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Che Guevara

Best of the Web: 30,000 people shut down 5th largest US port as Oakland, California goes on general strike

Police in Oakland use teargas on three separate occasions as tensions flare after protesters occupied building during protest


Police used teargas and non-lethal weapons to control Occupy Oakland protesters overnight after a general strike had effectively shut down the city's port and downtown areas.

There were three separate instances of police using teargas, all near to the Occupy camp, as tensions erupted when protesters occupied a disused building.

Earlier a thousands-strong march had closed down Oakland's port after a day of striking had seen streets closed in downtown and some banks damaged.

Police first used teargas on Broadway at 12.30am, following a day which had actually seen a light police presence.

Officers arrived on the street - the scene of the police clearout of Occupy Oakland on Tuesday 25 October which left Scott Olsen seriously injured - after protesters occupied a disused building on 16th Street.

Comment: Black Bloc Provocateurs Vandalize Property During Occupy Oakland's General Strike


Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Alien Genetic Takeover: The End of Humanity


Comment: AJ's right; who needs aliens when we've got psychopathic globalists, predators who have taken over and infected everything from the microscopic to the societal level.

What is the surest and safest way we can fight back against 'The Thing' and its psychopathic control grid with a stranglehold on our lives and indeed the very future of the entire biosphere? Warning others of the danger and sharing knowledge with them is a good place to start. We can't stop the wars and the general madness the Powers That Be target us with day after day, but we can begin to assert control over our own lives and acquire the energy needed to inspire and help others to lead by example.

Our answer may surprise you (it certainly surprised us when we realised we had stepped on a sore toe): the resistance begins with diet! What 'The Thing' appears to have spent all this time doing is to wear humanity down physically, mentally, emotionally and indeed spiritually, by totally corrupting the food chain to the point that no one knows what they're eating, where it came from and what it's doing to them and their ability to live free. By applying counter-measures which can readily be implemented in our daily lives to kickstart our detox systems and bring our immune systems back online and make them as robust as they can be, we can withstand the predatorial advances of 'The Thing'.


That's right, eating meat and saturated fats, cutting out ALL gluten, most dairy (especially milk, although our research and experimentation has found some leeway for individual tolerances to butter and eggs), most plant foods and sugars - essentially, a diet that is very low in carbohydrates and high in animal fats - are some of the things we could do to hit 'The Thing' right where it hurts. It doesn't want healthy, optimally-fuelled people who are propaganda-resistant, can think and choose for themselves and have energy to spare for helping others in need.

For a more in depth look at the Paleo diet and additional research on the connections between nutrition and mental and physical health, you can read the following articles:

Have you heard about the Paleo diet?
Paleo Diet: Smart Eating or Latest Fad?
Should You Eat a Paleo-Diet for Health Like These Californians?
The Paleo Diet Cures PCOS
Primal mind: A talk on nutrition and mental health by Nora Gedgaudas

Mental health issues and cognitive challenges are nearly ubiquitous today. According to the work of respected nutritional pioneers such as Weston Price these same mental and brain health issues were nearly unheard of in many primitive and traditional societies consuming a diet consistent with that of our more distant evolutionary ancestors.

Modern research findings offer added understanding and a new layer to ancestral dietary principles that can lead us toward the promise of optimal brain functioning, emotional liberation and the cultivation of a potentially ageless mind. By applying many of these "Paleo" principles today and modifying them to our more modern circumstances we can re-cultivate and improve upon the healthy Primal Mind that is our birthright and the key to our future as a species.



Igloo

Best of the Web: Surprise, surprise! Global warming is over, says expert

global warming myth
© cartoonaday.com
It's one of the hottest feuds in science - climate chance zealots insist that we're still destroying the planet but now another scientist has warned the cast-iron evidence just isn't there.

For a minute there it seemed the global warming debate had finally been resolved.

While for years scientists and sceptics have raged against each other on the crucial topic, new research hailed "the most definitive study into temperature data gathered by weather stations over the past half-century" seemed to come to an authoritative conclusion.

Global warming IS real it said, strengthening the need for us all to reduce carbon emissions and boost efforts to try to save the planet.

And this research was headed by a physicist who had previously been a sceptic of global warming and an outspoken critic of the science underpinning it, lending the results even greater credibility.

