Possibly The Last Jack Nicholson Fan Photograph You'll Ever See

I was just listening to BBC World Service Outlook programme about a celebrity fanatics life of photographing himself with celebrities. I was about to change the 'channel' when  Richard Simpkins mentioned that Michael Hutchence was the most charismatic person he'd met over the decades. 

The official story of Hutchence' premature death has never sat comfortably with me and I thought it was an interesting comment Simpkin made so I hung in there. He then talked about the first time he met Jack Nicholson who declined his request for a fan photograph as he no longer does them and especially so as he'd mislaid his sunglasses on the golf course. Nine years later Richard Simpkin found himself at the rear of a Hollywood restaurant while Jack smoked a customary after-meal cigar . He reminded him about the first time they met in Sydney. Jack recalled losing his sunglasses and no doubt impressed by Richard's tenacity promised to do a photo with him at the front of the restaurant later. It's a quirky story and an anomaly in so much as I avoid celebrity topics. However the idea of Richard doing a 'Celebrity Fan Photographic Exhibition' is a brilliant example of 'But is it art?'.

In my view the world of art is so far up its backside it has neglected to address real issues in a way that is compelling, memorable and intelligent. The Independent recently asked us if contemporary art has 'Jumped The Shark' and the answer isn't hard to determine although I've always had a sneaky respect for Damien Hirst taking the piss out of the art world and charging as much as he could get away with.

Most of the art still housed in the National Gallery was commissioned by the 1% and so it's hard not to ask if the art world has changed that much? Hogarth was an exception but by and large I've never seen a more self obsessed bunch than contemporary artists who seem to have missed out on the point that great art taps into the times and articulates the unspeakable.

I tweeted as much earlier and there was a response to check out occuprint.org that I think is worth a mention. It's also worth mentioning that Richard Simpkin's body and style changes while snapping celebs from boyhood to man are oddly fascinating in their own way. You can see his photography exhibition in Liverpool. 

Maybe art is so up its own arse that anthropology is more interesting these days.

Snuff Movies We All Know & Love

In the mid 90's, Department of Defence Geologist Phil Schneider started doing presentations at UFO conferences about his role in the construction of underground bases that the military industrial complex has been building since the second world war to keep the Very Very VIPs nice and comfy in the event of extinction level events such as thermo-nuclear war. 

Phil's story was unusual and UFO related as he stumbled across that US military/non human intelligence working agreement/connection which is quite well documented and authenticated by the grand daughter of Eisenhower. Coincidentally the same person that came up with the term military industrial complex. 

Shortly after gaining notoriety in UFO circles at these talks and not before accusations of disinformation started to surface (his story is extraordinary to the max) Phil was suicided and is thus for me one of the more reliable witness testimonies on the internet. Suicided people are as good as it gets for authentication in my book and the nature of Phil's murder including torture is a little unusual.

I've only posted the clip with 2.6 million hits but there are full length presentation videos out there.

Clif High - Vatican Venality & Aztec Sunstones

Most people understandably still can't grasp that the Vatican is part of that Corporation of London, Washington D.C. triangle of lizardness that still runs the joint. The clip above from one of the recent full interview posts (or this one specifically if I got it right) should bring home a very pertinent question:

Why did the Vatican rush to Mesoamerica with Spanish armies to slaughter the locals and grab every piece of ancient mystery information they could hoard or destroy so that we wouldn't know?

Then there's that whole sending a Vatican painter to do the apotheosis of George Washington thing alongside the Aztec sunstone sculpture in the Capitol building rotunda.

Bill Hicks On Advertising & Marketing

By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. 

No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. 

Seriously though, if you are, do. 

Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. 

Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi... Whatever, you know what I mean. 

I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." 

Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! 

"Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." 

Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet! 

"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." 

God, I'm just caught in a fucking web. 

"Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..." 

How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you? 

"What didya do today honey?" 

"Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight." [snores] "Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?" [snores] "Yeah, you know the mums will love it." [snores] 

Sleep like fucking children, don't ya, this is your world isn't it?

The Obama 'Son Of Malcolm X' Theory Too Juicy Too Ignore

Anybody still hopeful that a Presidential candidate can make it through the Senate or Congress, raise the sick money needed, run a gruelling campaign and become POTUS without being owned by capitalism is off their rocker. Barack Obama seemed to be a breath of fresh air with his message of hope and change and while he has done a magnificent job of preventing the US from imploding it's fair to say the audacity of hope is wearing thin though not entirely extinguished.

