Society's ChildS


Alarm Clock

Best of the Web: The Care and Feeding of the Practical Psychopath

Les Visible
Smoking Mirrors
Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:07 UTC


©Sott.net

Every generation has its challenges, its wars and its peculiar identity. Every generation replaces the one in front of it and gets replaced by the one behind it. The enemy of each generation is always the same. It changes its clothes and terrain. It moves in and out of political ideologies and religious dogmas but it's the same enemy.

Defining the enemy isn't an easy thing. You're dealing with continuous shape-shifting. You think you are confronting it in front of you when it is actually leaning over your shoulder and advising you. You find that it agrees with you and is on your side only to discover that it has used its seeming alliance to discredit what you believe in; to misrepresent what you believe in.
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Cult

Bridgend, South Wales: Number of young people found hanged in 'suicide cult town' rises to 13


This is London
Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:20 UTC
The true scale of a suicide epidemic among young people in a small town was revealed yesterday.

As well as the seven deaths linked to social networking websites, a coroner revealed that a further six had also died within a year.

The astonishing rate of hangings in Bridgend, South Wales, has terrified parents in the area and one secondary school has been placed on 'suicide watch' after pupils appealed for help.
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Calculator

SOTT Focus: Survival in Times of Uncertainty: Growing Up in Russia in the 1990s

Legal Alien
Sott.net
Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:08 UTC


"Dacha"

News about political upheavals, signs of impending economic disaster or projected natural catastrophes tend to generate strong 'fight or flight' emotional reactions in readers. We want to sell all we own, run for the hills and barricade ourselves in a fully stocked compound - preferably one with a bomb and meteorite shelter attached to it.

Major changes to our lifestyle are inevitable; yet the time frame and the exact way the changes will occur are uncertain, which only adds to our stress. I grew up in Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the accompanying economic upheaval, i.e., during the time of high uncertainty. I was 10 when the Perestroika started in 1985. The economic situation got progressively worse, with the very worst hitting in the early 90-s. I admit I don't remember things as well as I should have. Psychologically and physically, I was sheltered by my age and its petty egotistical concerns, by my parents' effort to provide for the family, and by living in a close-knit community that had a lot of strength, spirit and intellectual resources. Now that I think about it though, memories and conclusions are coming up that I never thought about. Some of them are unexpected and counterintuitive to the prevailing survivalist mentality; but they may be relevant to the coming changes and end up being useful to someone.
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Propaganda

SOTT Focus: SOTT Responds to Damian Thompson: Lies, damn lies and 'counterknowledge'

SOTT Focus
SOTT.net
Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:04 UTC
Outright fiction is being peddled as historical and scientific fact, warns Damian Thompson in an extract from his provocative new book

George Bush planned the September 11 attacks. The MMR injection triggers autism in children. The ancient Greeks stole their ideas from Africa. "Creation science" disproves evolution. Homeopathy can defeat the Aids virus.

Do any of these theories sound familiar? Has someone bored you rigid at a dinner party by unveiling one of these "secrets"? If so, it is hardly surprising. In recent years, thousands of bizarre conjectures have been endorsed by leading publishers, taught in universities, plugged in newspapers, quoted by politicians and circulated in cyberspace.

This is counterknowledge: misinformation packaged to look like fact. We are facing a pandemic of credulous thinking. Ideas that once flourished only on the fringes are now taken seriously by educated people in the West, and are wreaking havoc in the developing world.


Comment: Outright fiction is being peddled as historical and scientific fact, warns SOTT, in their provocative daily news website.

A lone madman in a cave planned the September 11 attacks. State-imposed vaccines are infallibly safe. Western civilisation is healthily altruistic. Modern science is immune to dogma, egotism and conflicts of interest. Hijacking of the health service by pharmaceutical giants is all 'for your own good'.

Do any of these theories sound familiar? Has the BBC bored you rigid by repeatedly unveiling this "secret" propaganda. If so, it is hardly surprising. In recent years, thousands of bizarre conjectures have been endorsed by leading publishers, taught in universities, plugged in newspapers, quoted by politicians and circulated in cyberspace.