Comment: If scientists were able to just look at the facts and accept them as they are, without allowing their - or somebody else's - biases and agendas to get in their way, there would not be any debates on whether a global warming is happening on the planet or not. The evidence speak for themselves, as we learn here at SOTT.net by observing and documenting what is actually happening on a daily basis.

For a clear picture of what is happening weather-wise, read also: Connecting the Dots: Cosmic Changes, Planetary Instability and Extreme Weather


Magnify

Best of the Web: Psychopaths in Academia: Report finds massive research fraud at Dutch universities

Investigation claims dozens of social-psychology papers contain faked data.

When colleagues called the work of Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel too good to be true, they meant it as a compliment. But a preliminary investigative report released on 31 October gives literal meaning to the phrase, detailing years of data manipulation and blatant fabrication by the prominent Tilburg University researcher.

"We have some 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals where we are actually sure that they are fake, and there are more to come," says Pim Levelt, chair of the committee that investigated Stapel's work at the university.

Stapel's eye-catching studies on aspects of social behaviour such as power and stereo­typing garnered wide press coverage. For example, in a recent Science paper (which the investigation has not identified as fraudulent), Stapel reported that untidy environments encouraged discrimination (Science 332, 251 - 253; 2011).

Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: US: Buddy can you spare a dime? One in three Americans has no spare cash

Global consumer confidence remained weak in the third quarter with more than 60 per cent of consumers saying it was not a good time to spend, and one-in-three Americans saying they have no spare cash, a new survey shows.

The economic outlook, followed by job security, became consumers' biggest concern in the third quarter, overtaking worries about rising inflation, according to the quarterly survey by global analytics and information company Nielsen.

The Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Index dipped just 1 point in the third quarter from the second quarter to 88 points, but it was shored up by a surge in confidence in emerging economies Brazil and Saudi Arabia, which masked weak confidence in major developed economies.

Che Guevara

Best of the Web: Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective

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Hero
Thousands of Indians, Egyptians, Chinese, Filipinos, Turks, Germans, English, Italians, Malaysians, Koreans and a host of other nationalities are lining up at the borders and the airport to leave Libya. It begs the question: What were they doing in Libya in the first place? Unemployment figures, according to the Western media and Al Jazeera, are at 30%. If this is so, then why all these foreign workers?

For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts, who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on. Let us be clear - there is no possibility of understanding what is happening in Libya within a Eurocentric framework. Westerners are incapable of understanding a system unless the system emanates from or is attached in some way to the West. Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.

News coverage by the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera has been oversimplified and misleading. An array of anti-Qaddafi spokespersons, most living outside Libya, have been paraded in front of us - each one clearly a counter-revolutionary and less credible than the last. Despite the clear and irrefutable evidence from the beginning of these protests that Muammar Qaddafi had considerable support both inside Libya and internationally, not one pro-Qaddafi voice has been allowed to air. The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia and that Qaddafi is just another tyrant amassing large sums of money in Swiss bank accounts. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot make Qaddafi into a Mubarak or Libya into Egypt.

Eye 2

Flashback Best of the Web: Pure Evil: NATO Attacked Libyan Water Supply Pipeline and the Factory that Makes Replacement Pipes

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Were the Norway terrorist attacks designed in part to cover this story? Both occurred July 22nd, 2011 and only one has really seen the light of day in the alternative as well as the mainstream media.

Last week Pravda reported that NATO attacked the Great Manmade River pipeline in Libya which literally brings water across the desert to millions of Libyans and farms in western and southern Libya as well as to the capital Tripoli and Benghazi. The Manmade River project is not only a life-sustaining source of water for millions of Libyan people and a core part of Libya's agriculture, it also stands as a source of national pride and identity. It is the largest irrigation system in the world and you can find a map of it on the Libyan dinar note. Gadhafi himself called it "the eighth wonder of the world". They started the project in 1983 with an extraordinary session of the People's Congresses and 25 billion dollars later, it was completed. Funding came from profits from the very oil industry that NATO countries hope to privatize.

NATO's strikes seem to have been extremely deliberate in their planning. First, they targeted a key section of the water supply line itself, then the next day or so, they targeted the only facility which makes the replacement sections of the pipes.

Comment: Here is some backgound information on Libya's 'eight wonder of the world':
Source: Libya S.O.S.