When the Birther details first came to light a cool, dispassionate and objective eye could see that there were questions to be asked. The subsequent release of his birth certificate  showed that not only was it photoshopped but amateurishly so, revealing the layers of work required to alter it. I found the whole birther story (even if true) quite tedious compared to the much more exciting son of  Malcolm X story on Israeli Insider a few years ago and found it too robust and detailed to ignore. If you read one piece of 'out there' information about Obama it's that one.

My view is that in order for a President to be really effective they would need to run the Oval Office under subterfuge. That is to look like they are business as (crooked) usual while amassing the information needed to cleanse the US political system of the lizards who run the show. This would require hiring all the usual sleazy scum buckets that are feasting like pigs off the U.S. taxpayers. Then it would require pitching enemies against enemies, making notes of who is who and acting decisively when the purge is necessary. There's a couple of moves that supported this wild ass thinking on my part and they include Rahm Emanuelle's short stint in power, the swapping of Petraus to CIA and Panetta to Defence and then the recent resignation of Dennis Ross from the Middle East non peace process. Slim pickings I'll grant you but the last one is most significant. Obama has been patient with Israel's expansion into Arab lands and yet still Binyamin Netanyahu has been the most ungrateful recipient of that patience. In fact Netenyahu has gone out of his way to snub Barack Obama and treat the United States like the Knesset runs Congress, which it does in some ways. But that little technical slip between Obama and Sarkozy was very revealing.

Anyway the point of posting this today is that if, and it's a huge improbable "if" Obama is Malcolm X's son. 

I'm cool with that. I love Malcolm X

Is this a good time to air Freeman's Obama 'clone of Akhenaten' theory? Probably not but ya gotta admit. The whole family looks the spitting image, and what was it Obama said on his first foreign country visit to the land of Egypt? I'm honoured to be in the timeless city of Cairo. Well it would be timeless if you were the clone of Akehnaten (Tutenkhamun's son) wouldn't it?

Anyway playtime over. Read or bookmark the Malcolm X article it's very stubborn.

Sacred Mysteries With Jay Weidner

Sacred Mysteries With Jay Weidner - The videos are a click away

The interviewer isn't very familiar with Jay's work and so it's a useful entry point for the beginner to learn a little about one of the most interesting people around. Not that it's dull for experienced fans either. It never is with Jay.

The photograph is of the newly finished Upatassanti Pagoda in the (also new) relocated Burmese capital Naypyidaw. It's been too long since I was last in Burma and I feel it calling.

Michael Talbot - The Holographic Universe (As Above, So Below)

The more I study the new physics model including much of the holographic universe, the more I find it all hangs together in a way that the paradox of the standard model and quantum mechanics makes increasingly irrelevant. The materialist science junkies are relegated to smashing things up into smaller and smaller (metaphysical?) pieces while all the cool kids like Nassim Haramein and Jay Weidner are weaving them together into toroidal shaped vortexes of beauty and harmony.

Michael Talbot died prematurely from a rare cancer, and falls into that group of thinkers who challenged the materialist message sold by consumer fetishism's priests and scientists. People like John Lennon, Bob Marley and Bill Hicks who also died early, and for whom I question the nature of their death.

Remember: Study hard, work harder, consume as hard as you can and borrow hardest. Never question the premise of it all. 

Die Glocke Projekt - Dr. Joseph Farrell (The SS Brotherhood Of The Bell)

Currently I'm most interested in the cross over between Dr Joseph P. Farrell's work and Douglas Duane Dietrich on the subject of Nazi Germany's acquisition and testing of an atomic weapon at the end of the war. Both provide different sets of evidence for this and it's worth considering why that story was never told and the ongoing implications of that secrecy. In this interview with Dr. Farrell on Coast To Coast AM the topic of discussion is the Nazi Bell project which points towards not entirely unsuccessful experiments in field effect propulsion or anti gravity if you wish.

Here's a (slightly snarky) review of his book on Amazon. Dr. Joseph's command of the topic as you can hear in the interview above is masterful so I think it's OK to use this as his meticulous work stands up for itself. If you prefer German I've cut and paste a German description below the English because we won the war (just kidding).

Dr. Joseph P. Farrell's The SS Brotherhood of the Bell continues the author's work - brought out in the Giza trilogy and the "Reich of the Black Sun" - advocating that the general public has been deceived by its leaders for the better part of the 20th Century, and that the deception has been exacerbated in the new century. 

