Balnibarbi

Ramblings of an independent spirit

[davidmalcolm]

Bad vibrations

I've just completed some research on the effects of vibration, mechanical and airborne, on music reproduction, especially vinyl. It is a hot topic especially for a number of hifi manufacturers, specially in the turntable and tonearm sectors but also in equipment stands and isolation gadgets. Although my own setup sounded pretty good, I was aware that improvements could be made. A standard one is to get the turntable onto a wall mounted stand. Also for consideration is isolating the amplifier, especially, as mine is, a valve amplifier. Valves are very sensitive to mechanical vibration which can seriously affect their performance. Yet another is isolating the loudpseakers from the floor, especially when it is a traditional suspended wooden floor. This construction involves having wooden joists which insert into the usually brick walls on top of which are fixed wooden planks commonly called floorboards. There is normally a void under the joist/floorboard hence the term 'suspended' wooden floor. Sometimes, as in my case, separate wooden laminate is fixed on top of the original floorboards. So you can see that the floor can be a somewhat flexible 'trampoline' and transmit the likes of footfall across the whole area of the floor. This can then be 'picked up' by other structures sitting on the floor, such as a turntable and sometimes causes records to skip which is really not good for your listening pleasure but more importantly not good at all for the 'health' of your cartridge and vinyl.

Several manufacturers go to great length to minimise the effect this coarse mechanical vibration has on the subtle and miniscule movement of the cartridge moving in the vinyl groove. There are many other considerations as well which inform the design of the turntable itself, how any vibration from the drive motor(s) may affect the security of the tracking; how any unwanted vibrations are delt with in the tonarm, etc. But all these are technical issues which need the huge expertise of the equipment manufacturers and not really within the scope of the amateur hobbyist. What is within reach to this group are a number of modifiers such as specialist equipment stands, vibration minimising support feet, specialist speaker stands. Some of these items are very effective according to reports and the reader is advised to do their own research into companies like Townsend Audio, Iso Acoustics, Pro-ject, etc. The purpose of this blog is for me to relay my experience of dealing with the issue.

I have used sorbothane before and do see this as an effective solution to dissipate and minimise panel vibration. I was very impressed with the vibration minimising effects of cork and natural rubber/neoprene. Rubber, similarly to sorbothane, is viscoelastic and deforms and dissipates energy as heat, making it an excellent damper which reduces the amplitude of vibrations. Cork, on the other hand, helps decouple surfaces and provides a poor medium for transmitting resonance/ringing. The combination of both in a sandwich construction, and I think rubber-cork-rubber is a more practical sequence, helps to broaden the range of frequencies that get attenuated. It might not be perfect to attenuate very low frequency vibrations that spring/pneumatic/rubber systems can, but does provide an extremely cost effective solution for many setups.

As they say, the proof is in the pudding, or in this case, putting the isolators to the test. I bought, from a pretty well known supplier of everything from A-Z, sets of very simply constructed rubber-cork-rubber isolators and placed these under my valve amplifier, turntable and two mount/floor-standing speakers. The thickness of the cork was sufficient to avoid too much compression which minimises their effect. With everything in place, I played both CDs and vinyl discs and was quite shocked to hear how much better everything sounded. The bass notes were much clearer with a lot of textural detail and the midrange 'rang' with amazing clarity. The soundstage was not only wider but the separation of instruments and voices within the presentation pin sharp. My listening notes relating to John Eliot Gardiner’s Purcell, The Fairy Queen (Archiv 1982): “With the ‘treatment’ better focus and realism - clarity increased with dynamic range and better transient resolution. The presentation of instruments was exceptionally better with rendition of vocals on quite a different level of realism. On par with a serious amplifier upgrade. The anti-static gun treatment may be partly responsible. The sound floor is truly profound, so higher volumes simply bring out more detail. Quite stupendous.” All in all it was well beyond the normal 1 to 5% improvement one gets with so-called mimimal tweaks and for a sum that did not break the piggy bank. In a single word: “stupendous.”

[davidmalcolm]

Our world now

We live in a world in which reality and fantasy co-exist and at times you can’t tell one from the other. Truth or narrative? You decide. How do you navigate in this world of Tweedledum and Tweedledee? Don’t appear clever; appear stupid and do not share how you really feel or what you believe with anyone. If you have one two or three genuine friends, count yourself lucky.

People are feeling more and more that we are entering a period of the government running the country as a police state. Facial recognition will eventually be handed over to AI and possibly, in the future, robots, who have the legal and physical power to apprehend you.

Privacy will be a thing of the past. Not only will the authorities freely have access to most of your information, but it may fall into the hands of private businesses and or criminal organisations. Even bank details may become non-private and I can see when fines are dealt with automatically - in other words the authorities will have access to your bank details and be able to directly take money from your account. 

Facial ‘recognition’ or more

Accurately similar approximation will be used to apprehend innocent people and ban them from town centres, etc. There are 500,000 facial recognition cameras in London alone. Some if this information can be commoditised and monetised.

One of the most failing and corrupt police forces, the MPS has a Director of Intelligence Lindsay Chiswick who is deeply involved with facial recognition and AI. There has been a very serious breach in the case of Shaun Thompson, a member of the Street Fathers organisation who do excellent outreach work to deter young people from pathways to crime and violence, who was erroneously stopped and detained on account of a facial recognition app being used by the MPS identifying him as a wanted person. Because the incident was separately filmed by an investigator, Shaun is now taking the MPS to court. Incidentally, Lindsay Chiswick advised the investigator NOT to film such incidents saying it could be a breach of privacy. How ironic!

