Today was supposed to be the day when we witnessed the 'closest fly-by ever' of a space rock measuring about 45 meters in diameter. Government space agencies, 'experts' and the mainstream media have spent the past few weeks reassuring us that asteroid 2012-DA14, although coming within the orbit of some satellites, would safely pass the planet by. And indeed, it probably will have done so by the time you are reading this. But while people have fixated on this asteroid, the cosmos apparently had other plans - the actual impact of a different and totally unexpected fireball... on the same day!

At 8:45am local time today, a large fireball appeared out of the clear blue sky above South-central Russia, dramatically lighting up the surrounding region before exploding with a tremendous bang as it fragmented near the city of Chelyabinsk, located east of the Ural mountains.

Multiple smaller explosions (between 5 and 6) followed the shock wave from the initial explosion as the bolide fragmented. Eyewitnesses across a wide area have also reported seeing burning objects fall to earth, suggesting that perhaps some of the later booms were sounds accompanying meteorite impacts as debris was scattered over a wide area. Witnesses described the initial explosion as being so loud that it seemed like an earthquake and thunderbolt had struck at exactly the same time. Once the immediate danger had passed, residents of Chelyabinsk reported "huge trails of smoke across the sky".

Martha Stout's newest book, The Paranoia Switch, is a welcome addition to the new and growing science of ponerology: the study of the root causes and genesis of evil, on both the social and interpersonal levels. Stout uses her years of experience as a trauma therapist to clinically diagnose the sickness of our 'terror culture,' and those who would manipulate this trauma for their own self-interest.

The paranoia switch

Traumatic events overload our limbic system. The heightened response of our amygdala, which registers the emotional significance of the event, leads to a decreased response in the hippocampus, which usually prioritizes information and allows the higher brain centers to create coherent memories, based on their emotional importance. So, traumatic events do not get integrated by the higher brain centers as true memories, but instead leave us with non-integrated fragments of memory: isolated images and sensations. These memories can then be "triggered" by similar images. In this way, a backfiring car can trigger a war vet into a state of paranoia. His "paranoia switch" has been flicked.

"Most overwhelming of all are traumatic experiences caused not by accident (unintended explosions or car crashes), or by "acts of God" (earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.), but rather by the deliberate acts of other people, acts such as assault, violent abduction, rape - or terrorism. It would seem that, for whatever reason, we are hardwired to be most fearful of harm when it threatens to occur maliciously, at the hands of our fellow human beings, and this special variety of fear is the most contagious of all." (62)

As Stout explains later in her book, fear brokers maintain their power through the exploitation of human weaknesses. Ironically, it is often the very people we are genetically "programmed" to fear (i.e. psychopathic individuals), that exploit this fear by focusing it on an arbitrary and convenient group. Hitler used anarchists, communists, and Jews. Our leaders are using "terrorists", Muslims, and critics of their policies.

In this third SOTT Talk Radio show broadcast live on Sunday February 3rd, 2013, SOTT.net editors Joe and Niall were again joined by Jason Martin, along with special guests Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Harrison Koehli, editor of Red Pill Press, publisher of the underground classic, Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil, Adjusted for Political Purposes. Together they discussed arguably the most important topic of our time: psychopaths and their influence in our world.

The 'virtues' of CEOs, political leaders, heart surgeons, soldiers and others possessing 'psychopathic qualities' is being heavily promoted through the mainstream media, academia and popular culture. References to psychopaths in TV shows like Dexter and movies like Seven Psychopaths would seem to suggest that psychopaths are not only generally known about and understood, but are also appealing to ordinary people.

But are psychopaths really cool? And what is a psychopath anyway? How many of them are out there and how long have they been around us? Everyone has an opinion about psychopaths, but are we all talking about the same thing? Bestselling books like Kevin Dutton's Wisdom of Psychopaths encourage people to 'unlock their inner psychopath'; does that mean we are all potentially psychopaths?

Running Time: 02:18:00

Download: MP3

In absolute disregard for both the US Constitution and international law, US drones are currently killing civilians, including women and children¹, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Uganda and the Philippines. Thousands have been killed, and tens of thousands more terrorized, by fleets of remote-controlled 'drone' aircraft.²

For those living in these drone-infested regions, the reality they experience on a daily basis is horrifying. In the dark future envisaged in the science fiction Terminator movies, human decisions are removed from strategic operations once an artificial intelligence (AI) called 'Skynet' takes control. In real life we have the conscienceless Military-Industrial Complex - run by humanoids in the CIA, Pentagon, British Ministry of Defence, US and UK Government administrations and weapons manufacturers - working together to develop a war machine that has removed all semblance of humanity from combat operations. In the movies we're invited to excuse Skynet's creators because it is no longer under their control. In real life, terminator drones are programmed to 'double-tap' their targets, a euphemism for deliberately targeting rescuers attempting to drag victims from rubble in the aftermath of the initial drone strike. The predictable result, is that for every "terrorist" killed in Pakistan 49 civilians are murdered also .