Libya's investment bank used $33 billion, without interest rates, to build the 'Great Man-Made River', the "eighth wonder of the world". It is, or was, 3,750 kilometers long with three parallel pipelines running oil, gas and water from deep in the Saharan desert up to Libya's cities in the north of the country, over an area roughly the size of Western Europe. The River project supplied 70% of the Libyan people (4.5 of its 6 million population) with clean drinking water from enormous aquifers discovered under the sands in the 1980s.

Here are some facts and figures to give you an idea of sheer scale of this project. (Source: official website of the Great Man-Made River Authority, h/t Libya S.O.S.)
  • Some half a million concrete cylinder pipes, some wide enough to drive articulated trucks through, were made up until the point NATO (the US) blew up Libya's infrastructure.
  • Transporting these enormous structures across the sands was ongoing until 19 March. Work went on day and night, all year long, for decades. The accumulative distance traveled by the transporters is apparently equivalent to the sun and back.
  • Before all this even began, over 3,700 km of roads had to be constructed alongside the gigantic pipe line trenches to enable the heavy trucks to deliver pipe sections to the installation sites.
  • Volume of trench excavation: 250 million cubic meters.
  • The amount of aggregate materials used in the project: 30,000,000 tonnes, enough to build 20 pyramids the size of the great pyramid of Khoufu.
  • Total weight of cement used: 7 million tonnes.
  • Total length of pre-stressing wire: 6 million kilometers; this would circle the Earth 280 times.
What an incredible turnaround for a country that was the poorest on the planet just 40 years ago. But certain other civilised countries across the seas looked on jealously as their own indebted, crime-ridden societies began crumbling. And then along comes NATO, activated by the US as usual, under the bullshit pretext of 'protecting the Libyan people'.

The unconscionable destruction of Libya's pioneering water supply infrastructure by NATO war jets was a heinous deed.

It has also emerged that Libya was set to be awarded commendation for its commitment to, and implementation of, international treaties governing political and economic human rights, religious freedom and freedom of expression, by the Human Rights Council of the UN General Assembly just days after the launch of the US-European air assault on civilians. Some of the countries which praised Libya's human rights record in this report then subsequently joined in the mass-murder.

There is another way to describe this level of murderous deceit: purely psychopathic.


Vader

Best of the Web: UN Report Offers Smoking Gun Proof of NATO and US Lies about Libya

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Several NATO countries involved in the US mass murder of thousands of Libyan civilians, including Denmark, Germany, Spain and Italy, as well as Australia, PRAISED Colonel Muammar Qaddafi for his excellent work in human rights and were set to give a United Nations award to him and Libya in March. Yet, in a complete about-face they waged war on Libya instead.
Here is a type of "smoking gun" proof that NATO and the U.S. has been operating through a smokescreen of lies, as well as intimidation. Please read the following January 4, 2011 report of the 16th Session of the United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council, Universal Periodic Review:

Report of the Working Group on the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [Document A/HRC/WG.6/9/L.13]

Before NATO and the U.S. started bombing Libya, the United Nations was preparing to bestow an award on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and the Libyan Jamahiriya, for its achievements in the area of human rights. That's right--the same man, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, that NATO and the United States have been telling us for months is a "brutal dictator," was set to be given an award for his human rights record in Libya. How strange it is that the United Nations was set to bestow a human rights award on a "brutal dictator," at the end of March.

So, I ask a question. Who is this "brutal dictator" that the United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Council was preparing to bestow an award to, for human rights, sometime at the end of March? So, they would have us believe that they knew that he was a "brutal dictator," yet decided to give him an award for human rights?! Astounding! Astounding the lies that we're being told by the media, NATO and the U.S. government. Absolutely astounding! Not surprising, but astounding! But more astounding still, is the fact that, time after time after time, much of the American public--without questioning--believes every single word that comes from the "news" media.

Comment: Here are some choice excerpts from the UN report:
Introduction

2. On 21 June 2010, the Human Rights Council selected the following group of rapporteurs (troika) to facilitate the review of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya: Argentina, Norway {which subsequently joined in the bombing} and Senegal. [...]

Summary of the proceedings of the review process

5. During the interactive dialogue, statements were made by 46 delegations. A number of delegations commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for the preparation and presentation of its national report, noting the broad consultation process with stakeholders in the preparation phase. Several delegations also noted with appreciation the country's commitment to upholding human rights on the ground. [...]

