 25 years to fight the endless War against Terror"

Laura Knight-Jadczyk, from the Editor's Preface to Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, by Andrew M. Lobaczewski
For all of my life, one of my greatest interests has been to understand the nature of human evil. And I have always believed that it is one of the most important subjects that mankind needs to understand. So thank you to fellow DUer Larry Ogg for referring me to Lobaczewski's book on Political Ponerology (and for your ideas on how to present this information).

Comment: You can buy a copy of Political Ponerology on Amazon.

Read More...
Cult

Best of the Web: Is an International Financial Conspiracy Driving World Events?

Richard C. Cook
Global Research
Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:23 UTC
"They make a desolation and call it peace." -Tacitus

Was Alan Greenspan really as dumb as he looks in creating the late housing bubble that threatens to bring the entire Western debt-based economy crashing down?

Was something as easy to foresee as this really the trigger for a meltdown that could destroy the world's financial system? Or was it done, perhaps, "accidentally on purpose"?

And if so, why?

David Rockefeller
©Unknown
David Rockefeller at Harvard in 2006

Let's turn to the U.S. personage that conspiracy theorists most often mention as being at the epicenter of whatever elite plan is reputed to exist. This would be David Rockefeller, the 92-year-old multibillionaire godfather of the world's financial elite.
Read More...
Black Cat

Best of the Web: The Deep Ones and the Madness of Crowds

Jeff Wells
Rigorous Intuition
Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:36 UTC
"I could not but feel that some noxious marine mind had declared a war of extermination upon all the solid ground" - HP Lovecraft, The Crawling Chaos

Image
©Jeff Wells

This, I think, is the deep context in which we should situate the perpetual travesty machine of American politics. Here too, restrained predation "doesn't quite kill or does kill only slowly." Here, rather, it "keeps hope alive." All through the Bush years, scores of non-Republicans have anticipated the brutal full-flowering of traditional dictatorship with all the trappings: martial law, mass internment and the cancellation of elections. Through much of the Clinton years, many non-Democrats looked for the same. It didn't come (though some are still waiting). It's as if they've not only expected the worst, but sought it, to put them out of their misery. But the worst exceeds their expectations, and their misery is to be protracted indefinitely.
Read More...
Butterfly

Best of the Web: Death of the Bees: GMO Crops and the Decline of Bee Colonies in North America

Brit Amos
Global Research
Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:43 UTC
'Commercial beehives pollinate over a third of [North}America's crops and that web of nourishment encompasses everything from fruits like peaches, apples, cherries, strawberries and more, to nuts like California almonds, 90 percent of which are helped along by the honeybees. Without this pollination, you could kiss those crops goodbye, to say nothing of the honey bees produce or the flowers they also fertilize'.1
Read More...
Evil Rays

Flashback Best of the Web: Sexual predators in the religious scene

Aeneas
While The Earth Rumbles
Mon, 28 Jan 2008 01:56 UTC
It is necessary to take the pink colored glasses off and stare reality in the face. It might not be pretty what we see, but it is real and acknowledging and understanding the reality in which we live is the best protection we can have. Ignorance is not bliss despite it appearing to be a dominant feature of Western society.

©Tokyopop
Read More...