Bouncin' Around

Keeping in touch

2005-12-05T17:20:00.000+13:00

The government's campaign to lure ex-Kiwis back to New Zealand goes to show how out of touch they are with the average Kiwi and how our geographic isolation has seperated our mindset from the common sense of the world.

In 3 weeks time I will be leaving New Zealand with almost 3 masters degrees and 11 years of tertiary study (not to mention the accompanying student loan). I am leaving because I have a huge student loan, New Zealand does not have the employment opportunites as offered by other countries, New Zealand's wages are relatively pitiful, and New Zealand does not offer the quality of life that I am looking for.

Don't get me wrong, there are many great things about New Zealand, but while I am still relatively young and am career oriented, New Zealand has very little to offer.

These are the reasons why our graduates depart our shores. These are reasons identifiable by asking any graduate or indeed student and are known by almost every New Zealander.

Why is it then that our government insists upon wasting taxpayers money in a stupid campaign instead of addressing the causes of the problem?

Why is the campaign promoting the fact that condoms and hair gel are cheaper in New Zealand? Who really cares???

Overseas I am going to earn 3 times the amount I would earn for the equivalent position here and that is just my base salary exclusive of allowances and performance bonuses. Who cares if things are slightly more expensive?

At the end of the day, a condom might be 30c cheaper in New Zealand but I am looking forward to saving hundreds of dollars in hiring the women themselves!!!

Arm me with some balls!

2005-12-05T17:11:00.000+13:00

What is with soldiers complaining about going to war?

As a taxpaying citizen I am outraged at funding our armed forces in the knowledge that our tax dollars are essentially being wasted. We are almost at the point where we shouldn't even bother having a military. No doubt this statement will receive a great deal of applause from the left leaning, tree hugging hippies who live in the idealistic fantasyland of New Zealand.

Technically we don't have a military, we have a defence force. But what could our defence force protect us from? No, really?

If you are paid to train for combat, and there is a war going on then expect to get your arse sent there. Guts come with the glory. Be thankful that our weak government doesn't have the courage to send you into battle and that you will only have to undertake engineering work in relatively peaceful and occupied areas.

You're a soldier and an engineer and that is why you are sent instead of civillian contractors.

Soldiers get sent to areas of conflicts. That's the point. My 3 year old nephew knows that the terms 'soldier' and 'war' are synonimous. The military isn't a free ride! If you couldn't handle the reality you should never have joined. That's why i'm sitting behind a desk. Just shut up and do your job!

Maori Magic

2005-12-05T10:22:00.000+13:00

According to a new police manual, Maori should not be forced to give dna samples because of concerns over sorcery. Apparently Maori have spiritual beliefsl beliefs about samples taken from the body, and that "a person should not be forced to provide samples for testing purposes". When quzzed on the ridiculous and biased policy, police management said the direction would be ammended or deleted in futire editions.

Well Hung

2005-12-05T10:12:00.000+13:00

What's the difference between Ricky Ponting and Van Ngyuen's mum?

Van Ngyuen's mum will be bringing home the ashes!

IOU? No bitch, UO ME!

2005-12-02T15:20:00.000+13:00

I have to get a security clearance for my new job which involves gathering a few reports that are kept on me by various government and non-government agencies. I have requested a copy of my criminal convictions (which should be a blank page) as well as a copy of my credit history.

I figured that the best place to obtain a copy of my credit history in New Zealand was Baycorp Advantage. Now while I see the benefits of this type of service I am extremely unhappy about having my details divulged to third parties.

I know that my credit history is not perfect as I have an unpaid broadcasting fee and an old Telecom mobile bill (from 1996) that I refuse to pay out of principle. I know that my credit was good enough to get approval for a personal Platinum American Express with no credit limit last week so all this is just a formality to me.

I resent the fact that Baycorp have updated my contact details even though I told them that the only reson I was supplying them was for verification purposes and NOT to update their records. I resent the fact that I have received a letter from a debt collector about my decade old phone bill because of the disclosure of my details to a third party without my permission and finally, I resent the fact that storming the place with a semi-automatic rifle (which I don't have access to anyway) would result in ME going to prison. There is simply no justice!

Credit companies act like they are doing you a favour while they are really in the business of screwing you. Even obtaining information about yourself is a tricky procedure with the imposition of selected fees for information you are legally entitled to for free and traps of using new information to update your file.

I like my peace. I have nothing to hide if I am seeking to borrow money from someone but I make it a habit not to. I resent the fact that there is a company that stores information on all the consumer and credit transactions they can obtain not because I am ashamed of my credit history but because it is no one else's fucking business.

Thank god (who doesn't exist) that there is a Privacy Commissioner to deal with the complaint that I lodged this morning about unauthorised collection and disclosure!

Welcome to OUR country

2005-12-02T09:21:00.000+13:00

I am about to embark on a huge adventure that will see me travel through many countries over a long period of time. I will be living in Thailand for about three months and then Japan for at least a year.

I am a strong believer in being prepared and while I have created a list of things that I will need for my travels I have also researched customs and cultures. You see, while I am away I will be a guest in other countries. The reason I am visiting them is because they have unique cultures and I want new experiences. As a guest I am obliged to make as little impact to their country as possible and conduct myself in a manner appropriate to their culture.

The ways in which we do things in my country will be almost irrelevant. I will be a guest that plays by their rules. I understand and fully accept this but sometimes wonder why others don't and why the same rule doesn't apply here?

Why is it that our society must change in order to accomodate new migrants? Don't get me wrong. I am not agianst new migrants and I understand the importance of welcoming foreigners as well as helping them integrate. I am also a believer that they should retain aspects of their own culture/religion or at least have an understanding of it to pass onto future generations if they so wish.

However, I am against migrants who settle here without attempting to integrate beyond their ethnic communities. Migrants who have been resident here for over two decades yet who still cannot speak English because they have not had the need in their ethnic communities. I am against the imposition of other cultural values upon us in order to protect their feelings. Don't get me wrong, it is important to have an understanding of other cultures and try to stay away from offending them and I do not advocate racist behaviour but some of the sensitivities border on the ridiculous.

This is still OUR country and if they wish to make it theirs they should adapt to the New Zealand way of life... not the other way around.

I don't like the refugee category and the ease of gaining access through 'political assylum'. I know people who work for the New Zealand Immigration Service and have discussed the flaws of the system with them and am horrified at what I now know.

We should be responsible players in the global community and help those that are persecuted by violent regimes. However, refugee status cannot be given out as easily as it is at present. There are far too many that are not directly being persecuted but are at odds with developing regimes. We cannot save the world and I am of the belief that we have to protect our society first and foremost.

By this, I do not mean protect our society from foreigners but I mean undesirable foreigners and it is important to qualify that this cannot be done on race, religion or nationality alone.

I am referring to refugees who come from violent backgrounds, subscribe to puritanical religious ideologies inconsistent with developed human rights standards. They must obey New Zealand law first and foremost. They have to live by the standards that we set and not by the backwards violence present in their former nations.

Their religions and cultural practices do not supercede our law. They can be permitted to coexist so long as they do not seriously conflict with those values that we have established to safeguard our nation.

If they want to live a life of violence and inherent bigotry then they can fuck off back to where they came from. After all, they came here to get away from that stuff didn't they?

Now there are many great migrants that have moved to New Zealand, made great things of themselves in one or two generations and integrated with other New Zealanders and I applaud them. It is not an easy thing to do but they rose to the challenge and succeeded. But from time to time I witness third world acts that deserve third world punishments!

The reason for this post is that last night I witnessed a taxi driver with Somali, Ethiopean or similar ethnicity making lewd gestures with his tongue at a girl around the age of thirteen to fifteen that happened to be walking by. She was disgusted (as were we) and he walked after her making obscene suggestions.

This act was witnessed by a couple of my Samoan friends as well who promptly issued the type of mob justice dispensed back in his developing country. Needless to say, we didn't stick around afterwards and not too much damage was done but this is just another time bomb sex offender waiting to go off.

There are numerous other unsavoury characters operating taxis around Wellington who as a bouncer I would simply not let park around my bar and would actively prevent customers from riding with.

One of the worst cases I have seen is of a fat, pock marked dark Indian male who licks his lips at girls and offers free rides home. Despite one of our bars making a complaint to the incompetent (and only reactive) Land Transport safety Authority this bastard is still driving!

All I can say is 'welcome to our developing country'.

I've got the power!

2005-12-01T14:02:00.000+13:00

There's little doubt that within my lifetime, the use of fossil fuels as our primary source of energy will become a notion that is simply untenable.

One of my major projects in my Master of Strategic Studies analysed the relationship between energy and environmental sustainability. At the risk of sounding like an elitist wanker, the results are beyond the scope of this simple blog.

However, we must start thinking about realistic alternatives to fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. While there are many idealistic notions of environmentaliy friendly forms of power generation the fact is that a lot more research and development needs to take place before the yield of sources such as solar and wind power become efficient.

Conspiracy theorists believe that viable options exist but are being suppressed by various governments and oil companies but due to a lack of credible evidence I will not entertain that notion any more than I have just done.

A balance between energy and environment is an important one. There is no definitive answer as the balance is a matter of opinion and preference. Furthermore, I hypothesise that there exists no 'absolute' clean energy source and that such a value can only be measured in 'relative' terms.

There are many different ways of measuring 'cleanliness' and most perspectives have valid points. Coal, gas and oil are dirtier than solar and wind power when measuring pollution. However, when considering other externalities such as aesthetics some might argue that acres of wind farms produces a greater eyesore than a stand alone fossil fuel power plant.

So lets cut the crap and get onto the real point of this post: Nuclear power. There, I said it! Don't pretend to be shocked because everybody who started reading this post knew this was where it was going... and if you didn't then i'm surprised you managed to read this far.

When it comes to Nuclear power I am neither for nor against. Don't get me wrong, there are factors that I have strong opinions about but overall I would have to say that i am unsure.

I live in New Zealand, a nuclear free nation that has educated its citizens against the option of nuclear power. Nuclear power is a dirty word and in government circles is a proposal that is not even allowed to be discussed.

There are many disadvantages to nuclear power primarily that of the lasting effects of nuclear waste and the catastrophic results of reactor accidents. However, there is another side of the story that warrants investigation. I'm not saying that it justifies nuclear energy but it does form the basis of a good discussion.

If you are of the opinion that no matter what arguments are put forward you are simply unwilling to consider logical alternatives then this blog isn't for you as I don't like closed minded illogical hippie fucks (and don't bother coming back because this will never be a forum suitable for you)!

[By the way, I don't believe in being passive aggressive. I believe in aggressive aggressive... why hide it?]

The arguments for nuclear energy are numerous. First of all nuclear power plants produce essentially no greenhouse gas emissions or air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, nitrogen oxides or particulates. What's more, the quantity of waste produced by nuclear plants is small and this figure shrinks exponentially when compared with the large yield of energy, ease of transport and storage. While there currently exist relatively low production costs it is also proposed that future designs may be small and modular and therefore more accessible to the public. [Not a good idea in my opinion]

Proponents also cite the fact that there have existed a small number of accidents in power plants. However we must not and cannot forget the disastrous consequences when such accidents do occur.

Would it not be beneficial to society to be able to develop methods of safer storage and refinement of nuclear fuel and waste? Do the benefits not warrant at least a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of pursuing the nuclear path and the exploration of safer measures?

Like it or not, nuclear power is a viable alternative. The only questions are 'Are we able to significantly reduce the risks' and 'Are we willing to live with the consequences of failure'?

I don't have the answers yet, and will only be able to decide once logical arguments are made in the appropriate forum.

Breaking News: Iraq is not safe!

2005-12-01T11:43:00.000+13:00

Just in case it has not been stated clearly enough I will state it simply:

Iraq = Danger

This equation should be answerable to even NCEA students and can be taken as the official warning that Iraq is indeed a dangerous place to visit. I think it is quite safe to say that if you do not want to risk dying at the hands of insurgents then do not go to Iraq.

If you are in Iraq from tomorrow onwards then it's your own fault. You either thought you were too cool to read my blog or too clever to heed my basic advice.

If you are captured, then don't expect me to lose any sleep over your imminent slaughter. It is a shame, you may have had the best intentions but your death will be the consequences of your misguided actions.

You can go help them if you like and I commend you for your bravery/naivety but do not believe that you are immune to the violence. The battle is being fought against puritanical fundamental idealists that do not respect the notions of 'civilians' or 'human rights'.

And just for the record, being a part of as CHRISTIAN aid organisation in Baghdad is stupid in so many ways and should entitle you to a nomination in the Darwin Awards. If you are there to convert people to God then there is no help for you in this blog. If you are there to help the citizens in Iraq find relief (not hand relief you sick fuck) then drop the 'christian' title. You do no one a favour and make yourself a more likely target. And finally do not get your infidel bosses to pray for your release or appeal on your behalf, after all you are the worst type of infidels of them all! Christians and Muslims are just as bad as the Jews... almost!

Less Organised Religion = Peace

Male Pigs!

2005-12-01T11:07:00.000+13:00

Have you ever noticed that it is perfectly acceptable for some groups to promote their demographic while it is unacceptable for others? Have you noticed that some people are allowed to actively demonise other demographics to promote their own causes?

This problem is rife here in New Zealand but is not confined to these shores. Minorities are encouraged to promote views favourable to their ethnicity even at the expense of others. The fallible theory that minorities cannot be racist is strongly entrenched in the psyche of many New Zealanders. 'Pakehas' who promote their demographic on the other hand can be seen as racist, even though no derogatory statements about other races exist. Any promotion of the 'white race' triggers warning flags and accusations of racism even when grounded in fact.

A similar problem befalls men. Have you ever noticed that women promoting female values are 'feminists' while their male counterparts are 'male chauvanist pigs'? Why are women not 'female chauvanist sows'? The simple answer is hypocracy.

There exists little doubt that injustices have occured against ethnic minorities and women in the west, but I propose a theory that is growing in popularity; namely, that of the pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction.

There are many cases that one can draw on to justify the argument for a 'persecution of men' but for the purposes of this conversation let's just stick with the current airline issue.

It has recently been revealed that it is the policy of both Air New Zealand as well as Qantas to not allow men to sit near unaccompanied minors (children). I take offence to the notion that I am a potential paedophile. I suppose an argument can be made that we are potentially capable of anything but the fact that this has been judged as so likely as to be included in policy and put into operation is outright offensive.

But then again, it's just men moaning about something again. What do we care, after all men have it made. Society is set up for us to succeed automatically especially if you're white as well. Sometimes I think that it would be nice to be an 'unemployed female lesbian Maori solo mother with six children to different fathers and missing a leg'. Imagine the benefits that would come my way! Oops, I shouldn't have said that!

[Note to self: try to be more politically correct. My racism and sexism is oppressing other hardworking human beings. I should funnel more of my hard earned cash toward them instead of selfishly supporting myself and those I love]

I guess this new policy suits me fine as I hate children and take some comfort in the knowledge that I don't have to sit next to a snot nosed little brat for 12 hours inflight at the end of this month. What I do take offence to is that the [increasingly less attractive] female flight attendants are being trained to think that I am more of a pervert than I actually am! I only had a slight chance of fucking them in the toilet before, but now Airline Management has dramatically reduced even those odds!

But before I go, just think of this enlightening comment from Ian Armstrong of Northland:

What about fathers then?
Research indicates that children in New Zealand are more at risk of abuse from their own parents than from strangers. Will Air New Zealand ban fathers from sitting next to their children on flights?

Just Hangin' Around

2005-12-01T10:34:00.000+13:00

The wait is almost over! Tomorrow Australian citizen Nguyen Tuong Van will be hung in Singapore. Nguyen will be hung for trafficking 400g of heroin through the small island nation which like many of its neighbours, is infamous for its tough stance on drugs. If Nguyen was not aware of the moral or legal implications of being a heroin mule then the arrival card issued to him before approaching Customs would have made this clear. These cards are white with black printing. On the bottom of every side it says in bold red letters "WARNING: THE PENALTY FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING IS DEATH". Now I can understand how one can get confused by such a complicated sentence if the 400g is floating through one's blood, but Nguan strapped the shit to his body.

Singapore is a strict society that imposes harsh penalties for deviance. This has the positive effect of being a low crime and pleasant place to live. The fact of the matter is that polls suggest that the vast majority of Singaporeans support the sentence of death imposed upon Nguen and I believe quite rightly so. After all, why should he be subject to priviledge above Singapore's own citizens?

Criticising Singapore is stupid. We have little right to mess with their internal affairs. This is not an indiscriminate violation of human rights, the bastard had heroin strapped to his body! Was it planted there? Arguments against the death penalty include that it won't act as a deterrent. But it ceratinly has deterred me from ever doing anything as stupid as that, and I bet it will deter him from doing anything stupid again... even if that deterrence is more of an incapacitation (or if the hangman over calculates: decapitation)!

At the end of the day, precious oxygen will be saved for the rest of us; there will be one less criminal to pay for; the world is one step closer to somewhere in the never ending war on drugs; and this trafficker will end up much better off than the drug's users and unlike them Ngyenn will be able to proudly claim that he is well hung!

Changing Times

2005-12-01T10:20:00.000+13:00

I have failed! I thought about my blog this morning and realised that it is a half-hearted failure. It is doomed to exist in an obscure corner of the internet and worse still, it does not reflect the person that I am!

As a result, things are going to change! I wear the pants around here and i've decided that I will post smaller messages on topics that whizz through my head and I feel need commenting on. This will better reflect my thoughts/opinions/biases and will better suit my workload.

Please note that they will not reflect 'feelings' as such things come from ovaries and I am not a woman!

So changes have been made because I, the man of this house say so!

Islamic Heresies

2005-11-24T14:18:00.000+13:00

With all due respect to everyone involved, you can't throw a rock into a crowd of Muslims without hitting someone whom all the other Muslims consider a heretic.

Every single person practicing Islam in the world today is a heretic in the eyes of at least one other such person.

The Western mindset (and possibly even that of Allah himself) may not be properly equipped to understand the scope and breadth of how Islam functions. While primarily Christian cultures do have diverse views of Christianity, the West has slowly moved toward a "live and let live" attitude that is dramatically different from how Islam is defined in the East.

The major distinction is that Christian sects (such as Catholicism, Mormonism, Anglican, etc.) are considered to be different "religions" that co-exist peacefully but do not really overlap.

Conversely, Islam is predicated around absolutes -- "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet." The general notion is Islam is monolithic — virtually anyone accepting that statement is considered a Muslim — but in practice, Islam is incredibly diverse.

The first major split in Islam took place about five seconds after Mohammed died. Because he had made no plans for succession, Mohammed's earliest followers disagreed over who would lead the Islamic nation after his death.

Some, known as Shi'a Ali (the party of Ali), believed that Mohammed's son-in-law and his subsequent descendants should inherit the job (more on this below). The majority view (eventually known as Sunni) called for an elected leader, the Khalifa, or simply the Caliph.

Originally a political division, the conflict between Shi'a (also called Shi'ites) and mainstream Muslims, eventually known as Sunni, slowly became a religious schism over the rightful leadership of Islam, and subsidiary issues having to do with somewhat more arcane legal distinctions.

The Shi'a and Sunni headings encompass the vast majority of Muslims in the world. Some members of each branch consider the other heretic, but others see the distinctions as purely political. The two major schools of Islam are intermittently at war with each other (more so when there's no external enemy to focus on, but that doesn't always stop them).

However, the Shi'a-Sunni conflict is only the tip of a very large iceberg of disputes. In addition to a handful of completely separate sects, both Shi'a and Sunni communities are divided into thousands of smaller sub-sects and cults with a shockingly diverse array of beliefs.

After Shi'a and Sunni, the two best known Islamic sects are the Sufis and the Ismailis, both of which are considered heretical by many mainstream Muslims.

Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam which emphasizes prayer and transcendent rituals such as ecstatic dance ("whirling dervishes" are Sufis). Like the Christian Gnostics, Sufis believe that Allah reveals himself to individuals on a personal level.

This notion doesn't sit well with the authoritarian hierarchies of mainstream Islam. One famous tenth century Sufi teacher was crucified for heresy. The most famous Sufi of all was the poet Rumi, who preached religious tolerance and wrote classic tomes of poetry with decidedly homoerotic overtones. Rumi was branded a heretic but managed to avoid execution.

Some Sunnis accept Sufism as a legitimate part of Islam, but fundamentalist sects such as Wahhabism don't. But then Wahhabism, a sub-sect of Sunni that demands a literal interpretation of the Koran, is also considered heretical by some other Sunnis. And Wahhabbism is much more recent, only dating back to the 18th century, whereas Sufism can trace its origins as a formally structured order to no later than the 12th century, following a tradition to that goes as far back as the time of Muhammad himself.

On the other side of the fence, Ismailism is a sub-sect of Shi'a Islam. Ismailism also tends toward the mystical. Its modern incarnation is decidedly pacifist and extremely tolerant of other religions.

That's today, of course. In the past, the Ismailis gave birth to their own sub-sects, including one of the most famous heresies in Islam, the Nizaris -- aka the Assassins.

The Assassins were born in the 11th century and survived in meaningful numbers for a couple hundred years. Assassins were Shi'a Muslims who worked rather aggressively to protect the interests of Ali's descendants.

The Assassins practiced a strict regimen of initiations and degrees, often structured more like a secret society than a religion. They were famous for opposing (or possibly colluding with) the Knights Templar. Initiates were trained as deep undercover agents who were trained to kill on command, without regard for personal safety. They were based in a nearly impregnable castle in Alamut, located in modern-day Iran.

Those who died in the line of duty were considered martyrs and guaranteed safe passage to heaven. According to legend, the Assassins used sophisticated mind control to reinforce this idea. It's commonly believed that the Assassins dosed its followers with hashish to manipulate them with drug-induced visions of paradise, but the historical record is somewhat debatable.

The Assassins arose in the middle of a major crisis in Islam, which would lead centuries later to a whole slew of new heresies. Chief among them is the notion of the Madhi, the Islamic version of the Messiah.

Around the end of the seventh century, the descendants of Ali had been attacked and some number of them were murdered. Since the Shi'a believe the descendants of Ali are the rightful leaders of Islam, this obviously presented a problem.

It wasn't clear whether there was a child survivor of the murderous attack. Some believed that the heir to Ali had been hidden by Allah, or by courageous Shi'a supporters. This hidden heir became known as the Madhi, and his role would evolve over time.

Others threw their support behind different relatives of Ali whose bloodlines were less than ideal. The Ismailis (and later the Assassins) supported a genealogy of descendants that ran through Isma'il. In an effort to prevent another murderous attack, Isma'il's heirs kept themselves hidden.

While this was effective at preventing their murders, it also opened the door to a lot of competing claims from people who felt they were the most legitimate heirs to Ali, and thus to the legacy of Muhammad himself.

Alternatively, the Ismailis believed that the line of Ali continued through Isma'il and his descendants, with a rightful Caliph whose hereditary title is Aga Khan. (The current Aga Khan is a Harvard graduate who lives in Switzerland.) The Assassins supported one of the branches of a split in Isma'il's family tree, Nizar, as Caliph, the political leader of Islam.

Ismaili daggers and fortresses were put to work on Nizar's behalf, but when he and his descendants were eventually killed, the Assassins conveniently claimed to have miraculously rescued one of his children to preserve the Caliphate under their auspices and direct control. Despite this incredible stroke of good luck, the sect mostly tapered off and died by the Middle Ages.

Another sect, known as the Twelvers, is now more or less the mainstream Shi'a sect, representing most of the population of Iran. Bypassing Isma'il's claim, the Twelvers believe they believe that Mohammed's line had 12 legitimate successors (Imams) until the last, who was hidden (or "occulted") by Allah and will return one day to claim his place as the rightful leader of Islam.

The idea of the Madhi spread eventually to some Sunni circles as well, although it doesn't mean exactly the same thing to Sunnis that it does to Shi'a. Although there is still a strong tinge of apocalyptism to the concept, the Madhi in Sunni Islam is considered to be the last of a series of eight renewers of Islam.

The emergence of a Madhi approved by both Sunni- and Shi'a would therefore present the startling prospect of possibly healing the schism and reuniting the vast body of Muslims under one theological banner.

Realistically, the chances of that happening are just about zero. But that doesn't stop people from dreaming, often dangerously.

In 1979, an armed band of extremists seized Mecca and attempted to overthrow the ruling Saudi monarchy. Assisted by a certain Mahrous bin Laden and the Muslim Brotherhood, the extremists followed a self-styled Madhi who entered Mecca during the assault, toting a gun.

After a couple of weeks of standoff, the Saudis allegedly called in foreign soldiers for help, resulting in a theologically dubious attack to reclaim Mecca. Whatever else the assault proved, it did demonstrate that the Madhi was less than he claimed to be. He was killed in the attack.

If you're thinking that Mahrous sounds familiar, you may have heard of his younger brother, Osama bin Laden, and therein lies a murky tale of the future of Islamic heresy.

The sectarian nature of Islam demands a certain amount of internicene tolerance. Nevertheless, there are some things that can really get you into trouble. For instance, a Tuscon Sunni imam named Rashed Khalifa was murdered over his claim that two tiny verses of the Koran were invalid.

Another way to cause big problems is Madhi-ism. Many outside observers of Islam (i.e., infidels) believe that bin Laden may be working toward an ultimate theological goal in which he is "revealed" to be Madhi at a dramatic moment. (If you've been reading this and wondering how Islamic heresy really affects your life, then pay attention, because I just got to that part.)

If bin Laden successfully assumed the role of Madhi, and if he did so with an eye toward reconciliating the branches of Islam, one of two things would happen (to reduce things to the most simplistic outcome).

Either he'd be roundly condemned as a heretic and subsequently shunned by the vast majority of the Islamic community (which already has its doubts about him), or he'd instantly become leader of a superpower without borders, commanding the loyalty of millions or even billions of believers around the world.

Which outcome you get depends on how much time and effort is put into crafting some sort of a historical claim to the lineage of Ali, and a number of other extremely complex factors. It would be a very, very tall order to pull it off, but the right kind of claim could even unify Shi'a and Sunni in a political-religious bloc covering a third of the world, including its richest oil fields.

Additionally, if bin Laden did win widespread acceptance as Madhi, it would likely be interpreted as a major hallmark of the apocalypse by many Muslims.

Since al Qaeda is already made up of guys willing to blow themselves up for al Qaeda even without this complication, well, you can just imagine the mayhem that would ensue. Take one part September 11, and one part World War II. Add the collapse of the oil economy, and a dash of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Stir vigorously and heat until boiling...

Buddha's Back

2005-11-24T14:10:00.000+13:00

The London telegraph group have reported that a young boy is well on his way to becoming the next Buddha. This article is printed below:

Pilgrims flock to see 'Buddha boy' said to have fasted six months

Thousands of pilgrims are pouring into the dense jungle of southern Nepal to worship a 15-year-old boy who has been hailed as a new Buddha.

Devotees claim that Ram Bomjon, who is silently meditating beneath a tree, has not eaten or drunk anything since he sat down at his chosen spot six months ago.

Ram Bomjon maintains his vigil in the shade of his pipal tree

Witnesses say they have seen light emanating from the teenager's forehead.

"It looks a bit like when you shine a torch through your hand," said Tek Bahadur Lama, a member of the committee responsible for dealing with the growing number of visitors from India and elsewhere in Nepal.

Photographs of Ram Bomjon, available for five rupees (4p) from his makeshift shrine, have become ubiquitous across the region. "Far and wide, it's the only topic of conversation," said Upendra Lamichami, a local journalist.

He said no allegation had yet emerged of Ram breaking his fast or moving, even to relieve himself.

Santa Raj Subedi, the chief government official in Bara district, appealed to the capital, Kathmandu, for assistance in dealing with the influx of visitors, and for a team of scients to examine the case.

Local doctors failed to reach a final conclusion, although they were allowed no closer than five yards from the boy mystic, declaring that they could confirm no more than that he was alive.

The popularity of the phenomenon is partly because it resembles an episode in the life of the historical Buddha, who was born 160 miles away around 543 BC. The Buddha achieved enlightenment when he meditated beneath a sacred pipal tree for 49 days.

Ram Bomjon is also sitting beneath a pipal tree, in the same posture as the Buddha is depicted, but his vigil has already taken longer.

Ram's mother, who is called Maya Devi, like the Buddha's mother, admits to anxiety, particularly at meal times. But she tells herself: "God took him to the forest and I have faith that God will feed him."

She said: "He's definitely got thinner. Early in the morning he looks sunken, like there's no blood in him, but as the sun rises he seems to get brighter and brighter."

The fervour increased last week when a snake is said to have bitten Ram, and a curtain was drawn around him.

After five days it was opened and he spoke. "Tell the people not to call me a Buddha. I don't have the Buddha's energy. I am at the level of rinpoche [lesser divinity].

"A snake bit me but I do not need treatment. I need six years of deep meditation."

Despite his protestations, "Buddha boy" is famous.

A thriving market has grown in the once pristine forest, supplying pilgrims with everything from chewing tobacco and bicycle repairs to incense and sacred amulets. The ground is covered in litter.

A fence was built around Ram's tree to prevent pilgrims prodding him, then a second, and now a third is planned, as well as a bus park, leaving Ram at the centre of an ever growing circle of rubbish.

Prakash Lamsal, a businessman said: "Some people are selling 2,500 rupees [£20] worth of tea a day.

"These lamas [monks] are going to build mansions out of this. If I wasn't a bit embarrassed I'd take a van down there and set up a stall."

In light of the claims of a new Buddha being reincarnated and meditating in Southern Nepal, I thought I would post an article on the original.

Buddha

Around 560 B.C., according to legend, a woman dreamt "that a white elephant carrying a white lotus in its trunk came and entered her womb through her right flank."

This was interpreted as a good omen, rather than the grisly and painful ordeal it sounds like.

Nine months after this wild night of passion, the woman gave birth to Siddhartha, the boy who would grow up to be Buddha. (Understandably, the lotus flower has outpaced the rapist elephant as the more widely disseminated symbol of Buddhism.)

Siddhartha's father was a king, and he grew up in luxury. He married and had a son, but the fat and happy life wasn't for him. Discontented, he strayed from his home to see how the little people lived.

Siddhartha encountered four people during these excursions. Had he encountered a clown, a juggler, a puppy and a sweet young thing, it would have changed the course of Eastern civilization. But young Siddhartha's roaming led him to a series of downers.

The sight of an old man taught him the inevitability of decay. The sight of a sick man taught him the inevitability of suffering. The sight of a corpse taught him the inevitability of death. The sight of a monk taught him that serenity was the best one could hope for in life.

Siddhartha took up the practice of yoga in order to begin purifying his soul. But he found that yoga alone wasn't enough to reach enlightenment, not even bikram yoga or yogaerobics. Upping the ante, he fasted and denied himself all the pleasures of life for several years.

Realizing he was heading toward a joyless life and an early death, Siddhartha decided this approach wasn't working out either. Exasperated, he parked himself under a tree, vowing not to leave the spot until he had achieved enlightenment. According to Buddhist scriptures, "he neither bathed, nor rinsed his mouth, nor did he ease himself; but was wholly taken up by the delights of the Trances, of the Paths, and of the Fruits."

Despite temptations from evil spirits and a series of supernatural distractions, Siddhartha emerged from his ordeal smelly and enlightened, and assumed the title of Buddha, which means "enlightened one." The deities of 10,000 worlds commended him for his accomplishment, but he didn't let it go to his head. Buddha recited the formal Buddha's creed, articulating the basic premise that would go on to inspire billions:

Through birth and rebirth's endless round,
Seeking in vain, I hastened on,
To find who framed this edifice.
What misery! --birth incessantly!

O builder! I've discovered thee!
This fabric thou shalt ne'er rebuild!
Thy rafters all are broken now,
And pointed roof demolished lies!
This mind has demolition reached,
And seen the last of all desire!

The concept outlined here, more or less, is that human existence consists of an extremely long cycle of birth, death and reincarnation in which the travelling soul continually refines itself in search of divine wisdom.

By demolishing his ego, the attachment to self and mind, Buddha freed himself from earthly desires and attachment to material things. Buddha had reached Nirvana without the pain of sleeping with Courtney Love -- a blissful liberation from the cycle of reincarnation through direct communion with the divine.

Now officially the founder of a religion, Buddha did what anyone would do. He went looking for disciples. He started with his former colleagues in asceticism, who were relieved to discover they could start eating again. The platform he outlined was based around "four noble truths" and an "eightfold path."

The truths were:
Life's a b*tch.
The reason life's a b*tch is that people are attached to material things.
Life doesn't always have to be a b*tch. You can achieve nirvana.
The way to achieve nirvana is by following the eightfold path.
Naturally, when you hear about these truths, you're going to be curious about the eightfold path, which consists of:
Right views, i.e., smarten up.
Right intentions. Once you're smart, try to do the right thing.
Right speech. Say the right thing.
Right action. Knowing and saying the right thing isn't good enough, you have to actually do the right thing.
Right livelihood. Make your living in an honourable way, i.e., don't work for the Inland Revenue Department.
Right effort. All of the above doesn't just happen on its own. You have to work at it.
Right mindfulness. Once you've beaten your physical self into submission, you have to start working on your mental state, seeking the ability to think clearly and see things as they really are.
Right concentration. Focus, focus, focus! The path is only complete when you have refined your mind into a state of total focus on reality, which is generally thought to be accomplished by the process of meditation.
Following the eightfold path is key to Buddhism's system of spiritual advancement, in which doing the right thing (as outlined above) earns you karma, metaphysical bonus points which can be exchanged for only one fabulous prize, Nirvana. In order to make the trade, however, you have to accumulate an unspecified number of karma points, a process which usually takes several lifetimes. (Your karma points roll over when you're reincarnated.) Alternatively, you can lose karma points by engaging in wrong views, wrong intentions, wrong speech, wrong actions, and so on.