10,000 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) aka drones are said to be currently in service around the globe, "protecting Western civilization from terrorists". A thousand of these are armed and most of them are American-operated. It is reported they have killed more non-combatant civilians than died in 9/11 (and that's just the 'official estimates'). While military personnel cuts have shrunk the sizes of standing armies, 'theaters of operations' have expanded. In the US, the 'FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012', has seen the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA and other agencies work towards the total integration of commercial drones into US airspace. Ethical and privacy concerns are simply swept aside while the proliferation of drone technology is driven by the greed of powerful defense contractors.

In this second SOTT Talk Radio show, co-hosts Joe Quinn and Niall Bradley discuss the recent furor over proposed US government gun control legislation in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, and the implications for Americans' right to bear arms. Many 2nd Amendment advocates insist that a 'well-armed citizenry' is the last defense against tyrannical government, but are 80 million armed Americans really the solution to the problems of a corrupt government? An armed populace has not hindered the destruction of other civil liberties in the US to date, so is it a question of the curtailment of gun rights opening the way to tyrannical government, or is tyrannical government already here?

Along with their special guest, Jason Martin, a life-long student of martial arts and the history of warfare and combat theory, Joe and Niall discuss the root causes of the culture of violence in the USA, the history that gave rise to the US constitution and the Bill of Rights, citizens' justified fears that they cannot rely on the corrupt authorities to protect them and what kind of a revolution it would take for people to achieve real justice.

Running Time: 02:23:00

Download: MP3

Liars, Gun Control and Money in a Culture of Violence¹


Gun control is a hot topic right now. As usual, COINTELPRO is in full force trying to control and define the debate within the narrowest possible field, limiting the questions people ask and presenting loud and obnoxious pundits who are supposed to represent "the people." We doubt the people are this mentally backwards.

Gun and weapon control has a long and illustrious³ history. It has never led to any tangible results. Murders are just as prevalent, if not more, than at any other time in history (rates of murder and violence tend to rise and fall throughout history⁴). If history is taken as a lesson, reliance on gun control in the forms of registration of ownership and limiting of the types of arms and ammunitions, has caused more deaths than it has ever prevented.

People are focused on the now. The collective memory of a civilization is very short. I have heard the number 3 years suggested as the average duration of recall for the ordinary person; sometimes it is more, sometimes less. I really don't know. I only know that it is shorter than it should be.

Each successive generation appears to feel as if they have moved beyond the influence of the problems of their forebears in a poorly defined and mentally retarded concept called 'progress'⁵. There is no such thing as progress. Man is a bit like a hamster in a cage; eventually he always comes full circle.⁶ No matter how hard he runs, he's never going to get anywhere until he learns to step off the damned wheel.

It's the same dance, just a different tune.

"[I]n a rational world the locution 'laws of war' would make as much sense as 'etiquette of cannibals.'" - Norman Finkelstein

Just over four years ago, in December of 2008, Israel invaded Gaza in an operation dubbed Operation Cast Lead, breaking the then-current ceasefire and killing 1400 Palestinians by the time all was said and done three weeks later. Most of the Palestinian dead were civilians, including 350 children; 13 Israelis died, 4 by friendly fire, including 3 civilians. That's a 100:1 ratio. The invasion, carried out by one of the most advanced militaries in the world against what was, by comparison, a defenseless 'enemy,' was overwhelmingly supported and defended by the Israeli populace.

Those are just the barest of facts included in Jewish-American activist and political scientist Norman Finkelstein's 2010 book 'This Time We Went Too Far': Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion. But even those facts were either disputed or spun by media pundits, government officials, and military personnel during and after the invasion, many going so far as to exonerate Israel of any wrongdoing whatsoever and fully defend its actions. Many justified the attacks because of the 'terror' under which Israelis were living from Hamas rocket attacks.

Keeping in mind the death statistics mentioned above, consider the fact that in any twenty-two-day period of 2008, an average of 148 Israelis died from diabetes. Even pneumonia killed more Israelis than died in the conflict: 60. (You can view the 2008 cause-of-death statistics for Israelis here.)

