Best of the Web:

Attention

Best of the Web: Connecting the global cooling dots

"The sun is the primary source of heat for the Earth... This is worth keeping in mind when the Secretary General of the United Nations or any other lying politician or alleged scientist tell you otherwise."
ice age
Winter doesn't officially begin until December 21, but winter has a mind of its own as does all of nature. While the United Nations charlatans gathered in Doha, Qatar to try to save its global warming hoax by first calling it "climate change" and then by fashioning a funding mechanism to transfer the wealth of developed countries to those who are not, winter has arrived "early" around the world.

That might just have something to do with the cooling cycle that has been active for the past sixteen years, "inconveniently" blowing a big hole in the global warming lies we've been hearing and reading since the late 1980s.

From IceAgeNow.info, a site by Robert W. Felix, the author of a book about ice ages (the Earth has been through quite a few in its 4.5 billion years), here are some recent news stories:

Attention

Best of the Web: Are psychopaths in the workplace on the rise and what does it mean?

Dr. Paul Babiak
© The Washington Times CommunitiesDr. Paul Babiak
Florida - Most of us experience empathy at some level. It is one of those things that keep us human, even in the face of great adversity. Are psychopaths capable of such deep emotion?

Over the last several years, we have been hearing more and more about psychopaths wreaking havoc in the workplace. Are actual incidences of psychopathic behavior on the rise?

Furthermore, can business leaders take steps to deal with the possibility of psychopathy among their employees?

The co-author of Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, Paul Babiak is an industrial-organizational psychologist, who has devoted much of his career to raising awareness about how mental and emotional predators have found their way into the business world.

In this second part of our discussion, he shares his views on the above-mentioned questions, explains what inspired him to write about psychopaths in the workplace, and discusses his life and career.

Arrow Up

Best of the Web: Dr. Paul Babiak on the crisis of psychopaths in the workplace

Dr. Paul Babiak
© The Washington Tomes CommunitiesDr. Paul Babiak
Florida - Whenever people feel that they have been manipulated or short-changed, there is a good chance that they will call their perceived wrongdoer a "psychopath."

The term could very well be one of the most overused in our society. It is thrown around so casually that more than a few have probably ceased to take it seriously.

Needless to say, this is most unfortunate. When a real psychopath crawls out of the woodwork then the situation becomes all the more difficult to manage.

Even worse is that psychopaths are attracted to positions of power. This means that the workplace is especially vulnerable to the schemes of individuals who prey on the weakest among them.

Paul Babiak is an industrial-organizational psychologist who has done a great deal of research on this disturbing pattern of behavior. The co-author of Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, he has devoted much of his career to raising awareness about how mental and emotional predators have found their way into the business world.

In this first part of a detailed discussion, he explains how "psychopath" might be defined, whether or not one can be easily spotted in the workplace, and much more.

Yoda

Best of the Web: Assange: The Internet isn't free, it has been built for absolute totalitarianism


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says all the necessary physical infrastructure for absolute totalitarianism through the internet is ready. He told RT that the question now is whether the turnkey process that already started will go all the way.

ยญRT: So you've written this book 'Cypherpunks. Freedom and the Future of the Internet' based on one of the programs that you've made for RT. In it, you say that the internet can enslave us. I don't really get that, because the internet it's a thing, it's a soulless thing. Who are the actual enslavers behind it?

Julian Assange: The people who control the interception of the internet and, to some degree also, physically control the big data warehouses and the international fiber-optic lines. We all think of the internet as some kind of Platonic Realm where we can throw out ideas and communications and web pages and books and they exist somewhere out there. Actually, they exist on web servers in New York or Nairobi or Beijing, and information comes to us through satellite connections or through fiber-optic cables.

So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations, and that's the new game in town, as far as state spying is concerned - intercepting entire nations, not individuals.

Sheeple

Best of the Web: Survival kits and trips to hell: Doomsday hysteria grips Russia

Mayan Calender
© RIA Novosti/Sergey Yolkin
Doomsday hysteria has gripped Russia and some of its neighbors. Travel agencies are selling tours to either heaven or hell and people are stocking up on food and fuel. Officials are publicly denying the apocalypse, hoping to calm the hype.

Those awaiting Doomsday have three weeks to finish their preparations before the date of the much publicized apocalypse allegedly predicted by Mayan calendar, that is going to happen on December 21, 2012.

Thousands of people across Russia keep stocking up their back rooms and balconies with food, fuel and other supplies they might need when disaster strikes. Some are even moving outside of cities because of the widely spread rumors that cities would be impossible to survive in after an apocalypse on Earth.

According to one of the most popular scenarios, on December 21 the sun is going to line up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy which will cause an entire blackout on Earth and a wave of different natural disasters.

Doomsday merchandize offered in Russia and Ukraine include survival kits. In the Siberian city of Tomsk such items for "meeting the end of the world" include ID cards, notepads, canned fish, a bottle of vodka, rope, a piece of soap, among other items. The packages are said to be popular among customers, more than 1,000 kits have been already sold, the company says.

Ukrainian entrepreneurs also offer a version of a doomsday kit. Just like Tomsk package, the Ukrainian one also includes alcohol: champagne for ladies and vodka for gentlemen. The rest of the kit consist of jack-knife, two-minute noodles, shampoo, soap, rope, matches and condoms.

