Creativity

I'm totally behind this initiative though I would point out that real creativity is disruptive to the process of unmitigated wealth creation. The primary reason for the deplorable state of education in both the UK and the States is that it serves the State poorly to have independent, educated and free thinking creative individuals. There's no money in it.

Cairo

More over at Boing Boing.

Egypt

Mubarak is gone. Well done the people of Egypt. What an inspiration and what courage in the face of State terrorist tactics.

Mubarak's successor Omar Suleiman is known as the CIA's man in Cairo, and is reported to have personally tortured Mamdouh Habib an Egyptian born, Australian citizen. Habib was seized at the request of the CIA in October 2001, and while detained (for extraordinary rendition) in Pakistan, was suspended from a hook and electrocuted repeatedly before being handed over to the CIA in Egypt. 

In his memoir My Story: The Tale of A Terrorist Who Wasn't, Habib was repeatedly electrocuted, immersed in water to his nostrils and beaten. His fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks. At one point, his interrogator slapped him so hard his blindfold was dislodged revealing the identity of his tormentor. Omar Suleiman.

Frustrated that Habib was not providing useful information or confessing to involvement in terrorism, Suleiman ordered a guard to murder a shackled prisoner in front of Habib, which he did with a vicious karate kick. In April 2002, after five months in Egypt, Habib was rendered to American custody at Bagram prison in Afghanistan - and then transported to Guantanamo. On January 11, 2005, the day before he was scheduled to be charged, Dana Priest, the Pulitzer prize winning journalist of the Washington Post published an exposé about Habib’s torture. The US government immediately announced that he would not be charged and would be repatriated to Australia.

It was Suleiman who in 2005, vowed to stop the elections in Gaza in order to prevent Hamas from gaining control. Here he is talking to Shimon Peres of Israel.

More recently it was Suleiman who, wishing Gaza to go 'hungry' but not 'starve', blocked a final agreement for the Gaza Peace Flotilla to take sanctuary in Egyptian El-Arish. Turkish intelligence prevailed, though regrettably in vain. The IDF boarded and seized the flotilla's chance to ever take refuge 74 kilometres away.

Full article over at Al Jazeera

Malcolm Gladwell

More over here

Steve Jobs First TV Appearance

Anybody else think he and Piers Fawkes look eerily like each other in this video? More details about this video over at Salon.

Hermaphroditism

Very pleased to see that my hot tip of January 2008 Joy Island, is back in Beijing (after a spell at St. Martin's I think) and is being picked up by Neocha on her latest exhibition at Yang's Gallery in Beijing called Hermaphroditism.

Ancient Aliens

Over the weekend I kicked back and watched the entire series of Ancient Aliens. Irrespective of whether the evidence is conclusive or inconclusive it's some of the best and most interesting video content I've seen period. The episode below is an hour and a half of freshly uploaded video so unless you've seen it on TV it's probably new to you too. 


I've been pursuing a couple of key themes lately on quantum mechanics and mysticism, and there's a lot of barmy stuff out there but History.Com here have churned out some of the finest produced material I've come across. I've always had trouble switching off and relaxing but I spent a lot of enjoyable hours learning more than I ever expected.


In Particular (for me) my attention has narrowed in on the Sumerian culture who may possibly be even more interesting than the Egyptians; if anything could ever possibly be more interesting than the Egyptians given the pivotal role in contemporary and ancient world history. (Watch that space closely as it unfolds)