Ability to complain and demonstrate against the government and its handling of various social issues, has been since severely compromised due to the current government response to demonstrations and political aligned comments on social media. In other words the current government has moved to criminalise demonstrations and comments on social media using the justice system in a very draconian manner and imposing, disproportionate punishments for these so-called crimes.

[davidmalcolm]

Cloud Capital

FINANCE AND COMMERCE

According to some commentators, wealth, having moved from the feudal period, when the emphasis was on land ownership and wealth from this ownership was provided by rents in various forms and servitude to the lords of the manors, to the capitalist period when the emphasis was on industrial production and the means of production, profit, the buying and selling of shares and capital in companies, buying and selling of goods in markets, the provision of wages, economies of scale and addition of benefit, to the period where we are quickly moving into, that of cloud capitalism, which, in fact is less of a capitalist system and more of a return to feudalism.

Some defining attributes of this new economic model is that the oligarchs who control it tend to produce nothing of huge physical significance (for example goods) themselves but charge fees in the form of rents and or subscriptions for the use of their virtual services. The real estate is virtual and takes the form of platforms or virtual marketplaces.

The seller fees that, for example, Amazon charge are referral fees (introduction of a buyer to a seller), seller account fees and shipping/fulfilment fees. There can be other optional charges for product storage, advertising & promotion, financing. Amazon have buyer/subscriber fees also, such as Amazon Prime which ensures quicker and usually free delivery, and ancillary subscription based services such as music and film streaming services.

The different operating models of vehicle producing companies such as Tesla and Volkswagen highlight the main differences between traditional capitalist and cloud capital enterprises.

Volkswagen is built on a heavily capitalised business producing profitable products and services. Investment is private and public and designed to give investors a return on the capital they provide. Public companies' shares are bought and sold in international trading houses providing opportunities for capital to invest and provide income. Buyers are largely asked to purchase goods and services at point of sale through cash or finance (loans and or leasing plans).

Tesla customers 'invest' in the business by placing a deposit or committing to a finance scheme. Buying into the Tesla brand gives some benefits to the user such as dedicated charging stations when on a journey. The Tesla car is almost like a computer on wheels with enhanced features such as automatic navigation and hands free driving. The emphasis is on the software rather than the hardware: electric vehicles are much more simple that traditional internal combustion engined ones. In Tesla cars, their connectivity is constant.

Running in parallel with this is cryptocurrency, the possibility of purely digital banks and complete extinction of bricks and mortar banks and building societies, and possibly stock markets, the potential of AI to replace many occupations, the removal of the wage earning job and certainly the 9-5.

There are also anxieties around how the above developments will affect the individual and society, and insecurities surrounding global health, food security, energy security, the effects of climate change and political, economic and military upheavals with associated massive scale migration.

WARFARE

Access to technology and the monopolisation and control of information technology can lend huge leverage in conflict situations. During WWII, Britain realised that the Luftwaffe were utilising radio navigation for night bombing missions. Until their blitzkrieg on Britain ended when they launched Operation Barbarossa, British military intelligence and the Air Ministry devised means of jamming and 'bending' these signals causing the bombing missions to miss their intended targets.

The modern equivalent is SatNav, an American development. During the military operations in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq in the early 1990s, the Pentagon managed to tweak SatNav technology to provide accuracy to within 3 metres. This provided the US and allied forces with enormous advantages in military planning of the initial and subsequent conflicts in the middle east. Saddam's regime did try to jam some GPS signals but the US destroyed the jamming apparatus. GPS provided a huge advantage over previous surveillance systems such as radar and visual observation and being a largely American technology, gives them huge advantage over any potential adversaries. Enemy movements could now be accurately assessed, precision given to weapons' targeting and avoidance of friendly fire was enhanced. Saddam's fibre cable network which operated outside of GPS and was used to control his missile arsenal was sabotaged by the coalition forces. As a result of this, other countries have been developing their own GPS systems: India developed a regional system called NavIC. Russia has GLONASS, which, with China's BEIDOU, comes closest to the US SatNav system as does the European Union's GALILEO system. Japan has QZSS which requires development but has the promise of reaching SatNav functionality as it develops.

[davidmalcolm]

I have made a connection between Imperial Rome and our world today, and the connection is the glorification of violence. In Rome, it was a controlled entertainment: a visual link to what was happening between the Roman Legions and the 'barbarians at the limits of empire. In our own times, it's a constant reminder of how troubled and nasty we are as a species. The film director who comes to mind is Quentin Tarantino, who's film, Reservoir Dogs, was an exercise in sadistic violence. Others have followed: Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. I've also seen a documentary piece on the so-called 'Reservoir Dogs' killing of a teenager by other teenagers in a Liverpool Park after watching the film whilst consuming large amounts of alcohol. Whilst it is not seen as a killing directly inspired by the film, one gruesome aspect of it - the slicing off of the policeman's ear by the character Mr Blonde - was attempted on the, by then, dead, body of the victim, hence the description of the torture and killing by the trio of teenagers as 'The Reservoir Dogs killing.'

How these teenagers were left to consume alcohol and watch this film are beyond belief as is the rôle of parents in such cases, which is rarely considered by law, not being taken into consideration. To make their trial less intimidating for the defendants, and following on recommendations from the trial of Venerables and Thompson in the James Bulger case, special arrangements were introduced. The perpetrators were all found guilty and served custodial sentences but have since been released. Little consideration is given, by law, to the victims and victims' families in such cases who have to sit through harrowing details of the case, often in close proximity to the families of the perpetrators. Also the so-called justice meted out to those found guilty is often very far from being a punishment or even opportunity to reflect on their deeds and perhaps change their behaviours.