Newly enlightened, Buddha took his message to the streets. Unlike Jesus, he opted out of an early and painful death in favour of a long life peacefully propagating his beliefs. While Jesus benefited from the quick surge in popularity which comes from a spectacular death, Buddha had the advantage of 50 extra years personally teaching people his beliefs, a big plus in terms of making sure his followers were getting it right and perhaps one reason why you don't read too much about Buddhist Crusades and Inquisitions.

For the remainder of his life, Siddhartha Buddha travelled the plains of India and Pakistan, winning followers and setting up his religion. Despite an assassination attempt employing the time-honoured tool of political enmity -- a wild elephant -- Buddha lived to the ripe old age of 80, and died in his bed. As the deities of 10,000 worlds wept, Buddha relinquished his spirit, continuing to issue precepts of enlightenment the whole time.

His final words to his disciples summed it up: "And now, O priests, I take my leave of you; all the elements of being are transitory. Work out your salvation with diligence." Passing through four trances, Siddhartha Buddha is said to have entered Nirvana.

The Many Faces Of Buddha

But that's not quite the end of the story. As Buddhism developed over the years, a set of tales laid out the afterlife – pre-life -- of the Enlightened One. Depending on your flavour of Buddhism, and there are several, you might believe that Buddha has had up to seven incarnations on this earth, and you probably believe he'll be back for the big finale.

Aside from Siddhartha, there are a few incarnations of Buddha that get talked about on a fairly regular basis. They include:

Amitabha: Commonly referred to as the Buddha of the Lotus, or the Buddha of Light, he appears to have lived some time after Siddhartha. Followers of the Amitabha Buddha were widespread in Tibet, China and Japan for centuries.
Avalokiteshvara: More of a supernatural creature than what you think of when you hear the word "Buddha," the original incarnation of Avalokiteshvara is often depicted a hermaphroditic granter of healing and fertility.

Bodhisattva: Bodhisattvas are sort of the Junior Rocket Rangers of the Buddhas. They're very enlightened, but not quite enlightened enough. Buddha himself started out as a bodhisattva, so the title has a certain amount of potential. Different sects may not agree on whether a particular individual is a bodhisattva or a Buddha.

Dalai Lama: Roughly the equivalent of the pope for certain branches of Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is a much sought-after celebrity speaker, in addition to being the living incarnation of Avalokiteshvara. Only not so much a hermaphrodite. Well, presumably.

Maitreya: The Maitreya Buddha is the Buddha yet to come. Like most religions, Buddhism has various elaborate myths about the end of the world. One of these involves the incarnation of the Maitreya Buddha, the final Buddha who will teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, or something like that.

Buddha Says...
"He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes."

September 11 Conspiracies

2005-11-24T13:31:00.000+13:00

You would think that the American people would have learned a little skepticism by now. They've seen 40 years of CIA wrongdoing, including ridiculously implausible plots like assassinating Fidel Castro with a cigar and the Kennedy Assassinations. They've seen unlikely government conspiracies proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, plots like Watergate and the MKULTRA mind control experiments. For God's sake, the U.S. government has even confessed to feeding radioactive mush to retarded children -- just to see what would happen. The real question isn't "Why would you believe the U.S. government was behind September 11?" Rather, the question is "Why wouldn't you?"

As you may have gathered, not everyone agrees on the credibility of the "official story" of the September 11 attacks on the United States. And why should they? Virtually everything the U.S. government has ever done regarding the al Qaeda terrorism network is shrouded in secrecy and full of what appears to be rampant speculation.

Nevertheless, some skeptical viewpoints are healthier than others. In the wake of the most spectacular terrorist attack in history, an assortment of nuts stepped forward with their alternate histories of the event, including several that popped up within weeks of the actual event itself.

The notion of investigative reporting as instantly gratifying speculation is fostered by the 21st century media revolution, in which bloggers are accorded the same social status as Dan Rather. Most, if not all, of these conspiracy theories are the product of many long laborious minutes of sweat devoted to dreaming them up. There are a few unanswered questions that may give even the sanest individual pause, but these quibbles are nearly irrelevant compared to the magnitude of the allegations made by the loudest and looniest.

The September 11 theories break down into two simple categories: "Whodunnit?" and "How did they do it?" Within this binary question, however, many planets of weirdness can be found orbiting.

Intelligence Run Amuck

If you live in the United States, you might be surprised at just how many people around the world believe that the CIA was behind September 11. Although the usual suspects (David Icke and the like) began concocting the usual fairy tales within hours of the event, the global conspiracy machine has really kicked into overdrive since.

The CIA theory is most popular in France. Within a month of the September 11 attack, French author Thierry Meyssan began promulgating a theory that culminated in the book titled L'Effroyable imposture, or the which roughly translates as "Appalling Fraud." It was called 9/11: The Big Lie in its American edition.

Meyssan, who is not a journalist no matter how hard he tries, was drawn to the case when he noticed that the images of the jet that crashed into the Pentagon just didn't look right. It's unclear how he reached this conclusion, since a jet had never crashed into the Pentagon before, leaving no comparative basis for a proper evaluation. His theory was based primarily on the fact that you couldn't see the wreckage of the plane anywhere.

Funny thing is, you couldn't see the wreckage of the planes that hit the World Trade Center towers either. That's because they were, as the scientists like to say, "blowed up". Unperturbed by the fact that two planes were obliterated in fiery crashes on live television the very same day, Meyssan parlayed his vision into a book that was a bestseller in France and around the globe, and not a bad seller in the U.S. either.

According to Meyssan, who was a respected French intellectual prior to 9/11, the U.S. government wanted people to think the Pentagon was a plane crash instead of a truck bombing or a missile attack. He also claims the planes that hit the World Trade Center were piloted by remote control and not hijacked. All this, he claims, was done not by al Qaeda but by the U.S. government.

In conspiracy theory parlance, this is known as a "false-flag operation" -- a type of intelligence campaign which, according to the tinfoil hat crowd, involves pulling off a covert action and blaming it on someone else.

The only part of Meyssan's premise that is really compelling is the motive -- to provide a rationale for the U.S. to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and steal their oil.

Everything else in Meyssan's theory contradicts the notion that the conspirators possessed even the a shred of common sense. If the U.S. was really behind the attack, wouldn't it make sense for them to just hijack the planes themselves?

Come on! Why in God's name would they undertake a massive plot using sci-fi technology costing probably billions of dollars, when they could just hijack the planes themselves for only the cost of life insurance? For that matter, if they remote-controlled two jets to crash into the WTC, why not just do the same thing at the Pentagon, instead of hitting it with a missile and then pretending it was a plane?

How could the conspirators be such morons and yet execute the most successful cover-up in human history? (OK, maybe the second most successful.) The obvious answer is probably also the correct answer: They can't, they didn't, and this whole line of thought is even less worthy of your consideration than the secret of Area 51.

The Usual Suspects

While Meyssan's rantings are pretty far beyond the pale of reason, the general idea that the attacks were sponsored by the CIA or the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, is extraordinarily widespread, particularly in the Arab world. Variations on this idea have been published in Egypt's government-run newspapers and aired on Arab television all over the region. Even the king of Saudi Arabia has hinted as much, recently blaming a spate of al Qaeda-linked terrorist attacks on "Zionists."

One variation on Meyssan's theories also embraces the logic-challenged notion of remote controlled planes, but argues they were controlled by the Mossad instead of the CIA, in order to goad the U.S. into attacking Israel's enemies. Although this theory still suffers from being terminally elaborate, the Mossad is at least a slightly better suspect than the CIA, which couldn't even kill Castro, let alone 3,000 people in a synchronized attack on live TV.

The main problem with all this speculation is that it's based on the idea that al Qaeda was not responsible for the attacks. This flies in the face of a mountain of evidence. Even if we grant that evidence presented after the fact by U.S. government officials is automatically suspect, there is ample documentation to support al Qaeda's role in the attacks.

The most obvious example: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed admitted to planning the attacks in an interview with Arab media. al Qaeda documents reported by al Jazeera also confessed the attack. Hundreds of al Qaeda-linked propaganda pieces celebrate the attacks. The hijackers left suicide videos which were subsequently circulated by al Qaeda-linked Web sites around the world.

Furthermore, the historical record clearly indicates that al Qaeda had long been planning exactly this kind of attack, including copious material in the public record long before 9/11 ever happened. Ramzi Yousef was planning to crash airliners into U.S. landmarks, including the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and that plot was reported years before 9/11 ever happened. al Qaeda-linked terrorists were looking at ways to crash airplanes into U.S. buildings as early as 1993, when the FBI and the Egyptian government were clued into a plot to steal an airplane and crash it into the U.S. embassy.

And while you can't always trust what the government tells you, the sheer volume of U.S. documentation released after the 9/11 attacks is staggering. In addition to the extremely improbable scenarios under which the CIA or the Mossad would actually have executed the attacks, an entire agency of the U.S. government would be needed just to handle the hundreds of thousands of pages of document forgeries now in circulation supporting most elements of the official story.

In addition, the mythical conspirators seem to have carefully planted a series of whistleblowers who would inexplicably pop up to blame the government for its mind-blowing but strictly bureaucratic failures to prevent the attack. Just for verisimilitude? It boggles the mind.

The conspiracy theorists do have one explanation which makes all of the above problems go away: Everyone in the media is working for the Mossad. Including this author.

OK, Fine. But Still...

Of course, a 9/11 conspiracy doesn't have to involve remote control planes, false flags and Jewish spies infiltrating this blog. There are a number of more modest proposals in circulation.

Many conspiracy theorists argue that the U.S. had advanced warning of the attack, but allowed it to proceed anyway. Let's just get one thing straight right up front: This is a much easier case to make.

That doesn't mean it's right, of course. But you don't have to skip your medication in order to wonder.

A favorite among Americans on the far right and far left, this theory usually proposes that the U.S. allowed the 9/11 attacks to take place so that the Bush administration could revoke the constitution, declare martial law, conquer the Middle East and cancel the elections.

A problem with this plan, so far, is its obvious failure. After all, the Constitution hasn't been revoked (just severely diluted). And the Middle East hasn't been successfully conquered (though not for lack of trying). Martial law hasn't been declared (although thousands have been rounded up with no charge and detained without legal counsel). And the elections weren't canceled (though there's the usual debate as to the validity of their results). Um, did I say "obvious" failure? Let's move on.

The idea that the American government would allow a massive attack on its homeland for political purposes isn't new. For decades, rumors have swirled that government was warned of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but allowed it to take place anyway, in order to catapult the U.S. into WWII. And it's a lot easier to cover up an ignored warning than to cover up remote controlled planes and false-flag hoodoo.

Even within the official story, there are several examples of actual warnings that were missed, but none of them were completely specific. The infamous Phoenix memo warned that Osama bin Laden was training terrorists to fly airplanes. Zacarias Moussaoui's laptop computer wasn't searched in time to uncover contact information for other members of the hijacking plot.

Ramzi Yousef's earlier plane crash plot had vanished into the dusty pages of history. Several intercepted electronic communications warning of the attack were not translated by the National Security Agency until the day after the attack. The CIA knew the names of two hijackers but failed to put them on a watchlist that would have kept them out of the country.

The list of officially "missed" warnings is rather long, but none of the cited examples said anything like "On September 11, 2001, al Qaeda will hijack four airplanes and crash them into U.S. buildings."

Or at least, that's what they want you to believe.

Some Credible Conspiracies

There are a number of stories in circulation about specific warnings prior to 9/11, as well as numerous questions about how and why things blew up or fell down the way they did. Some have been covered in the mainstream press, others are perennial e-mail forwards. The most credible claims include:

Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator hired after 9/11, was appalled to discover that a giant stack of documents the FBI possessed prior to September 11 indicated very clearly that a major attack was coming, and that it involved airplanes. Edmonds was subsequently told to work slower -- because she was making her colleagues in the department look bad. She was then fired for reporting a security breach by one of her colleagues. Sadly, this story is completely true and was confirmed by the Justice Department, which then retroactively classified its confirmations so that Edmonds couldn't use them in a civil suit over her termination.

In July 2001, a moderate Taliban minister warned the U.S. that al Qaeda was planning a "massive attack." Shortly thereafter, Egyptian intelligence warned the CIA that al Qaeda had recently sent 20 operatives to the United States, and that some of them had trained as pilots.

San Francisco Mayor Wille Brown received a call from someone identified only as his "airport security" on September 10, 2001, warning him in a nonspecific manner about air travel, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. Some follow-up articles, reported by random non-journalists on the Internet, claim that the call came from Condoleezza Rice, but those reports are apparently based on nothing.

Many people have questioned the collapse of WTC7, an adjacent building in the World Trade Center complex that housed a CIA station, among other things. Most of these theories are accompanied by the usual kinds of specious analysis that the building "couldn't possibly" have collapsed due to the apparently insignificant stresses caused by the total collapse of the world's two tallest buildings just a few hundred yards away. Some have proposed that the building was bombed, others cite police transmissions that seem to indicate the building was demolished by emergency crews. These unresolved questions are more credible than the Pentagon missile theory, but no solid evidence has yet emerged to prove foul play.

The official lore of September 11 has it that United Flight 93 crashed after the passengers stormed the cockpit in an effort to retake control of the plane from its hijackers. (Whether they made it into the cockpit is not clear.) But there have been persistent and credible suggestions that the flight may have been shot down by the U.S. military. In the confusion of 9/11, there were several points at which internal government communications indicated there may have been a shootdown, and Flight 93 was apparently headed for the White House. Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the military to shoot down any hijacked planes approaching the White House, and in a conversation with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a few minutes later, official transcripts quote Cheney as saying, "It's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out." Rumsfeld responded that he could not confirm that statement. The official story is "there was no shootdown," but a reasonable person can wonder.

Somewhat Less Credible Conspiracies

After these examples, the stories get hairier and the documentation gets dicier. Among the fringe claims of pre-9/11 warnings:

David Schippers (the lawyer who impeached Bill Clinton) claimed to the press that FBI agents told him they knew an attack was coming on lower Manhattan, and that they knew the names of the hijackers in advance. Schippers additionally claimed he tried to call Attorney General John Ashcroft a month before the attack to warn him. The mainstream media has not confirmed any of these claims. It may be unfair to lump Schippers in with the following claims, but after he explains the above story, he tends to launch into an uber-terrorist conspiracy rant that undercuts the credibility of his relatively simple claim of forewarning.

Delmart "Mike" Vreeland was sitting in a Canadian prison in mid-August 2001 when, for reasons unknown, he passed guards a piece of paper. It sat in a locker until after September 11. Vreeland, a con man charged with credit fraud, had written a page full of mostly incoherent notes which fortuitously included the words "Pentagon," "White House" and "World Trade Center" (as well as "Sears Tower," "World Bank," "Royal Bank" and others). After 9/11, Vreeland claimed he was a U.S. intelligence agent who had learned of the attack in Russia. He also claimed to have invented the Star Wars missile defense system... You know, the one that doesn't technically exist. As it turned out, Vreeland has a mile-long rap sheet for various frauds and scams. While parts of his story still raise significant questions, you wouldn't want to buy a bridge from the guy.

Needless to say, the Illuminati trackers are all over this story. According to some theories, the September 11 attack was part of an evil mind control plot to implant the number "11" into the minds of Americans. In addition to the date, one of the flights was numbered 11 and the towers themselves looked like one giant eleven. This number-planting somehow leads invariably to creating an Illuminati army of zombie minions, or something like that. You will be shocked, shocked to hear that the mainstream media has once again been unable to verify the existence of this plot.

Don't think the UFO lobby is sitting this one out either. The September 11 attack is just the first wave in a conspiracy to destabilize American society in order to prepare people's minds for the arrival of extraterrestrial visitors. These theories are often accompanied by "mathematical proofs" that a jetliner could not possibly destroy the World Trade Center. The UFO lobby has itself benefitted from the 9/11 attack, because everyone is paying a lot more attention to what's in the skies these days.

No survey of kooky 9/11 conspiracy theories would be complete without a visit to the weird wonderland inhabited by David Icke, conspiracy theorist extraordinaire. Like many others, Icke theorizes that September 11 was a massive global conspiracy designed to kick off the long-awaited New World Order on behalf of the aforementioned Illuminati, whose members include Dubya, his dad, Clinton and Saddam Hussein, among many, many others.

According to Icke:

Bin Laden, deeply misguided as he may be, is no more responsible for what happened this week than I am. His name was introduced with the most obvious co-ordination immediately after the disaster unfolded in the same way that the background to Lee Harvey Oswald was being circulated BEFORE President Kennedy was even dead.

The idea that this guy from the mountains of Afghanistan with far more mouth than substance could be the "Mr. Big" of this enormous operation is utterly insulting to anyone of even basic intelligence.

So what explanation would not be utterly insulting to anyone of even basic intelligence?

...the agenda from the death and destruction in New York and Washington [was] co-ordinated by forces within U.S. borders. Those responsible are possessed by non-human entities and have no regard for human life any more than most humans have regard for the death and suffering of cattle.

See? I think we can all agree you'd have to be some kind of idiot to think that September 11 had anything to do with al Qaeda.

Lack of Intelligence

2005-11-24T13:14:00.000+13:00

September 11, 2001

When you look at the minute-by-minute account of what happened on September 11, a few things become clear.

One inescapable conclusion is that most agencies of the U.S. government suffered a near-total failure to perform their stated functions.

It's debatable whether the government could have actually lessened or prevented any deaths by doing its job that day. What is painfully clear, however, is that just about everyone who could drop the ball did drop the ball.

Nothing functioned the way it was supposed to, and America was leaderless in most meaningful senses for the entire duration of the most stunning homeland attack in history.

Eventually, a leader finally did emerge, a forceful figure giving orders and making the tough calls from the nerve centre of the American government. Unfortunately, that leader did not happen to be the constitutionally elected President of the United States.

The following minute-by-minute chronology is not filled with controversial half-truths. All of the facts below are firmly established, with only two serious exceptions, both of which are specifically highlighted in the text.

The main body of the story is largely drawn from numerous staff reports by the 9/11 Commission, which are by far the primary source. A handful of juicy details were drawn from "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies" by James Bamford and "Against All Enemies" by Richard A. Clarke. A few additional details came from timelines published by the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN, as well as official White House records of the day.

The tale that unfolds here is long and painful, but important. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The list of mistakes made on September 11, 2001, is daunting. But we can't afford to repeat them.

When Ignorance Is Understandable

During the first phase of the attack, it took a few minutes to figure out what was happening. That isn't surprising. But while air traffic controllers on the front lines quickly figured out the significance of what they were hearing, the FAA and other managers failed to treat this information with the urgency and speed it demanded.

The result? While ground-level workers in every branch of government did their best to address the situation, key middle managers sat frozen in indecision and effectively stopped the movement of vital information both up and down the chain of command.

5:33a Mohammed Atta and another hijacker enter the security gate in Portland, Maine, for a flight to Logan Airport in Boston.

5:45a Mohammed Atta successfully passes security.

7:18 Hijackers pass through security at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C.

7:59 American Airlines Flight 11 lifts off from Logan Airport in Boston and went into the air.

8:13 A routine acknowledgement is the last communication received from the crew of AA 11.

8:13 Mohammed Atta and four other passengers storm the cockpit using plastic knives and box cutters. They stab two first-class flight attendants.

8:14 American 11 ignores an air traffic controller's order to climb to 35,000 feet.

8:14 United Airlines Flight 175 takes off from Logan Airport in Boston.

8:16 American Airlines Flight 77 taxis onto Dulles airport runway.

8:21 American 11 turns off its transponder, disabling the major mechanism for tracking the flight from the group. Air traffic controller tells his supervisor something is wrong.

8:23 American 11 changes route.

8:24 On American 11, Mohammed Atta accidentally depresses the "talk" button the radio while trying to address passengers on the intercom, broadcasting the message: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be O.K. We are returning to the airport."

8:25 Atta radios: "Nobody move. Everything will be O.K. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet." Air traffic control realizes the flight has been hijacked.

8:28 Boston air traffic controllers inform FAA Command Center in Herndon, Va., that American 11 has been hijacked and is headed toward New York City airspace.

8:32 FAA Command Center informs FAA headquarters (inexplicably not the same thing) that American 11 may have been hijacked. FAA is supposed to call in the military. It doesn't.

When Ignorance Is Not Understandable

Once the formal notice of a hijacking reached Washington, D.C., you would expect the well-oiled mechanisms of national security to snap into place with lightning-like speed. Unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened. Instead, the FAA acted as a lethal information sink, taking calls from around the country but failing to pass the information along. NORAD was not much better. Although fighters were dispatched quickly, they weren't given any orders, which rendered them pointless.

While NORAD did send orders DOWN the chain of command, virtually no information about what was happening travelled UP the chain of command. Between NORAD and the FAA, middle managers and bureaucrats were making ALL the decisions about how to handle what was quickly evolving into a wartime crisis.

Meanwhile, a full half-hour into the crisis, the White House and the nation's top intelligence officials were getting ALL of their information from television news, and even that information was not being distributed efficiently.

So the president of the United States shrugged off a full-scale assault on his country in favor of listening to elementary school students read, while the director of the CIA ate breakfast, the acting commander of the combined armed forces schmoozed with a congressman for 45 minutes, the director of the NSA conducted a routine staff meeting and the vice president only found out what was going on when he plopped down in front of a TV.

8:34 Mohammed Atta: "Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves."

8:34 Boston controllers take it on themselves to call the military.

8:37 United Airlines Flight 175 tells Boston controllers that it saw American 11 fly past.

8:38 Boston controllers reach the Northeast Air Defense Sector of NORAD. NORAD is conducting a security training exercise at the time, and the call is initially believed to be part of the drill.

8:40 Someone at the FAA thinks to call Northeast Air Defense Sector of NORAD. The following exchange takes place:

FAA: Hi. Boston Center TMU, we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out.

NORAD: Is this real-world or exercise?

FAA: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.

8:42 United 175 enters New York City airspace. The air traffic controller assigned to the flight is the same guy tracking American 11. He has other things to think about.

8:42 United Flight 93 takes off from Newark, more than 40 minutes after its scheduled departure.

8:46 NORAD orders two F-15s to scramble.

8:46 Twenty minutes after Atta's voice was first heard announcing the hijacking, no one in the White House or with the President knows that American 11 was hijacked nor do they know that fighter jets are scrambling.

8:46 American 11 slams into Tower 1 of the World Trade Center and is gone.

8:47 Someone on United 175 screws up the flight's transponder settings.

8:47 New York police department declares its second highest level of emergency.

8:48 CNN breaks in to announce "We have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center."

8:48 New York air traffic controllers still unaware that American 11 has crashed into the WTC.

8:48 Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer gets a call informing him that a plane has crashed into the WTC.

8:50 The 9-1-1 system of New York City is almost instantly overloaded.

8:51 New York air traffic controllers realize United 175's transponder code is screwed up.

8:52 Four companies of NYC firemen arrive at WTC Tower 1.

8:52 Two F-15s lift off from Otis Air Base in Massachusetts, but they don't know where they're going once they get into the air.

8:52 New York air traffic controllers hail United 175 and get no response.

~8:53 George W Bush is informed than an airplane has crashed into the WTC.

8:54 American 77 breaks from its flight path.

8:55 New York controllers realize United 175 has been hijacked.

8:55 Condoleezza Rice tells Bush that the plane which hit the WTC was a twin-engine commercial jet.

8:56 NY controllers try to inform their managers that another plane has been hijacked, but they're in a meeting to talk about the first one and refuse to take the call.

8:56 American 77 turns off its transponder. Air traffic controllers in Indianapolis realize they've lost track of the flight. The controllers are not, however, aware that any airplanes have been hijacked this fine morning.

8:58 New York police department declares the highest possible level of emergency, sending hundreds more police officers to the scene.

8:59 Fire chiefs decide to evacuate WTC Tower 1.

9:00 CIA Director George Tenet enjoys a leisurely breakfast with former Senator David Boren at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C.

9:00 Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Meyers enters a self-promoting meeting with Sen. Max Cleland in Washington, D.C. He remains in the meeting for 45 minutes, oblivious to the attack unfolding in America, according to James Bamford.

9:00 At this moment, there are more than 4,200 airplanes in flight over U.S. airspace.

9:00 Port Authority police order evacuation of the entire WTC complex.

9:01 An assistant tells Dick Cheney to turn on his television.

9:01 NY air traffic controller tells FAA command center: "We have several situations going on here. It's escalating big, big time. We need to get the military involved with us... We're, we're involved with something else, we have other aircraft that may have a similar situation going on here..." This is what passes for notification to the FAA that United 175 has been hijacked.

9:02 Barbara Olsen, a passenger on Flight 77, calls her husband Theodore Olsen, a top official in the Justice Department, and tells him the flight has been hijacked.

9:03 United 175 crashes into Tower Two of the World Trade Center.

9:03 Exactly too late to do anything about it, NORAD is informed that a second plane has been hijacked.

9:03 Before beginning a photo-op with elementary school students in Florida, George W. Bush says that he saw "an airplane hit the tower" on TV.

9:04 Having seen the second plane crash on TV, Cheney and aides in the White House suddenly realize through the power of deductive reasoning that the first crash wasn't an accident... despite having received no information through official channels a full 40 minutes after Mohammed Atta first announced on an open mike that American 11 had been hijacked.

9:04 Using the power of deductive reasoning, Bush determines he should go hang out with the elementary school students. Bush later claims the crash he saw on TV one minute earlier was the FIRST plane, but the video of the first crash did not air until much later in the day.

9:04 Using the power of deductive reasoning, Boston air traffic controllers decide to ground all scheduled takeoffs from this point forward.

9:04 Around this time, Lt. General Michael Hayden, chief of the National Security Agency, learns of the attacks. The leader of America's early warning intelligence system gets the information from an aide who saw it on CNN, according to Bamford.

9:04 Bush enters the elementary school classroom to expound on the joys of reading.

When Ignorance Is 'Projecting Calm'

While Bush was captivated by elementary school reading lessons, Dick Cheney was sitting in front of his TV preparing a series of orders which would not actually reach anyone capable of carrying them out.

9:05 Boston tells FAA Command Center that Atta's broadcast said the hijackers had "planes. Plural."

9:05 New York controllers ground all scheduled takeoffs and landings, and ban all commercial aircraft from entering central New York airspace.

9:06 White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card whispers into the President's ear: "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." Bush told the 9/11 commission "his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis." You can watch the unedited video of the president "projecting calm." The clip starts with Card's whisper and runs five minutes. Discuss amongst yourselves.

9:06-9:10 Boston controllers ordered to inform all pilots in the air to heighten cockpit security. Boston suggests to the FAA that this instruction be given nationwide, but the FAA simply ignores this very good suggestion.

9:10 Around this time, the head of the National Security Agency - the primary early-warning intelligence service for the U.S. - learns that a second airplane has hit the World Trade Centers and that America is under attack... not from a fancy satellite monitor, or a secure COM-SIG-INT intercept, but from watching CNN.

9:07-9:12 George W. Bush sits quietly in that Florida classroom listening to the children demonstrate reading aloud for five full minutes after being officially informed that America is under attack. "Woo! These are great readers! Very impressive!" are the first words he speaks after being informed of the attack.

9:08 NORAD learns that the second plane has crashed into the WTC. The commander on duty says "We need to talk to FAA. We need to tell 'em if this stuff is gonna keep on going, we need to take those fighters, put 'em over Manhattan. That's best thing, that's the best play right now. So coordinate with the FAA. Tell 'em if there's more out there, which we don't know, let's get 'em over Manhattan. At least we got some kind of play."

9:08-9:13 Despite the grand intentions in the preceding quote, the F-15s spend the next several minutes circling off of Long Island, not receiving any orders to actually do anything.

9:08 Indianapolis air traffic controllers contact Air Force Search and Rescue at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, to report American 77 as having crashed (their best guess as to what had happened).

9:09 Indianapolis controllers report the missing American 77 to the FAA regional center.

9:15 While leaderless Air Force pilots continue to fly around pointlessly, Bush FINALLY gets out of his chair and works his way to the door. There are conflicting accounts about how long this takes. In an adjoining room, he is briefed by his staff, which is getting its information off the TV. Bush decides to return to Washington. (More on this decision below.)

9:17 FAA shuts down all New York City airports.

9:20 Indianapolis controllers learn that other planes have been hijacked. They wonder if they might have missed something here.

9:20 FAA initiates a cross-agency teleconference on the hijackings.

9:21 Port Authority closes all bridges and tunnels in the New York area.

9:21 The following exchange takes place between the FAA and NORAD, referring to American Flight 11 which crashed into the WTC more than half an hour earlier.

FAA: Military, Boston Center. I just had a report that American 11 is still in the air, and it's on its way towards - heading towards Washington.

NORAD: Okay. American 11 is still in the air?

FAA: Yes.

NORAD: On its way towards Washington?

FAA: That was another - it was evidently another aircraft that hit the tower. That's the latest report we have.

9:23 NORAD scrambles fighters from Langley Air Force Base to Washington on a mission to shoot down American 11. Which is, as previously noted, has already crashed into the World Trade Center.

9:25 Regional FAA officials tell FAA headquarters about the missing American 77, fully sixteen minutes after they first got the call from Indianapolis.

'Everybody Just Left The Room'

At this point, the only agency with any information that didn't come off of a television set was the FAA, but the FAA was MIA. Despite repeated requests from NORAD, FAA leaders were not available to brief the White House or the military on exactly what the hell was going on, specifically the crucial issue of which airplanes were accounted for and which were not.

Bear in mind that there are still more than 4,000 planes in the air. Only two of these will end up being hijacked. Having an Air Force doesn't count for much when the pilots don't know what to shoot at.

9:25 The FAA Command Center in Herndon orders all aircraft in the country grounded, while FAA headquarters executives were still dithering over whether to give the order.

9:28 Cleveland air traffic controllers have a routine contact with United Flight 93.

9:29 Around this time, Thomas Burnett, a passenger on Flight 93 calls his wife and says, "The plane has been hijacked. We are in the air. They've already knifed a guy. There is a bomb on board. Call the FBI."

9:29 "A radio transmission of unintelligible sounds of possible screaming or a struggle from an unknown origin" is heard by Cleveland controllers, followed by someone screaming "Get out of here, get out of here!"

9:30 FAA, White House and Defense Department each initiate cross-department teleconferences, insuring that dozens of top decision makers are not making decisions but are instead briefing each other on what they don't know, since none of the participants in these conferences has any more information than what's already on TV. Richard Clarke, director of the Counterterrorism Center, also initiates a teleconference to manage aspects of the crisis.

9:30 Colin Powell, at a meeting in Peru, is informed about the second plane. "Get the plane. We're leaving," he announces.

9:30 Fighters take off from Langley, as per orders from NORAD. They fly to Baltimore so they can intercept American 11, which is already crashed into the World Trade Center, instead of flying to Virginia, where they might have a chance of intercepting American 77, which is coming in from the West.

9:30 Outside the school, Bush makes a statement:

Today we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI, and have ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and their families, and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act.

Terrorism against our nation will not stand. And now if you would join me in a moment of silence. May God bless the victims, their families, and America. Thank you very much.

9:30 Around this time, CIA Director Tenet has his breakfast interrupted, a full hour after Mohammed Atta announced his hijacking over an open mike. "I wonder if it has anything to do with this guy taking pilot training," he says on hearing the news.

9:32 Cleveland controllers hear a broadcast on United 93's frequency: "Ladies and gentlemen, here it's the captain. Please sit down. Keep remaining sitting down. We have a bomb on board."

9:32 Air traffic controllers at Dulles airport "observed a primary radar target tracking eastbound at a high rate of speed." The FAA notifies the Secret Service.

9:34 While telling NORAD to watch out for the still-crashed American 11, the FAA mentions to NORAD that American 77 is also missing. This is the very first time NORAD has heard about American 77.

9:34 FAA headquarters is notified that United 93 has been hijacked.

9:35 The lobby of WTC Tower 2 is flooded with wounded people attempting to evacuate.

9:35 Bush's motorcade leaves the Florida school and heads for the Sarasota airport.

9:36 A different FAA center calls NORAD and informs them that radar is tracking an aircraft speeding toward Washington, and heading toward the White House.

9:36 When Cleveland air traffic controllers ask if they should inform the military, the FAA Command Center tells them the FAA will handle it.

9:37 Secret Service agents physically seize Cheney from his desk and carry him down into a bunker underneath the White House.

9:37 NORAD discovers that the planes it thought were over Baltimore are actually out over the ocean, due to the fact that no one gave the pilots clear orders about where to go.

9:37 Defense Department starts an "Air Threat" teleconference, which continues for the next eight hours and includes the president and vice president, secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and all the top military brass. The FAA - the lead federal agency actually DEALING with the crisis - is not included in this conference for the next 40 minutes because it can't get its shit together and get on a secure phone line.

9:38 A National Guard aircraft, ordered to track the incoming radar bogey, reports that the target is a Boeing 757, and then... "(It) looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir."

9:38 American 77 crashes into the Pentagon. Rumsfeld is in a teleconference with Richard Clarke when the plane hits, according to Richard Clarke in Against All Enemies. The fact that Rumsfeld was still on camera was the only way Clarke knew the Pentagon hadn't been completely obliterated.

9:39 United 93 radios Cleveland controllers, yet again proving that the intercom system is the most confusing part of an airplane: "Uh, is the captain. Would like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb on board and are going back to the airport, and to have our demands (unintelligible). Please remain quiet."

At 9:39, NORAD could not produce an accurate summary of what was going on, despite the fact that news reports clearly proved that two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Centers. NORAD's latest information was "of a possible hijacked aircraft taking off out of JFK en route to Washington D.C." This was not a reference to United 93, at least not one based on the information they had formally received so far.

