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Heart

Best of the Web: Stay Human: One year on from the murder of Vittorio Arrigoni

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© Rajaa Al Talouli
The grandson of Italian Resistance Fighters in WWII, it was natural for 'Vik' to rally for the downtrodden people of Gaza, who are forced to live like animals behind fences and walls...
"I have seen my brother Vik's body and his death certificate, but Vik is not dead".
It is hard to imagine that a year has passed since Ken O'Keefe said those words from Gaza. There were a few hours when the famed Italian peace activist Vittorio 'Vik' Arrigoni, remained missing, and that was a tense period, but it didn't last long enough and soon came the word that this courageous man and friend of so many, was dead, brutally murdered.... gone.

Vik wanted to remind people that at the core of each one of us is our humanity, it is what we have in common, a starting point.

His favorite slogan; words he will always be known for... 'Restiamo Umani' - 'Stay Human', has taken off all over the world.

Few people who ever walked the face of this earth were more human or more humane than this man who was a member of the group, ISM, International Solidarity Movement, and it is Vik who revived the movement after the loss of two other western ISM members, killed by Israeli military.

US national Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in March 2003, and a month later Briton Tom Hurndall was shot and critically injured by an IDF sniper, dying from the wound in January 2004.

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: The Rise of Psychopaths in US Governance

Psychopaths
© Signs of the Times
An International Man lives and does business wherever he finds conditions most advantageous, regardless of arbitrary borders. He's diversified globally, with passports from multiple countries, assets in several jurisdictions and his residence in yet another. He doesn't depend absolutely on any country and regards all of them as competitors for his capital and expertise.

Living as an international man used to be just an interesting possibility. But few Americans opted for it, since the US used to reward those who settled in and put down roots. In fact, it rewarded them better than any other country in the world, so there was nothing pressing about becoming an international man.

Things change, however, and being rooted like a plant, at least if you have a choice, is a suboptimal strategy for surviving and prospering. Throughout history, almost every place has at some point become dangerous for those who were stuck there. It may be America's turn.

For those who can take up the life of an international man, it's no longer just an interesting lifestyle decision. It has become, at a minimum, an asset saver, and it could be a life saver. That said, I understand the hesitation you may feel about taking action; pulling up one's roots (or at least grafting some of them to a new location) can be almost as traumatic to a man as to a vegetable.

Comment: For more information on psychopaths and Ponerology - the science of evil, see these SOTT.net links:

Psychopaths Among Us

Political Ponerology: A Science of Evil Applied for Political Purposes

Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes


X

Best of the Web: What Israel Does

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Israeli soldiers and Palestinian medics treat Nesreen Hash'hash, an 8-year-old Palestinian girl who was injured in the face by a rubber bullet in the Fawar refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Hebron, Tuesday, March 28, 2006. Nesreen was hit in the face by the rubber bullet fired by Israeli troops during a military operation in the camp, Palestinian officials said. The girl was on the roof of her home when she was hit.

Light Saber

Best of the Web: Brilliant! Iceland forgives mortgage debt of its population

The government of Iceland has forgiven the mortgage debt for much of its population. This nation chose a very different way of stopping the crisis from the rest of European countries. It decided to hear the requests of the population and to put politicians and bankers on the bench of the accused three years after their financial excesses would sank one of the most prosperous economies in 2008.


Che Guevara

Best of the Web: We don't need the banks anymore! Greek town develops bartering system without euro

As Greece wonders whether its debt crisis will eventually spell its exit from the euro, one town in the centre of the country, Volos, has formed an alternative local currency.

It works through a bartering system or exchange of goods.

The BBC's Mark Lowen reports.


Comment: A peaceful way forward for the global revolution!


People

Best of the Web: Intelligence in Decline

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© unkBack when Britain was brainy: applicants for the Mensa exam gather at the Russell Hotel in 1961
Average IQ is falling in Britain and beyond, explains Philip Hunter

Intelligence quotients (IQs) have risen in developed nations for almost a century. This phenomenon, named the "Flynn effect" after the New Zealand intelligence researcher James Flynn, was first identified in 1984 in the United States. It has been found to occur in all developed nations, and some others as well. The received wisdom became: IQs always go up. But this trend seems to be stopping and even reversing in some countries, research in Britain, Denmark and Norway has shown. It is discomfiting to find intelligence in decline. There is a strong association between a nation's IQ, its prosperity and health.