Back in Imperial Rome, the main entertainments were the often dangerous chariot races and gladiatorial contests. The gladiators were well trained, well fed and housed in seclusion but often with other perks provided by the upper classes of Roman women, but until their liberation by Marcus Aurelius, alluded to in the film Gladiator, they were captive slaves kept for the entertainment of the Roman people, high and low born alike. Indeed. Marcus Aurelius was so impressed by the fact of the plague infecting Rome at the time of his reign and killing as many as 2000 people a day, not affecting the gladiators, he had Commodus placed under the guardianship of his physician Galen, recommending the gladiatorial regime. I guess the closest we have now to gladiatorial contests are boxing and cage fighting, although heavily regulated and without the fatal outcomes often seen in the Colosseum in Rome. There are special channels, especially on YouTube, Telegram, etc, dedicated to violent content such as armed conflict, criminal and police killings, riots and punch ups. Violence and or the threat of it seems to underly our mafia like conduct as human beings with peaceful and tolerant living being seen as an undesirable and weak option. As we know such a core attitude simply leads to unending strife - the life of the eternal vendetta, almost like a circle in Dante's Hell, where no resolution is found, just an endless cycle of violence.

[davidmalcolm]

Ghosts

Thinking is a chain process of endless cause and effect. One though can give rise to another contingent or completely unrelated one but the chain is not broken.

So what prompted me to write ‘Ghosts’ as the title for this piece? It was an ‘external’ thought - a piece of writing, by the American Lore Segal, in her short story ‘Dandelion.’ It’s a reminiscence of her last holiday in Austria as a child. This, a country that, in the late 1930s, strongly encouraged jewish citizens to leave Austria as part of their 'Aryanisation' programme. subjecting them to confiscation of their businesses, money, property and subjecting them to significant personal harassment and violence, eventually leading to forcible arrest and deportation to the death camps during the Holocaust.

Her family holiday was in the Austrian Alps, and she is describing the qualities of landscape and light much as JM Turner might have done in paint. Her phrase, ‘light like a mist’ struck in me a resonance which provoked a ‘memory’ thought of a visit to Haggs Castle in Glasgow when I was, possibly a similar age to Lore (10) when she was on her vacation.

My cousin, Hugh, and I, went into the castle grounds which had been closed off for renovations. Whilst exploring the castle interior, which was small-scale and bare of any objects or decoration. After we split up, I was in a small room when I felt a presence to my left. As I looked into an adjacent room through a bare doorway portal, I saw, and felt, a woman staring intensely belligerently at me, dressed in Elizabethan costume, gliding past the door aperture. The quality of what I saw was a bit like carved crystal but very intense, as if the air had congealed to form a ‘pattern’ if the translucent woman. It was less ‘light like a mist’ and more like ‘congealed light’ which obscured the background yet still let it through. One reads in Dante’s Purgatorio that Spirits do not block sunlight, and cast shadows as does human form. Another difference from a mere image engraved in crystal, apart from its gliding animation, was the sense of a being inhabiting the form giving a very powerful sense of presence.

My daft cousin, who had ventured down into the pitch black dungeons, yelled that he’d seen a ghost and we both legged it out of the castle and scrambled back over the site perimeter fencing.

Now I’m a sceptic, so tend to view such experiences with more than a pinch of salt. The sense of taboo in being in a place I was not supposed to be, getting separated from my cousin and being alone in a ‘creepy’ place contributes to a heightened sense of anticipation. I’m also minded of the Buddhist tale of the man haunted by the ‘ghost’ of his recently deceased nagging and shrewish wife who says she will be ‘keeping an eye on him,’ and taunts him, relating all his actions and thoughts which convinces him she really is a spirit. It’s only when a priest instructs him to ask her three questions. The first two: “What did I do yesterday? What am I thinking right now?” ‘she’ answers correctly, but when he asks “How many pebbles am I holding in my hand?” ‘she’ struggles to answer then disappears, never to return. Experiments with psilocybin and LSD clearly demonstrate the power of the mind to create alternative realities, and this power seems clearly linked to development within the human species (read Merlin Sheldrake’s ‘Entangled Life’ chapter 4 for more on this).

So, the question is, are ghosts simply concretized thoughts? hallucinations? The Dharma points out that nothing is, of itself, self-existent. Answers on a postcard address to… onself.

[davidmalcolm]

The New Money

The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States is switching away from physical cash to digital dollars. But this is not what is being reported on the topic. There are quite old reports of the setting up of pilot schemes for CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) from quite some time ago. Claus Schwab of the World Economic Forum is a big fan of the highly controlling Chinese financial model and sees Justin Trudeau as an ‘ideal student’ of the WEF’s aims and ambitions. 

The US left the gold standard - a system which underwrites a national currency giving it solidity and trust - lately under Nixon, leaving the Federal Reserve free to print money as and when required.

China has been experimenting with ‘expiry date’ currency - a bit like supermarket vouchers. with a short expiry date. This, according to financial analysts, would help boost local economies by injecting cash into the consumer markets.

The US dollar is made powerful by two factors: being the currency for oil transactions and being backed up by military power. This enables the US to extend its influence on other states through applying sanctions which affect a state’s ability to trade, import energy and manage trade and debt. Furthermore. The US dollar is about 60% of the value of all the currency in circulation, and more than half US dollars reside outside the US. The reason for this is that central banks use the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency and oil is priced in US dollar. But it looks like this is about to change.