9:40 Donald Rumsfeld reports that smoke is coming into his teleconferencing studio at the Pentagon, and moves to another studio, according to Clarke. Somewhere along the way to his new studio, he take a detour to join the rescue efforts at the Pentagon. Because how else could a Secretary of Defense (a man in his 70s, to boot) be more useful?

9:40 Some time around now, First Lady Laura Bush is moved to a secure, unmarked location.

9:41 Hijackers turn off United 93's transponder.

9:41 Boston air traffic controllers tell NORAD that Delta 1989 might have been hijacked. It wasn't, but NORAD orders fighters to intercept it anyway. It lands without event.

9:41 Command center established to coordinate emergency response in New York City.

9:42 Bush's motorcade arrives at the Sarasota, Fla., airport where Air Force One is parked.

9:42 FAA Command Center learns that the Pentagon has been hit, not from any of the dozens of government sources now working on the emergency, but once again, from the TV.

9:42 FAA orders all air traffic in the United States to immediately land at the nearest facility. At this moment, that amounts to about 4,500 airplanes.

9:45 Noticing smoke coming from the Pentagon, members of Congress panic and begin a disorderly evacuation on their own initiative. No one tells them what's going on, or where they should go.

9:45 Eight minutes after deciding it's too dangerous for Cheney to be in the White House, the Secret Service decides it's too dangerous for everyone else and evacuates the building.

9:45 The Secret Service decides it's too dangerous for the president to return to Washington. For posterity, the 9/11 commission found that "All witnesses agreed that the President strongly wanted to return to Washington and only grudgingly agreed to go elsewhere." OK, man. Keep your dignity.

9:45 Bush calls Cheney from Air Force One on the ground. Bush says: "Sounds like we have a minor war going on here, I heard about the Pentagon. We're at war... somebody's going to pay." Cheney urges Bush not to return to Washington. (All witnesses agreed that every cell in Bush's virile, courageous, sweaty body screamed out against this advice and that he yearned instead to throw himself personally into the fray, even volunteering to fly the fighter planes himself.)

9:45 United 93 passenger Todd Beamer calls a phone company supervisor from the plane. He describes the hijacking and hears about the other attacks.

9:46 FAA headquarters informed that United 93 is "twenty-nine minutes out of Washington, DC."

9:49 FAA Command Center speculates that someone at FAA headquarters should really get around to deciding whether to request military assistance. The following exchange takes place, marking what one can only hope will go down in history as the all-time low point in the history of government bureaucracy:

COMMAND CENTER: Uh, do we want to think about, uh, scrambling aircraft?

FAA HEADQUARTERS: Uh, God, I don't know.

COMMAND CENTER: Uh, that's a decision somebody's gonna have to make probably in the next ten minutes.

FAA HEADQUARTERS: Uh, ya know, everybody just left the room.

9:49 NORAD orders all U.S. military aircraft in the country to battlestations.

9:52 Fully fifteen minutes after Cheney was taken to the underground shelter to protect him from what was thought to be an imminent risk of death, his wife Lynne is also evacuated from the White House to the bunker.

9:53 The NSA intercepts a message from an al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan indicating that at least one more target is going to be hit, according to Bamford.

Shoot To Kill!

With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the crash of United 93 shortly after 10 a.m. was the end of the immediate crisis. At the time, however, no one knew what else could happen. The sky was falling.

Two hours into the attack, there was still no coordinated response from the American government. In fact, as the hours passed, it became agonizingly clear that the U.S. government barely even knew which planes had crashed where.

In fact, the only possible order which could have made a difference -- the order to shoot down planes which refused to divert from attack routes -- was given 10 minutes after the last hijacked plane had already crashed.

While the order was probably right and sensible, the sad fact is that the horse was long, long gone by the time the barn door was locked.

9:53 First media reports that a plane has hit the Pentagon.

9:53 FAA bureaucrats continue to discuss whether to request that fighters intercept United 93.

9:54 FAA command center loses radar contact with United 93.

9:54 United 93 passenger Thomas Burnett tells his wife he thinks the hijackers are planning to crash the plane. He tells her, "There's three of us who are going to do something about it."

9:55 Cheney advises Bush over the phone that three planes were missing and one had hit the Pentagon.

9:55 Partial evacuation of the Pentagon ordered.

9:55 Elderly, handicapped and other slower-moving people are still evacuating Towers One and Two of the WTC complex.

9:55 Air Force One takes off, with no destination recorded at takeoff.

9:58 United 93 passenger Todd Beamer is heard over an open phone line announcing, "Let's roll," as the passengers began an attempt to take back the cockpit.

9:59 The Deputy National Security adviser requests could someone, somewhere, please start working on ensuring the continuity of government, that someone produce fighters to escort Air Force One to where ever it's going, and that a fighter combat air patrol be put into place over Washington, DC.

9:59 Another pilot spots United 93 "waving his wings."

9:59 Tower One of the World Trade Center collapses in a cloud of dust.

10:00 At least two companies of firefighters have entered Tower Two and are climbing to assist survivors.

10:00 Cheney enters White House shelter's conference room. Somewhere around this time, Cheney supposedly calls Bush to ask for authorization to let U.S. fighters shoot down civilian aircraft that refuse to divert away from high-value targets. Supposedly, Bush agrees to this. We all know Cheney would never give such an order without Bush's permission. For the record, however, there is no independent documentation of this conversation.

10:00 Bush contacts Donald Rumsfeld, who is technically second in the chain of command between Bush and the armed forces. They do not discuss the possibility of shooting down civilian planes, and Bush does not convey any such authorization to Rumsfeld.

10:00 Passengers of United 93 storm the cockpit in an effort to stop the plane from reaching its intended target, believed to be either the White House or the Capitol.

10:02 Cheney and others in the White House bunker are informed that a plane is speeding their way.

10:03 United 93 crashes in western Pennsylvania.

10:07 The NORAD representative on the Air Threat teleconference announces: "NORAD has no indication of a hijack heading to Washington DC at this time." This statement is technically correct only by virtue of incompetence, since NORAD never knew anything was heading for Washington.

10:07 Four minutes after it is no longer an issue, NORAD is informed by Cleveland control that United 93 has been hijacked. Luckily for FAA headquarters, it is now an academic point that they FORGOT to call for military assistance to prevent United 93 from crashing into a major government building, as would almost certainly have happened if not for the passengers rising up against the hijackers.

10:07 Secret Service agents take up positions around the White House, armed with automatic weapons.

10:08 FAA headquarters informed that United 93 may have crashed.

10:08 NORAD continues to search for United 93 in the air, because no one has informed them that it may have crashed.

10:10 NORAD informs fighter pilots they do NOT have "clearance to shoot" aircraft over Washington, D.C.

10:10 NORAD goes to DEFCON 3 alert status, a level of alert not seen in the United States since the 1983 Matthew Broderick movie "Wargames."

10:11 A military aide asks Cheney whether fighter pilots can shoot down an "incoming" aircraft (United 93, which has actually been on the ground for 10 minutes). Without batting an eye, Cheney approves the shootdown. Later, he says, "I didn't agonize over it."

10:15 Air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C. tell NORAD that United 93 is "down."

10:16 The military aide returns to the White House shelter and again asks Cheney if fighter planes are authorized to shoot down incoming aircraft. Cheney authorizes the shootdown a second time.

10:17 A civilian aide suggests that Cheney might want to check in with the president about the whole shooting down incoming aircraft things, since no one (except Cheney and the President) has witnessed any sort of prior conversation on this topic.

10:17 FAA headquarters gets confirmation that United 93 has crashed.

10:17 An FAA official joins the "Air Threat" teleconference. According to the 9/11 commission, "the FAA representative who joined the call had no familiarity with or responsibility for a hijack situation, had no access to decisionmakers, and had none of the information available to senior FAA officials by that time."

10:18 Despite the president supposedly having previously authorized the shootdown of incoming planes, Cheney calls Air Force One and asks. Uh, that is, he asks "again."

10:20 This time, someone actually remembers to write down that the president has authorized NORAD to shoot down incoming planes.

10:22 State and Justice Departments evacuated.

10:23 This is the latest that United 93 would have actually reached the Capitol or White House, had it not actually crashed 20 minutes earlier. At this moment in time - the last possible minute a kamikaze attack could have been prevented - the fighters in D.C. airspace have not received authorization to fire on civilian planes.

10:24 All incoming overseas flights to the U.S. are diverted to Canada.

10:24 The FBI reports to Richard Clarke of the CTC that they have checked the passenger manifests and discovered the names of several known al Qaeda agents on board the hijacked planes. By now, half a dozen people in the federal government (at the very least) know for a virtual certainty that al Qaeda is responsible for the attack. It will take a lot longer to let everyone else in on this detail.

10:26 Tower Two of the World Trade Center collapses in a cloud of dust.

10:30 Faced with a report of another hijacked plane coming in fast, Cheney for the third time orders the military to shoot down any incoming aircraft. The incoming target is later determined to be a Medevac helicopter. It is not shot down.

10:30 Deciding to take a break from rescuing people in a burning building, Donald Rumsfeld begins to acquaint himself with what exactly the hell has been going on in this country.

10:31 Nearly half an hour after the last hijacked airplane has crashed, NORAD is finally informed that it has authorization to shoot down hijacked airplanes. An internal NORAD text message reads: "Vice president has cleared to us to intercept tracks of interest and shoot them down if they do not respond." Most NORAD operators are confused by the message, so it is never actually sent to the pilots of the fighters in Washington D.C. and New York City airspace.

10:32 Media reports a car bomb exploding at the State Department, but these reports are wrong.

10:33 Two hours and 20 minutes since the first hijacking began, the federal government has failed to execute a single action that in any measurable way prevented or contained any aspect of the biggest terrorist attack in the history of America.

10:34 A second chance to go back in time and do something, ANYTHING, to prevent or contain the attack fails to materialize.

That's 'President' Cheney To You...

As we have seen, the shoot-to-kill orders were given to the military by the Vice President.

It is perhaps worth noting at this point the mere technicality that the vice president has no statutory power to give orders during a moment of crisis in which the president is NOT incapacitated.

Technically, Bush was not incapacitated at this moment, except perhaps for being rendered insensate by his overwhelming desire to get back to Washington and face danger like a man. Technically, the next person after Bush who is authorized to give the "shoot to kill" order, is Donald Rumsfeld and not Dick Cheney. The President cannot delegate his commander-in-chief authority outside the chain of command. That's why they have a chain in the first place.

Though tempting, it's hard to fault Cheney in this situation. Frankly, if you yourself happened to be walking through the White House bunker on that day, and someone ran up to you and asked "should we shoot down a hijacked aircraft headed right for us," you would have felt justified in saying "shoot first and ask about the appropriate constitutional delegation of authority later."

The more pertinent question is: Why wasn't the President running things?

There are military bases in Florida with everything Bush could have needed to take charge of the situation, while a more secure facility was prepared. And there were multiple facilities suitable for housing the president in this sort of crisis.

Instead, as the entries above and below illustrate, Bush was content to let Cheney call the shots -- literally -- on what was indisputably the most important day of his presidency.

10:38 Fighters from the 113th Wing of the DC Air National Guard launch from Andrews Air Force Base, on a tip from the Secret Service.

10:39 When both men are in the "Air Threat" teleconference, Cheney tells Rumsfeld that while Rumsfeld has been rescuing people, Cheney has been ordering planes to be shot down.

10:45 A Secret Service agent, claiming to relay instructions from the Vice President, tells the commander of the 113th Wing fighters they are "to protect the White House and take out any aircraft that threatens the Capitol." This order is well outside the chain of command, since (as noted) neither the Vice President nor the Secret Service have any legal authority to give orders to the military.

CHENEY: There's been at least three instances here where we've had reports of aircraft approaching Washington—a couple were confirmed hijack. And, pursuant to the President's instructions I gave authorization for them to be taken out. Hello?

RUMSFELD: Yes, I understand. Who did you give that direction to?

CHENEY: It was passed from here through the operations center at the White House, from the (shelter).

RUMSFELD: OK, let me ask the question here. Has that directive been transmitted to the aircraft?

CHENEY: Yes, it has.

RUMSFELD: So we've got a couple of aircraft up there that have those instructions at the present time?

CHENEY: That is correct. And it's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out.

RUMSFELD: We can't confirm that. We're told that one aircraft is down but we do not have a pilot report that they did it.

As far as anyone credibly knows, no one actually "took a couple of aircraft out." Also, as previously noted, none of the pilots had been informed of their shootdown authorization.

Why Even Have An Air Force One?

It's worth breaking out of our chronology for a moment here to consider Air Force One, in which the president of the United States is currently sitting. The entire point of mythologizing Air Force One is the idea that the President can -- in theory -- run the country from anywhere his plane can go. Air Force One is fitted with secure phone lines, secure data lines, radios, televisions, even a fax machine. It has 85 phone lines and requires three operators to run it. It has a fully equipped presidential office, and on September 11, it had a full staff of presidential aides. In short, there was no reason that the President, sitting on Air Force One, couldn't be running the country and very effectively. The airplane was 90% functional while flying, and 100% functional had it simply landed at the nearest military base.

The presidential jet was an easy flight from at least three different facilities designed exactly for this sort of national emergency, including NORAD's underground Operations Center, FEMA's Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in Virginia, and "Site R," a supersecret military command post near the Maryland border (described in detail by James Bamford in "A Pretext for War"). Every one of these facilities was just as effective as the White House bunker for running a war. Every one of these facilities was effectively immune to bomb and kamikaze jet attacks.

But while the Vice President was issuing extra-constitutional orders that made Alexander Haig look like a rank amateur, the President was nowhere to be found. To explore the reason for this, we must add the following entry to our chronology but qualify it extensively:

10:32 A threat is reported against Air Force One, leading the Secret Service to insist the president not return to Washington, D.C.

On September 12, the claim was first made by presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer. "We have specific and credible information that the White House and Air Force One were also intended targets of these attacks."

Specific and credible? The Washington Post gave the following colorful account of the threat in a January 2002 article:

Cheney called Bush on Air Force One, on its way from Florida to Washington, to say the White House had just received a threat against the plane. The caller had used its code word, "Angel," suggesting terrorists had inside information. Card was told it would take between 40 minutes and 90 minutes to get a protective fighter escort up to Air Force One.

Bush told an aide that Air Force One "is next." He was in an angry mood. "We're going to find out who did this," he said to Cheney, "and we're going to kick their asses."

Air Force One was still en route to Washington when Cheney called again at 10:41 a.m. This time, he urged Bush not to return. "There's still a threat to Washington," the vice president said. Rice agreed, and had told the president the same thing.

There was little debate or discussion. Cheney was worried the terrorists might be trying to decapitate the government, to kill its leaders. Bush agreed.

Within minutes, those on board the president's plane could feel it bank suddenly and sharply to the left, its course now westerly toward Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. It was within easy range, and once there food and fuel could be loaded and the president could have access to its more sophisticated communications systems.

The threat to the plane turned out to be false. Someone inside the White House had heard a threat to Air Force One, perhaps in a phoned-in call, and passed it up the line using the code word "Angel." Others thought the threatening caller had used the code word. It took days for the incident to be sorted out and weeks before the White House publicly acknowledged it.

Not only was the threat spurious, but there have been serious questions about whether the exchange described above even took place, whether Cheney might have made up the threat, or whether it was simply a hastily constructed explanation for why the president was running like a scared rabbit.

Whatever the rationale, Bush was not coming back to Washington for several hours.

The Aftermath

The attack was over, and America was exhausted. While millions sat glued to the television set, awaiting news of the next disaster, the federal government began implementing measures to protect government institutions and civilian structures. Orders were given to evacuate tall buildings around the country, while the executive branch eventually (and ungraciously) got around to providing some protection for the legislative branch.

The President spent these hours contemplating the attack. By his own account, his first reaction was a desire to get even, and just as soon as he dared set foot back in Washington, he would, by God! The nation went into lockdown, as the false alarms continued to trickle in, and shellshocked Americans would eventually fall asleep with the TV on. And that TV is still on today...

10:45 All federal buildings in Washington, D.C., are evacuated.

11:02 New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani urges citizens to stay calm and in their homes, except for those living south of Canal St., who are politely urged to run like hell.

11:45 Air Force One arrives in Barksdale, LA. Soldiers surround the plane. Not that we're scared or anything. Reporters on the plane are banned from disclosing the president's location.

Noon Bush tells Cheney "I think it's important for the people to see the government is functioning, because the TV shows our nation has been blasted and bombed. Government is not chaotic. It's functioning smoothly." Apparently, running a Cabinet meeting from a secret air base in Louisiana in smooth functioning.

12:05 An extremely nervous-looking Bush tapes a short statement for the nation. "Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts." As the Washington Post observed, "It was not a reassuring picture."

12:05 George Tenet passes a note to Donald Rumsfeld outlining the NSA's al Qaeda intercept which indicated more targets were expected to be hit. The intercept is more than two hours and 10 minutes old, and the attacks of which it warns have been finished for just over two hours.

12:15 The INS closes the country's land borders.

12:16 All commercial aircraft in United States airspace are on the ground. The entire country is effectively in a lockdown.

1:04 Taped Bush statement airs. Country is not reassured.

1:27 Washington, D.C., belatedly declares a state of emergency.

1:44 Pentagon announces that five warships and two aircraft carriers are being dispatched to protect the East Coast.

1:48 Air Force One takes off again, after ditching most of the press corps. A few reporters are allowed to remain on the plane, sans cell phones.

1:47 Ari Fleischer tells the remaining press "The President is looking forward to returning to Washington. He understands at a time like this, caution must be taken; and he wants to get to back to Washington."

2:36 Bush calls his dad, who is in Milwaukee. According to the Washington Post, Bush asked his father: "What are you doing in Milwaukee?" The response: "You grounded my plane."

2:49 Guiliani announces the restoration of limited bus and subway service in New York.

2:50 Bush lands in Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska, the nerve center of the Western World.

~3:15 An aircraft is tracking toward the U.S. from Spain giving off an emergency signal. It's a false alarm.

3:30 Bush chairs a meeting of the National Security Council via teleconference. During the meeting, Bush announces that the airline industry will resume flights at noon on September 12.

3:55 Presidential spokeswoman Karen Hughes announces: "While some federal buildings have been evacuated for security reasons and to protect our workers, your federal government continues to function effectively."

4:10 Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex is reported to be on fire. The building housed, among other things, a secret CIA command center.

4:25 U.S. stock markets announce there's no way in hell they are going to be able to open on September 12.

5:20 Building 7 of the WTC complex collapses. Later, the building's destruction becomes the subject of conspiracy theories.

5:30 Fleischer emerges again. "Information is provided to the President about any type of threat, and the President makes the final determination. The President wanted to get back to Washington. He understood that there can be a period of caution so that the security people can make a full and proper assessment about any threats."

6:00 The Northern Alliance just happens to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan.

6:34 Air Force One lands at Andrews Air Force Base. Bush transfers to a helicopter to travel the remaining miles to the White House, detouring to survey the damage at the Pentagon.

6:40 Rumsfeld announces the Pentagon will open for business on Sept. 12.

6:54 Bush returns to the White House.

7:17 FBI solicits tips from the public on the attacks.

8:30 Bush addresses the country for seven minutes. He articulates the fateful Bush Doctrine for the very first (but far from the last) time:

Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it's prepared. Our emergency teams are working in New York City and Washington, D.C. to help with local rescue efforts.

Our first priority is to get help to those who have been injured, and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks.

The functions of our government continue without interruption. Federal agencies in Washington which had to be evacuated today are reopening for essential personnel tonight, and will be open for business tomorrow. Our financial institutions remain strong, and the American economy will be open for business, as well.

The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.

9:00 Bush meets with his National Security Council.

11:08 Awakened from sleep, George and Laura Bush rushed to underground bunker beneath the White House, after a report of an unidentified plane in the area. It was a false alarm.

11:59 "Good night, George."

"Good night, Laura. I sure hope tomorrow goes better than today did."

"Me too, George. Me too."

Conspire with me, conspire, conspire away...

2005-11-15T09:31:00.000+13:00

While we are on the subject of conspiracy theories maybe we should look at the HAARP project as well.

It's called the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project. What could be more innocuous than researching the Northern Lights, right?

Depends on who you ask.

HAARP is a research program based in Alaska to "study the ionosphere" and aurora effects in the atmosphere. It's run jointly by the Air Force and the Navy. If you're wondering why the Air Force and the Navy care about aurorae, you're not the only one.

There is, of course, a perfectly reasonable explanation. According to HAARP (which unlike many insidious government conspiracies, has its own Web site), "Because the DoD (Depoartment of Defense) operates numerous communication and navigation systems whose signals either depend on reflection from the ionosphere or must pass through the ionosphere to satellites, there is obvious DoD interest in understanding the ionosphere's effect on these systems to improve their reliability and performance."

Now that we've got the reasonableness out of the way, lets look at why HAARP is up there with Area 51 in terms of conspiratorial splendor.

First off, there's the basic nature of the project. It's scores of radio antenna pumping massive high-frequency directional broadcasts into the air for the purpose of heating the ionosphere. Yes, that's right — it's blasting electromagnetic radiation into the sky to "microwave" the outer layer atmosphere. Starting to sound less innocuous?

Some people, purporting to be government employees with privileged information, have claimed that HAARP is actually some sort of massive destructor beam for a nefarious purpose.

HAARP claims that the supposed 3,600 kilowatts of energy originating from the project are completely harmless (detractors claim it's more like a gigawatt) and far less than the normal variation in ionospheric radiation. Which raises the question of why they don't just study those normal variations.

The claims about HAARP made by these ubiquitous people-in-the-know boil down to the following bullet points:

HAARP is a giant death ray, based on a design contained in the notes of inventor Nikola Tesla, seized by the FBI after his death. This is a very popular theory, probably because so much of it is actually true. Tesla claimed to have developed a death ray with a very similar configuration to HAARP's actual configuration, and the seizure of his scientific papers is a matter of public record.
HAARP is a weather-control machine. There's a certain logic to this one as well. If a butterfly's wings beating in Tibet can cause el Nino, then a gigawatt of electromagnetic radiation ought to be good for something.
HAARP is an earthquake machine. Also based on a bunch of weird stuff Tesla discovered. Somewhat offset by the fact the HAARP array is clearly pointed at the sky.
HAARP is a doomsday machine ripping a hole in the earth's atmosphere. Colorful, but scienfitically questionable. How do you rip a hole in air?
HAARP has something to do with UFOs. Either signalling them, blasting them from the skies, or feeding babies to them.
HAARP is a giant Mind Control broadcasting machine. Appealing, but if it works, why are people still such assholes?

But what about this Nikola Telsa chap? Don't ever say Serbo-Croatia never did anything for you. If it wasn't for Nikola Tesla, you might not be reading this now. Your cell phone would be little more than a paperweight, and the government wouldn't have lethal orbiting death ray satellites with which to ensure your safety.

The young Serbian discovered the principle that drives almost every practical use of electricity today, the rotating magnetic field. The field is what powers generators and all forms of electrical motors. Although the generator had already been discovered, it was Tesla who figured out why it worked.

Tesla's understanding of the rotating magnetic field led him to develop groundbreaking ideas about how to use alternating current, and one of his first inventions was the induction motor, a powerful device powered by AC. Tesla had big dreams of the mad scientist variety, including flying machines and other more sinister deals. As everyone knows, there's only so far a mad scientist can go in Croatia, so in 1884, it was off to America!

Tesla worked for Thomas Edison briefly, but mad scientists aren't widely known as team players, and the relationship was a bust. He was bought out by Westinghouse in 1885, when the titan of industry bought his patents for AC-driven motors. The first thing Westinghouse did with the technology was put Edison's DC-powered gadgets out of business. That's gratitude for you.

Tesla set up shop on his own and began inventing things, such as specialized lighting and a precursor to the X-ray machine. He liked to wow the marks by running electrical current through his body to light lamps. He was that kind of guy. This sort of behaviour made him popular at high school assemblies and Masonic lodges.

In 1891, Tesla became a U.S. citizen, which as we all know is a free ticket to megalomania. He started to dream bigger. Within a few years, he was building massive hydroelectric generators powered by Niagara Falls. He invented the first remote control, and began researching wireless communications.

Around the turn of the century, Telsa made he considered his most important discovery even though no one has ever heard about it, it isn't discussed in classrooms, and it doesn't appear to have any practical applications except for James Bond villains.

They were called terrestrial stationary waves, and what that basically means is that you can a) transmit electrical current using the Earth as a conductor, and b) you can cause the Earth to vibrate on a frequency, much like a tuning fork. I'm sure you can see where this is going. Try to name five non-mad-scientist uses for such a discovery. Powering streetlights without wires? Yeah, OK, that's pretty cool. Beaming lethal destruction around the globe? Whoops! Manipulating the weather? Controlling earthquakes?

Tesla saw great possibilities for his TS waves, including creating a worldwide integrated system of centralized control and distribution electronics, stock tickers and all manner of not-yet-invented communications technology, with provisions for secretly encrypted point-to-point transmissions. It was around this time that the government began to really take an interest in Nikola Tesla.

In his quest to test the limits of the terrestrial waves, Tesla began a period of extensive experimentation. during which he developed the Tesla Coil, a method for delivering high-voltage current which is still used in many TVs and other applications today.

Using the coil, Tesla asked himself: If the Earth can conduct electricity, and the electricity vibrates around the world in waves through the planet, just how much electricity can the Earth hold? A reasonable question! He could think of no better way to answer that question than by dumping as much electricity as he could generate into the ground, just to see what would happen.

Many a bad science fiction movie has opened with this sort of premise. Fortunately, the outcome of Tesla's tests were more of an inconvenience than a cataclysmic world-ending event. Well, depending on your perspective anyway.

The area around his experiment became electrified, but not enough to kill anyone, and there were some very impressive bolts of man-made lightning which stopped when he blew up the town's generator and caused a blackout over several miles.

There might have been one other small side effect. At almost exactly the same time that this experiment was taking place, a mysterious explosion rocked a remote section of Siberia, to the tune of about a 15-megaton blast (40 years before the first Atomic Bomb test). The explosion has never been satisfactorily explained, although it is commonly dismissed as a meteor or comet impact (a claim which doesn't quite add up with the measured damage on the scene). Interestingly, Tesla had claimed he was trying to use to wave to send a communication to an Arctic expedition that can supposedly be located along a straight line path between Tesla's lab and the site of the explosion.

During all this, Tesla was also pushing ahead with his investigation of the uses of radio waves, particularly to remotely control robotic devices, an area in which the Serbian made great breakthroughs. His research into radio either ran parallel to Guglielmo Marconi, or Marconi ripped him off. The outcome was that Tesla was gipped out of the Nobel Prize in favor of Marconi, who won the official title of "inventor of radio" in the history books. Tesla's inventions and discoveries also formed the basis of modern robotics, radar, most forms of wireless communications, loudspeakers and more. Few of these breakthroughs are credited to the inventor, even today.

As lousy in business as he was talented in science, Tesla sank into bankruptcy and many of his projects went down with him. For years, he struggled to get by and bring his ideas to fruition, but his ideas had taken a turn toward the decidedly strange. He became obsessed with interplanetary communication, for which he was derided (even though, years later, his work is now integral to space exploration and the search for intelligent life in the universe).

He also began to make some interesting claims about his abilities and the power of his inventions. He told people he possessed the scientific wherewithal to split the Earth in two, and he told the New York Times he had invented a death ray which he called the "teleforce," which could melt an airplane's engine from a range of 250 miles. The Times, noting the massive spending on defense and military issues in the build-up toward World War II, pointed out that on a cost-benefit basis (and based on Tesla's track record), it was well worth the risk of failure to fund the project. Nevertheless, the "teleforce" was never adopted... publicly.

The "teleforce" claim would haunt the United States for decades to come. According to Tesla, he had designed a system through which a series of beam transmitters could create an impenetrable energy shield around the country. Starting to sound familiar? It was the first "Star Wars" proposal, and Tesla's claims (never verified publicly) formed the blueprint for almost all future discussions of the "Strategic Defense Initiative."

Tesla was clearly ahead of his time, a problem which would haunt his entire career. His inventions and patents for remote operation of robotic devices, for instance, were stunningly advanced but largely ignored at the time. The military inexplicably failed to understand the usefulness of remote-controlled attack vehicles and torpedoes until after Tesla's patents had expired. Even then, they began researching it over from scratch, rather than working with his established techniques.

The end result was military technology nearly identical to Tesla's inventions, but developed literally decades later and at many times the cost. Tesla never made a dime off of the discovery of the radio-controlled automation that today is the basis of a multibillion dollar aerospace specialty, responsible for the CIA drone assassin planes used in the War on Terrorism, and in every generation of the Mars lander probes.

After his death in 1943, the FBI raided Tesla's home and seized all of his scientific notes, to the tune of hundreds of pages. While a pretty fascist act, it's kind of understandable in light of his claims. Tesla's heirs eventually won the release of some of the material, but it's unknown how much is still classified or "lost." Conspiracy theorists are enamored of Tesla for obvious reasons, and there is a lot of speculation about that "death ray" and other aspects of his research.

One of the most popular theories is that Tesla's terrestrial stationary waves and "death ray" research form the basis of the HAARP Project, an alleged top-secret U.S. government experiment to control the weather and beam fiery death from the skies against enemies of the state.

Tesla's work is still of broad interest to people who are interested in death and destruction on a large scale. Members of Japan's Aum cult (notorious for a sarin gas attack in Tokyo) visited the Tesla Museum looking for ideas, and members of al Qaeda have allegedly taken an interest as well, although it appears fertilizer bombs and box cutters are about as much technology as Osama bin Laden cares about since the incarceration of his own personal mad scientist, Ramzi Yousef.

Water it down to make it more toxic !?!

2005-11-15T09:27:00.000+13:00

I found an interesting article about our drinking water on www.rotten.com and have decided to share it with you!

Is your drinking water trying to kill you?

Some people think so. And still more think: Why take a chance?

More than four out of five dentists agree that fluoride will reduce cavities. But non-dentists are kind of split.

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral used to fight tooth decay in children and also used to poison rats. This is the sort of juxtaposition that gets people upset.

The defenders of fluoridation, the practice of adding a small amount of fluoride to drinking water in order to fight tooth decay, are forced to respond to comments about these contradictory uses of fluoride by explaining that it's a matter of dosage. The amount of fluoride used to fight cavities is very small, you see, whereas the amount of fluoride in rat poison is very large.

This isn't exactly the most viscerally satisfying response. A concerned parent wants to hear "we are NOT adding rat poison to your children's drinking water," but instead they're being told "we're not adding MUCH rat poison to your children's drinking water."

On the other hand, Americans are the kings of ingesting toxic substances at sub-lethal levels. A shot of whiskey is fine, but drink three fifths in the course of an evening, and you'll have some trouble. Glue-sniffing was briefly a national fad, and it's still practiced, along with cocaine, heroin, whippets and ecstasy, all of which are highly toxic in large doses.

On the other other hand, alcohol is regulated to keep it away from minors, and all of the latter examples are entirely illegal. But you can find plenty of other examples, like nutmeg and Robotussin. Both are perfectly legal, one as a tasty seasoning and the other as a child's cough syrup in small doses. They're both middling hallucinogens in large doses and entirely toxic in still larger doses.

So you can see, the whole thing is kind of a sticky issue. But there are several elements of the debate which make fluoride more contentious than nutmeg. Chief among these is the fact that no one is pumping nutmeg into your drinking water.

For another thing, there's the way that fluoride was discovered. Around the dawn of the 20th Century, a dentist noticed that the people of Colorado Springs all had miserably ugly stains on their teeth. It was eventually discovered that this was caused by high levels of fluoride in their water supply, which was causing a mild disease due to overexposure. But at the same time, it was noted that the people of the area had much fewer cavities than the norm.

This led to the conclusion that smaller doses of fluoride could prevent tooth decay without causing the discoloring, but the fact is that fluoride was first discovered due to its negative effects.

When dentists learned about this new technique, there was a rush to get the "benefits" of fluoride out to the American public. With a very short span between the early 1940s and the late 1950s, fluoridation flooded into American communities, often with very little public debate.

By the time people started asking hard questions about fluoride, it was too late. Today, two thirds of the United States population drinks fluoridated water.

The push to get fluoride into drinking water was a nearly unprecedented success in government implementation during a time when major new technologies were transforming the world. At the very same time that fluoride was being rolled out to the public in dramatic fashion, the country was embracing the newfound miracle of atomic power, which was presented as a clean, safe alternative to fossil fuels.

Just as atomic power turned out to be a little messier than advertised, research began raising questions about fluoridation, which had been rapidly spread all over the country as the result of a full-court press by dental industry lobbyists and federal health agencies.

A major irritant to many people was the fact that the fluoridation of drinking water was, as often as not, presented as a statewide mandate which took the choice away from local (and suspicious minded) communities. People don't like that.

It also raises further question: Why fluoride? Why not have make it mandatory to add Vitamin C to drinking water? Or Vitamin B-12? Or calcium? Or zinc? Or echinacea? All of these things are theoretically good for people. In fact, most of them are arguably more important to good health than fighting cavities.

The dynamics of the fluoridation debate tend to run counter to the usual conspiracy/skeptic debate. With most conspiracy theories, it's the theorists who cite a lot of dicey statistics and launch a lot of ad hominem attacks on their opponents. In the fluoridation debate, it's the establishment, which frequently makes blanket statements to the effect that anyone worried about fluoridation is just a crackpot.

