It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.


It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came - next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams - visions of a stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! - then home from the war, bronzed heros, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation - "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"

Does anyone still not know that 9/11 was done by Mossad and the CIA, along with various parties in certain government agencies and sundry? Most of us are not hackers and we don't deal with secret cables leaked by whistleblowers 'or' deliberately leaked after being sanitized in order to give the appearance of veracity. You would think that someone who is involved in intelligence information would have the intelligence and information to work out the obvious. I did it years ago, though the details are still fleshing themselves out, the names of the ones behind the attacks haven't changed and aren't likely to.

I measure a person's truthfulness and intelligence according to the way they define what happened on 9/11. Let me make a very clear and unequivocal statement. Everything changed because of 9/11. All the so-called secrets that Assange possesses are influenced by 9/11. Every war since 9/11 has come about, one way or another, because of 9/11. The whole concept of terrorist has been set and sold according to 9/11. 9/11 is the Big Kahuna, period.

I got a few emails yesterday after my posting about Assange and Foxman. Unfortunately with the death of logic and reason, a number of people were unable to compute that my posting was largely about Foxman's comment about pursuing those who tied Wiki-Leaks and Israel together. I wanted to be known as someone who did. That was the main thrust of my piece, not Assange's, questionably valuable information, of which I have yet to see anything useful or earth-shaking. Interestingly, the emails, along with comments from mostly, never before heard from, contributors, all used the same syntax, buzzwords and arguments. Is this coincidence? All of them were cut from the same cloth, all of them avoided the 9/11 commentary, given in cavalier fashion by media model, Assange. Here is what Assange said, "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud."

Lord Stirling gives the definitive low-down on how the Gulf Oil tragedy has affected the weather worldwide, the Jet stream 5 to 7 miles above the Sea is driven by the waters (the Gulf Stream) below, this has caused (or exacerbated) freak weather in Russia, and South and North America.

The outlook is not good, with the possibility of cold soil lasting until May or June instead of Jan or Feb, crop failures can be expected. In short, we are at the front edge of an oncoming Ice-age.

Thank the hubris and unfettered greed of the corporate and government psychopaths. The death knell for a large part of life on earth has sounded.

What will happen when food disruptions occur, the currency collapses or social chaos breaks out in U.S. cities? This video answers that question by revealing how everyday people can transform into crazed animals who trample other human beings in order to get what they want. A shocking video that reveals a part of human nature that society tries to keep caged.

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from Brave New World to 1984. The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley's feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

Orwell warned of a world where books were banned. Huxley warned of a world where no one wanted to read books. Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear. Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure. Orwell warned of a state where every conversation and thought was monitored and dissent was brutally punished. Huxley warned of a state where a population, preoccupied by trivia and gossip, no longer cared about truth or information. Orwell saw us frightened into submission. Huxley saw us seduced into submission. But Huxley, we are discovering, was merely the prelude to Orwell. Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement. Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse.

Be true to yourself, and keep your inner Madoff where he belongs.

How do you recognise a psychopath? It's not easy. You can start by reading or watching the film of The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Tom Ripley is a man with no prospects who inveigles his way into the lives of the wealthy East Coast elite and, when it seems his con is about to be found out, murders them. Ripley has no moral core.

Or you could study Bernie Madoff, the creator of the world's biggest Ponzi scheme. Ripley is fictional, Madoff is real: but in the mind of a psychopath reality is only a construct, so what's the diff? Like Ripley, Madoff was an impostor in the moneyed world he inhabited until his downfall. Like Ripley, Madoff also appeared not to feel any shame for his crimes. At the time of his trial a Vanity Fair reporter observed that Madoff smirked and did not say sorry. "A sincere apology would imply remorse - a conscience. But then, if Madoff had a conscience, he would have committed suicide by now."

This link yielded some very interesting data.

For some reason starting early 2009 a huge upsurge in interest concerning psychopaths began worldwide.

Most of the searches took place in Southern Hemisphere countries; Australia, New Zealand, South Africa.

Sweden was the highest non-English speaking nation on the list?

This has been the coldest start to winter for the last 130 years, when records began. According to Met Eireann, Ireland's meteorological service, December has officially been the coldest month ever on record.

Last Monday County Mayo recorded low temperatures of -17.2C (1F).

The latest snap is expected to last beyond Christmas Day and a thaw is expected to set in slowly on St.Stephen's Day December 26th.

Even then there will be heavy rains and high winds, and driving conditions will be even more risky say the experts.

Dublin Airport was closed again yesterday for most of the day when an unexpected snow storm hit.

The weather continued to play havoc with effort to get home for Christmas by thousands coming from America, Australia and many other destinations.

In New York and Boston and Chicago Aer Lingus were warning passengers to check with the airline before departing for the airport as yesterday's unexpected storm had again thrown schedules up in the air.

Both the financial elite and their servants who maintain this system, appear to exhibit behavior that is consistent with symptoms associated with a medical disorder known as psychopathy.(*) Psychopaths, also called sociopaths, are categorized as those who exhibit superficial charm and intelligence, and are absent of delusions or nervousness. Their traits include:

• Unreliability
• Frequent lying
• Deceitful and manipulative behavior (either goal-oriented or for the delight of the act itself)
• Lack of remorse or shame
• Antisocial behavior
• Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience
• Incapacity for love
• Poverty of general emotions
• Loss of insight
• Unresponsiveness in personal relations
• A frequent need for excitement
• An inflated self-worth
• An ability to rationalize their behavior
• A need for complete power
• A need to dominate others

Psychopathy is basically an emotional disorder. The book, The Psychopath, by James Blair, Karina Blair, and Derek Mitchell, states, "The crucial aspect of psychopathy is ... the emotional impairment." According to Dr. J. Reid Meloy's book, The Psychopathic Mind, although psychopaths don't feel emotion in a normal sense, they do experience boredom, envy, exhilaration, contempt, sadistic pleasure, anger, and hints of depression.

Generally, those who believe it's caused by environmental factors use the term sociopath, and believers of the biological theory use the term psychopath. Psychopathy closely resembles Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD or APD) or Conduct Disorder (CD) as outlined in the DSM-IV. These disorders are detected using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revisited (PCL-R), the DSM-IV, and other diagnostics.

These character types, comprise about 4% of the population and span every level of society. Psychopaths can be found in every race, culture, profession and class. Because the term psychopath has been used to describe APD types and sociopaths, in this chapter I'll use it as a universal label for these three character types.

Underneath the warm fuzzies, Frank Capra's holiday classic is a tale of hunger, greed and a troubled America

I don't care what your parents told you. It's a Wonderful Life, that reassuring holiday spectacle, is really the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made. It's one of a handful of masterpieces directed by Frank Capra, an Italian immigrant who loved America because America saved him. Capra lived through the Depression, then through the rise of terrible ideologies. He knew how bad things could get. He knew, too, that the United States was not immune and this knowledge spiked his love with the worst kind of fear. The result was that special melancholy, blue shot through with black, that runs through his films, the best of which are parables that operate on various levels, some of which were probably unknown to Capra himself.

If you were to cut It's a Wonderful Life by 20 minutes, its true subject would be revealed: In this shortened version, George Bailey, played by a Jimmy Stewart forever on the edge of hysteria, after being betrayed by nearly everyone in his life, after being broken on the wheel of capitalism, flees to the outskirts of town, Bedford Falls, N.Y., where he leaps off a bridge with thoughts of suicide.

That's the movie: The good man driven insane.