Dr. Farrell's contention is that there is an alternative doctrine of physics that - if studied and understood by experts and laymen - provides a general set of explanations for a variety of mysteries in our world such as UFOs. At the risk of grossly mis-stating the author's explanation, it seems to me that this "ether physics" is based broadly on the notion that our very environment is alive with energy rather than objects within the environment being the source of energy. The most notable result of this theory is that an object would be able to move through the environment by creating shifts in the ether. Call it whatever you wish, but this caused me to simplify the theory down to magnetic power... 

Central to his premise is also the need to accept that - if ether physics are valid - then there has been a systematic and prolonged effort by those in power to hide this information from us. And, further accepting the credo that "knowledge is power" as the justification for such actions, one is directed by the author towards the conclusion that a worldwide entity larger than any single government is manipulating matters. 

Dr. Farrell contends that ether physics is not a new theory. In fact, in his earlier books on the pyramids at Giza being sources of ether-physics-related power, this science is virtually antediluvian. It was, however, Nazi Germany and its links to the occult that caused resurgence in experimentation into ether physics in terms of its military potential. While discussing various technologies - as he did in his earlier book Reich of the Black Sun - the center-piece of this book is an alleged experiment that is more-or-less eponymous with the title of this book. 

The bare details are this: the Germans were experimenting with high speed magnetic rotation of various elements. The results of these experiments are mysterious, deadly and, in some cases, contradictory, depending upon references. Core to this part of the story is published material from a Polish researcher named Igor Witkowski. He claims to have accessed documents that were held in the former German Democratic Republic but are now being accessed with the collapse of Communism. It is Witkowski's work - also cited heavily in Nick Cook's The Hunt for Zero Point - that is the basis for the bell-related information in Farrell's book. 

All concerned conclude their stories with the scientific equipment and records being taken by SS Obergruppenfuehrer Hans Kammler, a real person who had virtual total control of the German secret programs in the 1944/1945 timeframe. But, with Witkowski and Cook are somewhat vague about what happened with the end of World War two, Farrell is adamant in his belief that Kammler and other former regime members were able to cut deals with all the allied powers and, in doing so, were able to establish themselves as an extra-national entity that operates to this day.

Dr. Farrell continues on to presents his view that the entity that is controlling and manipulating the post-modern world is dominated by a "next-generation" Nazis who have taken over the older more established behind the scenes New World order groups such as the Illuminati, the Council on Foreign Relations and Skull and Bones. The author states that Bush, pere and fils, along with John Kerry are either willing accomplices or subjugated dupes.

Auf Deutsch:

Above Top Secret: Ultrageheime Technologie des Dritten Reichs jenseits der Vorstellungskraft.

Was hat es mit der geheimnisumwobenen „Glocke" auf sich?

1945 verließ ein geheimes Hightech-Waffenprojekt mit dem Codenamen „Die Glocke" seinen unterirdischen Bunker in Niederschlesien -- und mit ihr Hans Kammler, Viersterne-General der SS. An Bord eines riesigen sechsmotorigen Ultralangstreckenflugzeugs vom Typ Junkers 390 verschwanden die Glocke, Kammler und sämtliche Projektunterlagen für immer von der Bildfläche. Ging dieser Flug nach Amerika oder nach Argentinien? 

Der Großteil der Wissenschaftler und Techniker, die an diesem Projekt gearbeitet hatten, wurden im Vorfeld von der SS kaltblütig ermordet. So verschwand eine Geheimwaffe, die laut einem deutschen Physik-Nobelpreisträger die Einstufung als „kriegsentscheidend" erhalten hatte -- eine Sicherheitseinstufung, die höher lag als alle anderen Geheimwaffen des Dritten Reichs, höher sogar als die Atombombe.

Welche bahnbrechenden physikalischen Geheimnisse waren mit der Glocke verbunden? Um sie zu schützen, scheuten überlebende Nazis jedenfalls auch nach dem Krieg keine Mittel. 

Dr. Joseph P. Farrell, spezialisiert auf die Erforschung wenig dokumentierter Aspekte in Wissenschaft und Geschichte, enthüllt in diesem Buch eine unfassbare Reihe exotischer Technologien, die im Dritten Reich erforscht wurden. Er wirft damit ein neues, verstörendes Licht auf die gängige Sichtweise über den Ausgang des Zweiten Weltkrieges -- aber auch auf den Roswell-Vorfall und MAJIC-12, das mysteriöse Geheimteam der amerikanischen Regierung zur Untersuchung von UFOs.