This is COINTELPRO: misinformation packaged to look like fact. We are facing a pandemic of credulous thinking. Ideas that once flourished only in the minds of some power-crazed politician or behind the closed board room doors of some corporate giant, are now taken seriously by educated people in the West, and are wreaking havoc across the world.

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USA

SOTT Focus: The 2008 Iowa Caucus: A Report From The Trenches

M.N.
Sott.net
Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:02 UTC



Barak Obama has won the 2008 Iowa Democratic caucus with 37% of the popular vote, closely followed by Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, with about 29% each. Mike Huckabee has won the Republican Caucus, with 34% of the popular vote.

Here are some thoughts from an Iowa resident and a witness to the process.
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Question

US Congressmen call for the removal of Turkish troops from Cyprus


Famagusta Gazette
Fri, 28 Dec 2007 05:05 UTC
US Congressmen Albio Sires and Gus Bilirakis have introduced a resolution that calls for the removal of Turkish occupying troops from Cyprus.
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Padlock

UK: Rape monster branded 'untreatable psychopath' jailed


The Citizen
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:48 UTC
Psychopath John White has been convicted of the brutal rape of a student nurse in Gloucester 16 years ago.

The woman said she feared for her life during the horrific attack and now her evil rapist is facing life behind bars.

His conviction at Gloucester Crown Court came about after advances in technology which matched his DNA.
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Attention

Election Software Lost in Transit

Kim Zetter
Wired
Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:21 UTC
More than a hundred computer chips containing voting machine software were lost or stolen during transit in California this week.

Two cardboard shipping tubes containing 174 EPROMs loaded with voting machine software were sent via Federal Express on December 13th from the secretary of state's office in Sacramento to election officials in nineteen California counties that use optical-scan voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems. But on Monday, two shipping tubes arrived empty to one of these counties.
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Bad Guys

Flashback Reaching the Receivers

David Neiwert
Cursor
Sat, 30 Aug 2003 08:43 UTC


©David Neiwert
Scene at the Freemen standoff in Jordan, Montana, in winter of 1996.

I was driving around Billings, Montana, in the middle of a nasty blizzard in a cheap little rented car and trying to figure out what in the hell was going on when the Voice On Loan From God hit me.

There are, I suppose, things that you have to admire about Rush Limbaugh, and one of them is his voice. It is absolutely distinctive. I can hear it through a rolled-up car and know who the driver is listening to. But that afternoon in early March 1996 I heard him talk and it came as something of a revelation.

I actually have made a habit over the years of listening to Limbaugh because I want to know what he's saying. More to the point, I spend a lot of time driving around rural backcountry, and you have to know that Limbaugh is just about the only constant thing you can find on the radio out there. There's country music, but in the open range even it can be spotty reception-wise. Rush, however, is everywhere.

Comment: David Neiwert's series:

Introduction

I. Projecting
Fascism

II. Understanding
Fascism

III. The Core of Fascism

IV. Tracking Fascism

V. Proto-Fascism in America

VI. Crossing the Lines

VII. The Transmission Belt

VIII. Official Transmitters

IX. Media Transmitters

X. Reaching the Receivers

XI. Dualist Receivers

XII. Divine Transmissions

XIII. Fascism and Fundamentalism

XIV. The War on Liberals

XV. Waiting for Godwin

Bibliography

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Attention

A Miracle: Honest Intel on Iran Nukes

Ray McGovern
consortiumnews.com
Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:39 UTC
For those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred today. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program has been issued and its Key Judgments were made public.

With redraft after redraft, it was what the Germans call "eine schwere Geburt" - a difficult birth, ten months in gestation.

I do not know how often Vice President Dick Cheney visited CIA Headquarters during the gestation period, but I am told he voiced his displeasure as soon as he saw the first sonogram/draft very early this year, and is so displeased with what issued that he has refused to be the godfather.
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