The BRICS alliance is now avoiding the US dollar in trade by having reserves if each others’ currencies and tending to use the PRC yuan as an alternative to the US dollar.

As part of their raft of measures to punish Russia for invading Ukraine, the collective west applied various financial sanctions including cutting Russian financial institutions from the international bank transfer system, SWIFT. The SUCRE system has been decided as an alternative to SWIFT to do electronic finance transfers.

Gold is being repatriated globally and being bought heavily by BRICS countries as countries trade energy for gold rather than US dollars. Meanwhile US treasury bonds are being dumped.

Digital Piracy

The sequestering of individuals’ current, savings, investment and pension accounts means that governments have a ‘handle’ on individuals’ finances. Countries which have raided, in some way, individuals’ accounts are Argentina, Hungary, Irish Republic and Cyprus amongst seven others.

China has financial controls, which can force citizens to spend digital currency by a specific and in quite short timeframes, and has been experimenting with ‘expiry date’ currency which are a bit like supermarket vouchers with a short expiry date. This, according to financial analysts, would help boost local economies by injecting cash into the consumer markets.

There may be such plans in the new US way of controlling private accounts, including forcing citizens to invest in government bonds, as US bonds, which, as mentioned above, are being dumped by BRICS nations. China and Russia have reached an agreement, with their BRICS partners, to dump the US dollar as a trading currency for major energy transactions in favour of the Chinese yuan.   

Digital Dollar Project to launch five U.S. central bank digital currency pilots

The U.S. nonprofit Digital Dollar Project said on Monday it will launch five pilot programs over the next 12 months to test the potential us

[davidmalcolm]

This photograph is of a young Polish girl, Czeslawa Kwoka, one of the hundreds of thousands of children murdered by the Nazi regime during World War 2. This record of her arrival at the Auschwitz extermination camp in December 1942 shows a frightened-looking girl with coarse-cut hair and a wounded lip, an injury caused by a guard just moments before being photographed.

Kwoka, who was not Jewish, was deported from the Zamosc region of southeastern Poland to Auschwitz. She arrived in the Nazi camp on December 13, 1942 along with 318 other women, including her mother, Katarzyna, who would die two months later. The 14-year-old girl was murdered on March 12, 1943 with a lethal injection into the heart. The red triangle on her identification badge indicates she was a political prisoner, and carried the letter P, for Polish.

The man who photographed her, Auschwitz survivor Wilhelm Brasse, said the girl had been beaten by a guard who was annoyed because she did not speak German. He also related that, just before he took the photograph, she wiped away her tears and the blood from her split lip, prior to facing the camera. Besides Jews, Christian citizens of Poland were also persecuted by Nazi Germany. It is estimated that the regime was responsible for the deaths of at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Poles during World War II, whether in battles or extermination camps.

The original black and white photograph has been colourised by Brazilian artist Marina Amaral. She is now working with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum to provide further colourised images from their archives. This process lends an enormous impact on the image, both in terms of quality and emotional impact. This with the anecdote from the photographer makes you realise that Czeslawa, terrified as she must have been, had a more than a bit of defiant pride. The sheer scale of the Nazi death camp legacy cannot be adequately portrayed or conveyed; instead this one instance talks of that unspeakable inhumane spirit within those who carried out these atrocities. But in all but those hatred-filled, hard-hearted excuses for human beings that we seem, still, to have far too many examples of, the image provokes a compassion for this dear flower who was not allowed to blossom; and believer or non-believer, a hope that her soul, at least, escaped that hell on earth where her life was taken from her.

[davidmalcolm]

US Hegemony

The US has used its political, economic and military power to dominate world affairs since at least it’s emergence as a global power. 1898, and its war with Spain is deemed to be it’s first step onto the world stage with subsequent leaps after WWI and WWII. Already in 1854, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, under orders from his president Millard Fillmore, forcibly caused the end of Japan’s isolationist policy and opened it up to American trade. It’s true that the Dutch, who apart from the Chinese and Koreans were the only foreigners allowed in Japan, already had a trading post in Nagasaki and this is where the Japanese officials at Edo (modern Tokyo) wished Perry to dock, but he refused and threatened the use of force if not immediately allowed to present his letter from the President. In the end the Japanese conceded, unable to resist the military superiority of the Americans. He returned with a larger fleet months later and was met with a largely favorable response to Fillmore’s requests. These were ratified in the March 1854 Convention of Kanagawa which afforded trade between the US and Japan, guaranteed US property and safely of citizens. This method of negotiating foreign policy was coined ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and has been the main method of negotiating by subsequent US administrations to the present day.

The initial cause of the isolationist policy of the Japanese ruling shogunate was triggered by an insurrection encouraged by the first foreign travelers to Japan from Europe, the Portuguese, who were expelled in 1639 together with the banning of Christianity, execution of Japanese Christian converts and the banning of gunpowder weapons. It was Portuguese Jesuit missionaries who had caused the troubles and thereafter only the  protestant Dutch were allowed trade residence on an island offshore from Nagasaki.

The US had a war with Spain in 1898 which led to Spanish territorial losses in the Pacific (Philippines and Guam) and the Caribbean (Cuba and Puerto Rico) and ended their empire in the Americas and Pacific.