Just Smart Enough To Operate The Machines

Douglas Dietrich - How Warped Is The History Of Victors?

Update: The Embed isn't working. Download file here.

Only Douglas Dietrich can get away with compellingly describing how the United States lost the Second World War that it started. Unfortunately his interviewer (who has ugly racist perspectives) isn't that bright and fails to keep up with Mr Dietrich's signature rapid machine-gun fire speed but it's still the freshest history lessons on the net.

Douglas Dietrich was a D.O.D. (Department of Defense) Research Librarian for almost a decade, responsible for incinerating highly classified materials on critical historical topics such as Pearl Harbor, Roswell, Viêt-Nam, and the different ethnic holocausts; as well as documents exposing the reality behind vampires, zombies, Soviet psychic warfare, and other occult phenomena. 

Volumes of notes on Tesla, H.P. Lovecraft, L. Ron Hubbard, the Vatican and United Nations were destroyed, along with reams of reports detailing everything from military/intelligence-sponsored drug-smuggling operations to experimental mind-control programs. Records plundered from both Allied and enemy states articulated the hidden objectives of modern mass-movements from Nazism,  to Zionism. His Post was at El Presidio Real de San Francisco's Western Defense Command Centre which was seething with Satanism, child abuse, and controversial medical experimentation.

His background in military reference and his experiences in mercenary/security enforcement exposed him to startling insights into geopolitics, the current demographic apocalypse, and the medical-industrial complex as well as weapons of Mass-Deception unleashed generations ago by increasingly self-deluded American élites that have since warped the U.S. electorate's perception of reality.


Update: Here's a Coast To Coast Interview:

Dr Rauni-Leena Luukunan-Kilda - Something Celestial Is Brewing

I'm enjoying these interviews with Dr. Rauni - Leena Luukunan - Kilda (Is that a double barrelled first and last name?)

John Lash: Predators in the Midst, Sovereignty & The Warriors Way

In this latest talk, John Lash explains how to surgically remove a lung from a Goldman Sach's Executive while still keeping them alive and how to kinetically terminate a four star Pentagon General without anyone making a fuss. 

OK, just kidding (kind of) but his contra-violence themes are an important exercise in exploring the examined life without being a misanthrope, and as ever with John Lash the depth and breadth of his knowledge is highly interesting to the human that rejects the trivial for the substantial, and embraces integrity over compromise. 

Not selling out in a nutshell.

The PENTAGON™ - A Bloody Gravy Train

U.S. citizens aren't able to speak critically and openly about the Pentagon's budget which is larger than the rest of the world combined and has killed more foreign peoples than any other country in history.

There are a brave few dissidents in the United States who have spoken out and faced the wrath of the omnipresent and sleepless internal security services (D.H.S & N.S.A) but they are subjected to smear campaigns, dirty tricks or even detained by the police state.

This intimidates the public to stay silent in public and online and probably privately too as it only takes an email to the Department of Homeland Sicherheitdienst ....erm I mean security to place them under surveillance or warrant a visit to the workplace which threatens careers.

Douglas Dietrich worked for the Department of Defence at The Presidio and is a radical historian who was charged with destroying the Pentagon's records that they, like the Soviet and People's Army didn't want their populations to know. Fortunately for us he did his best to observe the historical records that were being bulk incinerated.

By establishing which  of the stories Dietrich (and we) can independently verify we learn some amazing history that will blow your mind. It's rock and roll history and will not suit those who are living the American illusion...erm ...dream.

Dr. Karla Turner - The Presentation That Cost Her Life

I liked Dr Karla Turner a hell of a lot the first time I listened to this presentation, and the more of her testimony I heard, the more I recognised that in addition to being likeable, Dr Turner brought rigour, tenacity and intelligence to the phenomena of alien abductions.

Unfortunately that's a very dangerous combination to the chain of obedience. Her experience of the world including a Masters Degree in Nottingham and a subsequent PhD in the United States meant her talks were articulate and a model of critical thinking. Weaponised truth is a threat to the spooks from the alphabet agencies.

From 1988 Dr Karla Turner began to receive death threats for speaking out about the relationship between the military and the abduction phenomena.

Shortly after this presentation she was killed with fast acting cancer drugs. 

Jacques Vallée @ TEDx Brussels - Unified Theory, Melchizidek & Jungian Synchronicity

Jacques Vallée is a bona fide academic brave enough to tackle the UFO issue until his last book in the late 70's. He reached some thoughtful conclusions such as the transdimensional nature of the topic, it's overlap with comparative mythology themes, and the parallels with fairies and ancient folklore. Perhaps this was the language used before we acquired a vocabulary that recognised entities, beings and extra terrestrials as a distinct cosmic taxonomy?