But in point of fact, there are actually rather a lot of valid concerns regarding fluoride in the diet. The major worries regarding fluoridation include:

There isn't any scientific body of work that examines how much fluoride is in the environment and food supply of the average American, a key point raised by not-quite-a-fluoridation-conspiracy-nut-but-at-least-a-fluoridation-skeptic Ralph Nader. That means there's no way of knowing just how much fluoride kids (and adults) are actually ingesting on any given day. Since we've already established that only the dosage differentiates toothpaste from rat poison, this is a pretty important question.
If you read your toothpaste label, you will see a warning demanding you contact a doctor immediately if you accidentally swallow some toothpaste. We go out of our way to make everything from Play-Doh to magic markers non-toxic, but we give kids toothpaste and tell them to put it in their mouths?
The EPA's professional union (including scientists and engineers) is on the record opposing the fluoridation of water. According to their statement, "Our members' review of the body of evidence over the last eleven years, including animal and human epidemiology studies, indicate a causal link between fluoride/fluoridation and cancer, genetic damage, neurological impairment, and bone pathology. Of particular concern are recent epidemiology studies linking fluoride exposure to lowered IQ in children. As the professionals who are charged with assessing the safety of drinking water, we conclude that the health and welfare of the public is not served by the addition of this substance to the public water supply."
While many things are in dispute regarding fluoride, the effects of an overdose are not. They include drooling, tremors, weakness, convulsions, labored breathing, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and shock. And that's just for a short-term overdose. Long-term exposure to excessive doses of fluoride causes bow-leggedness, arthritis, paralysis and makes people into hunchbacks.
According to one anti-fluoride researcher, Dr. John Lee, "The goal of our public water facilities should be to provide water that is as pure and safe as possible and not as a vehicle for universal pharmacological treatments regardless of age, the health status of the individual, or the presumed benefit, which, in the case of fluoride, is highly questionable, to say the least." This seems quite reasonable. Shouldn't water just be water?
It's not like fluoridation is universally accepted worldwide; and it's not just poor and underdeveloped countries that have rejected it. Nations in Asia and Africa have adopted fluoridation programs at the insistence of Western science, with often mixed or decidedly negative results, including in China, India and South Africa. Among the crackpots rejecting the fluoridation of drinking water are the governments of Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Belgium, Austria and France.

But hey, what do the Swiss know, right?

Sugar

2005-11-07T12:43:00.000+13:00

aka Sucrose, Glucose, Fructose, Kiddie Crack

You wouldn't give heroin to a four-year-old. (At least, we assume so, you sick f*ck.) But you don't hesitate to jack that kid up with heroic doses of the most successful recreational drug in the history of mankind, sugar -- a highly addictive, mood-altering, health-threatening substance that encourages antisocial behaviour. (And after you get that kid hopped up on sugar, you have to give him Ritalin to get him to sit still. You sick f*ck.)

Known on the streets as glucose, sucrose or fructose, sugar comes in crystal, powder, and liquid forms. It's usually taken orally, and often (but not always) cut with some other food substance.

Sugar occurs naturally in many fruits and vegetables. It's mostly innocuous in its natural form. But refined sugars are an entirely different story. Sugar was available in relatively raw forms for centuries, but it wasn't until the industrial innovations of mass slavery and the breeding of the sugar beet that the sweet stuff became a dietary staple. Since the 1800s, there have been steady technological improvements in the refining process. Refined sugar can be produced by several different processes, most of which include grinding the source plant into a pulp, running the pulp through a series of filters and then evaporating what's left to produce a crystallized residue, which can be powdered or dissolved in water.

Like any drug, the potency of sugar increases dramatically when it is refined. The vast majority of refined sugars used in the Western world comes from corn, but sugar is also refined from beets, sugar cane plants, maple sap, honey and almost every kind of fruit.

Often a very small dose of sugar is enough to get high. The threshold is different for everyone, but the bigger the dose, the more noticeable the effects. The effects of sugar use can include euphoria, increased energy and irritability, increased heart rate, insomnia, tremors, weight gain, ulcers, tooth decay and a depressed immune system.

Some psychologists have argued that these are simply placebo effects, based on user and observer expectations. There aren't any reliable surveys on whether those psychologists are themselves habitual sugar users, but the odds dramatically favour that conclusion. The average American ingests around 80kg of added sugars per year ("added" meaning not naturally occurring in food, like in an apple), according to the World Health Organization.

If you are not convinced of that sugar is a drug, I suggest you eat several tablespoons of the substance on an empty stomach. At any rate, the question posed by the psychologists (and by the massive world sugar industry, which funds many studies on this topic) is not whether sugar produces the effects listed above. That's not in question, although the sugar industry would like you to think it is. The studies are only trying to measure the magnitude of the sugar effect.

Refined sugar is extremely addictive. Not "addictive" in the sense that you just really like it, but addictive in the sense that your body suffers withdrawal symptoms if sugar is removed from your diet. While sugar doesn't have the instantly addictive quality of, say, crack cocaine, recent studies suggest that refined sugar activates opioids, the same brain chemicals that fuel heroin and morphine addiction, with similar results at a lesser magnitude.

Drug addiction is defined by a three stage process which includes increased consumption, withdrawal symptoms when a dose isn't available and an urge to relapse even after the drug has been completely removed. Aside from common life experience of these traits by sugar users, clinical studies on rats have shown the addiction pattern at work. The more refined the sugar, the more intense the addiction.

Withdrawal symptoms can include lethargy, tremors, headaches and depression. Generally, these effects are slightly less intense than the similar withdrawal symptoms associated with caffeine.

No one is arguing against the responsible use of refined sugar by consenting adults. For that matter, very few people even argue against the moderate, responsible use of sugar by children. Sugar is a naturally occurring substance that is part of a balanced diet.

Sugar becomes a social problem because of three major factors. First, society is generally in denial about sugar's addictive qualities. Second, refined sugar is rampantly available in nearly unadulterated form in every single food store in the Western world. And third, these refined sugar products are overwhelmingly marketed directly to children by adults who have no moral qualms about using sophisticated psychological techniques to manipulate six-year-olds.

Pure sugar products are epidemic in most developed countries. The vast majority of soft drinks are simply high-fructose corn syrup with only enough water added to make them potable. Usually these drinks include a dash of flavouring as the pretext for liking them. Often, the drinks are paired with high caffeine content, increasing both the stimulation and the addictive power.

Breakfast cereals are notoriously laden with sugar, often promoted by cartoon leprechauns and bunnies who urge children to go to any length necessary to obtain their precious, precious sugar. Some cereals -- such as Cheerios and Kelloggs Cornflakes -- include added sugar and naturally occurring sugar in the product itself, then are served with teaspoons full of refined sugar heaped on top. Other, more shameless products include marshmallow candy interspersed with "healthy" bits of wheat or corn, which are themselves sweetened.

In addition to soft drinks and candy, sugar is available in a convenient portable form, in jawbreakers and candy bars, where it is sometimes combined with chocolate, a caffeine-bearing substance that is mildly addictive in its own right. For the hardcore user, sugar is obtainable through gumballs, which provide an intense initial surge of euphoria followed by a longer, mellower dose of sugar, or Pixie Stix. Particularly insidious, Pixie Stix are tubes full of powdered refined sugar with only a touch of food colouring added. The content of a Pixie stick is poured into the mouth, reminiscent of a line cocaine.

Sugar is also a gateway drug. It can successfully be combined with other drugs for an amplified effect. Sugar and chocolate can be combined with marijuana in brownie form. Cocaine and sugar were mixed in Coca-Cola when the product debuted in 1885. The amount of cocaine in the drink quickly diminished due to bad publicity, but the amount of sugar slowly grew. A 12-ounce can of Coke today contains no cocaine, but it does include about 10 teaspoons worth of sugar.

Clove cigarettes and some cigars are often sugar-tipped for a nicotine-sucrose cocktail. (Cloves are also mild anaesthetics.) Heroin is often cut with sugar to reduce its potency. Liquid LSD can be added to a sugar cube, for a tasty and hallucinogenic treat.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, sugar is also a gateway to mind-altering prescription drugs. At the same time that sugar use by children and adults has skyrocketed in the United States, incidents of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have also soared.

The sugar industry insists there is absolutely no basis to link ADHD and sugar. But the rise in sugar consumption conveniently corresponds to the skyrocketing number of children being medicated for ADHD in the U.S. The rate of Ritalin prescriptions in the U.S. rose 400% from 1990 to 1996. From 1978 to 1999, sugar consumption by a typical teenage boy grew 200%.

In fact, according to the 2001 book Fast Food Nation, a fifth of children aged one and two years old drink soda. Soda makers like Dr. Pepper and Pepsi have included advertising with baby bottles, and amazingly, some parents are idiotic enough to take the bait.

Thanks to bad parenting like this, combined with two or three generations of children who were weaned on sugary cereals, Americans consume more than 8 million metric tons of added sugar and high fructose corn syrup per year. That's 17.6 billion pounds, or 1.7 trillion teaspoons of the stuff.

With that kind of demand, you'd think the sugar industry would be laughing all the way to the bank. Well, you might think that if you were painfully naive and unschooled in the ways of American government. The sugar industry sponsors an annual field trip to Congress, where its representatives whine and bitch about how it's impossible for them to make money, winning various tariffs and subsidies to support their poverty-stricken operations. And that's just cane and beet sugar. Corn subsidies account for billions of dollars of government spending. Directly or indirectly, some of that money goes to pay for marketing that promotes sugar consumption among one-year-olds.

While the profusion of new refined sugar types makes it difficult to be precise, the consumption of sugar is only expected to increase in coming years. Perhaps prenatal IVs will be used to deliver the sweet stuff to hip foetuses who want to be part of the ‘new generation’ too!

Pro-American

2005-10-27T16:37:00.000+13:00

I have regarded myself as neutral in the debate over the good vs. evil of the United States. However, after listening to the many critics I find myself in positions defending their actions on a somewhat regular basis. Does that make me Pro-American? I’m beginning to think so!

Now I’m not condoning all the actions taken by the United States in the past or today nor am I saying that the US is a utopia for which we should all strive. My stance is that the US is not the “Great Satan” propagated by Islamic militants and left wing hippies and while they deserve criticism for their mistakes (as we all do) they are certainly preferable to many of the alternatives.

It has become fashionable to bash the US. Openly supporting the policies of the Bush Administration outside of the US can prove to be social suicide. But why is this so?

It is very easy to criticise those in power. We blame them for all the shortcomings of the world and expect them to provide solutions to all of life’s problems. However, while we make excessive demands of our political leaders we do our best to remove many of the tools required to effectively deal with the problems. On the one hand we want greater security, on the other we want greater freedoms. The two are incompatible. On the one hand we want better public services, yet on the other we want to reduce our taxes. We want our governments to provide us with all encompassing solutions yet we wish to express our rights of individuality and freedom from compulsion to perform or abstain from certain acts. The list is endless.

Those in power are the people who should be ensuring that things get done. That the world runs smoothly. But no leader can ever fix all the problems, all of the time, and for everyone. It is easy to criticise these leaders for their failures and ignore the hundreds of small successes. Regardless of who is in power, they will make mistakes and will therefore be criticised.

Take the intelligence community for example. The failures become painfully apparent yet the majority of the successes are kept quiet for a variety of reasons. It’s easy not to note the successes as it usually appears that it is business as usual and nothing has been happening.

The fact of the matter is that the world is not and never will be an equal place. There will always be winners and losers and everyone will always be vying for a greater share of global power. We humans are ambitious and we seek greater power every day whether it be consciously or not. We seek greater pay and promotions in our jobs, purchase material items and make friends in order to improve our social status and therefore societal power.

But f*ck all that! Let’s get to the points that I’m REALLY trying to make! There are always going to be winners and losers and there is nothing wrong with wanting to be on the winning side, and if you’re already winning; there’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep it that way.

I live in New Zealand and I know for a fact that we love to criticise the US and label them a global bully. We condemn their actions and foreign policies yet are among the first to stand there with our hands out trying to reap the rewards.

National security encompasses many things from energy sustainability to economic viability to border protection and global security. The US embarks on policies that shamelessly benefit them. And what’s more, many of these benefits spill over to other Western nations.

All nations, religions, ethnicities etc are struggling to dominate. Why should the West be ashamed to do the same?

It always amazes me to see those left-wing hippies who condemn ‘multinational corporations’ and unfair labour practices down at The Warehouse or the $2 Shop looking for bargains. Well people, you can’t have your cake and eat it too! You pay these third world workers more and pay a higher price for your goods and services or you exploit them and save your money. It’s a simple equation based on a simple fact.

Now, I do not hate other nations and I am not totally void of a conscience and moral responsibility but it does come down to a situation of winners and losers. Economic theory states that everyone wins from globalisation and in many ways this is true. However, as we can see some people win a hell of a lot more than others!

Now I can be labelled racist or xenophobic and it might be true. However, I am against the principle of hating someone based on their nationality, ethnicity or religion. But having said that I am in favour of keeping the current power balances. I do this because I am selfish and greedy and I’ll admit that, and I feel no shame in promoting a system that takes care of me and the ones I love.

For example, China is trying to alter the power balance in Asia through military as well as economic means. Their military expansion programme is a thinly veiled disguise for preparation for regional dominance and an invasion of Taiwan. They are trying to build up a strong enough military capability to dominate the region and deter US intervention.

Now imagine a world where China is the dominant superpower; economically, culturally and militarily. Imagine a world where the world is subjected to Sharia Law in a global Islamic caliphate. How well do you think Westerners will do in that system? How much assistance will be provided to the poor and the weak? What respect for civil liberties and human rights would exist then?

Well f*ck that! I’m not in favour of finding out!!!

The obvious conclusion is that the current system is better for the West. I’m all for keeping the power balanced in my favour and I thank the US for doing all the horrible dirty work and copping the flack on my behalf.

In closing I will present you with Robin William’s plan for US Policy:

I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan
for peace. So, here's one plan.

1.) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic and the rest of those 'good ole boys,' We will never "interfere" again.

2.) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one sneaking through holes in the fence.

3.) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are. France would welcome them.

4.) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation would be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5.) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby.

6.) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7.) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go some place else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8.) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9.) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island some place. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10.) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH.....learn it...or LEAVE...

Now, isn't that a winner of a plan.

Origin of 'The Finger'

2005-10-27T09:03:00.001+13:00

In 1415, Henry the V took his army of around 6,000 men across the English channel and into southern France. After cutting trees and preparing large pointed sticks, Henry marched his army northwest for 17 days and over 270 miles. With only one day's rest, the mighty force was haggard and exhausted by the time they reached the flat land between the forest of Agincourt.

The French army, consisting of 25,000 troops, 15,000 of which were mounted knights in armour, arrived on the evening of October 24. Their army was a mishmash of Frenchmen from all over the feudal country. It rained hard that night, and both armies were soaked to the bone my morning. Most French knights slept in the saddle so as not to sully their expensive and ornate armour.

On the morning of October 25, the French and British armies were salty and ready to fight. Henry moved his troops slowly up the 1/2 mile wide passage between the two forests of Agincourt. By 11 Am, the French commanders were still bickering over tactics and whether or not to charge, and the British were within 400 yards of the French.

Now what made the battle of Agincourt so interesting was the introduction of what could be considered the only good think to come out of Wales aside from sheep bestiality: the Welsh long bow. This weapon could dismount a rider at 300 yards, and with top notch arrows, could pierce armour at close range.

When Henry had his troops within bowshot of the French, he loosed the first of many volleys of arrows. The French, caught off guard, charged with half their forces. The Duke of Orlean barely made it 200 yards before his knights broke and ran under a hail of deadly wood and steel. Many of the knights sank into the mud and were mashed as the horses and frightened soldiers trampled them into a fine paste.

Those knights that did make it to the British front lines were leapt upon by unamoured soldiers carrying short swords, who plunged their blades into the joints of the French armour. All this came after a great number of horses were impaled upon the huge pointed sticks the British had placed in the ground in front of them.

At the end of the day, the French had lost some 10,000 men, and the British mourned only 500 dead. In one day, the Hundred Years War had turned and the long bow had successfully defeated the myth of the invincible knight in armour.

Shakespeare went on to glorify this battle, and the French, to vilify it. For the next 100 years, every lad over the age of 6 in Britain was required to be instructed in the firing and maintaining of the long bow.

In response to this, the French began cutting off the index and middle fingers of all British men caught in battle or on French land, thus removing the digits that allowed the firing of a bow. This is where the British tradition of waving two fingers at someone as an insult arose. Thusly, the very American middle fingered salute, or "the bird," is a descendant of this.

Hey, Camel Jockey!

2005-10-27T09:03:00.000+13:00

Why do people use racial slurs? Because they work.

In the toolbox of Language, racial slurs are an easy shorthand; group a set of people (easily picked out by visual cues) into a set of expected shortcomings, and move on. Time is saved, and you never apply these shortcomings to yourself, meaning you can feel better than the group that doesn't get it and never will get it.

In a world where most words have lost their edges ("murder" and "pregnant" come to mind as garnering little reaction when used in conversation) a racial slur can pack all the punch it used to carry.

On the other hand, who reacts when they hear the phrase "Paddy Wagon" (a reference to Irish as criminals, always being picked up by police) or "Indian Summer" (which references a summer turned cold, derived from "Indian Giver", a claim that American Indians would take back what they promised)?

If the goal is to quickly end a conversation and waste no more time on discussion, a good solid racial slur will bring things to a halt. In one word, you can show both an unwillingness to hear another view and a clear demarcation of where you think the others stand compared to you (far below). One does not name vermin; one calls them, simply, vermin. That tone continues to this day.

SARS

2005-10-27T08:39:00.000+13:00

It's an intriguing notion: hiding deep within uncharted rain forests, floating beneath the sea or drifting invisibly through the air, deadly microbes lie in wait - and if they combine correctly in such a way as to enter the human bloodstream, a merciless, devastating new plague upon humanity could be unleashed. In April of 2003, a rapidly mutating virus known as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) terrified top scientists, grew to the status of a red-alert international epidemic, but failed to generate much revenue at the American box office.

The disease was spread by close person-to-person contact. Those who touched objects which had been licked, coughed upon or else wise contaminated with spattery aerosol droplets were also infected. The most documented transmissions of SARS took place among health-care workers, a group of dedicated medical professionals equally susceptible to colds or the flu.

The symptoms could sneak up on a person, moving beyond the typical night time sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, wheezing and stuffy head - into fevers of over 100 degrees, vibrating body aches and chills, difficulty breathing, dry vomiting, muscle stiffness resembling paralysis, loss of appetite, rashes, blood coughing, diarrhoea and death.

It was the next AIDS, the next Bubonic Plague, the next Pestilence - and wouldn't you know it, the disease first gained notoriety in the land of the Chinese Yo-Yo. Beijing officials did everything they could to cover up SARS from prying eyes - pretending everything was okay while shuttling hundreds of persons (and their immediate relatives) in unmarked vans to sterile quarantine camps. When truth came to light, it was disclosed that nearly 10,000 were under quarantine, 4,000 people had been infected, and over 150 had died. Close behind was Hong Kong, with 2,000 reported infections and 150 deaths. Canada was placed a distant third, with 343 reported cases.

Attempts were made to link SARS to terrorism (a hot topic in the United States for a brief period of time during September of 2001), but the Centre for Disease Control seized upon the SARS genome instead. CDC scientists worked closely with experts at academic institutions throughout the United States. "This is an active, working community of scientific experts who have been contributing their knowledge and expertise throughout this investigation," said William Bellini, Ph.D., SARS laboratory team coordinator.

Visions of The Andromeda Strain, 12 Monkeys and Stephen King's The Stand danced in people's heads. Nearly identical viral findings in the U.S. and Canada suggested the SARS problem likely originated from a common source - and the race to see which country could quarantine, sequester, and imprison the most people officially begun. The war on drugs, the war against pornography, the war against Iraq - those things were controversial in nature, and hotly debated. But a "war" against a killer disease? Who's going to contest that?

South Korean authorities dragged huge thermal imaging machines to airports in the hopes of screening both human beings and luggage for the disease. If you looked sick or cranky, if you appeared to be "warmer" than those standing beside you, you were pulled out of line. Toronto, Canada did the same thing, examining the body temperatures of each and every arriving passenger at international airports with infrared instruments. Officials were forced to direct the closing of hospitals, restaurants, schools, and workplaces. Within a few days, more than a thousand healthcare workers volunteered for home quarantine.

The World Health Organization imposed travel warnings upon Toronto - the only country outside China and Southeast Asia where SARS had actually killed someone. Twenty-one deaths were reported in Toronto alone. The alert brought a storm of protest from Canada, and hundreds of millions of dollars haemorrhaged away from tourism, travel, and other businesses. The city shut down, but health warnings were removed less than a week later. WHO denied succumbing to political pressure.

"The government of Canada and the government of Ontario are going to continue to do the work that is necessary to ensure the safety and security of all of the world's citizens," gasped Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement.

President George W Bush's response to SARS was immediate, and equally informed: "We hope it will have a limited effect on the U.S. economy."

Disney was one of the first U.S. companies to claim a direct link between SARS and the worsening slump of its theme-park business.

Intel (one of the first U.S. firms to get smacked by SARS) laid the groundwork for how many U.S. corporations followed suit: they told employees to cancel business trips, postpone meetings and send workers home.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, ignored warnings against business travel, continuing ahead with plans to open more than 150 new stores in China.

Microsoft's policies on how to handle SARS were set in Asia, inspired by hopes that the disease was just a temporary phenomenon. "We're confident of Microsoft's ability to bounce back," said Alannah Goss, a Hong Kong spokeswoman.

Citizens of the United States who had long exhibited concerns about terrorism, or confusion about the war with Iraq, or an inability to find suitable employment, or an increasing reluctance to enter into conversations with European people of colour settled cheerfully into SARS-related anxiety disguised as not giving a shit. Americans who prided themselves on rugged individualism were soon overheard making bland SARS jokes in web logs or the public discourse at large. On college campuses across America, SARS was the new Anthrax.

dickhed > I HAVE SARS :(
toiletduk > HAHAHAHAHAAHAH

Interest in SARS infected America for about twenty-four hours, and then drooped faster than the twin towers. Even the animal world was falling apart. The San Diego Zoo could no longer in good conscience export Hua Mei, a giant panda bear - even though zookeepers weren't specifically aware of any genuine threat to the animal. The zoo had an agreement with China stating that any cubs born from the matings of loaned pandas must be returned to China after their third birthday. Hua Mei was born August 21, 1999 - the offspring of Bai Yun and Shi Shi, who has since returned to China. Shi Shi returned to Beijing, replaced by another wild-born panda, Gao Gao, who has since mated with Bai Yun. Other relatives include Bun Bun, Yum Fun, Lum Tum and Sum Yung Gai.

But after coming clean about the SARS epidemic, Chinese authorities cared less about pandas and more about tougher quarantine measures. Two thousand villagers in Beijing torched a school after rumours surfaced that it might be used to quarantine those suspected of having SARS. The building was ransacked and set on fire. The mob then proceeded to the local education office and smashed it to pieces. Then they visited the town hall and broke apart the entire building, breaking windows, removing doors and throwing them in a burning pile. Vehicles were overturned and set on fire. When anti-riot police arrived, the villagers ran.

The central People's Bank of China immediately put new cash into circulation, holding used currency for 24 hours in vaults before recycling them back into circulation. Dirty, unwashed bills were showered, sterilized, and subjected to ultraviolet radiation to kill the SARS virus. Customers were urged to use ATM machines so bank tellers wouldn't be infected. Paranoia about the relative "safety" of outdoor ATM machines expanded in scope, and transactions apart from those conducted on the telephone or the Internet screeched to a halt. This led to runs on banks, as financial managers considered hiring people to stand outside the bankruptcy registry coughing loudly to scare people away.

Beijing hospitals ran short of drugs and surgical guards. Disinfectants and gauze face masks worn by millions of Chinese became scarce and expensive in Beijing. Imported masks sold for up to $20 in convenience marts. Villagers in southern Taiwan strapped bras to their faces as an alternative. Workers in a brassiere factory began cutting colourful cups apart to produce makeshift masks. Doctors and nurses were described as weary and demoralized, living in makeshift quarters and equally isolated from their families. Those employed in the health care industry were shunned by neighbours. Rumours surfaced in South Africa that carrying around an Ace of Spades with Saddam Hussein' face on it would somehow keep the virus at bay. A man in the Philippines stabbed another man to death after accidentally being sneezed upon. A man in China hanged himself after mistakenly believing his wife had contracted the disease. Three babies born to SARS-infected mothers were found to have the disease, and each was placed in intensive care alongside a panda.

Elevator buttons, door handles, toilet seats - all the ways people typically pretend they got herpes were how people all over the world were contracting SARS. Chinese officials in Hong Kong hosed down filthy sidewalks outside disgusting eateries. Sticky, rubbery escalator handrails at shopping malls and food courts were sterilized with alcohol and antiseptic.

One elderly patient resting in a hospital bed asked the day nurse if his testicles were black. Exhausted and cranky, the nurse yanked forth his sheets and pointed with an outstretched finger, stating loudly that the man's testicles appeared just fine and that SARS was exclusively a respiratory disease. Embarrassed, the patient pulled the heavy cloth mask from his face and informed her that all he wanted to know was if his test results were back.

Superbugs

2005-10-27T08:36:00.000+13:00

A major issue in the media today is the development of the Avian (Asian) Bird Flu strain H5N1. Is this a hoax as in the case of the Millenium Bug; an overrated virus like SARS; or the next big plague? The following factual yet entertaining article was found at www.rotten.com:

You worry about what's going to kill us all. You worry about chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons... Will Osama bin Laden lead an army of crazy terrorists to kill us? Will North Korea spark an atomic cataclysm?

Forget all that. You want to know what's going to kill us all? Penicillin.

Because of the rampant misuse of antibiotics and antiviral medications, bacteria and viruses are evolving into superbugs.

The next time someone tries to tell you there's no such thing as evolution, tell them about drug-resistant staph. Survival of the fittest is alive and well in the world. And you're not the fittest, in case you were wondering.

Here's how it works. For decades, doctors routinely prescribed antibiotics like penicillin for just about any complaint, sometimes even without a real diagnosis. And why not? Germs are germs, and antibiotics kill germs.

When you kill germs with antibiotics, however, a few germs survive. The germs that survive are tougher than the germs that were killed. When you use antibiotics all the time, you create evolutionary pressure. The surviving germs reproduce and pass their genes for toughness on to the next generation.

The problem was worsened by well-meaning parents from the '50s through the '90s. June Cleaver gets a penicillin prescription for young Beaver's strep throat. The prescription lasts for a week. The Beave is feeling better by Day Four, so June stops giving him the pills and saves them for a rainy day.

On the bright side, June saves herself a trip to the doctor the next time Beaver gets a sore throat. If June had forced Beaver to keep taking the antibiotic for the whole seven days, it might have killed off the whole infection. But when you stop the antibiotic on Day Four, a pretty fair number of the more resilient germs survive, even when the symptoms have ended.

Forty years ago, there were no statistically identifiable strains of drug-resistant streptococcal infection (strep throat). From 1997 to 2002 alone, the number of reported incidents tripled.

Germs also evolve to evade antibiotics by reproducing faster and becoming more contagious, becoming more deadly in the process. By 2004, around 40% of life-threatening strep infections (i.e., pneumonia) were estimated to be resistant to at least two antibiotics.

And it's not just bacterial infections, either. Consider HIV, the AIDS virus. There is no drug that is proven to eliminate HIV. At best, HIV drug treatments simply reduce the amount of HIV in the blood. As a result, HIV is continually evolving into tougher and more deadly mutant strains. Even if you stop the drug treatment, the virus usually doesn't fully revert to the more innocuous form. And it's not just germs either. Pesticides have the same effect on insects. Hit your apartment with a roach bomb, and the two roaches that survive will breed tougher roaches. The same mechanic applies. Evolution forces the roaches to first become resistant to your first choice of pesticide, then become resistant to all forms of pesticide, then become tougher and meaner in every respect.

At the same time that the germs are getting tougher, we're getting weaker. Consider myopia. Although there are environmental factors that complicate the issue, the fact is that myopia was a severe impediment to survival 400 years ago. Today, it's increasing at epidemic levels around the industrialized world. Since the commoditization of eyeglasses, myopia no longer disqualifies you from living long enough to reproduce in an urban environment.

Although there's a vehement (and boring) argument about whether the primary cause of myopia is genetic or environmental, it's pretty easy to see that there would still be a lot less nearsightedness if 20/20 vision was required in order to survive and reproduce. There might also be a lot fewer people in general, but the ones who survived would have good vision.

Evolution cuts both ways. We've been treating diseases with antibiotics for six decades now, three or four generations. The body's natural immune systems are not as crucial to survival as they once were. Instead, we've relied on drug treatments to deal with disease. Our depleted immune systems are now open to further insult, such as the development of diseases that directly target immune response, HIV being the most notable example. Assuming the bugs give us a few more generations before wiping us out entirely, the drugs should stop working completely right about the time that the human immune system reaches its all-time low.

Admittedly, some bugs can and do evolve to protect themselves against the built-in human immune system. But our bodies employ a variety of tactics to get rid of infections, which helps lessen the short-term risk. Antibiotics have (until recently) been used prolifically, and they all work pretty much the same way, so the germs can adapt much more quickly.

Although we've been doing things wrong for considerably less than a century, there's a huge disparity in the evolutionary speed of humans vs. germs. Because humans are so complex and because a generation of humans takes 15-20 years to reach optimum reproduction age, it takes a lot longer for evolutionary progressions to take place on a systemic basis (devolution is faster because the genes for inferior traits like nearsightedness already exist in the population).

In contrast, germs measure their generations in minutes. Strep and staph, two of the most common bacteria, can produce multiple generations with a matter of hours. That means 20,000 or 50,000 generations of strep are produced for every one human generation. Bacteria also mutate much more easily than humans.

So what's the bright side? Well, some humans are smart enough to figure out that this problem exists. Hopefully, those humans are smart enough to figure out solutions as well. Right now, the best solutions are only slowing the problem. Tactics in the war on bugs include:

Avoiding the use of antibiotics for minor infections, and letting the body's immune system handle routine colds and sore throats.
Rotating the use of specific drugs or pesticides, instead of using the same ones all the time.
Designing new kinds of drugs and treatments, such as genetic therapies, so that we're not constantly subjecting germs to the same tactics.
Treating diseases with "drug cocktails" that simultaneously attack a micro-organism in more than one way.
Designing treatments that specifically target the reproduction of bacteria and viruses, which is key to the process of evolving a resistance.
So far, these tactics have not been strikingly effective. The problem is that resistance is already in the gene pool out there in the real world. It's great that we're slowing the development of new forms of resistant diseases, but Pandora's Box doesn't close so easily.

Additionally, some diseases are simply adapting to the above tactics. Because there isn't a treatment that can purge your body completely of HIV, the AIDS virus is particularly effective at evolving new and dangerous strains that are resistant to drug cocktails and rotating treatments. Recent reports also suggest that HIV may be evolving into a more deadly and faster-spreading form, but it's a little early to panic on that front yet.

Fortunately for us all, nature does have a way of correcting itself in these situations. Unfortunately, that way is known as an epidemic. When a disease evolves into a sufficiently deadly and contagious strain, it rips through a population, killing off the weak and ensuring that the strong survive and pass their genes to the next generation.

We haven't reached that stage. Yet. We might avoid it, if we're clever enough. At the moment, however, the smart money is probably on the bugs.

The 7 deadly Sins and ME!!!

2005-10-20T11:41:00.000+13:00

I have always considered myself to be a man of morals and honour. However, as I go over the seven deadly sins, I find that these motivate everything I do from waking up in the morning to hurting people at work. This post is about how the 7 Deadly Sins apply to me! Not you!! Only to MEEEE!!!!

Pride

They say that Pride is the excessive belief in one's own abilities. Pride is supposed to interfere with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

But what if God and I are one and the same? What if I am proud to be a living god? I am a god to myself if to no one else. I am my own god and my own devil. I create my destiny! And being a god, who is anyone to question my abilities?

But how are one’s abilities to be measured? If we set a level at which we are to perform then we are confining ourselves to mediocrity and will never fully realise our potential. I believe in setting the highest goals possible and striving to achieve them. Even if I fall short there will be a good chance that I will end up a hell of a lot better off than if I listened to what others said could be achieved. The fact of the matter is that we don’t know until we have attempted it. Is the willingness to attempt something grand a form of pride?

What is the measurement? We don’t have any units by which we can measure our pride and we are not told whether any test would be objective or subjective. If we assume a subjective test then we can never be ‘proud’. If we truly believe in our abilities then we would not judge them to be ‘excessive’ no matter how extreme. Conversely, if we were to adopt an objective test then it would be possible to draw a line where one’s belief in one’s self could be deemed ‘excessive’. But what about cases where people are told by the majority that what they are about to do cannot be done by anyone or by them in particular. If the individual in question believes they can do it then they will be deemed to have an excessive belief in their own abilities. But what if the person can do it? Does this make the person proud until they actually achieve it or does it totally negate the label? Either way, who gives a f*ck what someone else thinks! I’m proud of what I have achieved and believe that I am destined for great things that others may feel are unrealistic. I am proud to be proud! I am pride personified!

Envy

Apparently, Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation. I am ambitious and goal-oriented. The reason that I am this way is because I see what others have got and usually want it! I am happy to get my own thing leaving others with theirs but if resources are scarce then I want what they’ve got. Exactly what they’ve got! I envy everything. I envy dictators with absolute power and I even envy my colleague who has a bottle of orange and mango juice. I want that f*cking juice! I envy the best of everything. I envy others for their looks, their intelligence, their history, their clothes, their wealth… the list goes on and on and on. If I had everything I wanted I would not be me at all. I am proud to be envious and feel that I deserve the best of everything! I am envy personified!