Comment: See also: The 2012 Collective Shift & the Secret History of End-Times Prophecies
John Major Jenkins, the Mayans, 2012 and All That Jazz


Light Saber

Best of the Web: American Hero: Bradley Manning demands dismissal of his case due to inhuman punishment

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning.
© Reuters / Jose Liis MagauaArmy Pfc. Bradley Manning.
Bradley Manning is expected to testify in a pretrial hearing that he has been punished illegally by being locked in solitary confinement. The whistleblower hopes that his inhumane punishment is grounds for having all charges against him dismissed.

Manning, who is accused of sending classified information to WikiLeaks, will testify in a pretrial hearing in Fort Meade, Maryland.

"Until now we've only heard from Bradley through his family and lawyers, so it's going to be a real insight into his personality to hear him speak for himself for the first time," said Jeff Paterson of the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Manning's lawyers will maintain that his treatment in a small cell at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia was illegal and unnecessarily severe. If pretrial punishment is particularly flagrant, military judges have the right to dismiss all charges.

Manning, a 24-year-old Army private and intelligence analyst, was allegedly involved in the largest security breach in US history and was charged with 22 crimes, including violating the Espionage Act and aiding the enemy. He allegedly accessed 250,000 US diplomatic cables, 500,000 army reports, and videos of the 2007 Baghdad airstrike and the 2009 Granai airstrike, and sending them to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks for publication in 2010. He is the only suspect arrested for his involvement in the security leak.

USA

Best of the Web: Update: The Madness of a Lost Society, parts 1 to 3


Comment: Update 27 November 2012: Two years on from the first installment in this excellent video series, SGT Report has recently uploaded Part 3 to YouTube.



On 26th November 2010 - Black Friday - as the bankers and government officials planned the final demise of the US economy and the destruction of American society, millions of citizens across the US fought and trampled each other at thousands of stores for the privilege of buying insignificant consumer items made by virtual slave-workers in far off lands. This is the madness of a lost society on the brink of collapse.

Part 1


Star of David

Best of the Web: Israel's shame: Children, the true victims

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The rockets slammed in, two in succession, just after 11.30 at night. When Huda Tawfil had shaken herself awake through the confusion and terror, her first thoughts were for her baby. Seeing what she did through the smoke and flames, she burst into tears.

The 20-year-old started digging through the rubble with her hands as other members of the family ran into the room and joined in. She then cradled her little girl on the way to hospital in her husband's car. There was an emergency operation, but the injuries from the shrapnel proved to be too severe.

The name of Hanin Tawfil was added to a growing and particularly grim list from the latest Gaza conflict. Out of 104 civilians killed and 970 wounded, 34 and 274 respectively were children; dozens of others who survived have been orphaned and left traumatised by the violence.

The figures are startling even by the vicious standards of the recent bloodlettings in this region. It is, of course, the case that rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinians, often indiscriminately, had led to casualties among young boys and girls in Israel. But the ministry of defence in Tel Aviv had repeatedly stressed in the course of this mission that its attacks were surgical and all efforts possible had been made to avoid collateral damage.

Star of David

Best of the Web: Israeli Chief of Staff: "We will continue to pound Gaza despite truce mediation"

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© sabbah.bizChild killed in Gaza by Israeli rockets
Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Benni Gantz, stated Wednesday that the Israeli army will continue its offensive against the Gaza Strip "as if mediation efforts are not ongoing", and added that the army is following an agenda that will be implemented despite of what happens on the political spectrum.


Gantz held a session with senior Israeli military and security officials to evaluate the current operations against Gaza, and said that the army is bombarding "high value" targets, including Hamas's institutions such as banks, security centers and weapons storage warehouses, in addition to bombarding infrastructure such, as roads and bridges.

He also said that the army fired missiles at fuel pipes that provide Gaza with fuel by running from the Egyptian side into Gaza through the siege-busting tunnels across the border.

Newspaper

Best of the Web: The 'both-sides-are-awful' dismissal of Gaza ignores the key role of the U.S. government

Netanyahu & Clinton
© Baz Ratner/ReutersBirds of a feather: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deliver joint statements in Jerusalem. Israel would not be able to commit the murders and human rights violations that it does, if it wasn't for the financial and all-around support from the US government
The temptation to wash one's hands of the whole conflict is understandable, but US support of Israel is a central force driving it all

Everything about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict follows the same pattern over and over, including the reaction of Americans. In the first couple of days after a new round of violence breaks out, there is intense interest and passion, which is quickly replaced by weariness, irritation, and even anger that one has to be bothered by this never-ending, always-ugly and seemingly irresolvable conflict. These sentiments then morph into an attempt to separate oneself from the entire matter by declaring both sides to be equally horrendous and thus washing one's hands from any responsibility for thinking further about it ("I'm sick of both sides"), followed by recriminations against anyone who actually has an opinion that is more supportive of one side than the other.

Esquire's Charles Pierce, one of the nation's best political writers, provided a classic case of this mindset yesterday in his post entitled "There Is No Side Worth Taking In Gaza". The crux: "I would like to have an opinion on this continual bloodletting that didn't sound banal but, goddammit, I'm out of them. I am thoroughly sick of both sides here." One encounters a version of this mentality with increasing frequency each day that the violence escalates.