Quite by chance, I started to read Jacques Vallée's book Messengers of Deception recently and was trying but failing to cut and paste his warning about galactic cults into a post. By coincidence he also mentions that issue in this presentation. Jacques Vallée also raises the Melchizidek theme and specifically draws our attention to the  Melchizidek statue at Chartres Cathedral that we've previously been alerted to by John Lash as symbolic of the Archontic virus our species is plagued by.


Jacques Vallee rarely mentions it but the French U.N. character 'Lacombe' in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, played by Francois Truffault is based on him. You may recall that film portrayed the military as breast-medal deep in off world interaction, and stopping at nothing to keep civilians in the dark.


It's a good talk, and timely too if the Higg's Boson has decided to stop hiding from us and come out to play as CERN are hinting.

Jeremy Clarkson & The Chipping Norton Lizard Set

Full story here & more here.

Nielsen Stats Confirm Death Of TV Not reported on TV

This is too funny. The death of TV is not being reported by TV (go figure) and also reinforces my point that the corporate media have a profit incentive in lying to people about food, health, politics and about those wars abroad.

Aaron Barnhart broke this news in the Kansas City Star using data that is six months old. Nobody serious has picked up on it including advertising planners it seems. Allow me to summarize the most beautiful trend in humanity.

The total number of U.S. households with TV sets declined year to year for the first time since Nielsen started counting TV ownership.

The number of households with no TV at all is at its highest level since 1975. Three percent of homes are TV-free.

Here are the graphs and chart's:

I put it to you that we live crucial times. That being informed by anything but a profit first, foremost, and last news media corporate entity, (like News International and Sky) is the difference between a healthy or a grossly distorted world view. 


Don't let TV or Newspapers paint your reality. Particularly the corporate media news. Read lots and widely on the internet. Disagree with people in the comments. At least you know you're not being spoon fed.

Do We Think Too Much & Feel Too Little?

"We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost."

Charlie Chaplin - The Great Dictator

Forrest Gump - Southern Sentimentality & The Punctuated Assassinations Of The U.S.

It's been so long since I saw Forrest Gump I could barely recall any more than the eponymous character but I had a feeling I'd enjoy it and my intuition was richly rewarded. Like Into The Wild, it's a movie that made me think a fair bit, smile lots, laugh often and  occasionally well up with the odd tear of reality's harshness and regret for the frequent coup d'etats of the United States, punctuated by bullet's often misunderstood by the duped mainstream as threadbare 'lone gunman' stories pedalled by a complicit corporate media.

There's lots of ways to cut this movie as some sort of dual mirror-image-narrative of innocence, marginally succeeding against submerging under a parallel and reflected world of cynical reality. Even then that's only 'just succeeding' as his love is rejected by an unsophisticated world view and propensity for doing as told by those he trusts. A character trait assumed to be essential in close relationships.

In some ways it's also a celebration of a long gone American meritocracy where with hard work and a level playing field (insisted on by his mother) everyone get's a chance but that opens up deeper questions of free will, probability and chance I'm increasingly interested in since I've taken a close look at the NDE (Near Death Experience) data and it's unproven relationship to life journeys and incarnations that raise more questions than provide answers.

Even the one point of artistic insensitivity, a gratuitous product placement by NIKE (as Tom Hanks did in all his movies at one point) was immediately forgiven as the trainers are the only NIKE trainers I ever bought. Which meant I loved them. The NIKE Old School Classic Cortez. The rest for me are hip hop pimp rollers or Chav dealing white trash affairs. As a Goldman Sach's excecutives put it recently, Hermes is the Air Jordan's of wealthy white people.

Is Dr Joseph P. Farrell The New Real Life Colombo

At the high end of elite occult hypothesis is the notion that we humans are little less than a cock fight being enjoyed by ancient bloodlines and possibly off world interference. Money is not the point for these elite tiers of power, though obviously a few levels below them will be very interested in chasing the financial beans unaware of their true lowly position. This nexus of power sees us as a game to experiment with. For example, they throw twisted and/or amended religious doctrinaire texts at us to see which one is the most fundamentalist or say the least productive or most worth dying for. They are after all studying us and hypothetically have been doing so for centuries if not for millennia.