Gluttony

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires. I am gluttonous! I pile my plate high and eat everything I possibly can whether I am hungry or not. I will buy more of anything just in case I need it. I am not environmentally friendly! The planet is being r*ped just to satisfy my appetite. I want the best of everything and I want all of it too. I want it so others can’t have it. I’m not thirsty but I’m going to have a drink because I can! I am gluttony personified!

Lust

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body. I am heterosexual. I like girls. I am fussy about my girls but if I have one I like then I want to commit every sordid act under the sun with them and to them. I want to f*ck until we are both in agony and then f*ck some more. Every girl I look at I analyse what characteristics can be salvaged and make them attractive to me. I constantly ask myself “Would I sleep with her”? I constantly ask myself “How can I sleep with her”? If I am successful I want her friends to be able to please me, her sisters to please me and if her mum is still remotely attractive then I want her as well. I am lust personified!

Anger

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath. I don’t spurn physical ‘love’ but emotional love is for p*ssies and girls! Making love is what a girl does while you are f*cking her! Maybe not. If I see something I don’t like then I get angry. It’s simple! I have broad boundaries for my anger. I can get angry over something minor or I can get furious over something major. I am always at least partially angry. I am angry at the world and I am angry at myself. I want to be angry! If I wasn’t angry then I’d be angry at not being angry!!! Anger motivates me. Anger is one of my tools. I use it in conjunction with the other Deadly Sins to achieve what I want. Anger makes me happy. You make me angry. So in a f*cked up kind of way, you make me happy. I don’t like the fact that you make me happy because I don’t even f*cking know you! I am anger personified!

Greed

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness. I love material wealth and gain. I can use it to influence or buy all the love I want. What do I care if it’s not real? For the right price you can convince me! I don’t care what you really think as long as I’m getting what I want. I want the best of everything and I want to be the only person with it! I want it all so I can be proud of what I have. I want it all so I can get the hottest women in the world to please me. I want it all because other people have it and I feel I deserve it. If I don’t get it all then I am angry that someone else has got it at my expense! Spirituality is for p*ssies. It’s a made up thing like a conscience. A figment of your imagination. A constraint. A limitation. I don’t want to be limited by spirituality, it will stop me from getting everything that I want! I am greed personified!

Sloth

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work. I have no time for spiritual work. I am too busy trying to avoid the physical stuff! I am at work now. Am I working? No! The only reason that I am writing this is because my anger is fuelling me! But I think I’ve written enough and seeing how no one else is going to write this for me I’m just going to finish by saying that I am sloth pers…

The Best defence is?

2005-10-19T14:32:00.000+13:00

Well it’s certainly not the New Zealand Defence Force!

Joining the military or the euphemism ‘defence force’ was an option that fluttered in and out of my mind throughout my life. I believe there is a certain honour and pride that comes from serving your country in this manner that is unachievable in any other way. If we had a better defence force then I could very well have joined.

While in many ways I look down upon the men and women that serve our country I can’t help but feel a great amount of respect for them. After all, these are people that put themselves in a potentially volatile situation in the knowledge that they are vastly ill-equipped.

We have an air force with no force. We have a navy with little more than grey-painted fishing vessels and an army that still relies on technology that was used in the Vietnam war.

The government’s decision to scrap its air combat wing appears inconsistent with the defence of our island nation and if we were to be attacked would have to rely on repelling the enemy on our own soil; a tactic that flies in the face of modern military strategy. When it comes to peace keeping operations, this is the type of military support that we should be offering as a developed nation. This is because we have the financial ability to be able to do so and because it comes at a lesser cost to personnel safety. We can let the soldiers from developing nations fight on the ground!

Our navy has also made substantial blunders in the acquisition of its assets. We have commissioned the production of several ANZAC Class Frigates as opposed to the purchasing of more tried and true vessels. This has proven to be a mistake. Two of these frigates have been in service for a few years now and while relatively new, are already exhibiting serious structural deficiencies thereby falling short of their titles Te Mana and Te Kaha translating into The Proud and The Strong. The armament on these vessels makes them suitable for taking on commercial fishing trawlers poaching our waters and little else.

Moreover, the acquisition of the Naval Supply Vessel formerly known as the ‘Sir Charles Upham’ after one of our famous war heroes does him no service. This vessel was rarely used in its time with the Royal New Zealand Navy and it proved unstable on the high seas if not fully laden. It is now transporting oranges throughout the Mediterranean.

The purchase of F-16 strike aircraft to replace our aging Skyhawks was scrapped by the government despite expert advice and spelled the end of our air combat capabilities. Instead the government opted to purchase new Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) for our army. While this was noble in its intent, this purchase was at odds with the majority of the international and domestic defence community. Our old vehicles were upgradeable at a fraction of the cost and would have made the vehicles effective for many years to come. There were counter arguments that there would be a high cost in maintenance required but these have been superseded by the costs of making the new LAVs operational. Our new LAVs are known as ‘Strikers’ in the United States and a Senator reviewing their performance in operation went on the record to state that he would not want his son in one of those things. As it turns out, the LAVs should be called VLAVS, as in very light armoured vehicles whose armour is penetrable by small arms fire!

In response the New Zealand Government in its infinite wisdom decided to modify the vehicles with additional armour. There were even enquiries as to the removal of the mounted gun but this was decided against due to the high cost that would then be imposed. Just as well as this would have essentially turned them into a four-wheel-drive buses! However, even the mobility of the vehicle is under question. The wheel system (as opposed to tracks) is estimated to make it inefficient in most types of terrain that our armed forces are deployed. This problem is further compounded when the extra weight of the armour is taken into account.

But the issue of LAV weight does not end there. With all the added modifications to the light armoured vehicles, they are actually quite heavy and technically they no longer fit in the light armour category while at the same time do not meet the criteria of being heavy armoured vehicles either. But why is this a problem? It is a problem because we wanted the LAVs for their mobility and rapid deployment capabilities. As already highlighted, the vehicles are not suitable for many types of terrain in which we operate, but that’s ok because we probably couldn’t get them there anyway! You see, the modified LAVs need to be partially dismantled before they will fit onboard a C-130 Hercules (the type of aircraft we would use for rapid deployment) and this task alone would more than likely be a matter of weeks as opposed to days. What’s more, a Hercules is unable to carry the LAV very far. It has been estimated that it could only manage a flight half way between New Zealand and Sydney which makes any advantages of rapid deployment superfluous unless we are planning on sending them to fight at the bottom of the sea. But doesn’t a Navy fight at sea?

Ah yes! The Navy! We could transport the LAVs by navy! They wouldn’t be deployed rapidly but as the old saying goes “better late than never”! But hang on a second! We got rid of the only vessel our navy had to transport the LAVs, namely, the Sir Charles Upham!

It has now come to light that our defence force is seriously understaffed and does not meet operational requirements. In fact, it does not even operate at the minimal defence capability requirements that our government have set for it! As it turns out we only have about two thirds of the staff needed to operate at a minimal defence capability rendering our force’s status to sub-minimal.

According to the 2005 World Almanac, New Zealand ranks 126 out of 161 and that includes our territorials or reserves. We sit below Namibia and only slightly higher than Mongolia. Our defence spending when adjusted for inflation has basically halved since 1990 and is approaching half a percent of our GDP, well below the absolute minimum of two percent recommended by World Bank standards! It will also help to have enough army personnel who are trained to operate the LAVs, something we’ve been having trouble with for the past couple of years now.

The fact of the matter is, New Zealand’s defence force can not seriously call itself that. It is little more than a sea, air and land based search and rescue service. That isn’t a bad thing but it is only a small part of what a defence force is designed to do and with our aging and problematic Orions, we are having trouble even doing that!

But why do we need a defence force? What do we have to defend ourselves from?

The world is full of bad people. Just because we live in a relatively peaceful country it does not mean that we should be oblivious to the nature of real world politics. There will never be peace. There will never be global equality and military force is merely an extension of political diplomacy. Those of us that are naïve will go so far as to say that an armed force is not needed. Those that are naïve will say that an armed force is not needed by New Zealand.

Despite popular opinion, we need not look far to see violent conflict. The South Pacific is rife with armed Conflict. Recent examples include the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and even the political instability that exists in Fiji and the rampant corruption existent in Niue.

Indonesia poses a threat to Australasia (and that includes New Zealand) with North Korea also being a somewhat distant possibility.

Furthermore, we need to take into account the changing nature of armed conflict. Since the end of the Cold War we have seen a movement away from conventional warfare. The increase in guerrilla warfare and use of terrorist tactics have become apparent to all those but the biggest sceptics. As such, we need to ensure that we are able to defend our nation from all types of conflict whether they be conventional or of some contemporary form.

We also have an obligation to maintain international peace through several instruments of international law. By reducing the effectiveness of our troops we either put them at risk or ignore our international responsibilities. Peace overseas means peace here, a concept that many fail to understand. To only send medical and engineering assistance is a total cop-out of our obligations. Why should the troops of other nations put their lives at risk for the prospect of peace and stability while ours sit behind the front line largely safe from harms way. Why are our troops withdrawn from conflict areas if they are at risk. Isn’t that why they are military personnel? Is that not why they have been sent as opposed to civilian doctors and mechanics? Is that not the nature of their job? As far as I am concerned do not sign up for an easy ride. You take the good with the bad. The peace with the conflict. You take the guts with the glory or you have no business wearing the uniform!!!

We have attracted much international scrutiny from the international community as well as our own allies. We are defence freeloaders. We know that our land has strategic value to Australia and they could not possibly afford for us to fall into ‘enemy’ hands. As a result they would be forced to bail us out and if our alliances were not strong enough to enable support then Australia’s will. But we must take a more proactive approach and assume responsibility for our own defence. We need not have the same level of forces as overseas but we should have a force that is proportionate to our size.

New Zealand has one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world. It is about the size of Europe with a coastline bigger than that of the continental United States. We are a nation rich in natural resources ranging from unique wildlife and agriculture on our land to bountiful sea-life and minerals in our oceans. Despite popular opinion, we have a lot to protect.

If our government was responsible it would address the core issues of defence, health, education, law enforcement etc instead of feel good policies and spending millions on areas like the arts. But then again, what do I know?

Micevic vs. Hookes

2005-10-14T14:50:00.000+13:00

I have decided to add this post about the David Hookes incident referred to by the ill-informed, judgemental b*tch in my previous post. This only goes to prove the point that her writings and obviously her thoughts are one-sided judgemental and stereotypical. I believe the following article is valid and of interest:

Everybody in white Australia probably knows that David Hookes, former Australian test cricketer and media sports commentator, died as a result of an incident with a bouncer, Zdravco Micevic, on 18 January 2004. Of course it’s a shame when somebody dies, but I think it’s time for the Australian media to reflect on the way it has covered this incident.

I love cricket and have always followed it. I remember watching David Hookes scoring successive boundaries in the 1980s. He was, perhaps a rather undisciplined player both on and off the field, but it was certainly good fun to watch. There were always rumours about Hookes’ off-field antics, but like Shane Warne, Australians are very forgiving of the off-field antics of its sporting talent. It takes the sort of transgression of Wayne Carey (having an affair with a team-mate’s wife) before the media really gets dubious. We are happy to describe Hookes as a larrikin, rather than as irresponsible and arrogant, and prone to drunken misdeeds.

Our ability to forgive our sporting heroes seems even more intense when they end up working for the media. Hookes’ status as a “loveable larrikin” seems almost reified since his death. The media interpretation of the incident was that the loveable larrikin and his cricketing friends had been on a boisterous but harmless night out, when they were brutally bashed by the local bouncer, Zdravco Micevic.

However, the jury has acquitted Zdravco Micevic of manslaughter. This has been widely inferred by the Australian media as a huge miscarriage of justice. On the day of the acquittal, one media outlet went so far as to compare Micevic’s acquittal with that of O J Simpson. If Simpson was guilty, he murdered his wife and children in cold blood, eluded police, then paid an exorbitant amount of money to the best lawyers in the USA to acquit him. On none of these counts can an analogy with Micevic be sustained.

The cricketing world has more or less closed ranks behind the story of Micevic being the aggressor, and using too much force on the defenceless Hookes. However, one member of the cricketing community who was present that night, Wayne Phillips, also a senior and respected ex-player, had a different story to tell, and one that materially assisted the defence. It is interesting how the media has given Phillips’ evidence scant attention.

Indeed, throughout the media coverage, the bias has been so intense that extremely little attention has been paid to the ways in which Micevic and his family have become victims. Their house was set on fire. They get abused. Micevic has left his job. It is fair to say that an implicit racism has pitted hero against villain–regardless of the fact that the pathologist found that Micevic had not applied more than medium force to Hookes’ chin, and that Micevic therefore made a reasonable assumption that it would not damage Hookes very badly.

We can expect many more overt acts of media bias surrounding this incident in months to come. Hookes’ wife is going to sue Micevic and his employers for damages.

You are a b*tch!

2005-10-14T14:22:00.000+13:00

The following is the writing of an immature women who in my opinion is no better than the bouncer that she came across. She displays many of the characteristics that she condemns. I can see from her writing that she stereotypes and probably displays it even more obviously in person. She has already judged the majority of bouncers as thugs and meatheads using popular sterotypes and generalising her negative experience(s).

She displays characteristics relating to vanity and pride where she looks down at people who have to or choose to stand on a door for a living. This displays her ignorance at the fact that the person on the door could very well be earning more than she does on an hourly basis.

I don’t want to take sides or justify the actions of either party to the conflict, but I am certain from her writing style that she was not free from blame. I am satisfied that her demeanour and the tone of her voice would have been condescending. She admits that she was challenging and believes that she bounced the bouncer. I on the other hand don’t believe he suffered too much as every night is filled with abuse from b*tches and d*ckheads who are able to come up with much more hurtful things than that.

She wasn’t wanted and took great insult at that. Whose pride was hurt? Who had to walk away? Who got the scenario they were aiming for?

By her account I do not believe the bouncer handled the situation very well, but there are two sides to every story. The only opinion that I really agree with is: this lady is more than likely a b*tch!

Of all the stereotypes of all the professions, only one can be counted on to hold true as often, and universally, as that of bouncers.

Living up to their reputation collectively as a bunch of boorish bloodthirsty brutes who, under the guise of “maintaining order”, covet nothing more in an evening than a good punch up, most bouncers function as the clear catalyst in escalating disputes, as opposed to the pacifist.

Take for example, my recent encounter with the beefed-up boys in black at The Palace, a popular beach bar establishment at Coogee Beach, one Saturday night just a few weeks ago.

Located mere meters from the beach front, The Palace is renowned for its lively yet laidback atmosphere, wide rooftop patios overlooking the beach, and the perpetual supply of backpackers circulating through its doors daily.

Open all day, and continuing into the early hours of the morning, The Palace exudes the same easygoing attitude that is characteristic of the area, and markets itself specifically to this type of clientele.

But make no mistake - Cinderella isn’t the only one who transforms at the stroke of midnight. Fronted by a mob of snarling, smirking, testosterone-fueled meatheads on the door, The Palace by night becomes about as friendly and relaxed as a night out with the Bulldogs. Between suspicious glares and unintelligible grunts at patrons to produce ID, the bouncers greet customers at the door with open hostility, bordering on outright aggression. Honestly, U.S Customs officials- post 911, have nothing on these guys.

Flexing their over-inflated muscles to bolster their even more over-inflated egos, the bouncers busy themselves in the crowd trying to elicit even a remotely confrontational remark from someone - just begging for an excuse to exercise their sheer bulk.

Should such an excuse arise, the offender/ customer is dealt with swiftly, met with approving looks from other nearby bouncers for every implied threat and diminutive comment uttered. (ie, “We got your back, man”).

Regardless of age, sex, or ethnicity, it has to be said, they are commendably indiscriminate with these tactics of intimidation, lavishing an equal amount of malice and condescension on everyone who crosses their path. And, unlike many scenarios where even a tinge of feminine appeal opens most doors, my own charms were found less than beguiling.

It all started out quite harmlessly. We arrived around 6pm on a typical Saturday night out with some friends - all regular patrons of The Beefcake Den, aka The Palace, and made our way up to the roof top patio for some drinks. A few hours later, (in true backpacker fashion) my partner and I found our finances dwindling and a visit to the ATM was required.

Squeezing through the crowded stairwells and down the escalator, we emerged victorious from the teller machine, and then attempted to proceed back up the same escalator to regroup with our friends.

Standing at the base of the escalator, with one great meaty arm held up like a highway tollbooth barrier, the bouncer scrutinised us with a mixture of suspicion and disdain. As if we were late for the Opera with no black tie.

Glancing at his own upheld arm with authority (should we dare challenge it), he stood immobile, chest puffed out, with an obtuse expression on his face that refused to acknowledge our existence. He was taking his time. Relishing his glorious moment of real power over us lowly patrons deciding whether or not we would be afforded the luxury of actually getting upstairs in the beach bar (ooooh, the prestige!!!). I could barely contain my excitement.

With a sweeping look of disdain at my boyfriend’s feet, it finally spoke.

"Not tonight ladies and gentlemen." (Fist responsively tightening at the end of its arm/ barrier, pre-empting any resistance).

"Sorry?" I questioned, forcing polite inquisition to dominate the tone of my voice, and not the incense that lay behind it. Everything about this bouncer suggested he was the archetypal ego-driven power-hungry wanker from which all bouncers are stereotyped, and for which I have even less patience than I do respect.

Leveling its eyes towards me, lips curled slightly in an oh-so becoming sneer, it stated again with exaggerated authority, "Not tonight ladies and gentlemen," and began surveying those behind us to cement the message.

Standing within spit-range of an individual endowed with both the size and intelligence of a brick wall, it became evident after this preliminary verbal exchange that conflict resolution was a concept it neither understood nor practiced.

Weighing my desire to reunite with our friends against the overwhelming urge to tell the meathead to stuff it, I opted to reason with him.

"I don't think you understand, we've just come from upstairs, we only came down to use the ATM, and now are on our way back upstairs to meet our friends, what seems to be the problem?"

Shaking its head patronisingly, as if refusing a child his dessert, it answered in what I'm sure it imagined was a threateningly monosyllabic tone, "Don't fit the dress code".

Incredulous, my partner and I laughed, taking in each others 'trendy casual' appearance compared to the accepted attire of beach shorts and t-shirts, and pressed further for explanation.

"No thongs" it answered with increasing agitation.
Assuming he meant the footwear and not the undergarments, my temper now flared. Everybody and I do mean close to 80% of the people in there were wearing thong sandals- it was a beach bar for Christ's sake!

Raising this issue, along with my voice, the bouncer was starting to get very annoyed with me now. This wasn't part of the plan. It barked orders, and we being the meek patrons either spinelessly acquiesced, or swallowed our pride and pathetically wheedled at them to reconsider. Direct challenges were not acceptable, particularly when they could not be dealt with using a swift punch in the face. (Though visibly, it could barely restrain itself).

My partner, refusing to argue any further with someone so pitifully desperate for authority, embarked on a compromise, suggesting I be allowed up to meet our friends and retrieve a house key, so he could go back and change his shoes.

But its ego had already been too badly damaged in the exchange to allow for this. Resorting to spite, and not even bothering to cover it with any semblance of professionalism, it answered:
"No, because your girlfriend is a bitch."

Glaring at me, it was forced to acknowledge its own defeat of power. I was the one who had undermined it now, forced to employ totally unjustifiable measures to retain its control. Caught in an internal dilemma, its frustration was palpable. Being the opposition against its authority, if I were male I would have been unconscious by then, but being female, it was in the uncomfortable position of engaging in a confrontation without being able to threaten me physically.

Shocked and almost amused by this unprecedented verbal assault I retaliated as my boyfriend now pulled me away in disgust, "I may be a bitch, but I'm not the one standing at the bottom of an escalator for a profession!" To which he called back with even more venom, "Bitch!"

And so it ended. In vain my boyfriend angrily informed 'management' of the altercation, but even in light of the derogatory expletives used by its staff, they apologetically explained; "Sorry, we have to stand by our staff - but please do come back another night." Yeah right!!!

Irate and indignant at being called into question in front of its superiors, the 'escalator bouncer' now lingered out the front of the establishment, watching us like a wounded and caged animal just waiting to lash out. Inciting support from nearby bouncers (only too eager to get into the action), in typical and almost laughable bouncer form it even threatened to show my partner "how it feels to have my fist in your face" when he continued prodding it to apologise to me.

This threat was not only heard, but ignored, by management less than 3 feet away.

Not surprisingly either, as generally speaking, this is the only tolerance you will experience in a contentious situation in clubs or bars today. From management towards the physical and verbal assault its ‘security staff’ (or more aptly named 'insecurity staff') inflict onto its ‘valued’ clientele.

So why is this tolerated? By patrons, by management, by the 0.05% of bouncers who don’t adhere to the near universal bully mentality? And at what point do you draw the line? It’s too late to ask David Hookes that question.

At minimum, enabling bouncers to treat paying customers according to their own egotistical whims can only reflect badly on the establishment that employs them, jeopardising both their business and reputation. Granted I didn't walk away from the experience physically battered, but to say that it put a damper on what should have been an enjoyable night out is a mild understatement.

The bottom line is, of all the establishments in the area, we chose to frequent The Palace, and it brings only a small measure of satisfaction to know that, as a result of the unapologetic abuse I experienced that night, our group of friends at least, will no longer do so. And hopefully, as a result of this article, maybe a few other potential customers will be influenced to abstain as well.

A tribute to Ronnie Barker

2005-10-13T16:08:00.000+13:00

This is the story of Rindercella and her sugly isters.

Rindercella and her sugly isters lived in a marge lansion. Rindercella worked very hard frubbing sloors, emptying poss pits, and shivelling shot. At the end of the day, she was knucking fackered.

The sugly isters were right bugly astards. One was called Mary Hinge, and the other was called Betty Swallocks; they were really forrible huckers; they had fetty sweet and fetty swannies. The sugly isters had tickets to go to the ball, but the cotton runts would not let Rindercella go.

Suddenly there was a bucking fang, and her gairy fodmother appeared. Her name was Shairy Hithole and she was a light rucking fesbian. She turned a pumpkin and six mite wice into a hucking cuge farriage with six dandy ronkeys who had buge hollocks and dig bicks

The gairy fodmother told Rindercella to be back by dimnlight otherwise, there would be a cucking falamity.

At the ball, Rindercella was dancing with the prandsome hince when suddenly the clock struck twelve. "Mist all chucking frighty!!!" said Rindercella, and she ran out tripping barse over ollocks, so dropping her slass glipper.

The very next day the prandsome hince knocked on Rindercella's door and the sugly isters let him in. Suddenly, Betty Swallocks lifted her leg and let off a fig bart. "Who's fust jarted??" asked the prandsome hince. "Blame that fugly ucker over there!!" said Mary Hinge. When the stinking brown cloud had lifted, he tried the slass glipper on both the sugly isters without success and their feet stucking funk.

Betty Swallocks was ducking fisgusted and gave the prandsome hince a knack in the kickers. This was not difficult as he had bucking fuge halls and a hig bard on.

He tried the slass glipper on Rindercella and it fitted pucking ferfectly.

Rindercella and the prandsome hince were married. The pransome hince lived his life in lucking fuxury, and Rindercella lived hers with a follen swanny.

It's OK, he's with me!

2005-10-13T11:52:00.000+13:00

There are many things about people that annoy me in bars. While at work last night I came across a few that I thought might be worth a mention in today’s blog. If you want to irritate a bouncer then try some of the following. If you want to risk your health and/or the possibility of ever entering that bar again, then here’s a guide on how to do it:

Name Dropping

If you are about to enter a bar and are faced with a long queue then do not approach the security and drop the name of a staff member or regular in the hopes of getting in. If you are a VERY close friend of that staff member then by all means; give it a shot. If you have only met that person once or twice, or worse yet, if you know someone who knows someone else then just “shut up and line up”. W*nkers that name drop take staff away from their jobs. They attempt to bypass the fair process of lining up. They are deluded with their own self importance. They think they have a magic card that can override the bouncer. If you employ this tactic then be very aware that the staff member will usually tell security that you are a pr*ck, and will often suggest that you get hurt. Many bouncers will be more than happy to oblige. Others will tell you to get in line and when you get to the front, you will be refused entry. Either way, you won’t be coming in that night and if you are a real c*nt, then you won’t be coming in again!

Identification

The law says that you must be 18 years of age to enter licensed premises. The law says that you must provide identification to prove that you are of legal age to enter licensed premises. The law says that there are 4 valid forms of ID in New Zealand: New Zealand Passport; Overseas Passport; New Zealand Driver’s Licence; and Hospitality Association of New Zealand (HANZ) 18+ cards. The LAW says!!! We cannot override the law. If we do so we are committing an offence. Having minors on the premises can result in an individual fine of $2,000 and a fine for the bar of $10,000. If caught, the person that let you in will lose their job. The bar will be prohibited from trading and lose thousands of dollars per day. Overseas drivers licences are not valid, student IDs are not valid and non-photo ID is not valid!!! We don’t care what your story is, we don’t care if you weren’t aware of the rules, we don’t care if some other place let you in and we certainly don’t care if you have lost or forgotten it. That is YOUR problem, don’t make it ours. You may act like a good, friendly person and I may like you. But I don’t like you more than $2,000 and my job! If YOU fail to meet the legal criteria then YOU deal with the consequences. YOU have a bad night, don’t pass it on to us! Oh yeah, using someone else’s ID or altering the date on yours is forgery punishable by criminal law. The worst one you can alter is a passport as that has the most serious consequences. If you do get caught you may face a criminal conviction and whatever ID you produce later on will not be trusted. Wait until you are legal or you might find you are blacklisted from many bars until your mid twenties! Oh yeah and be careful, we don’t take too kindly to you trying to trick us into getting fined and losing our jobs. There are consequences for us and they will be passed on to you… with interest!

It’s OK, They’re With Me

If one of your friends is about to be removed please (for your own sake) don’t get involved. Stand back because if you step into a confrontational situation that changes the dynamics. If we are surrounded by ‘opponents’ we will call for backup and/or incapacitate all that we feel threatened by. Don’t touch us especially if the removal becomes physical. I guarantee you will not know what hit you! If someone is being removed the decision has already been made and it is going ahead. Please don’t feel the need to say “It’s ok, he’s with me”! “Oh, he’s with YOU is he”? Well please tell me, who the f*ck are YOU? Are you the ‘make everything alright fairy’? What makes you so important that you can override our call, the bar’s policy, statutory law??? “Oh he’s with you is he? Well you can f*ck off too then”!!!

Arguing About Intoxication

If you’ve been consuming alcohol all night and you are asked to leave because of intoxication then be civil and leave. It is an offence to have intoxicated persons on the premises punishable by a $2,000 fine for the Manager and a $10,000 fine for the bar. Do not argue about whether you are still sober or not. If you are swaying, slurring, stumbling, slouched, falling asleep, argumentative, aggressive or displaying one of many signs of intoxication you will be asked to leave. We spot drunks for a living! We are sober judges!! Our call is final and non-negotiable!!! Any attempts to argue with us only furthers the case that you are intoxicated. Just be civil and leave and maybe when you sober up a bit you will be remembered for being a decent person and be allowed back in. The next time you have had a bit to drink you will be dealt with more leniently as we will have established that you are not a troublemaker and instead of being asked to leave will be cautioned and offered food and/or water and the opportunity to sober up.

Getting Aggressive If You Don’t Get Your Way

Many people get aggressive if they don’t get their way. This is called burning bridges. I was going to recommend that you didn’t do it, but I’ve changed my mind. If you get aggressive, that doesn’t solve anything. Don’t mouth off, I don’t want to hear it. Being aggressive certainly isn’t going to change our minds. It’s not very persuasive. And if you’re going for the intimidation factor then you’re trying it on the wrong people. Don’t just stand there and tell me what you going to do about it; just shut the f*ck up and do it!!! I’m not your babysitter, I’m not there to listen to your sh*t! I don’t want to hear how much you can hurt me, I want you to give it your best f*cking shot!!!

I’ve Got A Black Belt

Yeah Right! This city must have the highest number of black belts per capita in the world! Be careful of what you say. If you tell me you’ve got a black belt, then I’m going to fight you as though you know what you’re doing. And if you don’t, then you’re going to be pretty damn sore! Oh yeah and from experience, and a lot of real black belts don’t amount to jack sh*t on the street!

Law Students

Just because you have made it through your first semester of law, doesn’t make you a lawyer. Don’t tell us the law. Just because you have passed laws101 (or one of the new first year papers) it doesn’t qualify you for sh*t! Don’t attempt to pass off your ‘expert’ knowledge on the intricacies of the Sale of Liquor Act because a) You haven’t covered it (at least not academically); b) you only have an understanding of some legal principles which are often viewed out of context until you have achieved higher learning; c) I have done specific courses on it d) I have been bouncing for more than 8 years; d) Trying to pass yourself off as a lawyer can get you into serious trouble; and d) I have a Masters in Law pending (bouncing has taken me through university)! You may be a law student and have grasped some basic principles but take some psych lessons then you’ll be able to see that pissing off other people with your artificial intellect isn’t the healthiest choice as many bouncers don’t live by the same fear of the legal system as the rest of us!

Just 2 Seconds

“Can I go in? I’ll be just two seconds”! “I just need to pop in quickly to see a mate”! How about “No”! Let’s get some points for originality instead. If you need to go in then get in line. If you have been asked to leave or have been removed then don’t even bother! If I give you the benefit of the doubt and let you in briefly, then make it brief! Don’t change your mind. I will make an example of you!

I’ll Pay The Fine

Ok, but pay it in advance! Give me $2,000 to cover the personal fine, $10,000 to cover the bar fine, a year’s wages (as it will cost me my job), about $10,000 to cover the forced closure of the bar for a few days plus a $5,000 as compensation for making me look like an idiot and then another $5,000 as an incentive to go through the whole damn hassle. And if you agree to these terms and conditions then you must be drunk so either way just f*ck off!

Pouring Yourself A Drink

This is theft. We prosecute in some cases. In other cases ‘alternative’ solutions present themselves. Beer taps should only be operated by the bar staff who know how to use them properly. There have been cases of people who have been caught pouring themselves their own beer and in one case a guy got his arm broken and in another, a guy got his thumb dislocated. Beer taps at the bars I work at can be very dangerous things to play with!!!

Refusing To Leave

Be civil. A popular phrase springs to mind; we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You will be out! Your being removed from the premises is a constant. The only variables are how you leave and how much it’s gonna hurt!

Unwelcome Visitors

If you have been removed from a bar or asked to leave then go away! Go somewhere where people actually do want you!! Don’t hang around and mouth off. You will offend the bouncers. You will offend the bouncer’s friends. You will offend the regulars. You will offend the big young guys in the crowd who are trying to make a name for themselves and want to befriend the bouncers. We may not step out and kick seven shades of sh*t out of you, but then again we may be tempted not to intervene when someone else decides to do it instead.

Closed Means Closed

If you are in a bar and the music stops, the lights come on and the bar stops serving drinks then the bar is closed. Do not attempt to persuade the bar staff to sell you another drink. It is illegal. If they do, the tired security staff who want to go home will make you leave not only the bar but your full drink. You will not get a refund! Don’t cry to us, cry to someone else! Try the bar manager, the bar owner, the police! No one will give a sh*t! If security tell you that the bar is closed and to get out, then that means knock back what you can do so safely and get the f*ck out! Get out NOW!!! Not in ten minutes time, not in twenty, and sure as hell not when you can get off your sad drunken arse! The only people that stay behind after closing are staff. If you are waiting for staff then wait outside. There is usually an exit that they will have to leave by, find out where it is and wait OUT there! Staying after hours is by invitation by an authorised person only. A bar-back or glassie is not an authorised person and neither is a bartender. Management have the exclusive authority to invite. If a manager has not invited you or given a staff member permission for you to stay behind then get the f*ck out. You can try my patience and see how good your friendship will be after that. Let your friend do their job and get out of the f*cking way! They don’t come in and sit in your office or retail store waiting for you to finish, and besides staying in the bar past licensed hours is illegal! Furthermore, If you come to the bar and the bouncers at the door tell you that we are closed then you are NOT coming in under any circumstances! You can try to get past us if you like! Or you can take your sad life somewhere else, I recommend to home to bed) but feel free to take a long walk off a short pier… I really don’t care!!!

These are the things that I noted last night. Things that you might want to try or things that you might want to avoid. Either way, play safely or give us some fun.

The Most Expensive Studio Apartment in the World Rented Indefinately For Free!

2005-10-12T10:39:00.000+13:00

This post will look at infamous al Qaeda terrorist and mastermind Ramzi Yousef responsible for the planning of many terrorist operations including both the 1993 as well as the 2001 World Trade Centre attacks. Much of this biography has been taken from a profile on www.rotten.com.

Ramzi Yousef's most recent distinction is his status as the resident of the most expensive studio apartment in the history of the world. His 7 by 12 foot luxury suite comes complete with convenient toilet in the living room, 13-inch black and white TV and the handy chute through prison guards slide his delicious meals.
It cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build the Colorado Supermax prison, and somewhere significantly upwards of $20 million to keep it secure each year, and that doesn't even include free HBO.

However, it's hard to imagine you could ever spend "too much" to keep Ramzi Yousef locked up. The only thing more impressive than the terrorist attacks he accomplished are the ones he didn't have time to finish before he was caught.

And there's no doubt in anyone's mind that if he ever got out of prison, he would pick up right where he left off. He's just that kind of guy.

Yousef's nationality is a matter of some dispute, but it's believed he was a native of the Baluchistan area of Pakistan, a wild lawless border region with deep and broad ties to terrorism and al Qaeda. Yousef's uncle and partner-in-crime, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, is also believed to hail from Baluchistan.