The conflict between the US and Japan was largely economic. Japan had become aggressively expansionist after it’s previous period of isolation. Japan also saw the need to become a naval, military and industrial power, fuelled by it’s historical military past and realization of the need for a navy helped in part by Great Britain who aided them in providing the technology and skills to built both merchant and naval ships. The US viewed Japan’s expansionist ambitions with alarm given their newly acquired influence in the pacific region. After the invasion of northern China was condemned internationally, the US imposed economic sanctions on Japan who saw conflict as the only way to combat these. Faced with being a natural resource poor country, Japan needed access to the precious resources of coal, oil and other raw materials which were the bedrock of modern first world countries. Invading and acquiring the resource-rich parts of the asian mainland would provide those necessary raw materials for economic and political expansion. Failed and stalled negotiations with the US on sanction lifting led the Japanese to plan their attacks on key US/European military centers including Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong. Previous defeats of large countries - China and Russia - had instilled some confidence of success  in the Japanese leadership but there were those who saw salvation for Japan only if the Americans would make more favorable terms in the face of a defeat to a pre-emptive strike by Japan rather than all out war.

Japan wanted to annex all of China, Malaysia, Burma, Korea, Thailand, India and Ceylon, and all of the islands in South East Asia including some of the far eastern Russian islands and part of the far eastern Russian mainland to the morth of China/Mongolia. It would also have commandeered mid-Pacific islands to counter US naval influence.

In one of the latest outrages against Europe, being blamed on Russia by the US-funded social media and mass media, is the deliberate sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. Although initial evidence, discovered by the Danes and the German operators, is of leakage from both pipelines, it is thought that this cannot be other than deliberate sabotage. Nord 1 has 2 pipelines and Nord 2 has one. The method looks like a submarine attack. The depth of the pipelines rules out any other method - although deep water depth charges could be a possibility. 

To look for likely suspects we have to consider motive and means. It is thought, of the European powers, that only the UK and Germany have the capability and might be involved indirectly through American proxy. It is unlikely that the French, whilst having the means, would enter into such action. The UK has a much closer US partnership than Germany, so of the two would indicate they may be involved. Damaging the pipelines, which initially were initially set up to supply Germany with natural gas, seems an unlikely action by the Germans and not in their interests in the event if a resolution of the conflict in Ukraine.

It is felt that the US was fiercely against the Nord Stream natural gas supply from the beginning because the hawks in Washington felt it would lead to stronger partnership between Russia and Germany/the EU which is against US interests.

As for the action being Russian instigated… the Russians control the flow of gas, so would not have to damage the pipelines in order to disrupt delivery. It simply is not in their interests. As with the shelling of the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, the instigators based in Kiev, constantly blamed Russia for shelling the facility which was under it’s control and attempted to seize it by force when the IAEA inspectors were due to visit. In both cases blaming Russia is a red herring in the disinformation war surrounding the Ukraine conflict.

Ukraine could be a suspect but lacks the means. Their only submarine was seized by Russia after the Maidan and annexation of Crimea in 2014. Nevertheless they could be given the means by the US and used as a proxy as they are in the conflict on Ukrainian soil.

This puts focus on the US as being responsible for the sabotage whether directly or through a proxy agency. They clearly have the means having the largest submarine fleet in the world and the motivation of destroying any links between Russia and Germany/the EU. Policy decisions seem to be taken or rather made by the US and relayed to the UK and EU, in Washington, London and Brussels. Individual European states don’t seem to have the opportunity to discuss far less influence this strategy and these policies. So, again, it looks unlikely that Germany got to have a say in the plan, if indeed it was one, to sabotage NS1 and 2.

The Kremlin has suggested that nothing can be ruled out and that the underwater pipelines were intentionally damaged and demanded an immediate investigation. 

Germany is blaming Ukraine or Russia (reported in Tagesspiegel newspaper) and suggesting it will push energy prices even higher.   Nord Stream 2 was functional but unable to deliver gas due to political pressure and sanctions from the US. Nevertheless Nord Stream 1 could potentially have delivered gas to the EU.

A commentator, Gonzalo Lira, has suggested that the US deliberately wants to damage Europe, even though as an American ally, European countries have acquiesced to US policy. He suggests that it does not want Europe to benefit whilst its own situation is in decline and is happy to bring Europe down with it. In fact he described the American leadership as ‘evil’ a word, he suggested, he does not use lightly. The extremely negative consequences of all this will lead to, yet to be determined, levels of suffering by the majority of people in Europe not experienced for centuries. There will be dire shortages of gas, electricity and food over the coming months and possibly years as the existing ‘world order’ disintegrates and the dangers of political and social unrest, financial and welfare insecurity and poor outcomes for trade and industry in Europe and the US increase. The US is facing a major loss as mainly Eurasian countries move away from using the US$ as an international exchange currency in a move being described as ‘de-dollarisation’.

The US is also facing the advent of new alliances between non US/EU aligned countries such as The Russian Federation, People’s Republic of China, Pakistan, India, Iran and Turkey. This is a separate development from BRICS, the trade and economic partnership between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

It looks like Pakistan is keen to have a natural gas pipeline supply from Russia. Quite possibly China is already benefitting. 

The US has ‘persuaded’ the German car industry not to supply the Chinese market with their products. Given that Chinese demand from the likes of BMW, VAG and Mercedes Benz was around 40-50 per cent of their output, this is a massive loss of sales for them.

The US has options that I believe they cannot succeed in: agitating for regime change (colour revolutions) in China, Russia, Turkey and the Baltic and western asian states. As well as the Russia/Ukraine conflict, the US already seem to be implemented in the Armenia/Azerbaijan, PRC/Taiwan, Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan, Serbia/Kosovo conflicts as well as having a working group dedicated to undermining the leadership of Erdogan in Turkey. In other words, the US is firmly in the jaws of a Thucydides Trap.