Listening to this interview with Dr. Joseph P. Farrell who has a PhD in Patristics from Oxford it's hard not to conclude that the Second World War was rigged from the beginning and wrapped up prematurely once the elite bet had been settled and leaving a lot more power intact than anybody else has really sussed out. I've been describing it recently as 'Germany lost the war but the Nazis didn't'. 

Those of you who have checked out my 'Project Paperclip' posts will be aware of this.

John Lash - Are You Fit to Survive The 2012 Breakdown?

One of the things I like about John Lash is his careful, measured and scrupulous use of words. We've disagreed on the combination of methods used to create the 9/11 mind control effect, and I can't agree with his crop circle rationale.


However, here he talks about contra-violence as action against violence and I heartily agree on the importance of this topic, and the ways that we humans can put a stop to intra-species predation by the psychopaths that populate every single institution that influences and shapes our species future.

Is McCorporate Media Smearing Muslims To Agitate For War Again?

Stewart Swerdlow and I disagree on lots of stuff but compared to the corporate media he's a healthy dose of opinion that is absent of the all pervasive Western agenda for profits through war. (Syria and Iran and Pakistan currently) 

Throw out your TV and stop letting it poison your mind. A flickering screen paints reality just as effectively as the other one that doesn't need a screen between it and your eyeballs. You choose which one is healthier for objective judgements and healthy decision making that doesn't encourage the cowardly RAF bombing brown skinned people around the world to keep you in Israeli oranges and Lebanese dates over your fake Christmas celebrations.

John Lash - An Introduction To The Gnostics

Excellent introduction to the subject. The artwork is Hypatia of Alexandria who was brutally murdered and mutilated by a Christian mob.

Is Malika Boonmeetrakul Using Facebook & Google Before She Censors Facebook & Google?

There's a damning post on the "Democrat" opposition party's deputy spokesperson Mallika Boonmeetrakul (or มัลลิกา บุญมีตระกูล in Thai) at New Mandala. It was cogently and elegantly written by Dr.Pavin Chachavalpongpun at Prachathai originally and is a show of journalistic courage often absent in Thailand.


The question this raises is whether the likes of Google should withdraw the free Gmail they provide to allow people to snitch on the harshest and most sensitive political issue in contemporary Thailand? 


It's only right for digital giants to stay out of domestic political issues. But  should they facilitate censorship like the recent 20 year jailing of a 61 year old Thai man for sending rude SMS messages to Mallika Boonmeetrakul's Democrat Party that contravene Lese Majeste laws?


Update:


Some of the comments at New Mandala are well informed, astute and insightful:


Andrew Spooner writes: 



A week ago I wrote about the start of Mallika's pro-censorship campaign. What Pavin has missed out in his excellent piece is that Mallika announced her campaign at the exact same time as Ar Kong was being sentenced (see my piece here)


She also threatened to prosecute Anudith and MICT under article 157 if they didn't prosecute every single LM case.


Yet, at the same time, pro-Democrat voices in the Bangkok Post (Voranai etc) and Amnesty's pro-royalist Ben Zawacki are mouthing, for the first time, more liberal sentiment and condemning LM.


Personally, I sense a political strategy of pinning PT down from both sides. One pushing them towards more illiberal policies the other condemning them.


Remember that the Dems are utterly unelectable and completely incapable of forming policies that would be attractive to the Thai electorate. The only way they can ever get back into power is by destabilising the country.


I see Mallika wanting to make a name for herself, gaining coverage and attempting to set herself up as an arch defender of the "faith" and am certain Abhisit feels that there is a lot to gain from Mallika's stance.


SteveCM writes:


Abhisit is today tweeting that Ms Mallika’s proposal is not Democrat party policy – that’s fully four days after she (an official spokesperson for the party, remember) came out with it.


What to make of this belated input from the party leader? Did Mallika “go off the reservation” – or was she “flying a kite” for the leadership? One way or the other, it appears that she or it has now been hauled back in.


Ynot Writes:



Below is a copy of my response as appeared in Prachatai per Dr. Pavin’s open letter to Mullika, one of too many appalling Thai politicians.


It is very hard to shut down the internet. As soon as one site is shut down, another will arise.


I have one proposal for you (Khun Malika) that I think might help. Why don’t we stop teaching people to read and write? It seems the main problem is that people are using their reading and writing skills to spread their ideas.


Another idea might be to ban computers. We got along very well with typewriters just a few years ago. I don’t remember having any problems with people stating their unacceptable ideas to others.


As George Orwell said in the book 1984:


Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.