IQ testing is contentious and regarded by some as a crude indicator of ability or potential. When comparing nations, measured average IQ tends to be affected by class, nutrition, and cultural factors including education. There is also disagreement over the influences of nature and nurture.

Whistle

Best of the Web: Millions Against Monsanto: The Food Fight of Our Lives

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© Shutterstock/Zvonimir Atletic
Finally, public opinion around the biotech industry's contamination of our food supply and destruction of our environment has reached the tipping point. We're fighting back.
"If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it."
- Norman Braksick, president of Asgrow Seed Co., a subsidiary of Monsanto, quoted in the Kansas City Star, March 7, 1994
"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job."
- Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications, quoted in the New York Times, October 25, 1998

Attention

Best of the Web: What is Heading Our Way?

psycho 6%
© SOTT.net
Perhaps it's like shouting an alarm, unheard above the engine noise of two trains on a collision course. Or, screaming helplessly as a car slips its brakes and rolls toward a toddler playing at the bottom of the driveway.

It is gruesome imagery and I apologize for invoking it. But if anything, it may be inadequate to the prospect before us.

One only has to ask, "What is heading our way?"

Headline:

The Department Of Homeland Security Is Buying 450 Million New Bullets

And don't kid yourself; they're not for target practice. It's .40 caliber ammunition, hollow point rounds that promise "optimum penetration for terminal performance." The department also has a bid out for up to 175 million rounds of .223 caliber ammunition.

This isn't the flipping army, you know. This is an internal national police force, a department that didn't even exist 10 years ago.

Headline:

Supreme Court OKs Strip Searches for Minor Offenses

It's okay with the Supreme Court if you are detained and subjected to a demeaning strip-search for such serious offenses against the State as violating a leash law or having a headlight out.

Really, is being strip-searched and perhaps even forced to take a delousing shower for riding your bicycle without an audible bell reasonable? Of course not. So much for the 4th Amendment.

Attention

Best of the Web: Space Weather Report: CMEs, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Disasters, Extreme Weather, and More. Things are Heating Up!


No Entry

Best of the Web: Guenter Grass banned in Israel after controversial poem

Guenter Grass
© Associated Press
Israel on Sunday declared Guenter Grass persona non grata, deepening a spat with the Nobel-winning author over a poem that deeply criticised the Jewish state and suggested it was as much a danger as Iran.

The dispute with Grass, who only late in life admitted to a Nazi past, has drawn new attention to strains in Germany's complicated relationship with the Jewish state - and also focused unwelcome light on Israel's own secretive nuclear program.

Comment: Translation of controversial Guenter Grass poem What Must Be Said

By Associated Press

What Must Be Said

What is obvious and has been

Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors

Are at best footnotes.

It is the alleged right to the first strike

That could annihilate the Iranian people -

Subjugated by a loud-mouth

And guided to organized jubilation -

Because in their sphere of power,

It is suspected, a nuclear bomb is being built.

Yet why do I forbid myself

To name that other country

In which, for years, even if secretly,

There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand

But beyond control, because not accessible to inspections?

The universal concealment of these facts,

To which my silence subordinated itself,

I sense as an incriminating lie

And coercion--the punishment is promised

As soon as it is ignored;

The verdict of "anti-Semitism" is familiar.

Now, though, because in my country

Which time and again has sought and confronted

Its very own crimes

That is without comparison

In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also

With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares

A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,

Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence

Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,

But fear wishes to be of conclusive evidence,

I say what must be said.

But why have I stayed silent until now?

Because I thought my origin,

Afflicted by a stain never to be expunged

Forbade this fact as pronounced truth

To be told to the nation of Israel, to which I am bound

And wish to stay bound.

Why do I say only now,

Aged and with my last ink,

The nuclear power Israel endangers

The already fragile world peace?

Because it must be said

What even tomorrow may be too late to say;

Also because we--as Germans burdened enough--

Could become suppliers to a crime

That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity

Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.

And granted: I am silent no longer

Because I am tired of the West's hypocrisy;

In addition to which it is to be hoped

That this will free many from silence,

Appeal to the perpetrator of the recognizable danger

To renounce violence and

Likewise insist

That an unhindered and permanent control

Of the Israeli nuclear potential

And the Iranian nuclear sites

Be authorized through an international agency

By the governments of both countries.

Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,

Even more, all people, that in this

Region occupied by mania

Live cheek by jowl among enemies,

And also us, to be helped.