Yousef (whose birth name is probably Abdul Basit Karim) appears to have been raised in Kuwait, where the man thought to be his father was a worker. Immigrant workers in Kuwait at the time were roughly equivalent in social status to black slaves in the deep South of the United States prior to the civil war; Yousef's biographers speculate that this upbringing might explain a lot.

As a young man, Yousef attended college in the U.K., where he studied electrical engineering, a skill he would put to productive use. During the late 1980s, he began spending his spring breaks in Pakistan, where the girls don't go wild, but everyone else does. He visited al Qaeda training camps in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he learned the ins and outs of firearms and explosives.

It turned out that young Ramzi had a particular genius for the latter, and he was soon promoted from student to teacher. A diabolical designer of explosives, bombs would make his name (or rather, his alias) a household name (in households that read newspapers).

Blowing Things Up

The first major explosion Ramzi Yousef added to his resume was significant in a number of ways -- the World Trade Center.

In late 1992, Yousef entered the country with a fake Iraqi passport and asked for asylum. His traveling companion was arrested immediately when a search of his luggage revealed bomb-making manuals. Because the INS holding cells were overcrowded, Yousef was released with instructions to come back a month later for a hearing. D'oh!

Yousef traveled around New York and New Jersey, immediately contacting a cell of Islamic Jihad operatives loyal to the notorious blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a controversial extremist Muslim preacher who had been granted entree to the country by the CIA (which had hoped to befriend him). D'oh! D'oh!

A member of Rahman's cadre had been arrested in 1991 for the murder of radical racist Rabbi Meir Kahane. Despite being caught at the scene with a literally smoking gun in his hand after shooting Kahane in front of hundreds of witnesses, Nosair had been acquitted of murder (but was convicted on gun charges). When investigators raided Nosair's apartments, they seized dozens of bomb-making manuals and documents related to planned terrorism plots in New York City, which they didn't bother to translate from Arabic. D'oh! D'oh! D'oh!

Yousef was able to get the bomb-making manuals seized from his travel companion after a judge ordered the property returned to its owner (who remained incarcerated). D'oh! D'oh! D'oh! D'oh! He gathered together his list of motley conspirators and began buying and mixing chemicals for his big bomb. At one point, Yousef was injured in a car accident. The cop on the scene testified that she "felt a little sorry for him because he was so far from home." After recovering with a brief hospital stay, Yousef was able to recover the bomb-ingredients that remained in the trunk of his car while it sat in a police impound. D'oh! D'oh! D'oh! Argh! D'oh! Do'h!

A couple days before the bombing, one of Yousef's accomplices rented a Ryder van. The gang reported the truck stolen, in a ploy to slow investigators from picking up the trail after the bombing. On the morning of February 26, 1993, the conspirators drove the truck into the underground parking lot of the World Trade Center complex, lit the fuse and drove away.

A few minutes later, mayhem ensued. A massive explosion ripped through the garage and one of the two towers. Six people were killed, and hundreds were injured, but Yousef failed in one key objective. He had sought to cause the collapse of Tower One in such a way that it would fall onto Tower Two, killing thousands and demolishing the complex.

As it turned out, Yousef's triumph was delayed, but it would not be denied.

Thinking Bigger

Yousef was out of the United States before the smoke had cleared from the World Trade Center's halls. He escaped to Pakistan just hours after the bombing, where he visited with family and stayed at guest houses funded by Osama bin Laden. In Pakistan, he reacquainted himself with family members and current terrorists, including his uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

During his stay in Pakistan, Yousef organized several attempted terrorist acts, some of which succeeded (like a violent attack in Iran) and others of which did not (like the attempted assassination of then-president of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto).

In a meeting with Khalid and Abdul Hakim Murad, an old friend of Yousef's, the three discussed airplanes and pilot training. After a few months, all three were dispatched to Manila, the Philippines, under orders from Osama bin Laden to begin plotting direct strikes on the United States.

As with many elements of Yousef's life, it's a bit of a mystery exactly when he first joined forces with al Qaeda. There is some evidence that the first WTC bombing may have been assisted or facilitated by bin Laden, but there's a lot more evidence that Yousef's Manila cell was an al Qaeda shop, financed by bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa.

There's a school of thought that Yousef might have been working for Iraq instead of (or in combination with) al Qaeda, particularly since the first WTC bombing took place on the anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait by allied forces in the first Gulf War. However, most theories closely tying Yousef to the government Iraq tend to involve an amount of misdirection and arcane identity switching that's extreme even by the labyrinthine standards of international terrorism. The connection has never been proven.

In Manila, Yousef and Khalid Shaikh let their devious imaginations run wild. They planned several schemes of various magnitudes. On orders from bin Laden, they considered plots to assassinate Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton. The latter was abandoned as too difficult; the former was only averted by chance. Various conspiracy theories also tied Yousef to preparations for the Oklahoma City bombing during this period.

Yousef and Khalid also availed themselves of all the high living they could get their hands on. They frequented local discos and nightclubs and courted numerous local women. There are reports of scuba trips to the southern regions of the Philippines, but it seems likely these trips were cover for visits with the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim separatist group operating in the region with funding from bin Laden.

Unlike Khalid and bin Laden, there is little evidence to suggest that Yousef was especially Muslim or that his terrorist activities were driven by religious zeal. Yousef mouthed the usual extremist mantras when eventually arrested, but there was never any indication that he comported himself with any kind of religious demeanor or according to any code of behavior even vaguely resembling Islam.

Although he occasionally expressed political anger over the plight of the Palestinians, Yousef had never even visited the occupied lands. In the final analysis, it's most likely that he became a terrorist for two very basic reasons: He was good at it, and he liked it.

He probably never enjoyed his work so much as in Manila. With funds flowing from al Qaeda and lots of local girls to pass his evenings with, Yousef sat down with Khalid and together they devised what would have been the biggest and most devastating terrorist in history. And they came within two weeks of pulling it off.

Project Bojinka

Project Bojinka (apparently a Croatian word for "explosion") was the devious brainchild of these sessions. The plan was ruthless and devious, and it employed every scrap of ingenuity that Yousef could muster, which is saying quite a bit.

In Phase One of Bojinka, a minimum of five al Qaeda operatives would work in concert to destroy 11 U.S.-bound airliners over the Pacific almost simultaneously starting on Jan. 21, 1995.

The terrorists would board planes bound for the U.S. with stopovers all across Asia. They would plant bombs timed to explode on the second leg of the flight, then get off during the layover and repeat the process for another plane. The plan was elegant and highly coordinated. All five operatives would have escaped to Pakistan unharmed.

If the plan had succeeded, it would have killed an estimated 4,000 people and completely shut down all air travel around the world for days or even weeks.

The bombs were ingenious constructions, using Casio digital watches as timers and virtually undetectable liquid nitroglycerin as the explosive. Yousef tested the device on a flight from Manila to Tokyo on Dec. 11, 1994. He built his bomb in the lavatory and left it under his seat when he disembarked in Cebu, the Philippines. It exploded on the way to Japan, killing the businessman unfortunate enough to have taken over Yousef's seat. The plane managed to land successfully thanks to a heroic effort by the pilots. Yousef resolved to increase the potency of the explosive.

On Jan. 5, 1995, one of Yousef's compatriots started a small chemical fire in the apartment where the bomb supplies were being mixed. The conspirators fled, leaving documents and alaptop computer behind. Watching smoke pour out the apartment window, Yousef calmly sent Abdul Murad back to retrieve the computer after the fire department left, but the police were already on their way and Murad was arrested.

Yousef left the country a day or two later, and Khalid Shaikh wasn't far behind. Murad, left to the gentle ministrations of the Philippines police, began a lengthy confession under torture. During the course of his confession, he laid out Phase Two of Bojinka.

Murad told his interrogators that he had been selected for the great honor of martyrdom (an honor the secular Yousef preferred to leave for others). Murad, who had trained as a pilot in the United States, had been instructed to hijack a commercial airliner and crash it into a U.S.landmark. Possible targets included the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and CIA headquarters.

Yousef and Khalid Shaikh fled to Pakistan. One month later, U.S. officials tracked him down and arrested him. The team of FBI agents and Pakistani intelligence officials who made the arrest were so busy patting themselves on the back that they completely ignored Khalid, who was sleeping in the room next door.

Yousef was flown back to the United States, and into New York, where an outstanding indictment for the WTC 1993 bombing awaited him. As the plane landed, an FBI agent pointed out the World Trade Center towers to the terrorist, and commented, "They're still standing."

"They wouldn't be if I had enough money and explosives," Yousef reportedly responded.

Yousef was convicted in a New York courtroom for both the WTC bombing and the Bojinka plot, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Judged a high escape risk, he was sent to serve his sentence at the Supermax prison in Colorado. His cellmates included the Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. After McVeigh's execution, Yousef wrote of the Oklahoma City bomber, "I have never (known) anyone in my life who had so similar a personality to my own."

Yousef might have been locked away, but on Sept. 11, 2001, he still managed to take one last shot at his favorite target, and this time he succeeded. An al Qaeda operation led by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed finally made the Bojinka plan a reality, hijacking four jets and crashing three of them into their targets, the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.

It must have given Yousef some satisfaction to see the fruits of his handiwork on his tiny black-and-white TV set. With a body count around 3,000, it was only a little less mayhem than would have been caused by Yousef's first draft of the plan (which U.S. authorities had reviewed in detail well before 9/11). And this time, the towers did come down.

We can only hope that was the last plan Ramzi Yousef left unfinished on the drawing board...

The OC: The Director's Cut

2005-10-11T16:01:00.000+13:00

The following is an article found in the Vol. 11 No. 05 October 7 - 13, 2005 edition of the OC Weekly:

Joshua Dominic Wilson didn’t need a psychic to predict that moving to Orange County guaranteed pain. The 20-year-old quit a good-paying union job in northern California in August and, to pursue his dream of playing in the National Football League, joined the LA-based semi-pro team the Southern California Smash. Defensive backs—like the 5-foot, 11-inch, muscular Wilson—know all about dishing out and receiving trauma.

But Wilson, an upbeat Santa Clara native with a disarming smile and model-good looks, believed that all the violence he’d experience would be on a football field. Wilson didn’t realize that Orange County is home to another sort of contact sport: jail beating.

Unlike football, which has rules of conduct and penalties for cheaters, beatings in the jail are one-sided contests, where—thanks to the weak-kneed management of Sheriff Mike Carona—despicable acts routinely go unpunished. Beating prisoners doesn’t require any skill; any group of 9-year-olds armed with high-voltage taser guns and pepper spray can torture someone who is handcuffed and confined. The home team always wins.

Wilson learned this lesson on Sept. 24, after Huntington Beach police transported him to the OC Jail because he’d failed to resolve an old traffic ticket. He was stripping for a body search when he says an irritable deputy provoked an incident. The deputy told him to lift his arms up. He complied. “Higher,” the deputy ordered. Wilson became concerned. His arms were already as high as he could stretch them, a fact he says the deputy ignored. “Raise your arms,” the deputy yelled a third and fourth time. Wilson, who was wearing only pants, responded, “Fuck, they’re already raised as high as they can go.”

“Okay, that’s it,” the deputy told Wilson. “Put your hands behind your back.”

Wilson did what he was told. After he was handcuffed, a group of deputies pounced.

“They slammed me against a wall, and then one of them sprayed a can of pepper spray directly into both of my eyes—which were wide open because I had no idea what they were doing or why,” said Wilson. “I had done everything they told me to do. I wasn’t starting any problem. I’d done nothing wrong. I was cooperating to the fullest.”

After emptying the pepper spray can, deputies fired two taser darts into Wilson’s back. “They zapped me with the electricity for about a minute,” he said. “I felt my heart pumping and I couldn’t breathe. I was screaming in pain. Then they’d pause for a second and zap me again. I’d say they zapped me four or five different times. It just didn’t stop.”

According to Wilson, the deputies weren’t finished. Still handcuffed, outnumbered and unable to see because of the pepper spray, Wilson was then punched and kicked so severely they fractured his nose in three places, ripped his lip, busted his eye socket and ribs, pounded his jaw, cut his leg and bruised his shoulder. Blood poured. A huge knot swelled on his head.

Next, they hog-tied him, twisting his legs behind his back. The hold aggravated an old knee injury, and he pleaded, “Please stop! Please stop!” But the deputies only pushed harder, he recalls. “I was scared that they were going to break my knees,” he said. “That’s all that was on my mind—that my chance for a football career would be over.”

The 10-minute beating ended when a higher-ranking officer arrived and ordered his deputies to “calm down.” They tossed Wilson into a cell, brought a video camera and interrogated him. Apparently, the interview with the blood-soaked Wilson didn’t suit the sheriff’s department’s purposes. They removed the handcuffs and ordered him to wash the blood off his face, throat, head and shoulders. After telling him they were thinking about accusing him of assaulting them, deputies rerecorded the interview with a terrified Wilson.

“I’m guessing that we’ll never see that first tape,” said Chris Mears, Wilson’s attorney, who filed a claim against the sheriff’s department and the county on Oct. 5. “What those deputies did was so brutal, so unnecessary. They have to be held accountable.”

Eleven hours after the beating, Wilson was set for release. Before he left, an amused deputy walked over. “So you’re the ultimate fighting guy,” he wisecracked.

Once outside the jail, Wilson’s girlfriend started crying when she saw his pulverized face. She took him to the Hoag Hospital emergency room. Doctors asked, “What happened to you?”

* * *

If you’ve followed the OC Jail beatings saga, you know Wilson’s experience isn’t rare. The list of injuries inflicted by deputies in recent years is horrific: detached retinas, ruptured eardrums, shattered jaws, severed arteries, broken limbs—even crushed testicles. Deputies counter by claiming they fear attacks by inmates and use force only as a last resort.

But in August the Weekly exposed the brutal beating of San Clemente businessman Greg Hall, who was being processed in the jail after a minor traffic accident. Deputies punched, kicked and tortured Hall, who was handcuffed, hooded and left to sit in his own feces for 12 hours. He emerged from jail with a concussion, broken ribs, a gash in his leg, an eye contusion, broken veins in his feet, a shattered front tooth, lacerations and bruises over his body, contusions to his knee, neck pain, a fractured right wrist, and nerve damage to his left hand. In response, amused sheriff’s officials shrugged. One laughed.

It’s a situation screaming for immediate reform. Since rogue deputies apparently aren’t going to be fired or disciplined, here’s an idea: audio- and videotape the processing of everyone entering the jail. That would help settle allegations of abuse.

But even such modest reforms are unlikely. Carona, local judges, the grand jury and the county’s Board of Supervisors—which regularly pays out millions of taxpayer dollars to settle abuse cases—have proved to be co-conspirators. For example, the previous grand jury began investigating the jail last year but decided one subject was off-limits: jail beatings. In a May report that echoed deputy demands for more money and better offices, the grand jury hinted at its lack of concern about the violence. Deputies treated them with “respect and courtesy” when they visited the jail, they noted.

There’s hope, however. Carona—struggling through embarrassing revelations about his incompetence, connections to felons, fund-raising irregularities and a sordid mess involving an alleged series of extramarital affairs—might not be in office after next June’s election. The new grand jury could take its government watchdog role seriously. And thank God for the FBI: following the Weekly’s Aug. 12 “Justice Takes a Beating” cover story about abuses in the OC Jail, a federal agent met with Hall. Perhaps the agency will be interested in talking to Wilson too. He’s got a story to tell.

“I moved down here to start my career and hopefully get the attention of the NFL,” he said. “I didn’t come here to get beaten for no good reason.”

Judge Judy and Executioner

2005-10-11T15:59:00.000+13:00

The following is an excerpt from page B3 of the 8 October 2005 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle

A 72-year-old suspected child molester killed by Petaluma police officers after allegedly brandishing a gun Oct. 1 had 27 bullets in his body, an autopsy showed.

James Anthony Decosta was shot in the head, neck, chest, abdomen and groin, according to the autopsy, with most of the wounds entering the left side. He also was struck in an arm, leg and foot, said Lt. Dave Edmonds of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department.

Decosta was wanted on a $100,000 arrest warrant out of Sacramento dating to 1998 charging him with molesting a child under 14.

Police spotted him leaving a health club shortly after 5 p.m. He led them on a short chase through an industrial area, then allegedly got out of his car holding a gun.

Five officers were placed on paid administrative leave after the shooting.

Blame the Samoans!

2005-10-11T15:58:00.000+13:00

The following extract was taken from the 7 October 2005 online edition of the Seattle Times:

A man whose efforts to defend himself against double homicide charges have been called a "train wreck" tried one last time yesterday to convince a jury he did not kill his parents.

Wearing dark slacks and a red tie, Neelesh Phadnis repeatedly perched the reading glasses he'd borrowed from the judge on his forehead and looked at the men and women inside the jury box.

"You guys," he said during closing arguments, "I mean, I hope you guys are sharp. I mean, I want to have children. I mean, I want to fall in love with a female. I want to have a happy life. I mean, my life is on the line here. I hope you understand that."

Phadnis, 24, is accused of fatally shooting his father and mother, Ravindra, 53, and Surekha Phadnis, 49, on Aug. 24, 2002, in the family's Avon Court home in Kent.

Phadnis, who has no legal training, insisted on defending himself against the two aggravated first-degree murder charges despite warnings from King County Superior Court Judge Helen Halpert and his former attorneys. He opted to act as his own attorney, he said, because he had "issues" with all four public defenders assigned to him.

David Roberson, Phadnis' most recent public defender who was assigned as standby counsel, said the trial has been a tragedy.

"It's a shame because he has no idea what he is doing, and there is obviously something wrong with him," said Roberson. "What can I say? It's not fun. It's like watching a train wreck."

Nevertheless, dozens of attorneys and other spectators have sat in on the two-week trial. "I've never seen anything like this," said one courtroom regular.

Phadnis claims he was kidnapped and tortured for three days by a gang of 400-pound Samoans who eventually killed his parents in front of him. At one point he tried to keep prosecutors from showing the jury a picture of one of his father's handguns by saying, "Your honor, that's not even the murder weapon," which implied that he had personal knowledge about the gun that was used in the killings.

Another time, Phadnis put his finger in his mouth, like a gag, to show jurors how he was supposedly silenced by the Samoan gang. He then proceeded to talk while his voice was muffled, making it difficult for jurors to understand him.

The number of people Phadnis claimed were involved in his parents' slayings, as well as their ethnicity, changed daily, according to Phadnis' testimony. One day, the gang was comprised of a handful of Samoans and their girlfriends. Later that same day, there were also two whites, a couple of blacks, one Native American and, perhaps, even one transgendered individual in the gang. By the end of the trial, Phadnis was saying there were more than 30 armed Samoans involved.

Phadnis, who frequently asked the judge and prosecutors for help throughout the trial, was allowed to walk around the courtroom, sit on the witness stand and speak freely during his defense.

Under cross-examination by Deputy Prosecutor Don Raz, Phadnis explained his calm demeanor after the slayings because he had "been trained all the way through junior high to stay calm when you deal with fire, crime, drugs and earthquakes." He then launched into a long discourse on how he learned to "stop, drop and roll."

Police and prosecutors said Phadnis was completely calm when he knocked at his neighbor's house late on the night of the slayings and asked to use the phone, saying he was trying to reach his parents. He left, returned a short time later and called 911.

Police said that when officers responded, Phadnis never said anything about a kidnapping or the slayings. Instead, he said he was too tired and hungry to talk and that they should "go home."

In addition, Phadnis said though he had seen someone fire a gun at his parents, he didn't realize they'd been hurt.

"You're telling me that you saw them come out, stand behind your dad and pull the trigger, that you heard the shot and saw blood, and that you didn't know they were injured?" Raz asked incredulously.

Phadnis said it didn't occur to him that his parents had been shot.

Phadnis has had several mental-health evaluations that determined he was competent to make legal decisions for himself. The Sixth Amendment guarantees a competent person the right to have an attorney, but also guarantees the person the right to waive the attorney and defend himself.

The jury began deliberations yesterday afternoon. If Phadnis is convicted of aggravated first-degree murder, he will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A modern day Trojan Horse?

2005-10-11T15:50:00.000+13:00

Islam, in the West, is fighting its battle of acceptance and legitimacy. Muslim activists are working fervently trying to improve Islam's image. Their goal is to create an environment in which Islam can be easily propagated. Their tool is as old as Islam itself, but they have just rediscovered it. This tool is telling Christians that Islam and Christianity have a lot in common. They cite Islam's belief in the Bible, God, Jesus, Mary, the prophets, the day of judgment and Paradise.

This tactic is not new to Islam. Fourteen centuries ago, Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, used it when he started preaching his new religion in Mecca. At the beginning when Mohammed was weak, he was conciliatory and appeasing to Christians. He told them, "We believe in what has been sent down to us (The Quran), and sent down to you (The Bible). Our God is the same as your God." Surah 29:46. Later, in Medina, after Mohammed became strong, all this changed. Allah, allegedly, tells him then, "Fight people of the Book (Christians and Jews) who do not accept the religion of the truth (Islam) until they pay tribute by hand, being inferior." Surah 9:29

The fact is that the differences between Christianity and Islam are very deep, and irreconcilable. The space limitation will enable us to list just a few.

To Muslims, the concept of a triune God is a blasphemy.

" They do blaspheme who say God is one of three..., for there is no God except one God." Surah 5:73

Allah of Islam is a deceiver.

"They plot and plan, and God, too plans, but the best of planners (deceivers) is God." Surah 8:30

Allah of Islam is frightening.

"It is God whom ye should more justly fear, if you believe." Surah 9:13

The Christian Jesus is the Son of God who died on the Cross to save the whole world. (In the Quran Jesus ' name is Isa. )

Isa is a created human being.

"The similitude of Isa before God is as that of Adam; He created him from dust, Then said to him: "Be": And he was." Surah 3:59

Isa is just an apostle.

"O people of the book (Christians) commit no excess in your religion: nor say of God aught but truth, Christ Isa the son of Mary was (No more than) an apostle of God." Surah 4: 171

Isa was not crucified.

"That they said (in boast) "we killed Christ Isa, the son of Mary"...but they killed him not, nor crucified him." Surah 4:157

Isa will return to earth to destroy the Cross.

" The hour will not be established until the son of Mary (Jesus) descends amongst you as a just ruler, he will break the Cross.." Hadith vol. 3:656

Islam teaches revenge.

"If any one transgress the prohibition against you, transgress likewise against him." Surah 2:194

Islam does not treat women and men as equal.

"To the male a portion equal to that of two females." Surah 4:11

Islam allows men to beat their wives.

"... As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, beat them ." Surah 4:34

Islam imposes harsh punishment on wrongdoers.

*A thief is punished by the amputation of hands. Surah 5:38

*A drunk is punished by 80 lashes. Hadith vol. 8:770

*An adulterer is punished by 100 lashes. Surah 24:2

Islam must be imposed by force, if necessary.

"And fight them on, until there is no more tumult (seduction) or oppression, and there prevail justice, and faith in God (and the religion becomes Islam)." Surah 2:193

Apostasy from Islam is punishable by death.

"Whoever changes his (Islamic) religion, kill him." Hadith vol. 9:57

The only assurance a Muslim has of going to Paradise is through fighting for the cause of spreading Islam (Jihad), and being martyred in the process.

"And if you are slain, or die in the way of Allah, forgiveness and mercy from Allah are far better than all they could amass." Surah 3:157

While there are calls for understanding, making dialogue and building bridges between Christianity and Islam, these words often sound good, but are wrongly applied.

True understanding occurs when we understand both the attractive side of Islam and the ugly side. True dialogue occurs when we listen to them and they listen to us. True bridge-building occurs when the bridges we build with them go both ways. True love occurs when we tell them they are wrong if we know that they are wrong.

Both sides have a lot of demons in their closets. Both sides have a long history of wrongs committed against their own people as well those of the other side. The West has wronged Muslims in the past and these wrongs have not been forgotten. However, we must be aware of the incompatibilities if we are to succeed in overcoming them and in turn living together harmoniously.

The Facade

The "Islam" that Muslim activists introduce to the West these days is completely different from the Islam that many have traditionally experienced in the Middle East. This is a new edition - revised, modified, expanded and abridged - of the real Islam. A major facelift operation has been taking place here.

To their credit, I must acknowledge that the international Islamisation movement, in recent years, has grown much in both intelligence and sophistication. They lacked power, so they decided to be smart. Since they could no longer use the sword to conquer the world, as they once did, they decided to use more cunning methods, taking advantage of democracy in the West.

The following are some of the methods Muslim activists are now adopting:

1. Change of Identity

Muslim activists in the West avoid referring to teachings that may offend the Western citizen, such as the Islamic code of punishment.

They stress that they believe in Moses and Jesus. They refrain from calling Jews and Christians "infidels", nor would they call them "Zionists" or "Crusaders".

The last thing they want to do is to shock people. They have adopted Muslim hosts on their TV programmes with Christian names such as "Paul" as names like Mohammed, Mustafa and Omar were too strong to swallow. Some use the term "Sunday School" in place of "Friday Class", and they end their speeches with the Christian expression "may God bless you".

They boast about being citizens of their new nations, and have sometimes adopted their host nation’s flag in the background of their programme set.

2. Change of Vocabulary

Instead of living in isolation from society, they are using now a completely new terminology. Words like love, grace... are now part of their vocabulary. Theological Christian terms such as: Salvation, Justification and Sanctification are now part of their teachings.

They change Quranic translations to hide some of Islam's harsh teachings.

An example is the new French translation of the Quran which has caused tremendous furor among Muslim fundamentalists. The translation attempted to please Jews by modifying some verses of the Quran that condemned them. An example is a verse that used to read "The people of Israel, after sowing corruption twice on earth for the purpose of dominating other people, will push themselves up into a position of extreme power before being punished by God."

The new translation reads just the opposite: "The people of Israel will be twice destroyed as an innocent victim, and God will reward them by elevating them to great heights."

3. Change of Strategy

Their new strategy lies in trying to be accepted, included and involved in all activities; religious, social and political.

They are now becoming active in partisan functions in order to have a say in parties platforms. They conduct letter campaigns to members of parliaments to influence legislation. They run for public offices in hope of reaching a position of authority. They make full use of their voting power to get concessions in their favour. They try to be represented on educational programmes to go in line with their beliefs.

The stage of weakness and the stage of Jihad (Holy War)

It seems that these new tactics we discussed are not without precedent in Islamic history. Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, the noted Egyptian author, refers to this concept in his book "Autumn Furor". He states:

"So the element of Jihad emerged in the ideology of Abul Aala Almaudoody. He went on to differentiate between two separate stages a Muslim community goes through:

"The stage of weakness - In it a Muslim community is unable to take charge of its own destiny. In this case - according to his thinking - they must withdraw for the purpose of preparing themselves to be capable of executing the second stage.

"The second stage is the Jihad stage, and it will come when the Muslim community has completed its preparedness and is ready to come out of its isolation to take charge, through Jihad.

"In this, Abul Aala Almaudoody was making a comparison between the two stages of weakness and Jihad on the one hand, and on the other hand, Mohammed's struggle in Mecca then in Medina."

Mohammed in Mecca and Mohammed in Medina

Historians agree that there is a big difference between Mohammed's personality in Mecca and his personality after his migration to Medina.

In Mecca Mohammed was weak, struggling to be accepted, often mocked at and ridiculed. He tried to appeal to the people of Mecca by being compassionate and loving. His teachings condemned violence, injustice, neglect of the poor. However, after he moved to Medina and his followers grew in strength and number, he became a relentless warrior, intent on spreading his religion by the sword.

This change in Mohammed's personality becomes apparent by comparing the Meccan and the Medinan surahs. The following are some examples:

In surah 73:10 God tells Mohammed to be patient with his opponents "Be patient with what they say, and part from them courteously." While in surah 2:191 God orders him to kill his opponents "Kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from wherever they drove you out..."

In surah 2:256 God tells Mohammed not to impose Islam by force "There is no compulsion in religion." While in verse 193 God tells him to kill whoever rejects Islam "Fight (kill) them until there is no persecution and the religion is God's."

In surah 29:46 God tells Mohammed to speak nicely to people of the Book (Christians and Jews) "Argue with people of the Book, other then evil doers, only by means of what are better! and say, we believe in what has been sent down to us and sent down to you. Our God is the same as your God, and we are surrendered to him." While in surah 9:29 God tells him to fight the people of the Book, "Fight those who do not believe in God and the last day...and fight People of the Book, who do not accept the religion of truth (Islam) until they pay tribute by hand, being inferior."

To justify this sudden change in the Quran's mood from peaceful to militant, conciliatory to confrontational, Mohammed claimed that it was God who told him so. It was God who abrogated the peaceful verses and replaced them by harsh ones.

However the truth of the matter, as Almaudoody puts it, is that Mohammed became strong enough to move from the stage of weakness to the stage of Jihad.

Today, in the West, are we witnessing the Islamic stage of weakness, are we being fooled, is the stage of Jihad inevitible? Will this meek little lamb turn out to be a ravening wolf?

The Facts

The following are some real teachings of Islam and are referenced accordingly:

* Men are superior to women (surah 2:228).

* Women have half the rights of men: in court witness (surah 2:282) and in inheritance
(surah 4:11).

* A man may punish his wife by beating her (surah 4:34).

* A man may marry up to four wives at the same time (surah 4:3).

* A wife is a sex object for her husband (surah 2:223).

* Muslims must fight until their opponents submit to Islam (surah 9:29).

* A Muslim must not take a Jew or a Christian for a friend (surah 5:51).

* A Muslim apostate must be killed (surah 9:12).

* Stealing is punished by the amputation of the hands (surah 5:38).

* Adultery is punished by public flogging (surah 24:2).

* Resisting Islam is punished by death, crucifixion or the cutting off of the hands and feet
(surah 5:33).

The following sections are quoted from the Hadith. The "Hadith" is a record of Mohammed's words and deeds according to his wives, relatives, and companions. Next to the Quran, it is the most important part of Islamic law; its teachings are just as binding.

The Hadith is recorded in many books, and by many people, not all of them are agreed upon by all Muslims. All of our quotes here are from "Sahih al Bukhari" which comes in nine volumes, and contains thousands of Hadiths. Al Bukhari is accepted by most Muslims as the authentic words of Mohammed. My purpose is to give you a taste of the teachings of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. Some of these teachings may shock you, others may amuse you.

WOMEN

Women are deficient in mind and religion.

Mohammed asked some women, "Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half that of a man?" The women said, "yes," He said, "This is because of the deficiency of the woman's mind. " Vol. 3:826

Mohammed to women: "I have not seen any one more deficient in intelligence and religion than you." Vol. 2:541

The majority of people in hell are women.

Mohammed said, "I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers are women. " Vol. 1:28, 301; Vol. 2:161; Vol. 7:124

Women are a bad omen.

Mohammed said, " Bad omen is in the woman, the house and the horse." Vol. 7:30

Women are harmful to men.

Mohammed said, "After me I have not left any affliction more harmful to men than women." Vol. 7:33

Women may not wear wigs.

Mohammed said, " Don't wear false hair for Allah sends His curse upon such ladies who lengthen their hair artificially." Vol. 7:133

SEX AND MARRIAGE

Mohammed's sexual strength is equal to 30 men.

Anas said, "The prophet used to visit all his wives in an hour round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number." I asked Anas, "Had the prophet the strength for it?" Anas replied, "We used to say that the prophet was given the strength of thirty (men). " Vol. 1:268

Mohammed married a 9 year old girl.

"Narrated Aisha that the prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old."Vol. 7:64

Allah hurries to please Mohammed's sexual desires.

When the Quranic verse that allows Mohammed to postpone the turn of any wife was revealed, and when Mohammed said that Allah allowed him to marry his adopted son's wife, Aisha (one of his wives) told him, "O Allah's Apostle I do not see but that your Lord hurries in pleasing you. " Vol. 7:48

HUMAN RIGHTS

Islam is to be imposed by force.

Mohammed said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and whoever says, " None has the right to be worshipped but Allah , his life and property will be saved by me." (otherwise it will not). Vol. 4:196

Apostasy is punishable by death.

Mohammed said, "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him." Vol. 9:57

A Muslim must not be killed if he kills a non-Muslim.

Mohammed said, " No Muslim should be killed for killing a Kafir" (infidel). Vol. 9:50

Ethnic cleansing is practiced.

* Mohammed said to the Jews, "You should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle (Mohammed) and I want to expel you from this land (The Arabian Peninsula), so, if anyone owns property, he is permitted to sell it." Vol. 4:392
* Mohammed's last words at his deathbed were: "Turn the pagans (non-Muslims) out of the Arabian Peninsula." Vol. 5:716

ETERNAL SECURITY

No assurance of Salvation.

Mohammed said. "By Allah, though I am the apostle of Allah, yet I do not know what Allah will do to me." Vol. 5:266

God punishes a deceased if his relatives weep.

Mohammed said, "The deceased is punished because of the weeping of his relatives." Vol. 2:375

When you speak badly about a deceased, the deceased will go to hell.

Mohammed said, "You praised this, so Paradise has been affirmed to him, and you spoke badly of this, so hell has been affirmed to him. You people are Allah's witnesses on earth." Vol. 2:448

Urine on your clothes will bring punishment from God.

Mohammed said, "The deceased person is being tortured in the grave not for a great thing to avoid, it is for being soiled with his urine." Vol. 2:460

Holy war (Jihad) is a guarantee of heaven.

Mohammed said, "The person who participates in (Holy wars) in Allah's cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostle, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to paradise (if he is killed). " Vol. 1:35

MEDICINE

Drinking camel's urine will make you healthy.

"The prophet ordered them to follow his camels, and drink their milk and urine , so they followed the camels and drank their milk and urine till their bodies became healthy." Vol. 7:590

Fever is from the heat of hell.