The European Union (and the United States) are angry with Serbia given it’s cooperation with Russia. Both Russia and China does not recognise Kosovo. Furthermore, as stated by Ursula von der Leyen, the EU are unhappy with the outcome if the Italian elections. This is in addition to Hungary and Poland. The threat seems to be blocking EU funds to countries deemed to be ‘difficult’ ‘damaged democracies,’ countries that have governments democratically elected! These EU funds are given to help countries recover from the negative economic effects from the Covid pandemic. There are scenes in Italy of crowds protesting against these threats by the EU and replacing the EU flag with that of Italy.

In the UK, the pound has slumped against the US dollar to almost parity. Seven years ago I could buy 10 Renmin Yuan for £1. Today it’s 7. The ‘new’ UK government headed by Truss and Kwarteng seems to have triggered the slump by announcing large borrowing in conjunction with tax cuts in a ‘mini’ budget 23 September 2022 which caused widespread investor loss of confidence in the UK economy.

In fact the EU, supported by the US, held a summit to discuss the division, or Balkanisation, of the Russian Federation into 5 zones. It would have been a ‘Navalny’ plan of grabbing Russian natural resources first - in a similar way to the post Gorbachov de-Sovietisation era when nationalised resources were ‘privatised’ and made a lot of both Russian oligarchs and western individuals and organisations very, very rich.

[davidmalcolm]

Europe’s ‘Lusitania’ Moment

The sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines by who are the most probable suspects - the USA and Ukraine - will prove to be a ‘Lusitania’ moment for Europe.

The accusation by Kiev that the most probable sabotage of Nord Steam pipelines 1 and 2 are a ‘red flag’ attack by Russia is as plausible as their assertion that rocket and artillery attacks on the nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia were carried out by Russian forces.

Until this point the US and its proxy Ukraine have been pressurising European countries into stopping and/or limiting supply of gas from Russia to Europe and have largely been successful. Noises, especially from Germany, that indicated Europe wants to ease sanctions and get the gas supply moving again has made Washington nervous. All along it’s strategy has been to drive a wedge between Russia and Europe and it saw. Nord Stream as an ideal focus. At the time the US promised compensatory supplies if LPG to Europe - a promise it has now said it cannot keep due to supply problems. It is commonly thought that the pipelines of Nord Streams 1 and 2 are purely Russian assets whereas, in fact, the are joint Russian/European and many European businesses have invested heavily in the project.

Indeed, one of the politicians in Poland put out a tweet featuring the sea surface evidence of one of the leaks with the words ‘thank you USA’ European Union officials have been slow to accredit  blame to any country or organisation over this but have clearly acknowledged it as sabotage. Confirmation of explosions and their radius of effect have been made by seismologists in Sweden. In any case accidental or maintenance damage has been ruled out for  other reasons.

If or rather when any evidence is found and it points to a particular organisation or regime, I’m sure the consequences to them will be  serious. Those European countries either or both heavily invested and dependent on Russian gas for domestic and industrial purposes will look to the EU for swift and effective punishment. If things are obfuscated, swept under the carpet, t will only serve to widen existing fractures within the EU and perhaps create new ones. Indeed US President Joe Biden said in early February 2022 that “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” A journalist asked him to clarify what exactly he meant, to which Biden answered: I promise you, we will be able to do that.”

The US and its EU allies, by supporting ongoing military action in Ukraine and sabotaging any moves towards a settlement between Russia and Ukraine with a peaceful outcome, have only played into the Russian strategy which served them so well in the past. After Napoleon decided to head back home after his failed attempt to conquer Russia and Germany, so confident of a quick win, failed to provide their army with suitable uniforms, they both met one of Russia’s most formidable allies, the slavic winter.

OK, we do not have a slavic winter in Western Europe, but it still gets cold and damp. Without Russian gas to heat our homes and businesses and drive our generators we may be facing freezing conditions, blackouts, failing businesses and perhaps worse. This situation carries no concern for the US - they are happy to bring us down with them and want to destroy or at least tame Europe as a world power. The evil intent of those with their hands on the levers of power in the US has once again been revealed.

Just as Germany, who deliberately torpedoed the  Lusitania, saying it was a legitimate target because it was carrying armaments from the USA to the UK, so the USA has sabotaged not only Nord Streams 1&2 but its relations with its European ‘allies’ in a move which could tilt, certainly mass held, opinion that support for the US and its agenda is no longer in the interests of the continent of Europe.

In a separate development, Poland, Denmark and Norway inaugurated a new Baltic pipeline which will deliver Norwegian natural gas to Poland and Denmark at some point in 2023. Further Germany and France are looking to the middle east for oil and natural gas supplies. This may please European politicians but businesses are struggling to meet the increased cost of energy and some are already closing down.

We can, with some degree of certainty, say that the perpetrator was not solely the USA. Why? Because if it were purely a USA ‘false flag’ operation, we would have seen and heard Newland, Biden, Bliken all blaming Russia declaring Russia the perpetrator. It looks more likely like the neocon hawk faction of the US administration in collaboration with their global partners in the anti Russia/China gang. Indeed a CIA ‘warning’ had implicates Ukraine in a potential attack on NS1 and 2.