7. The delegation noted that the national report had been prepared in a transparent and consultative manner. A national committee had been established with the participation of representatives from all relevant sectors. Consultations with civil society organizations and relevant stakeholders had also been held.

8. The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya believed that the promotion and protection of human rights was one of the most important factors for the progress and development of the people. The first declaration of the Great Alfateh Revolution in 1969 had called for equality and non-discrimination, and in 1977 the People's Authority had been declared. In 1988, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had issued the Great Green Document on Human Rights, which provided that all human beings were born free and equal, with no difference between men and women. In 1991, Law No. 20 on Strengthening Freedoms had also been enacted. The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was party to most human rights treaties and the protocols thereto, and those instruments took precedence over national laws and could be directly applied by the courts once they had been ratified. [...]

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Gaddafi's award-winning blueprint for a people's revolution where human rights are guaranteed and which he told Al Jazeera he hoped would become "a model for the world", now on the scrapheap of history following the annihilation of peaceful Libya by US-led megalomaniacs.
9. On 30 June 2010, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had also invited Amnesty International to visit the country to see for itself that the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had never forcibly evicted or discriminated against any member of the Toubou tribe.

10. The delegation noted that all rights and freedoms were contained in a coherent, consolidated legal framework. The legal guarantees formed the basis for protection of the basic rights of the people. Further, abuses that might occur were dealt with by the judiciary, and the perpetrators were brought before justice. The judiciary safeguarded the rights of individuals and was assisted by other entities, most importantly the Office of the Public Prosecutor. A National Human Rights Commission, with a mandate based on the Paris Principles, had also been established, in 2007. The aforementioned entities were complemented by newly established mechanisms, such as civil society organizations established under Law No. 19 of 2001.

11. Protection of human rights was guaranteed in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya; this included not only political rights, but also economic, social and cultural rights. {Things which are distinctly lacking in the US legal code, for example.} The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya referred to its pioneering experience in the field of wealth distribution and labour rights.

12. The delegation indicated that women were highly regarded in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and their rights were guaranteed by all laws and legislation. Discriminatory laws had been revoked. Libyan women occupied prominent positions in the public sector, the judicial system, the public prosecutor's office, the police and the military. Libyan legislation also guaranteed children their rights, and provided for special care for children with special needs, the elderly and persons with disabilities. [...]

14. The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya believed that human rights education was a duty that should be fulfilled in the school system and the family system and by relevant civil society organizations. [...]

16. The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya noted that laws safeguarded freedom of expression through principles enshrined in the Great Green Document. Article 5 promoted the right of expression of every person. This right had been enshrined in the Code on the Promotion of Freedom, which, in its article 8, stated that "each citizen has the right to express his opinions and ideas openly in People's Congresses and in all mass media, no citizen is questioned on the exercise of this right unless this has been abused in a way that prejudices the People's Authority or is used for personal interest, and it is prohibited to advocate ideas and opinions in a clandestine manner or to seek to disseminate them through force, temptation or terrorism". Additionally, it was a basic law with which all contradictory or conflicting legislation should be compatible and was to be amended accordingly. In the context of freedom of expression, each citizen, male or female, who had reached the age of 18 was entitled to membership in the Basic People's Congresses and, by virtue of that membership, had the right to express his or her opinion on any matter. Further, in view of the growth of information networks, restrictions imposed on freedom of expression had become an obsolete issue and such freedom could be prevented. With regarding to revoking legislation that restricted freedom of expression, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya indicated that such legislation does not exist and that Libyan basic law explicitly mentioned freedom of expression.

17. Freedom of religion was also guaranteed, in accordance with basic laws and the Green Document, which stipulated that religion was a private spiritual and individual value and constituted a direct relationship with the Creator (God).

18. Regarding measures taken to prevent torture and ill treatment in detention centres or prisons, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya indicated that the practice of torture and ill treatment was forbidden in article 434 of the Penal Code, which stated that public officials who had ordered the torture of a person or had committed an act of torture were sentenced to 3 to 10 years' imprisonment. Article 17 of the Promotion of Freedom Act stipulated that society forbade penalties that undermined the dignity of a person and inflicted physical harm or material injury. The legislation adequately addressed this issue; therefore, new measures were unnecessary in this context.