Mohammed said, " Fever is from the heat of hell, so put it out (cool it) with water." Vol. 7:619

A fly in your drink is a cure.

Mohammed said, "If a housefly falls in the drink of anyone of you, he should dip it (in the drink), for one of its wings has a disease and the other has the cure for the disease. " Vol. 4:537

How the baby's looks are determined.

Mohammed said, "As for the child, if the man's discharge precedes the woman's discharge, the child attracts the similarity of the man, and if the woman's discharge precedes the man's, then the child attracts the similarity of the woman." Vol. 5:275

MISCELLANEOUS

If you eat garlic don't come to the place of worship.

Mohammed said, "Whosoever ate from this plant (i.e. garlic) should not enter the mosque." Vol. 1:812

Which shoe you should put on first.

Mohammed said, "If you want to put on your shoes, put on the right shoe first, and if you want them off, take the left one first." Vol. 7:747

Breathing in your drink is bad.

Mohammed said, "Don't breath into your drinking utensil." Vol. 1:156

God frightens his devotees with eclipses.

Mohammed said, "The sun and the moon are two signs amongst the signs of Allah and they do not eclipse because of the death of someone but Allah frightens His devotees with them. " Vol. 2:158

Satan urinates in people's ears, when they don't wake up for prayer.

Narrated Abdullah: the prophet was told that a person had kept on sleeping till morning and had not got up for the prayer. The prophet said, "Satan urinated in his ears." Vol. 2:245

Yawning is from Satan.

The prophet said, "Yawning is from Satan and if anyone of you yawns, he should check his yawning as much as possible, for if anyone of you (during the act of yawning) should say: "Ha", Satan will laugh at him." Vol. 2:158

Stars are missiles which God uses to hit the devils.

The creation of stars is for three purposes, i.e., as decoration of the sky, as missiles to hit the devils, and as signs to guide travelers. Vol. 2:158

Lying in Islam

Like most religions, Islam in general, forbids lying. The Quran says, "Truly Allah guides not one who transgresses and lies." Surah 40:28. In the Hadith, Mohammed was also quoted as saying, "Be honest because honesty leads to goodness, and goodness leads to Paradise. Beware of falsehood because it leads to immorality, and immorality leads to Hell."

However, unlike most religions, within Islam there are certain provisions under which lying is not simply tolerated, but actually encouraged. The book "The spirit of Islam," by the Muslim scholar, Afif A. Tabbarah was written to promote Islam. On page 247, Tabbarah stated: "Lying is not always bad, to be sure; there are times when telling a lie is more profitable and better for the general welfare, and for the settlement of conciliation among people, than telling the truth. To this effect, the Prophet says: 'He is not a false person who (through lies) settles conciliation among people, supports good or says what is good."

In exploring this puzzling duplicity within Islam, we will examine first some examples from recent and ancient Islamic history. These examples demonstrate that lying is a common policy amongst Islamic clerics and statesmen.

In June of 1967 Egypt was defeated by Israel and lost the Sinai Peninsula during the "Six Day War." Subsequently, Egypt's primary focus became to regain the lost territory. President Nasser, and then, President Sadat, adopted the motto: "No voice should rise over the voice of The Battle." The soldiers that had been drafted in 1967 were kept in service and remained on high alert in the expectation that at any day "the battle" would ensue. Nonetheless, years passed and Egypt's people became disgruntle with the political hype and the "no peace, and no war" status. In 1972 Sadat proclaimed with finality that it was to be the year for the long anticipated battle. Throughout the year he swore, "I swear to you by my honor that this year will not pass by, before we launch The Battle." People believed him because he was staking his reputation and honor through an oath. To everyone's amazement the year passed without a single shot being fired. As a result many, inside and outside Egypt, began to dismiss him as a "hot air bluff". This opinion was confirmed in the following year of 1973. He made no further mention of his oath about the battle. Many of the draftees were released and numerous officers were given vacation furloughs. Then without warning, in October of 1973, he launched the attack and what was known as the Yom Kippur war began.

As a military commander, Sadat was expected to use the element of surprise to trick the enemy. As a devout Muslim, Sadat was not the least bit concerned about his un-kept oath. He understood that the history and teachings of Islam would exempt him from spiritual accountability if he used lies as a foundation for a strategic military maneuver.

This point is proven by many incidences in the life of Mohammed. He often lied and instructed his followers to do the same. He rationalised that the prospect of success in missions to extend Islam's influence overrode Allah's initial prohibitions against lying. A good example of sanctioned lying is the account of the assassination of Kaab Ibn al-Ashrf, a member of the Jewish tribe, Banu al-Nudair. It had been reported that Kaab had shown support for the Quraishites in their battle against Mohammed. This was compounded by another report that infuriated Mohammed. It was alleged that Kaab had recited amorous poetry to Muslim women. Mohammed asked for volunteers to rid him of Kaab Ibn al-Ashraf. As Mohammed put it, Kaab had "Harmed Allah and His Apostle." At that time Kaab Ibn al-Ashraf, and his tribe were strong, so it was not easy for a stranger to infiltrate and execute the task. A Muslim man by the name of Ibn Muslima, volunteered for the murderous project on the condition that Mohammed would allow him to lie. With Mohammed's consent, Ibn Muslima, went to Kaab and told him fabricated stories that reflected discontent about Mohammed's leadership. When he had gained Kaab's trust he lured him away from his house one night and murdered him in a remote area under the cover of darkness.

A similar example can be found in the story of killing Shaaban Ibn Khalid al-Hazly. It was rumored that Shaaban was gathering an army to wage war on Mohammed. Mohammed retaliated by ordering Abdullah Ibn Anis to kill Shaaban. Again, the would-be killer asked the prophet's permission to lie. Mohammed agreed and then ordered the killer to lie by stating that he was a member of the Khazaa clan. When Shaaban saw Abdullah coming, he asked him, "From what tribe are you?" Abdullah answered, "From Khazaa." He then added, "I have heard that you are gathering an army to fight Mohammed and I came to join you." Abdullah started walking with Shaaban telling him how Mohammed came to them with the heretical teachings of Islam, and complained how Mohammed badmouthed the Arab patriarchs and ruined the Arab's hopes. They continued in conversation until they arrived at Shaaban's tent. Shaaban's companions departed and Shaaban invited Abdullah to come inside and rest. Abdullah sat there until the atmosphere was quiet and he sensed that everyone was asleep. Abdullah severed Shaaban's head and carried it to Mohammed as a trophy. When Mohammed sighted Abdullah, he jubilantly shouted, "Your face has been triumphant (Aflaha al- wajho)." Abdullah returned the greeting by saying, "It is your face, Apostle of Allah, who has been triumphant. (Aflaha wajhoka, ye rasoul Allah)."

Provisions for lying in Islam

Most Muslims are familiar with the principles of Islam that will justify lying in situations where they sense the need to do so. Among these are:

* War is deception.
* The necessities justify the forbidden.
* If faced by two evils, choose the lesser of the two.

These principles are derived from passages found in the Quran and the Hadith.

In the Quran, Allah, allegedly, says:

" Allah will not call you to account for what is futile in your oaths, but He will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed ten indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; or clothe them; or give a slave his freedom. If that is beyond your means, fast for three days. That is the expiation for the oaths ye have sworn. But keep to your oaths. Thus doth Allah make clear to you His signs, that ye may be grateful." Surah 5:89

"Allah will not call you to account for thoughtlessness (vain) in your oaths, but for the intention in your hearts; and He is Oft-forgiving, Most Forbearing." Surah 2:225

"Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief, except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty." Surah 16: 106

The noted Islamic commentator, Al-Tabary explained Surah 16:106 as a verse that had been revealed to Mohammed after he learned that Ammar Ibn Yasser was forced to deny his faith in Mohammed when kidnapped by the Banu Moghera tribe. Mohammed consoled Ammar by telling him, "If they turned, you turn." (Meaning: if they again capture you, you are allowed to deny me again.)

These and similar passages from the Quran clearly reveal that Muslims' unintentional lies are forgivable and that even their intentional lies can be absolved by performing extra duties. It is also clear that if forced to do so, Muslims can lie while under oath and can even falsely deny faith in Allah, as long as they maintain the profession of faith in their hearts.

In the Hadith, Mohammed, emphasizes the same concept.

From "Ehiaa Oloum al-Din," by the famous Islamic scholar al-Ghazali, Vol. 3: PP.284-287:

One of Mohammed's daughters, Umm Kalthoum, testified that she had never heard the Apostle of Allah condone lying, except in these three situations:

1. For reconciliation among people.
2. In war.
3. Amongst spouses, to keep peace in the family.

One passage from the Hadith quotes Mohammed as saying: "The sons of Adam are accountable for all lies except those uttered to help bring reconciliation between Muslims."

Another says, "Aba Kahl, reconcile among people."(Meaning: even through lying.)

The following quote demonstrates the broadness of situations in which the prophet permitted lying. "The sons of Adam are accountable for all lies with these exceptions: During war because war is deception, to reconcile among two quarreling men, and for a man to appease his wife."

The principle of Al-Takeyya

The Arabic word, "Takeyya", means "to prevent," or guard against. The principle of Al Takeyya conveys the understanding that Muslims are permitted to lie as a preventive measure against anticipated harm to one's self or fellow Muslims. This principle gives Muslims the liberty to lie under circumstances that they perceive as life threatening. They can even deny the faith, if they do not mean it in their hearts. Al-Takeyya is based on the following Quranic verse:

"Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah: except by way of precaution (prevention), that ye may Guard yourselves from them (prevent them from harming you.) But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah." Surah 3: 28

According to this verse a Muslim can pretend to befriend infidels (in violation of the teachings of Islam) and display adherence with their unbelief to prevent them from harming him.

Under the concept of Takeyya and short of killing another human being, if under the threat of force, it is legitimate for Muslims to act contrary to their faith. The following actions are acceptable:

* Drink wine, abandon prayers, and skip fasting during Ramadan.
* Renounce belief in Allah.
* Kneel in homage to a deity other than Allah.
* Utter insincere oaths.

The implications of the principle of Al-Takeyya

Unfortunately, when dealing with radical Islamists, one must keep in mind that Muslims can communicate something with apparent sincerity, when in reality they may have just the opposite agenda in their hearts. Bluntly stated, Islam permits Muslims to lie anytime that they perceive that their own well-being, or that of Islam, is threatened.

In the sphere of international politics, the question is: Can Muslim countries be trusted to keep their end of the agreements that they sign with non-Muslim nations? It is a known Islamic practice, that when Muslims are weak they can agree with most anything. Once they become strong, then they negate what they formerly vowed.

The principle of sanctioning lying for the cause of Islam bears grave implications in matters relating to the spread of the religion of Islam in the West. Muslim activists employ deceptive tactics in their attempts to polish Islam's image and make it more attractive to prospective converts. They carefully try to avoid, obscure, and omit mentioning any of the negative Islamic texts and teachings.

An example of Islamic deception is that Muslim activists always quote the passages of the Quran from the early part of Mohammed's ministry while living in Mecca. These texts are peaceful and exemplify tolerance towards those that are not followers of Islam. All the while, they are fully aware that most of these passages were abrogated (cancelled and replaced) by passages that came after he migrated to Medina. The replacement verses reflect prejudice, intolerance, and endorse violence upon unbelievers

In conclusion, it is imperative to understand, that Muslim leaders can use this loop-hole in their religion, to absolve them from any permanent commitment. It is also important to know that what Muslim activists say to spread Islam may not always be the whole truth. When dealing with radical Islamists, what they say is not the issue. The real issue is, what they actually mean in their hearts.

The ship is sinking!

2005-10-11T11:12:00.000+13:00

Hello boys and girls, today we will talk about loyalty, patriotism and taking care of our nation.

I have been brought up on a diet of American television. While a lot of values were instilled or beaten into me by my parents, others came from movies and tv. The American patriotism that makes so many people sick makes me proud to be an American (even though I am not). There is nothing wrong with being proud of your country and having a sense of loyalty to your fellow citizens. There is nothing wrong with being patriotic. However, like most things, going too far can have negative consequences.

I am not proud of New Zealand. I walk the streets and feel that we are a scale-model society. We see what we like on tv and try to imitate it on a much smaller scale. However, we tend to leave a lot of the morals and values behind. It makes me sick that the only time we manage to pull together as a nation is when the All Blacks are playing. I don’t feel a force binding me to the rest of my fellow citizens for we live in a divided nation. As a result I am leaving. I know that you won’t care about another citizen going because you don’t feel the sense of loyalty and patriotism that you should either.

This is not our fault but the fault of our leaders. It is also the fault of the left wing do-gooders that insist on making us feel bad about our achievements. The world is a win-lose place and every time we win some hippie reminds us of how we just made someone else lose. We live in a nation that is afflicted with ‘tall poppy syndrome’ where every time we start to excel we are immediately cut down to the size of everyone else. We kid ourselves that we are achievers and pride ourselves on our “kiwi ingenuity”. Every time someone succeeds we claim them as our own, and use them as examples of our greatness. This can be seen after a rugby match where either ‘we win’ or ‘the All Blacks lost’, it’s never the other way around. But these successful people are the exceptions, the strong ones that managed to resist our negative gravitational pull. They didn’t succumb to the philosophy of “never try, never fail”, for god forbid we should ever fail and look stupid in front of the rest of our nation’s idiots.

There have been many things in life that I was told I wouldn’t be able to do and I’ve later done. There are also many things that I have failed at. I am not an overly strong person and such comments and criticisms don’t bounce off my tough exterior. Many I have taken to heart and there are many opportunities that I have missed and now regret due to negative comments and my lack of strength to overcome them. Now I face another problem. When I tell people of all the things I have done they look at me in a sort of disbelieving way. But I don’t really care because I have done what I have done and what’s more the people that really matter to me know it as well. And who are these people anyway? What makes them think that they are so important that I would have to go out of my way to create stories just to impress them? Talk about delusions of self-grandeur!

While we all live together we are very isolated. How many people do you walk past in a city street? Each and every one of those people that you pass has at least one interesting story. How many of those stories do you know? We live in a society where it is unacceptable to begin chatting to the person sitting next to you on the bus. It makes you seem strange and is often only attempted after multiple voyages together. We are encouraged to leave each other alone. This is promoted under the guises of privacy and respect for one’s space, but where we do not take this risk, we miss out on opportunities.

We have no loyalty to each other and we have no loyalty to our country. We do not have a healthy sense of national pride. We need more flags on our streets but even this is a contentious issue. We hate our identity so much that we want to change our flag. We feel the need to re-brand our country! Maybe it isn’t that we hate our national identity, maybe it’s because we don’t know what it is. We are being told many different things by many different people. We are told that we are a part of a New Zealand that we cannot understand or relate to. We are still waiting to be told definitively what our identity is by supposed authorities and not feeling it for ourselves. Our identity should not be decided by government officials nor should it be decided by cultural radicals or the PC Police. It should be decided by the way that we feel.

I have a friend who has had extensive cosmetic surgery. The reason he is doing this is because he knows that in order to get true happiness he has to be happy with himself. But he fails to realise that if you change yourself to be happy then you are not really being happy with yourself. You must change your way of thinking and become content with who you really are. True happiness does not come from doing what you like, it comes from liking what you do!

Furthermore, I think true happiness also comes from liking who you do! Some people may criticise this approach as settling for something less than your potential. I do not believe this to be the case. I am all for self improvement but there is a certain state of mind which has to form a solid foundation. If you become a success for the wrong reasons then that success will not provide you with true happiness.

The hatred for ourselves and for our nation is not always realised but that does not mean that it does not exist. It is a shame that it will only be a great tragedy that will ever truly unite us again.

Our government doesn’t set a great precedent either. While I am in favour of helping out other nations I am in favour of helping out ourselves first! Does that make me greedy, selfish or racist? I really don’t care! What’s wrong with taking care of ourselves? What’s wrong with choosing to spend more money keeping our health professionals, paying our teachers more or improving our law enforcement and defence capabilities. What’s wrong with me wanting to spend my hard earned tax dollars on my own country?

On a related note, I am a security expert. It is my field of specialty. All aspects of security interest me from personal protection to national security programmes. I have written extensively on the Ahmed Zaoui trial academically. Now I can write about it emotionally. Poor Mr Zaoui! This poor man has proven links with two Algerian terrorist organisations; the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) who blatantly endorse the use of terrorist tactics and is a regional component of al Qaeda; and the Islamic Front for Salvation (FIS) who do not publicly condone terrorism but are linked with such attacks. As a result he has been arrested and prohibited from entering many different countries but he managed to make his way into New Zealand! While Mr Zaoui has not committed any terrorist attack per se, he has been involved with the logistical and recruitment side of things!

When Mr Zaoui arrived he was detained by immigration officials and a security certificate was issued by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) who claimed he was a bad man. Mr Zaoui sought asylum and under international law fell under the category of political refugee. However, a refugee is not necessarily an innocent person. All it means is that the person faces persecution in their home country. Mr Zaoui would face death by the Algerian Government for his links to the two organisations as he was a middle man for terrorists. Is this persecution? Apparently any form of execution is.

Many people pity him as he is not a ‘terrorist’ himself, but if he aids and abets them then he is a terrorist himself! If he recruits them and promotes their ideology he is a terrorist. If he carries out their logistical support then he is a terrorist. You do not have to actually be the one killing people to fall within this category.

Now it’s difficult to say what Mr Zaoui’s intentions are or were. There is probably no way that we will ever find out. As a result we have decided to let him settle in New Zealand. Well f*ck that!!! Protect our own! Our government was elected by the people of New Zealand for the people of New Zealand! If in doubt, chuck ‘em out! Put our safety first! Poor guy? Consequences of past actions! Plain and simple. Do not put our nation at risk for the rights of one man.

Our immigration policy is a joke. I know many immigration insiders who feel their hands are tied by policy. They make decisions that they feel are wrong but immigration policy prevents them from doing anything else. Our vetting policies are not stringent enough and questionable people are fast tracked through. Australia’s tough stance against illegal immigrants and tough border control is being undermined by the recklessness of our own system. It is getting to the point where serious thought and discussion is being given to cutting off the freedom of movement into Australia by New Zealand citizens.

As I look over this rant, I feel like I am doing the job of the National Front or may even be a speech writer for Winston Peters. However I am not a fan or an ally of either. I am just stating my reasons for being glad to leave. I want to be a part of a winning team. A winning team that needn’t always win, but one that at least has a winning attitude. It’s time for this rat to jump off this sinking ship before Australia closes it’s borders to me. And while many of you will be thinking “Good riddance” I will sit back enjoy you replace me with third world rapists and killers!

Welcome to the real world

2005-10-10T16:07:00.000+13:00

One of the bars that I run security for is a young student bar. As a result it is up to my team and I to educate the next generation on the proper social etiquette of bar life. As with many people, the polite unassuming person you see by day can quite often become an obnoxious little cretin at night. Students however, live in a transitionary state between inconsequential youth and responsible adulthood. While they are subject to the full brunt of the law they are often oblivious to its application to them. This view becomes infinitely more apparent when these youth consume mind altering substances such as alcohol.

For many young students, the student bar is the first place where they can experience the privileges of the adult world free from the gaze of their distant parents. Some responsible young people manage this transition very well, while others need a guiding hand (albeit clenched in the form of a fist)!

In this age of political correctness and developed HR speak, the description of this job can be as vast as the universe itself. While the elements of customer service and supervision are usually emphasised, the roles of babysitter, negotiator and hired thug are usually more of a reality. A good bouncer should be able to meet and greet customers in a warm, comfortable way building a rapport with them as they enter a bar. This usually allows for the development of a respectful relationship which can help resolve later disputes in a peaceful, negotiated manner.

A bouncer should also be intelligent and be able to plan for the security of the bar before the night starts as well as identify the key issues and see the bigger picture when dealing with problems that inevitably arise. The need for communication skills should also be emphasised as calming down aggressive patrons and negotiating with irrational drunks form the majority of actual work done.

There exists a set of criteria by which the public tend to measure a good bouncer. Often these ideals are formed from personal experiences and lack true insight into the nature of the industry. While I would be the first to admit that in an ideal world all problems would be solved rationally and peacefully, such a world is far from existing. The civilised society that we live in is an artificial one. The courtesy displayed at work and amongst various social groups requires effort and training. If left to our own devices, human nature is almost the complete opposite. Civilised behaviour is carried out by the majority of us for one of two reasons. It either benefits us by helping us obtain what we want whether it be a particular good, service or a safe and peaceful existence or it is motivated by a fear of consequences.

Working with drunks provides a unique insight into raw humanity. Alcohol removes inhibitions allowing you to pursue what you want, and removing the fear of consequences. Intoxication inhibits your ability to match your actions with their long term consequences making the resulting negative externalities seem insignificant. When people are drunk they are in their most animalistic state, the one that is most natural in the true sense of the word.

The drunk is concerned only for themselves. The only charity towards others initiates from a desire to be viewed as more impressive by their peers. The drunk does not comprehend the consequences of their actions and lives in the ‘now’. They lack rationality and other traits that keep one civilised. Arriving at a moderated solution is difficult although not impossible and is usually a long, drawn out task requiring substantial patience and empathy by the sober party.

In reality we do not always have the time to be able to deal with each and every drunk in such a caring manner and other tactics must be utilised. The drunk is not always susceptible to the logical argument and it can be quickly ascertained by the professional bouncer as to whether such an approach will have the appropriate result. While a negotiated resolution is attempted there really is little the bouncer can negotiate with. A drunk must be removed from licensed premises according to the law and they must be removed immediately. There is no room for movement.

What is of concern to me is that there seems to exist a common public perception that bouncers should be able to withstand constant abuse from their customers or passers by. In fact there are a lot of double standards that exist in these perceptions. How many occupations require you to tolerate constant verbal (and sometimes physical abuse) from customers. Being sworn at and threatened for what can sometimes be hours tries the most saintly of persons’ patience. In a civilised society no one should be subject to such abuse. No one should have to be concerned for their physical safety every time they go to work. There are statutory laws enacted against this in most developed countries around the world and many people who condemn bouncers would not expect that treatment at their place of work. However, as I have already stated we do not live in a civilised, ideal society; we live in a real one! Bouncers work on the boundary of the real and illusionary worlds. As such, we cannot be restricted to the tools of the artificial civilised society.

During the day I live in the corporate world. I am constantly amazed at how much people cry over very minor things. There was an article in a weekend newspaper supplement yesterday about sexism in the workplace. Apparently sexism is so covert that women in the workplace may not even know that they are being sexually harassed! This harassment may take the form of having to do the dishes or make a cup of coffee.

The occupational safety and health obligations are outright ridiculous! People crying because their poor little wrist is sore, companies forking out hundreds of dollars for people’s workplaces to be assessed. The majority of people live in a world where they are treated like little babies. God forbid that a cord might run across the floor because some idiot might not be looking where they step and trip. But all we have been doing is witnessing the fact that if you make the world idiot proof then someone will make a better idiot!

People who live in this world have no right to tell us how we should conduct our lives or how our job is supposed to be done!

It is these people that run to us for protection when they are attacked. It is these people that condemn us for being heavy handed and thuggish when they provoke trouble.

I don’t mind getting abused. I don’t mind getting hit. Of course I f*cking mind! Just because I do it for a living it doesn’t mean that I have to tolerate it! But what I hate most of all are the people who are ungrateful. The one’s that are being helped that later turn on you.

Another type of person that I despise is the f*ckwit who believes they know how the job should be done and offer to help. These are the same people that work a couple of shifts, take a hit then p*ss off never to be heard of again. If you act like a pussy you will get treated like one. If you are not prepared to fight then at least be prepared to get your head kicked in! This is the real world and whether you like it or not that is the way things really are! There is no political correctness, there is no fairness. As I have said many times: Your safety is an illusion!

On Friday night my team was attacked by a passer by. I can offer no reason. He was walking past, stopped and started abusing us. One of the boys told him to have a good night but to have it somewhere else. He started slurring about how he could be anywhere he f*cking wanted before walking up and challenging us. He attempted to walk right up to us, literally face to face. One of the boys held out his arm to keep the guy at arms length. The drunk tried to push his arm out of the way then swung at my staff member. He was taught a very good lesson that night and I am proud of it. Other people walking past were astounded, shocked and horrified! Other passers by abused us, criticised us, condemned us. The guy was looking for a fight and if it wasn’t with us it would have been with us then it sure as hell would have been with one of the people who stood around cursing at us. Hen the police arrived we handed him over. He tried to fight them. They taught him a lesson too. I guess he was a slow learner. The police received the same criticism as us. We were at fault. The police were at fault. This poor guy wasn’t to blame. I mean all he wanted to do was attack us. What’s wrong with that? We should put up with it because it’s our jobs. We should be prepared for it because we knew what we were signing up for.

All I have left to say to people who think like that is “F*ck you all”! I do my job and I do it well. I won’t start a fight but I sure as hell will finish it! Oh yeah, and don’t f*ck with me because I f*ck back!

Buying Countries

2005-10-10T15:14:00.000+13:00

I have come across a very interesting idea. It makes some sense but I feel it is not as sound an investment as some might have you believe. I have decided to put a case forward for those that might be interested in higher risk investments that yield greater returns. I don’t do this because I like the Iraqis. I don’t do this because I like you. I am doing this because it is an interesting idea and because you have taken the time to read my stuff!

After years of trade sanctions, and rampant counterfeiting, the Iraqi Dinar has plummeted from its pre-Gulf War value of over USD$3, to mere fractions of one US cent. What was once the equivalent of more than NZ$247,500, can now be purchased for around NZ$100. It is uncertain as to whether Iraq's economy can achieve, in a free market, what it once achieved under a dictatorship, but it does seem promising as the nation is not alone in its effort to do so.

Above and beyond the vast oil reserve, agriculture, and highly educated population, there is now liberty in Iraq. Many people believe that where liberty is sown, prosperity blooms. I understand that liberty is challenged. It has been challenged regularly in many western countries, New Zealand included. Why should a fledgling democracy be immune?
Thirty-eight nations have reduced the debts owed to them in an effort to bolster Iraq's economy. Billions of dollars are being invested by international firms to create Iraqi markets. 18 billion dollars has been given to Iraq by the US State Department to rebuild the nation's infrastructure. They are receiving aid monetarily, militarily or both, from most of the countries in the free world.
Now, let's say you decide to err on the side of Iraqi prosperity. You take advantage of the 100 year low value and buy 2 million Iraqi dinars. You look them over, admire them, and show them to some friends as a curiosity. The security features alone will have them enthralled. Then you stick them in a closet and go about your life.

A few years from now, you see an article on 60 Minutes portraying the lives of average Iraqis and how things have improved in a free Iraq. You see people drinking locally bottled, genuine Coca Cola; not the counterfeit stuff they'd been consuming for years. They are buying their cars from Baghdad BMW. Their highly educated engineers are no longer waiting tables or driving cabs, they are engineering. The world's 2nd largest oil reserve is producing more efficiently. Higher quality crops are being harvested, in larger numbers.

You discover that things are going well enough in Iraq to have raised the value of the dinar to one US cent.

Your NZ$3,150 purchase would now be valued at NZ$20,000.

If the dinar were to climb to five US cents, you'd have two hundred thousand dollars sitting in a drawer. What if it were to reach a whole dollar? Or even rebound to it's peak of over $3.00?

Some economists say that this is a genuine possibility, with remarkable ramifications. Organizations like Operation Iraqi Children working with the US military, are helping to shape a new generation of freedom loving Iraqis. It won't be long before these kids take their place in society. Hopefully, the little sand monkeys will recall their childhood as the time when they were released from the grip of a bloodthirsty madman, and were given the tools and support to build a peaceful, prosperous society to call their own.

In early February 2005, while many were hailing the apparent success of the historic Iraqi elections, the Central Bank of Iraq was depositing $5 Billion into a new account with the US Federal Reserve in New York. All of those who were holding Iraqi dinars, went in trusting the new Iraqi government and the Central Bank of Iraq to do great things with the US dollars they were sent. Building currency reserves has been a major project for the central bank as the country resumes commerce with the rest of the world.

Aware of the need for US dollars in Iraq, currency speculators sent dollars to them in exchange for their own fledgling currency. The speculators trusted that it would aid them in rebuilding their economy, infrastructure and indeed, their entire country.

This $5 Billion has been accumulating at the Central Bank of Iraq since the introduction of the new dinar in October of 2003. Its deposit into the US Federal Reserve has proven to us that the hard earned US dollars have not vanished into a black hole, but are doing the work the speculators had hoped they would.

This account will not only earn Iraq $100 Million per year interest, but is also a bold statement to the worlds banking institutions and the global marketplace as a whole. Iraq is coming back, and preparing to take its rightful place on the world economic stage.

These are very exciting times for Iraq. While we morn the loss of decent westerners and the nation’s abysmal political state, let us also take note of the forgiveness Iraq has received from so many of its creditors. Early detractors had beaten us over the head with this debt, saying it would be the dinars undoing. Today, Iraq's debt is a small fraction of the $120 Billion it once was, and continued write-offs are expected in the very near future.

Their economy continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The average Iraqi now has more disposable income than they've had in many years, as evidenced by the huge demand for home appliances and computers in recent months.

There has never been a better time to Bet on Iraq. The current currency value is based on an underdeveloped and unstable nation. Things can only get better with time. There is a lot of money to be made in the development of nations and this is a good way of making it without having to deal with the little Persian peasants!

Puns

2005-10-10T10:02:00.000+13:00

Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion allowed per passenger.
Two boll weevils grew up in South Carolina. One went to Hollywood and became a famous actor. The other stayed behind in the cotton fields and never amounted to much. The second one, naturally, became known as the lesser of two weevils.
Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it, too.
A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the Old West. He slides up to the bar and announces: "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."
Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.
A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."
A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.
Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him ....what? A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
And finally, there was the person who posted ten different puns on his website, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make people laugh. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

Oxymorons

2005-10-10T09:55:00.000+13:00

Act naturally
Found missing
Resident alien
Advanced BASIC
Genuine imitation
Good grief
Same difference
Almost exactly
Government organization
Sanitary landfill
Alone together
Legally drunk
Silent scream
Living dead
Small crowd
Business ethics
Soft rock
Butt Head
Military Intelligence
Sweet sorrow
"Now, then ..."
Synthetic natural gas
Passive aggression
Taped live
Clearly misunderstood
Peace force
Extinct Life
Temporary tax increase
Computer jock
Plastic glasses
Terribly pleased
Political science
Tight slacks
Pretty ugly
Working vacation
Exact estimate
Microsoft Works, Government Works, etc.

The Ant and the Grasshopper

2005-10-10T09:01:00.000+13:00

THE CLASSIC VERSION OF THIS FABLE

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE NEW ZEALAND MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate like him are cold and starving. TVNZ shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table filled with food. Kiwis are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. The Green Party, Maori Party, the trade unions and the coalition Against Poverty and the usual bunch of professional rioters demonstrate in front of the ant's house. TVNZ, interrupting an Iwi cultural festival special from a Northland Marae with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome."

Sue Bradford rants in an interview with Paul Holmes that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share." In response to polls, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant's taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers. Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. The ant moves to Australia and starts a successful agribiz company. TVNZ later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food though Spring is still months away, while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house crumbles around him because he hadn't maintained it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, Winston Peters is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000. The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose. The Auckland Herald blames it on obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of migrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching New Zealand's multicultural diversity, who promptly start terrorising the community.

Don't tread on me!

2005-10-05T12:10:00.000+13:00

I was going to write something positive today but that is going to have to wait. Every morning when I arrive at work I follow a certain ritual. I eat some of my sandwiches and wash them down with my diet coke. While I am having my ‘breakfast’ I jump on the internet to read the news. After that I read the transcripts of the previous day’s parliamentary debates. No matter how busy I am, I manage to get these tasks completed before midday.

Today however, I am writing this instead. I have eaten some of my sandwiches and am about half way through my bottle of diet coke. But I have not finished reading even the major headlines of the news because I have been reminded of one of the main reasons as to why I will not miss this country too much when I am gone.

I was reading an article with the headline “Worst Youths May Be Tagged” and felt the need to write about several strong views that were resurrected by this.

My first Master’s degree was an MA in Criminology. While my thesis had nothing to do with youth offending I had covered the topic in great detail in my Graduate Diploma in Arts (majoring in Crim). Now it doesn’t take someone with my over-priced education to realise that releasing 2,000-3,000 of our worst youth offenders into the community with nothing more than an ankle bracelet and a curfew is a mistake. These are kids prone to deviant behaviour and unfortunately, the fact that an offence has been committed by a juvenile does little to amend a victim’s suffering. We live in a time when children are capable of the most abhorrent attacks and are amongst the worst property offenders. While the solution is not to lock them up and throw away the key, releasing them back into the community due to a lack of secure beds, provides an even more disastrous solution.

While there exists little empirical evidence to suggest that rehabilitation works, I am a big fan of our correction system’s unofficial plan to incapacitate. If you can’t stop them offending by showing them that their deviant behaviour is wrong, then stop them by locking them up. It is far from an ideal solution but is the best that we can do. These are kids who like to deviate from the rules and laws of our society. These are kids who lack the ability or willingness to make effective moral judgements. They often come from a background of little discipline (however the other extreme does also exist) and are dealt with by a system that is empowered to do little more than to give them a slap on the wrist (although in reality even that is prohibited).

What’s even more alarming is that the article goes on to state that while the core group constitute only about 10% they constitute 50% of the crime. The solution to me is obvious: Lock the little f*ckers up! Now, I understand that they are young but you can’t tell me they do not know the difference between right and wrong. I could distinguish between the two concepts at a very young age thanks largely to my father’s belt! Maybe that’s what’s needed, f*ck the touchy, feel good nonsense we have implemented into our correctional policy and buy a sturdy leather belt. I will even volunteer to wield it… free of charge. A multi-million dollar corrections system will cost society approximately $150 (until the belt needs to be replaced)!