Nevertheless ‘western’ media (London Times, Reuters and Telegraph) have accused Putin of organising the sabotage, rather comically featuring a photograph of Putin in a submersible taken in 2015 in the Black Sea. Obversely, a presenter on Fox news has suggested that even if Putin is mad, he is not stupid, and would not damage one of his own leverage assets. I’m guessing that the audience ‘western’ are trying to persuade have sub-60 IQs. They are using flawed and illogical arguments to deflect blame from who is responsible. The German state, people and press are pointing the US as the guilty party stating that both Newland and Biden had signalled such action. When, after the Obama administration (Obama and Newland) were caught snooping on Angela Merkel’s and other German officials, they had to apologise. Newland had to apologise after she said ‘fuck the EU’ after complaints about the damage that the US installed puppet regime in Ukraine would inflict on Europe. OK, Merkel has gone and the new Chancellor is more US or rather NeoCon friendly and less accommodating towards Russia than Merkel was, nevertheless the Germans, and certainly the German people and German business, must be seriously pissed off with the globalist for the damage they have inflicted on their country. Historically Rice, Bush, Cheney have opposed Russian-European oil and gas partnerships.

The most likely mechanism is specialist underwater drones or torpedoes launched by a warship or submarine. There has been little discussion about actual and potential environmental damage and destruction. Large amounts of methane gas would have been released and the effects of the explosions on aquatic life in the area would have been catastrophic.

[davidmalcolm]

Indyref2 and real independence

Indyref2

The situation with the lack of refuse collection in Edinburgh at the time of its annual cultural showpiece is spreading to other parts of Scotland. There has long been criticism of the SNP led Scottish devolved government that it is spending too much time on pressing for Indyref2 and not enough on the operational and strategic management of the governmental responsibilities entrusted to them. Really all of the rubbish should be independently collected and dumped in the environs of Holyrood House. If the government epicentre were to be completely covered making a second ‘Arthur’s seat’  in the city so be it. Breaking the union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland would be catastrophic not only for Scotland bit for all of the home nations. It would be a catastrophe far worse than that created by Brexit, or rather, the way in which Brexit has been implemented. The political, social, economic and cultural problems it would create if the break up if the United Kingdom  happened would make Brexit seem like a quick and easy divorce. 

All the non-existent benefits promised by the brexiteers, re-establishment of sovereignty, setting out own fishing quotas, enabling trade deals with the rest of the world, stopping illegal immigration, busloads of cash for the NHS, etc, etc, etc, have proved illusory. Hey, who cares about all this anyway. We have highly dangerous international tensions and a cost of living crisis at home (and in this we are not alone). 

Voices of reason

The very few voices of reason I have been hearing are generally called conspiracy theorists, enemy sympathisers, traitors. Real journalists are being criticised by corrupt global media. The much reviled, by western liberals, Republican Party senators and congressmen in the USA seems to be the only ones making sense. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are exposing very serious aspects of American politics which are frankly shocking yet their messages are not being covered by mainstream media.

At home we have a lame duck government which is putting off dealing with the impending cost of living crisis, so wrapped up in who will be the stand in prime minister. Truss seems intent on insulting one of our closest allies, France and Sunak is trying to push the blame on the mis-management of Covid on the ‘experts’ whilst Boris Johnson is tripping the light fantastic to celebrate a damp squib celebration of Ukrainian ‘independence’ whilst promising busloads of cash to help the Ukrainian government overthrow Russia. Instead of reasonably priced natural gas coming via Nord One and Two pipelines from Russia we are gearing up for an expected ‘pipeline of cash’ from the government to help with the cost of living crisis. If anything comes it will be too little too late and to all the wrong people. 

Emily Matlis, who has blown the whistle on the fact that the BBC is no longer an independent news organisation based on good journalistic practice, but a lick-spittle subsidiary of the government pushing stories it wants to push and suppressing independent investigative information which is in the public interest. In other words the BBC has developed into a government propaganda machine with government ‘placed men’ on the board. A ridiculous article by the so-called journalist Rebecca Perring has compared Matlis to Meghan Markle saying she is a trailer for her own ego trip and comparing her fallout with the BBC management with Markle’s fallout with the Royal Family ‘firm’. Of course the Daily Express, which Perring writes for is far from impartial being a publicity vehicle for the Conservative party, just short of extreme right on the political spectrum.

 In the United States, Mark Zuckerberg has confessed that the CIA controls social media and that personal privacy is no longer available. Could it be he works for the CIA,? After all the American mantra is ‘if you’re not with us you’re against us’.

The answer? Neil Oliver put it very well in a YouTube piece he did today 26 August 2022.

He points out that the new style of government in the ‘democratic’ west wants populations who are ignorant, fearful, unhealthy and over dependent on the satate for everything. He talks about the federal attack on the Amish farmer Amos Miller and the situation with the Dutch government’s attempted takeover of the Dutch agricultural businesses.

The real revolution comes not from killing people or blowing up authority buildings but by really trying to live as much independently from government as possible. This means not relying on benefits and services provided by government, not listening to government propaganda, living frugally and not getting into debt, making an effort to live healthily and communally as much as possible. Read and research widely so as not to be brainwashed by government propaganda. If you can, grow your own food and reconnect with the soil.

[davidmalcolm]

Meditations on Consciousness

Thought and consciousness.

