SOTT Focus:


USA

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




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.

Alarm Clock

Flashback SOTT Focus: First They Came For The Arabs




Continuing the Time-honored tradition of picking the person who has had the most "influence on the world" during the course of the year - and thereby manufacturing a certain status for the person in question in the minds of the general public, whether merited or not - for the year 2004, Time magazine nominated George W Bush as their "Man of the Year". In a eulogy to make your stomach churn, filled as it is with nauseating platitudes and obsequious psychophantic panderings, Time said they had chosen Bush for the second time in four years for:
"sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his ten-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters this time around that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years. For sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes - and ours - on his faith in the power of leadership."

Heart

SOTT Focus: Benazir Bhutto - A Warning To Us All



Benazir Bhutto - Murdered by the Pathocrats

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was murdered Thursday December 27th, 2007 in Rawalpindi, a city near Pakistan's capital Islamabad. Having survived an attempted assassination in October, under the cover of a "suicide bombing" Ms. Bhutto was shot in the neck and head from close range.

Coincidentally (or not) almost 29 years ago her father, Zulfikar Bhutto, also a former PM of Pakistan, was hung in the very same city by then Pakistan dictator General Zia Ul-Haq. In 2003, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was arrested in Rawalpindi. The evidence for Khalid's involvement came largely from the now destroyed CIA torture tapes. Small world. It should come as no surprise therefore that, while separated by decades, the untimely deaths of Ms. Bhutto and her father are, in the context of the American-led war on terror, inextricably linked. Suffice to say, the fingerprints of the Pathocrats are everywhere.

Heart - Black

SOTT Focus: Paul Craig Roberts sez "We Are All Prisoners Now"

Today I read Paul Craig Robert's new essay on the state of the U.S. I couldn't have said it better, though I already figured out that 9/11 was an inside job and Roberts is having a hard time going there. Roberts points out with succinct clarity that:

Freedom and democracy in America have been reduced to no-fly lists, spying without warrants, arrests without warrants or evidence, permanent detention despite the constitutional protection of habeas corpus, torture despite the prohibition against self-incrimination--the list goes on and on.

[...]

Present and former high government officials, with top secret security clearances, cannot fly with a tube of toothpaste or a bottle of water despite the absence of any evidence that extreme measures imposed by "airport security" makes flying safer.

Elderly American citizens with walkers and young mothers with children are meticulously searched because US Homeland Security cannot tell the difference between an American citizen and a terrorist.

All Americans should note the ominous implications of the inability of Homeland Security to distinguish an American citizen from a terrorist.

When Airport Security cannot differentiate a US Marine General recipient of the Medal of Honor from a terrorist, Americans have all the information they need to know.

Heart

SOTT Focus: Winter Solstice: From Chaos to Creation



©Sott.net
A Gift from SOTT's French Editors (Thanks to all of you! It was excellent wine!)

I'm sitting here at my desk, Christmas Dinner for 17 is over and done with and the leftovers are all covered and arranged on the kitchen table. The dishes are washed and put away, and everyone but me and Ark are watching the Christmas movies. We are enjoying a second glass of a fine French wine - a gift from SOTT's French Crew. So far, it has been a relaxing and pleasant experience except for the one time I had to go out for some last minute items for dinner and had to deal with what the rest of the world is doing for Christmas... it wasn't pretty, I tell you! I was so glad that I don't do that anymore.

Better Earth

SOTT Focus: Book Review: New Light on the Black Death by Mike Baillie

Triumph of Death
Hell on Earth, the nightmare depicted by Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel in his mid-16th-century The Triumph of Death reflects the social upheaval and terror that followed the plague that devastated medieval Europe. Was there a cosmic connection?


I just finished reading this one and all I can say is: Wow! This was an intense book! Not a long one, either - just 208 pages including appendices. It's tight and economical with no wasted words or idle rambling around. Every example and temporary diversion is crucial to the central argument which is - brace yourself for this one - Mike Baillie (yeah, a real scientist and not a crackpot), is saying that the Black Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history, said to have killed possibly two thirds of the entire population of Europe, not to mention millions all over the planet, probably wasn't Bubonic Plague but was rather Death By Comet(s)!

Oh yeah! That's far out, isn't it?

Maybe not. Baillie has the scientific evidence to support his theory and his evidence actually supports - and is supported by - what the people of the time were saying: earthquakes, comets, rains of death and fire, corrupted atmosphere, and death on a scale that is almost unimaginable. Most people nowadays are not really aware of what happened just 660 years ago. (Hmmm... the inquiring mind immediately wonders what might happen when we hit 666 years after?! That would be 2012...)

Comment: Continue to Part Two: The Hazard to Civilization From Fireballs and Comets

See also:

Black Death found to be Ebola-like virus

New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection

Related:

Happy New Year 2014?

SOTT Talk Radio show #70: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?


Bad Guys

SOTT Focus: Good Times, Bad Times 2: Insiders and the Hysteroidal Cycle



©Signs of the Times

In the previous article in this series, we introduced the concept of the hysteroidal cycle and saw that good times contain the seeds of bad times, while bad times invite people to return to analysis and critical thinking necessary to pull themselves out of the crisis. However, the insiders are also aware of the hysteroidal cycle. They are aware that certain shocks can serve to awaken people from their slumber, can provoke individuals onto the path for answers. To counter the positive aspect of bad times or periods of shocks, they have done vast research into how, when, and for how long shocks need to be administered in order to keep people submissive.

Butterfly

SOTT Focus: Secret History Of The World


USA

SOTT Focus: Good Times, Bad Times 1: The Hysteroidal Cycle



©Unknown

A society can be the custodian of a vast quantity of knowledge, but if that knowledge is not spread out, held, and utilized by the entire population, it can do little good. It remains theoretical and is not applied. If the knowledge remains concentrated in the hands of the few, it has the same consequences as the concentration of money, resources, or business ownership in the hands of a few. It becomes a lever of power and oppression, not freedom and justice. A monopoly of knowledge is created.

Such is the situation in the United States today. A small few have real knowledge of what is going on in the world. The others are fed a diet of lies, half-truths, and wishful thinking.

Che Guevara

SOTT Focus: The Man Behind the Curtain



I am Oz the Great and Powerful!

I have to admit that I felt fiendishly gleeful when the reports came out that Hugo Chavez had exposed the CIA's little political destabilization game in Venezuela by getting his hands on the "Operation Pincer" memorandum and publishing it! What a hoot! It was just TOO priceless that the Man Behind the Curtain was exposed as less than the "Great and Powerful Oz," being instead, a gang of petty crooks in positions of power trying to again manipulate the public into believing their lies.

Of course, at the same time, we here at SOTT are all observing France and wondering if the same tricks that are obviously being played on the French will work considering France's higher educational and literacy level compared to the U.S. where the game obviously has already been won by the Man Behind the Curtain.

Humbug!