Finkelstein argues that the purpose of Operation Cast Lead (OCL) was both as a counter to the Palestinian 'peace offensive' and to re-establish Israel's 'deterrence capability', essentially a display of murderous 'strength' and ultraviolence, enough to instill fear into the hearts of Israel's 'enemies' and to deter the Palestinians from fighting back against the harsh oppression that hasn't let up for the last fifty-plus years, or from thinking they and other Arab states could get by simply without having to worry about Israeli interference in their affairs. As Ariel Sharon had put it, deterrence capability is "our [Israel's] main weapon - the fear of us" (p. 31). And as IDF Spokesperson Major Avital Leibowitz said, in reference to OCL: "It [should be] possible to destroy Gaza, so they will understand not to mess with us" (p. 35). Charming, huh?

In this first broadcast of Sott.net's new Talk Radio show, co-hosts Joe Quinn and Niall Bradley discuss the December 14th 2012 Sandy Hook shooting from a unique perspective. Having carefully analysed the horrific school shooting from a number of different angles in a series of articles, the Sott.net editors realised that there is actually very little to go on that points directly to any conspiracy. However, when placed within the historical context of similar mass shootings and political assassinations in the U.S. over the past half century, the theory that a conspiracy took place at Sandy Hook elementary school becomes plausible.

Running Time: 02:02:00

Download: MP3

Many of the most notable events in modern (and even ancient) history have provoked some form of 'conspiracy theory'. That is to say, ordinary people were not satisfied with the official story about how the event unfolded because all or some aspects of that story simply did not objectively make sense. Despite what the mainstream media would like us to believe about 'conspiracy theories', most conspiracy theories are based on objective problems with the official narrative. But note that I said 'based on'. The problem with conspiracy theories is that, while they usually reflect a more accurate overview of a major event, they are forced to rely on theory (due to deliberate with-holding of data by official sources) rather than hard evidence (which would disqualify them as theories) and are therefore open to abuse by people who tend to use their imaginations to complete the picture rather than the more critical functions of the human mind.

Compared to other similar events where many people found the official story implausible, the Sandy Hook massacre has provoked a veritable flood of conspiracy theories, and many of them are not based on any hard evidence.

A large majority of the alternative news pundits that have attempted to independently investigate the Sandy Hook massacre have engaged in some seriously irresponsible and shoddy journalism. Among the more outlandish and baseless theories, we find the claim that "actors" took the place of the parents and siblings of the Sandy Hook victims, and that no children were murdered at all because, the theory goes, if they were, "why haven't we seen any bodies?" I've already exposed the logical fallacies in a few of these theories elsewhere, but there is one theory that still refuses to go away, perhaps because it is slightly less obviously bogus, and many people are still touting it as the single fact that "busts open" the official story as a "hoax".

The theory in question is that a man named Christopher Rodia was the REAL owner of the black Honda Civic, which has been identified as the car of Adam Lanza's mother that was found outside the Sandy Hook elementary school. The basis for this erroneous belief, still held by many, is police scanner audio that was picked up from the morning of Dec. 14th and which details Connecticut State Police response to the massacre.

In an article on Sott.net earlier this year entitled How is the World Going to End in 2012?, Laura Knight-Jadczyk wrote:

The world is ending in 2012. That is, the final implementation of the fascist, totalitarian New World Order will be accomplished this year and you will be in that "New World" that the global elite have designed for you, and planned to implement for a very long time now. Oh, indeed, similar New World Orders have been staged in the past on smaller scales, but this time it's global because they are all in on it together! Former 'New World Orders' didn't really fail, even if they ostensibly fell; they've just been passing the torch around for millennia, spreading the disease, growing the sickness in society, until finally, now, with global communication and incredible weapons of destruction in their hands, they are ready to finalize the Faustian bargain that you, the people, signed with your blood.

That's what 2012 is all about. It's not about some grand and glorious transformation or ascension to another existence! It's not about being 'raptured' to heaven at the right hand of Jesus because you helped to 'initiate the Eschaton'! It's not about 'Starseeds' being taken aboard spacecraft and getting airlifted to some other planet of the '5th dimension', but it is also not about 'life continuing on as normal'. Pure and simple, prophecy is coming true, it's just that it's going to be much more mundane and much less sensational than you might have imagined. It is the end of your world as normal, free human beings, and your reduction to pure grinding slave-hood, your children turned over to be sex toys or cannon fodder for psychopaths, and there's nothing you can do about it now.

Those are some pretty serious charges! Are they in any way an accurate description of human life on planet earth at the end of 2012?