While I am aware of the rights of the offender I am also aware of the rights of the victim. I am very aware of this, so much so that I have had an article published in an international criminological journal on this very topic. Let’s put things back into perspective. We are not dealing with two parties on an even playing field. If there is a conflict of interest between the rights of the offender and the rights of the victim may the rights of the latter prevail. It is an oversimplified response but it captures the spirit and essence of justice. However, it is with great regret that I mention that in the contemporary justice system, the opposite is true.

As I hope you can see, I am frustrated at the political correctness that inhibits the effectiveness of our justice system. But the aforementioned news article has awoken an even bigger sleeping giant, namely, Maori political correctness. Now this is where my rant really begins!!!

The article refers to an organisation by the name of Te Puna Wai o Tuhinapo. Now, please tell me what the f*ck a Te Puna Wai o Tuhinapo is! Why are we starting to feel the need to rename government and social entities in a manner incomprehensible to the average New Zealander? New Zealand has two official languages, and as a result we have included Maori names on pretty much everything. But as with most things influenced by political correctness, the proverbial pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Why must an organisation that deals with all segments of society be given a Maori name when Maori only constitute 14% of the population? None of them are pure Maori so they will be identifiable as Maori as well as ‘other’. The ‘Maori’ population does not even exhibit a 50% Maori literacy rate! That means that less than 7% of the population will know what a Maori title translates to. I am not against the use of Maori titles, however they are not a suitable replacement for English ones. And common sense dictates they never will be!!!

Keeping with the topic of language, why is it that Maori feel the need to create new words for contemporary inventions such as the telephone and the motor car? These terms were not around pre-colonisation nor were they creations of the Maori mind. The translations are often more complicated and tongue twisting than the English versions so the issue of practicality bears no relevance. It is done so out of pride and they are well within their rights to do so. This is a classic example of the Maorification of words and as it hurts no one, there is no reason why it should really be criticised. However, the converse is not true. It can be argued that the incorrect pronunciation of Maori words by ‘pakeha’ (an accepted, yet derogatory term no matter which interpretation you apply) is not that, but an Englishification of them. Pronouncing words such as Taranaki in a more European way or ignoring the ‘f’ sound created by the letters ‘w’ and ‘h’ when combined and replacing them with a ‘w’ sound (such as in the term ‘whakapapa’) can also be seen not as cultural insensitivity by other cultures but as an intolerance by Maori of the acceptance of modifying terms for integration in what we consider to be our own mother tongue. Pure hypocrisy!

The natural response to my criticism would be to label me a racist. Well if my views make me a racist then I will proudly identify myself as a racist! And you will have to listen to my racist rants because I will then become a minority and minorities are afforded extra rights. Or will I? If the contemporary definer of racism is valid then I believe a majority of New Zealanders will be labelled with the term. The belief of one law for all does not make a racist. The promotion of a segregated society does! It is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black (or a ‘polished stainless steel’ if you are in my kitchen)!

English is the most commonly spoken language in the world. It is the contemporary international language having surpassed anything that ‘Esperanto’ ever managed to achieve. It is the language that almost every New Zealander understands and is therefore the most efficient vehicle of communication. Maori is a historical language. Latin is considered to be a ‘dead’ language yet it has more fluent speakers worldwide and is widely employed in a variety of professions such as economics, medicine and law. It is great to see Maori in our passports but this is a formality, a statement of our national identity… not a matter of practicality. What I mean by this is we have not included Maori in the passport for any other reason than it represents the historical make up of our society. It certainly isn’t for all those other countries around the world that might have trouble understanding the English portion and feel more comfortable with a Maori translation!

Keep the Maori language alive! It’s quaint and people should never be derived of their culture. However, we must be aware that we are not a bicultural society, we are a multicultural one. This great nation is the product of many different cultures and if an objective analysis were conducted I believe that it would be safe to say that the Maori contribution would be very small indeed.

It is irrelevant for me to mention my various Maori friends for that serves no role other than to pitifully try to justify myself as a non-racist. But I should be judged by what I have said here, regardless of my friends or my ethnic makeup. Everyone being treated equally both in our law and with the titles of our public organisations is the alternative that I am promoting.

But I haven’t finished there! I am going to dig even deeper! I will now relate my two aforementioned topics of crime and Maori culture. Let’s get a little more controversial!

Several years ago I came up with a research proposal for a paper analysing the relationship between crime and the Maori culture. I hypothesised that I would be able to find a correlation between the two. Needless to say, my proposal was rejected. The topic was not up for discussion. I wrote the paper anyway and submitted it to the editor of a criminological journal. It was rejected! No comments, no suggestions, just flatly rejected! It was a sound academic body of research. It was well referenced and the conclusions reached were logical. I had three articles published in the same journal prior to the submission of this paper. I feel these factors were irrelevant.

Now, the general gist of this paper stated that there are multiple reasons as to why the Maori culture is more prone to cause deviancy than some others. None of these relate to biology or to Maori being inherently criminal for they are not. While the theory of ‘sociological positivism’ has its flaws when attempting to provide the sole reason for crime, there is without a doubt some validity to the theory in reality. It is widely recognised that we are products of our environment. While the ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate still rages I think that only the most foolhardy of persons would believe that social influences play no role in the determination of the criminal. While I believe the Maori culture does not in itself cause criminal behaviour it is my undoubting belief that it fosters it.

A radical claim? Only because it is totally un-PC!

The first thing to consider is the cultural feeling of oppression by a significant portion of Maori toward the colonists. This in itself can often manifest itself into the feeling for the need to rebel against ‘the white man’s’ laws as well as society as a whole. This can take one of several forms with the person in question either feeling like a victim, an avenger or elements of both. The feeling of oppression amongst the youth when combined with cultural influences by the media have created a sense of camaraderie with ‘African Americans’ and the associated ‘gangster culture’. The fact that slavery of the Maori by colonists was non-existent seems lost on the feelings of oppression felt by many Maori youth. The only widespread documentation of slavery in New Zealand however comes from the enslaving of Moriori BY the Maori. This compounds the ridiculousness of the ‘we were here first’ argument popularly espoused, for those that live by the sword, die by the sword, or more appropriately, those that live by the sword get shot by those that don’t.

There also exist certain elements of Maori culture that emphasise violence. In fact the aggressive emotions are probably the most commonly exhibited in the various cultural displays. The emphasis on the ‘warrior culture’ creates an environment which is fundamentally opposed to those values required for a harmonious society. Learning to accept a role as a violent warrior conflicts with other roles presented by the education system and by society as a whole and thus presents a case of mixed messages contributing to violent tendencies. This is not absolute as other factors can and do play a role in the social upbringing of an individual but form influencing factors that have the potential to lead to deviant behaviour.

The ideas of my paper are not too radical. In fact, it was only recently that 60 minutes raised the issue and presented a half hour article on many similar points. This issue floats in and out of my head and I often witness spectacles which I deem to be culturally insensitive. A recent example relates to the display of the haka by the All Blacks. I am certain that I will receive much criticism for my condemnation of this practice as well as further labels of racism, cultural insensitivity not to mention an absence of patriotism, but what we must remember is that such sensitivity and respect must flow both ways. It is my personal belief that a ‘declaration of war’ has little place on the sports field. Sure it’s a display a unique aspect of our cultural identity but it is somewhat over-aggressive and has been taken as an affront to members of the opposing team as well as other nations. I found the haka before the final Lions test to be particularly offensive. This test occurred immediately after the first lot of London terrorist bombings. In a time of mourning, our nation’s team still felt it appropriate to issue an aggressive challenge or ‘declaration of war’ to the British and Irish Lions. This says a lot about our cultural sensitivity! The English for better or for worse have very strong ties to our nation. The loss of innocent lives was a tragedy not only for those in London but for the world as a whole. Any attempt to show respect by silence before the test was undoubtedly obliterated by our nation’s insensitivity in carrying out the aggressive act. This is only one example of cultural sensitivity flowing only one way.

More recently, Don Brash, leader of the opposition stated that he would like to see a return to the previous honours system whereby knighthoods were reintroduced. I have mixed feelings about this but it is a valid enough topic to warrant public discussion. However, our all knowing prime minister made a statement that offended me, if no one else. She simply stated that the system was old and no longer relevant to today’s New Zealand. I believe she went so far as to call it “a relic of the past”. “A relic of the past” or an important part of our historical cultural identity? God forbid anyone make such a similar statement about Maori culture! Yet while such an affront to not only her culture but the culture of many New Zealanders existed, to my knowledge not a single mention was made of the statement’s hypocrisy!

These are but a few of the complaints that I would like to voice today! It is far from a complete list but rest assured, as I am sure that this topic will be touched on again in the near future. I am now going back to my news and debates.

Wanted: Professional Idiot

2005-10-04T14:10:00.000+13:00

Professional negligence or professional incompetence attracts a higher penalty through our common law. The reason for this is that these people are claiming to be professionals and as a result, we not only rely on but also pay for their ‘expert’ advice. There are many factors that make a professional and they usually come in the form of education and experience. The term ‘professional’ should be seen as almost synonymous with the term ‘expert’ with the latter requiring a slightly higher threshold. However, experience has taught me that in today’s society the title of ‘professional’ is not only often self-awarded but merely implies that the person in question wants to get paid for their services. It has little if anything to do with knowledge and expertise.

We have made the transition to a market economy and as with most things in life those with the most knowledge will have the best advantage. Unfortunately those of us that realise this fact can still be doomed to failure. We may solicit the advice of a professional in the realisation that we do not hold substantial information about the goods or services we are about to consume and feel the added safety of their assistance is worth the extra money, a form of preventative insurance if you will. Unfortunately in today’s society any man and his dog can pretty much become a professional. In itself, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I am not against the upward mobility of socio-economic classes through the transition of unskilled to skilled labour, but I am against the notion of living in a deregulated society where people can pass themselves off as professionals without any training or experience. In other words, I would like my skilled labour to actually possess some skills. The idea of a totally free market is good in theory but only in theory. Having spent several years studying economics at a tertiary level I have a very good understanding that economic models are just that. They model society. They attempt to explain market behaviour by creating over simplistic scenarios. The commonly used latin phrase ‘ceteris parabus’ is usually a key component of economic theory and literally means ‘assuming all other things are equal’. It attempts to isolate a particular force for study. However in reality there are multiple forces influencing our decisions and an over reliance on simple theories (although often in the form of complex mathematics) can be just as dangerous as not having a theory at all.

A free market economy allows pretty much anyone to buy and sell goods and services. Demand and supply are supposed to regulate the market. These forces are supposed to determine the ‘equilibrium’ or fairest price, regulate competition and expel undesirable business practices. The theory states that if a producer or seller is not performing then the consumers will no longer buy from them and they will be forced out of the market. The only problem with this model is: there are a lot of problems with this model! This is an oversimplified economic theory that makes many assumptions and ignores many real life market forces. The arguments put forward by demand and supply theory do not always hold true. Stay with me, I’m getting to my point!

I am planning an overseas adventure. I will be embarking on a career that is going to take me from dealing with the little parasites of my city to dealing with the bigger parasites of the world. Unfortunately, the planning of my journey and preparation of documents for this job are somewhat complicated. What’s more, I have decided to throw a holiday into the equation. As a result, I have to arrange flights, police certificates, security clearances, visas as well as accommodation. Unfortunately, I have found that one thing is dependant on another, and what’s more, this dependence is cyclical. In order to get my work visa I need to have a job. It is my potential employer that will sponsor me for this visa. I have a potential employer so it should be simple right? Wrong! In order to have my contract confirmed I need to obtain a security clearance. In order to obtain a clearance I must get a police certificate from my home country. There are problems with the processes for as I must have my security clearance before I can get my job offer but I can’t get my police certificate which is required for the clearance more than a month before I arrive in that country. It will then take up to three months for my clearance to be approved. Another requirement for my visa is that I have flights to and from my country of employment (despite the fact that I am sponsored). As I have signed a one year contract I need a flight out of that country over a year away. However, due to the computer systems that airlines use this is impossible. If I do not have my flights, I cannot get my visa. If I do not have my visa I cannot get my job. But that is a bureaucratic mess brought about by inflexibility and the insistence of sticking to policy and ignoring the errors they cause in reality.

But my gripe today is not with red tape, for that is something that has been a problem well before I was born and will be around well after I die. In order to even make changes in reducing the red tape you would have to go through so much red tape that it would be questionable as to whether the process would actually be worth it! And I’m pretty sure it’s not!!!

My rant today started off with the deregulation and privatisation influencing the title of ‘professional’ in various markets and that is the area to which I will now return.

As I mentioned earlier, a free market economy assumes that supply and demand, or rather a lack of demand will force a producer or supplier out of a market thereby creating the most efficient form of regulation. However this theory relies on the presumption of total knowledge. ‘Total knowledge’ is a situation where everyone in the market is aware of all aspects of goods and services, in other words they know everything that is needed to know about the market in question. It relies on consumers being rational as well as informed. Now we all know many irrational people out there but let’s ignore that for a second. Many of us do not have total knowledge of a particular good or service and therefore rely on the advice and assistance of a professional. I would even go so far as to state that gaining ‘total knowledge’ about every market in which we deal on a daily basis is not only impractical but also a downright impossibility.

As you can see, I have brought you full circle. We are where we started! But hopefully with a greater degree of background knowledge! Now, let’s move forward!!!

Professionals play the role of a guide. They aid and assist you with a particular good or service and should serve the purpose of helping you get what you want. In return for this guidance you pay them a fee. In an ideal world, you tell your professional what you want, they tailor make a solution suitable for your needs and you pay them for this customisation. As you can see, professionals are very handy. Unfortunately, that is a statement on theory. Like economic models, reality is a little more complicated!

Even if you want to save money, a professional can be of assistance. This premise is modified from the principle of “You’ve got to spend money to make money” but has a somewhat more ironic name than even that. Let’s call it “You’ve got to spend money to save money”. By paying a travel agent a particular fee, they in turn can research the cheapest airfare for you and book it. This is what they should do if that is what you have requested. That is what they would do if we lived in a perfect economic model! However, as the following story will illustrate, some of our ‘professionals’ can’t even do this right.

The flights for my adventure are complicated as they require two different people travelling from opposite sides of the world meeting up and travelling onward together. What’s more they involve numerous stopovers for various periods as well as settlement for a year and the need for an onward ticket from that country of temporary residence.

I do not consider myself to be an optimist or a pessimist. I am a realist. I do not worry about my glass being half empty nor do I worry about my glass being half full, instead I worry about who has been drinking out of my f*cking glass! I have eleven years of tertiary education and am trained to think a certain way. While I know that I am educated I know that I am not a professional travel agent. Like many things in this world there can be many pitfalls if you don’t know what you are doing. Even if something appears to be simple, there is a chance that hidden factors may dramatically alter the outcome. When it came to something as complicated as my trip I did not want to take the risk of being stranded somewhere or of losing thousands of dollars through poor planning. As a result, I decided to seek the assistance of a ‘professional’.

I had several criteria. I had to be in certain places on certain dates. My girlfriend’s travel plans had to be taken into account. From a certain date we would both be travelling together and I wanted to make the arrangements for her flights from the moment we met up onwards. I wanted all of this and I wanted to do it relatively cheaply. I am aware that it was a big ask and it was a complicated request but then again that is why I was seeking the advice of a professional! I did not set a dollar amount, I just wanted it to be ‘a cost effective way of travelling’.

I made the mistake of confusing the contemporary terms of ‘professional’ and expert. Initially I was presented with a quote for flights that had nothing to do with my specifications. My puzzled enquiry was met with a response that angered me. My travel agent had decided what my needs were and what way I should be going about my travels. Now this would be fine if I didn’t know where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do! However, that was not my purpose for soliciting her advice. I made it very clear what my requirements were and merely relied upon her to make the travel arrangements that would fit. Her further insistence that she knew my requirements better than I did cost her my business. I moved onto another company feeling safe in the knowledge that I had helped turn the giant cogs of free market regulation and soon enough she would be squeezed out of the market. No need to make a complaint, they would soon be out of business through the loss of my custom.

My next travel agent presented me with a more viable solution. It was everything that I asked for. It was more expensive than what I had expected but I didn’t know better. I asked her to book my tickets immediately and promptly paid her. Two weeks later I still hadn’t received my tickets and called her to find out what was happening. She said there was no rush and that the booking had not been confirmed. Now, if I pay you to book my tickets, then you do so as soon as practicably possible. If you receive take thousands of dollars off me then I would like to be able to see what I have paid for. I want to be able to hold the tickets in my hand! As it turned out an additional fuel surcharge was imposed by the airlines at a later date and she attempted to present me with a bill for an extra $300 to cover it. I would not have attracted this charge if my tickets had been promptly issued. As a result I refused to pay. It became a bigger issue than what it should have been but her manager ended up deciding that they would bear the cost. I received my tickets shortly afterwards. I was satisfied. She had done her job. I had paid the extra for her expertise. She was the professional in whom I had selected and my faith was placed in her. She had earned my money and I had promptly booked my ticket and paid her.

My travel plans were divided into two different groups. The first part had been purchased and the second part just needed the dates to be confirmed before the booking went ahead. When it came time to book the second lot I told her to go ahead with the tentative dates and flights. Later that afternoon my travel agent phoned me and told me that she had made a mistake in booking and pricing the flights as she submitted the query through the “wrong screen”. One ticket was supposed to cost me $300 and the other two were priced at $400 each. The new prices she quoted me were $1,800 for the first ticket (with my partner and I having to travel on different flights) and $2,200 for each of the other two. All of a sudden I was faced with an extra cost of $5,100. I was told that this was the cheapest option. This was her mistake and this time her company wasn’t going to do anything about it. I had been screwed! I contemplated legal action but that was definitely a last resort. Instead I opted for the internet.

Forget the ‘professionals’, let’s see what I can do! After half a day of research I managed to find a seat on the same flight as me for $235 + taxes. A seat on a flight I was assured didn’t exist. I then managed to replace the $2,200 flights with ones that cost a little under $500 each. These were all flights that must not have existed in the world of my professional travel agent and was assured wouldn’t exist in my world either. But there they were! However, I still had faith in the professionals! I still trusted their expertise over mine. There must be something wrong with this! I must be overlooking something important! I sought advice from many different people. Airlines, Embassies and other travel agents. All ‘professionals’ themselves. Sure enough they were fine.

Now either my travel agent was professionally negligent, incompetent or worse. Had she tried to mislead or even defraud me? Well I guess that’s for the courts to decide!

The point that I am trying to make is that who we see as professionals often fall below the threshold of my understanding of the term. They often perform below the standards implied and expressed through common and statutory laws as well as what would constitute good old fashioned commonsense. Have faith in your own abilities and check what your ‘expert’ is doing. It is a less than ideal situation and the thought of free market regulation does little to help me sleep at night as it requires people to be cheated before the regulation actually begins to take place. As such, I do not believe that this is the most ‘efficient’ form of regulation as touted by economists and the Business Roundtable.

I would recommend that you take note of the type of free market society that we live in and the need for making an informed decision. A truly informed decision requires effort and research. In future, I will research things myself BEFORE going to a travel agent. I will then ask them what they can do for me and if it is less favourable than my plans I will ask them why. I recommend you do the same, and if you insist upon spending money on a ‘professional travel agent’ then I am sure that by today’s slack definition I will certainly qualify, and I assure you I will be more than happy to take it!

Don't move back home!

2005-10-03T16:08:00.000+13:00

I live in a fairly affluent suburb. Not because I am well off but because my mum has recently bought a house there. You see, I’m planning a big adventure that commences at the end of this year and in order to make it a reality I have moved back home. After twelve years of independence I find this situation extremely frustrating. I know that it is a good move from a financial perspective and also try to justify the decision with the knowledge that my adventure is going to take me overseas indefinitely and later in life I will appreciate this time of ‘togetherness’.

Another advantage of living ‘at home’ is not being able to pick up random young girls from work and take them there. For I am in a loving relationship (albeit a long distance one) and living at home helps to keep me honest. I have no desire to wander so the need for my own ‘pad’ is in many ways superfluous and more of a luxury than a necessity.

However, as we are all aware, living at ‘home’ does have its disadvantages. The primary disadvantage for me is the gross lack of privacy that I am currently experiencing. My mother feels that she is empowered to go through my room, although what she is looking for could only be explained by the most knowledgeable of gods. I find that even the bags of rubbish that I put out are not free from her scrutiny. I feel like a whining teenager desperately trying to be seen as an adult. The only difference is that I am! I am an adult!!! I am in my late twenties, own my own business as well as two properties (well technically the bank owns them). They key criteria for being eligible for privacy while “living under [my mother’s] roof” is that I pay to live there. I believe that this entitles me to a certain degree of privacy and independence. My mother on the other hand would disagree. But who am I to complain? After all, I am a grown man living with his mother!!!

Why am I complaining to you? Because I can! A friend set this site up for me and if you are here then you have to obey by my rules! See it isn’t much fun is it? No, actually I am wondering how many others have returned home for some reason or another and have faced a similar situation. That’s a blatant lie! I am writing it because I can and because all of this is slowly building up to what I hope to be significant points.

For you see, another problem with living at home is being subjected to my mother’s friends. The people I am talking about are the ones that come from middle to upper middle class families, have lived in fairly affluent suburbs all their lives and have never taken the time to actually walk amongst the more underprivileged in our society yet feel qualified to prescribe solutions. I can sit here and say ‘I was there man’ and ‘I worked my way up from the streets’ but who really cares? It doesn’t entitle me to a medal or kudos. In fact it doesn’t entitle me to anything more than this rant. In fact those statements aren’t even true! I haven’t worked my way ‘from’ the streets; I have worked my way ‘to’ the streets!

I am not underprivileged. My parents have worked far too hard to ensure that I wasn’t. However, I am not rich either. I have spent my time living in poorer neighbourhoods and a large part of my life deals with these communities. I have spent a lot of time with our lower socio-economic group and not always by choice. I have great respect for some of them and absolutely loathe others but I do so from actually having gotten to know them individually and not by viewing them as a homogenous demographic.

What is my point? Am I having fun making myself sound like a friend to all of humanity? Well I’ll be the first to state that I am not. I have more in common with the four horsemen of the apocalypse than any civil rights figure. But I still haven’t gotten to my point. Fear not! If I indeed have one I’ll get to it soon!

On Saturday night I received a visit from one of my staff. It would appear that he was involved in a moderate altercation the previous evening. He came out better off (that’s my boy!) but judging by his account and the extent of his injuries it wasn’t by too much. We discussed the events as well as the repercussions before I invited him into the living room to join me for a drink. I took him into the living room and did the whole introduction thing with my mother’s friends who were sitting there. Now my guest and those of my mother’s are from totally different worlds. So much so in fact that a look of horror came over their faces when they found themselves face to face with this big Polynesian man covered in bruises, cuts and bandages. This wasn’t their world and I took great pleasure in the facial expressions they made and the discomfort they exhibited while shaking my boy’s hand. I popped off to the kitchen and returned with a couple of beers. I know this guy well. He has worked with me and for me for a few years now. I have a lot of respect for him and have earned a lot of respect in return from both him and his family. They are good people (well most of them are) but they are a world away from the one that existed at my house that night. He lives in a state house in the deepest darkest part of what could only be described as one of our region’s worst ghetto. He is a devout Christian (Assembly of God) and speaks with a heavy Pacific Island accent. He has relatives who are ‘gangsters’ and a brother serving time for what I believe to be aggravated robbery. He has walked the bad path himself but has subsequently been ‘reformed’. Amen, my brother! Praise the lord!

Now, I was enjoying this situation. Everyone was quiet and didn’t quite know what to say. My boy was very polite as well as shy and if he wasn’t comfortable with you then extracting a conversation from him was like drawing blood from a stone. I could see the gears turning in the heads of my mother’s friends as they wondered how they came to be sitting with this giant, not to mention what kind of battle this man had been through. I decided to inform them.

“[censored] works as a bouncer for me and was involved in a pretty vicious fight last night” I said. “With patched gang members” I added, studying the mixed expressions on their faces. There was silence. “No need to worry, he took care of himself and taught them a little lesson” I continued hoping that they wouldn’t view him as a mere victim of a violent world but as an active component of it. I love to shock people! Especially like the smug group sitting in front of me who often sat there deliberating the solutions of the world’s problems. And what’s more, the fools believe that their oversimplified and often blatantly flawed conclusions served as solutions.

“What happened?” a middle aged gentleman summoned up the courage to ask.

“I wouldn’t let them in the bar because they were a gang and then they attacked me” my boy replied.

I had to interject to stoke the fires of my wonderful conversation. “You see, we don’t let gang members into our bars. Sometimes these losers believe the image of fear they try to project and it’s up to people like us to make sure that we put them back in their place and keep them away from decent people who are just trying to have a good time”. I think the irony of my statement and the position that they were in was lost on them. For I had welcomed someone into the room that was as vicious as they would ever encounter, while at the same time one of the most loyal souls they would ever meet.

“What happened to them? Did they get arrested?” the same man asked.

“Well, No.” I replied. “We try to keep the police out of things as much as possible. It creates problems for the bar and potential problems for us”.

“But you have to inform the police” a lady interjected. “You can’t just take the law into your own hands! Besides, I’m sure they’ll understand that you were doing the right thing.”

Another gentleman decided to throw in his 2 cents. “Well, if you were really doing the right thing, I mean if you were doing your job properly you wouldn’t have had to resort to violence”.

Really? And how long have you been bouncing for? How many times have you had to tell drunken gang members that they are not welcome and sent them off with a wave and a smile? How many times have you had to maintain control over a couple of hundred drinkers and baby-sit someone at the door who can’t understand why they are not allowed to enter? How many gang members have you ever seen in real life let alone spoken to? And how many have you prevented from doing something that they want to do and done so in front of their mates?

I was fuming! But I did my best to keep myself from exploding. I was now the one that was uncomfortable. Not because this man’s revelation was correct and it had put me in my place but because he simply had no idea!

“So how would you have done it differently?” I managed to squeeze out between my clenched teeth.

“I guess I would have talked it out. Just spoken calmly and politely and arrived at a compromise” he said (or some other rubbish that was similar).

Oh! A compromise? So you mean you would have put your tail between your legs and backed down. “And what type of compromise do you think you would reach?” I asked. Before he could respond I opened my big smart mouth again “Keeping in mind that they want to come in and you want to keep them out”. You have to keep them out!

“Well I don’t know if I would keep them out” he replied. “If they were going to behave themselves I would probably let them in”.

Well mate if you worked for me you wouldn’t be now. Just don’t let that door hit your ass on the way out!

I proceeded to rant and rave much as I do on this site educating him on the policy of not letting patched gang members into bars and how such policies are non negotiable. I then proceeded to explain the various reasons why we don’t let them in before asking him what he would then do if they had caused some type of problem while inside. But I didn’t stop there! I continued to lecture him on why it is better to deal with such matters at the door and the principle of ‘prevention’. I showed him a confrontational situation and watched him squirm. Needless to say he did nothing to calm me down or reach a suitable compromise. I attempted to briefly educate him on the ‘art and science of bouncing’ but only covered the tip of the iceberg. What’s more, it is something that I often attempt to communicate to others but if you aren’t there you don’t really understand or feel all the factors that are involved.

“That was enough of that” I thought having been burnt by my own fire. The discussion then broadened as it turned to society and psychology. From there I unashamedly professed my love of stereotyping as a tool. I received universal condemnation. But their condemnation was gratifying!

Stereotyping is a valuable tool but there are caveats. There are usually reasons as to why stereotypes have developed. Stereotypes can and should only be used as an indicator and not a final judgement. I use stereotypes to make decisions almost daily and am proud to admit that I do so! I use them to fill in the gaps where I am lacking information and am the first to admit that sometimes people have to work their way out of being a stereotype to me. However, after chatting for a little while I can very easily change my opinion of you. We all do it. We can pretend otherwise but then we lie to ourselves and we lie to others. Are you a liar?

Now, why am I complaining to you and what exactly am I complaining about? I am complaining because it makes me feel better. I have a new blog and am aware that not many people read it. I am not trying to justify myself to the world nor am I trying to change it. I am just ranting and raving and the key points of this rant are as follows:

Don’t attempt to tell people how to do their job if you have no experience doing it.
Don’t believe that the whole world is the same as the one that you live in.
Despite the ideal that everything can be talked through, there are some people who will not let this happen and will resort to violence if they don’t get their way (and sometimes I’m one of them).
Don’t discuss a group of people as though they are all the same. All poor people are not the same. All Ethnic Minorities are not the same.
Don’t start to discuss groups of people if you don’t really understand them. If you haven’t lived with them or are close friends of theirs then you cannot even begin to understand. I certainly don’t understand others! I have enough trouble trying to understand myself!!!
The world is a very complicated place. The world you live in is complicated. The underbelly of society is even more so.
Safety is an illusion. Most people will not have to experience crime other than the odd burglary. While we live in a relatively safe society, there is a very violent side to it. There are many things that happen in the city streets that do not make it into the news and therefore do not make it into your world. Be aware of this as you never know when it will be you that finds yourself caught up in it.
Make use of stereotypes and gut feelings. They will not always be right but they serve as good indicators. Just make sure that you accompany your stereotyping with an open mind. Be proud to stereotype! And stick up for this valuable tool before policymakers influenced by the ‘PC Police’ take it away from us!
Be nice to those that try and protect you. I’m referring to the police, security guards, bouncers etc. We don’t get paid enough and it is often a thankless job. We have a few fans but there are many more people that hate us and make our lives difficult. Some of us do it because we are idealistic, some of us like the action and some of us just need the money. Personally, I am all three. We are there to make your lives safer. But if you bite us we are human and we will turn on you. And chances are we will bite harder. We want to make friends. We want to be liked. We want to get through our nights without conflict. We live in a different world from many people who will ever read this. That doesn’t make us special. It certainly doesn’t make us better. Quite the contrary. I consider myself fortunate that I have the opportunity to step in and out of this world. Many I come across are stuck there.
And my final point is don’t move back home!

There are no great lessons or surprises here. In fact there really is no point to this rant. It won’t change your life nor will it change mine. There probably won’t even be anyone reading this. But it is what I’ve been thinking about and I thought I would share it with you!

An introduction to me

2005-09-30T15:36:00.000+12:00

I was never a big drinker when I was young. I was into my fitness and that never really seemed compatible with my lifestyle. I had experimented with alcohol and found that it had disastrous consequences for both my health and my future as an upstanding member of society. As a personal trainer and aerobics instructor in a large gym I managed to find people that shared similar interests in health and fitness and despite the relative ease of meeting up with women for lunch found the process of tricking them into sleeping with me a little more difficult. Don’t get me wrong, there were often beautiful women at work that flirted and I was more than interested but I just had trouble ‘sealing the deal’ so to speak. If a woman didn’t make her intentions obvious to me then nothing would happen. I’ve always had many female friends and often lamented at having always travelled that path. I am actually quite a shallow person and the thought of sleeping with every one of them has crossed my mind. I never really gave ‘ugly chicks’ the opportunity to let their personalities shine through unless they had an attractive friend that I wanted to sleep with. My female friends thought that I was shallow. I knew that and didn’t need to be told. I was just being myself and that is what we are meant to do, isn’t it?

After a while, I worked my way through a few girls at the gym including some of my ‘friends’ as well as flatmates and this big fish got sick of his little pond. There weren’t many people that took their training as seriously as me which made relationships as well as life in general quite difficult. Being a serious competitive athlete at the time meant that my training wasn’t merely recreational but a way of life. I decided to venture out into the night with friends and colleagues and loved the superstar status that I was afforded by both the men and women that went to my gym and comps. I soon discovered that even walking around in my gym uniform helped attract women. I was offered drinks by strangers that knew who I was and found the whole experience of picking up drunken women a little easier.

I refrained from drinking alcohol which made me feel out of place. My conversations were not brilliant and if a girl wanted to get to know me better before sex then she was sh*t out of luck! My personality served as the best form of contraception. I couldn’t even pretend to care about the drunken rants these girls could spew from their mouths and was concentrating more on what I could get in there instead. I missed out on some quality girls because of that. It worried me a little then but not enough to do something about it. It doesn’t worry me at all now.

I was a poser. I would turn up in my tight little t-shirts and the bouncers would let me straight through the door. I thought I was it! I looked at other men coming into the bar throwing their money around trying to buy some love and respect. I often thought that as soon as they get out of their fancy cars and clothes they were nothing. I was proud of my body and ashamed of it at the same time. I sure as hell knew that I didn’t want to be trying to buy some love but didn’t really understand that I was no closer than them to getting it either. The ‘love’ I got was drunken lust. I had no trouble picking up girls but a huge problem maintaining relationships. I was always the one to end them but as I look back they wouldn’t have let them last much longer either. My training and training partner came first. They came later, if I could be bothered making them ‘come at all!

I left my job at the gym to pursue a professional career at my sport. Needless to say that never happened. It was a big shock to me, one that I could have avoided had I been realistic and not filled my head with rubbish. I was good by New Zealand standards winning nationals four years in a row (something still not achieved by anyone else to this day) and at my peak was ranked eighth in the world in amateur class (but only because the points system worked in my favour).

I left my big commercial gym and got free membership at a small gym used exclusively by power lifters and bodybuilders. No girls meant no distractions. My training was intense. Hardcore!!! My life was depressing.

Going to the bars wasn’t the same. I didn’t drink and stood in a bar full of drunks. I had been approached by the door staff on many occasions to see if I wanted work. “You can get paid to be here. You won’t have to pay for your diet cokes and in fact you will get paid to be here and drink them”! They made a good point. “And you get to hurt people” they continued. I thought of my depression and rage. I was in!