19. People who had been harmed could file a complaint with the general prosecutor. The public prosecutor's office periodically inspected police and prison centres during unannounced visits. From 1 January 2009 until 30 June 2010, the prosecutor had dealt with 7 cases involving torture and 66 cases involving the withholding of liberty. This showed that these were individual cases and that the issue did not constitute a national phenomenon. {Only seven cases?! Compare and contrast with NATO countries' active participation in the US policy of 'extraordinary rendition' (torture) of innocents denounced on hearsay.} [...]

22. Concerning the question of the presence of independent national human rights institutions, numerous human rights organizations had been established under Act No. 19/2001, including, most notably, the Wa'itasimo foundation, the Kadafi International Charity and the Development Foundation. [...]

25. With regard to the release of all political prisoners, those who had abandoned the use of terrorist acts had been released. [Guantanamo Bay and 'indefinite detention', anyone?] [...]

28. Regarding the steps taken to implement the 2009 recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was scheduled to provide responses to the observations in the periodic report due in 2014. Some steps had been taken already, such as the establishment of a joint committee, including the Secretariat of Women Affairs of the General People's Congress, the National Planning Council and the General People's Committee for Social Affairs, to develop a working strategy for promoting the political, economic and social empowerment of women. An agreement had been reached between the representative of the United Nations Development Programme in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the Women's Affairs Secretariat with a view to cooperation with the United Nations country team. [...]

53. On the initiative to distribute wealth to low-income families, those programmes were related to distributing money through investments for every needy family. Over the past four years, 229,595 families had benefited from the programme. [...]

54. Regarding services for persons with special needs, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya indicated that such persons received monthly allowances and were exempt from all fees and taxes, including for electricity, water and transportation. They also had residences and housing units, medical supplies, vehicles especially designed for them, and paid domestic help and home services.

55. The delegation reaffirmed that the judiciary system in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was independent. [...]



Bad Guys

Best of the Web: The Elite Plan for a New World Social Order

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When the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, in the late 1700s, there was lots of money to be made by investing in factories and mills, by opening up new markets, and by gaining control of sources of raw materials. The folks who had the most money to invest, however, were not so much in Britain but more in Holland. Holland had been the leading Western power in the 1600s, and its bankers were the leading capitalists. In pursuit of profit, Dutch capital flowed to the British stock market, and thus the Dutch funded the rise of Britain, who subsequently eclipsed Holland both economically and geopolitically.

In this way British industrialism came to be dominated by wealthy investors, and capitalism became the dominant economic system. This led to a major social transformation. Britain had been essentially an aristocratic society, dominated by landholding families. As capitalism became dominant economically, capitalists became dominant politically. Tax structures and import-export policies were gradually changed to favour investors over landowners.

It was no longer economically viable to simply maintain an estate in the countryside: one needed to develop it, turn it to more productive use. Victorian dramas are filled with stories of aristocratic families who fall on hard times, and are forced to sell off their properties. For dramatic purposes, this decline is typically attributed to a failure in some character, a weak eldest son perhaps. But in fact the decline of aristocracy was part of a larger social transformation brought on by the rise of capitalism.

The business of the capitalist is the management of capital, and this management is generally handled through the mediation of banks and brokerage houses. It should not be surprising that investment bankers came to occupy the top of the hierarchy of capitalist wealth and power. And in fact, there are a handful of banking families, including the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, who have come to dominate economic and political affairs in the Western world.

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Adam Curtis: The Medium and The Message - Goodies and Baddies

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© Unknown
The idea of "humanitarian intervention" which is behind the decision to attack in Libya is one of the central beliefs of our age.

It divides people. Some see it as a noble, disinterested use of Western power. Others see it as a smokescreen for a latter-day liberal imperialism.

I want to tell the story of how this idea originated and how it has grown up to possess the minds of a generation of liberal men and women in Europe and America.

It is the story of a generation who became disenchanted with traditional power politics. They thought they could leap over the old corrupt structures of power and connect directly with the innocent victims of war around the world.

It was a grand utopian project that began in the mid-60s in Africa and flourished and spread across the world. But in the 1990s it became corrupted by the very thing it was supposed to have transcended - western power politics.

And the idea seemed to have died in horror in a bombing of a hotel in Baghdad in 2003.

What we now see is the return of that dream in a ghostly, half-hearted form - where the confidence and hopes have been replaced by a nervous anxiety.

Comment: It's a simplification of the world that is the product of a psychopathic mindset. Psychopaths always rise to the top, no matter their background as doctors, leftists, humanitarians...