Thought is finite with a beginning (birth), maturation (existence) and decay (death). In other words though passes from non-existence into existence back into non-existence in much the same way as the still surface of water ripples when a stone is dropped onto it only for those ripples to subside back into stillness. Consciousness is still in the realms of duality: there is consciousness and an object of consciousness, but it is more continuous than thought. For example a clap is finite but the consciousness that perceives it can be aware of the finite noise but also the infinite silence. Silence may be infinite but only in the sense  that it is not finite but can be perceived as finite when it occurs between two separate finite claps. This, then produces a third phenomenon - a sequence (of sound/silence/sound) and we can be separately or rather in parallel aware or conscious if this sequence as a pattern. The differentiation of subject/observer and object/observed is an abstraction and has no basis in reality. When we observe our thoughts, we are, at that moment, the thought itself. When we separate, we give ourselves the illusory power that ‘we’ can control our ‘thoughts and thinking.’ When thought can see its own genesis, development and exodus, we have removed the illusory observer and can see into the true nature of thought.

Consciousness is like a stream which contains things. It can be narrow or wide, flow fast or slow, travel straight or meander, be clear or muddy. Consciousness is shaped by objects of consciousness in the same way that water is shaped by it’s container but no matter what the container is, it is still water. Where there is measurement there must be division and hierarchy. Thought does this. The ‘centre’ is at the source of measurement. Can you relinquish something which gives you great pleasure without any motive or replacing it with something else? Our brains have become mechanical, autonomous, following routine patterns biologically and psychologically, following logical, scientific and religious dogmas. This is the repetitive life, the same this and that over and over again. All these make the mind deteriorate. As long as there is the pursuit of pleasure, of security and the denial of fear, the mind will remain in this state. We talk of mindless repetition. When ‘awake’ the mind is in survival mode most of the time being dominated by the ego and drifting off into daydreams and fantasies. During sleep the need for ‘survival mode’ is no longer.

Not the discipline of conformity suppression obedience but physical and psychological discipline. Functioning without a centre.

A joy beyond pleasure.

The objects of the senses - sensations - are real - are natural. When the objects of the sensations are apprehended by thought and thought identifies with these, they crystallise due to the action of the builder/weaver - the centre or ego - the sense if a separate self. No centre - no identification - no attachment. The centre is limiting - sets boundaries - lives in duality.

Perceiving sensation without identification leads us to an experience of pure mind - the illumined mind untainted by conditioning, identification, ego, etc. instead of taking on a new ‘religious’ name, ones existing name, realising it to be a convention bound in genetical and familial history, is as good as any others.

The phased cycles in the brain/mind like an alternating current. K talks about the daily active mind producing disorder and sleep giving a chance for the mind to-be reset to order. The mind may be at rest but is not asleep - but on a state of heightened attention without attending to anything. 

When you see a danger, you move away from it. Why does the mind / thought create images and why do will live in conformity to these images? It is because in the image it finds security: my self, my family, my group, my country, my god. There is certainty in a mental formulation but it is a false security - in reality it does not exist. It is the difference between a person and how that person sees themselves or how others see that person. Part of the mechanism is thought perpetuating itself, maintaining itself, rebuilding itself moment by moment, habituating itself. In reality it is absurd.  The self image is impacted by praise and blame. People who obsessively seek praise (or avoiding blame) from others are seeking to reinforce their self  image. This is absurd… a neurosis and there is great danger in this. It can lead to dislike/hatred, so called love. The trick is not to register insults or praise in ones mind. Likewise the false, neurotic mind creates images of other people and assigns ‘friend’ and ‘foe’; ‘bright’ ‘stupid’ and other attributes to them like so many hashtags and comments. No center, no ego, no self image, nothing for these attributes to get stuck to.

Life, death, attachment. Death brings an end to attachments: the ego, persona, body, thoughts, emotions, possessions, relations with others, time… but it is also the genesis of something else which is free of attachment. It begs the question… if one lives without attachment what is there to lose when one dies? Yes, one will lose ones body etc but if you are not attached to your body etc, where is the real loss? Thought (the builder) had assembled one’s existence, how one is and feels about oneself but if you live outside this way of living, death will have no effect on ones existence. Yes, ones existence will change from that life but life itself will not depart. Living is dying… so why can’t dying be living. We traverse the most basic path in life that every other human, indeed sentient being, passes, but en route we acquire a ‘superstructure’ that we identify as ourselves and our life. If we call thought ‘the builder’ then the house they built cannot last forever. Can we live without a centre? Can we awaken the mind without fixing it on anything? It is living without memory, living outside the false boundaries of limitation and conditioning, possible?

Memory: linguistic, social, racial/cultural, emotional, intellectual, etc. acquired throughout our lives.

Memory is being constantly being formed by experience and this may or may not reinforce memory patters or indeed alter them.

The mind is more or less on permanent ‘record’ mode. In terms of motor skills, language and other intellectual skills, memory is an essential requirement. In terms of psychology, why should one be recording and is this an essential requirement? In terms of primitive interaction and survival, and with animals, memory accumulation and retrieval is mainly focussed on survival. In the more sophisticated interactions between humans, especially in familial and intimate relationships, this memory accumulation and retrieval can be very counter productive of good relations especially given that there are many filters which can colour and distort experiences which go on to form false memories which are retrieved and reinforced. Additionally, wilful distortions, lies which suit one’s purpose, including denial, can be injected into the formation of those memories. This is the difference between choiceless/uncoloured awareness and conditioned/prejudiced awareness.

[davidmalcolm]

Siddhartha Sees Four Things

Prince Siddhartha Gautama was born into a North Indian noble family. The top two castes - the noble warrior ruler caste and the Brahmin spiritual leader caste - co-existed and maintained the social contract. Siddhartha's father, after hearing that his son would grow up to be either a great ruler or a spiritual leader, decided to control his son's experience by removing any opportunity to witness death, disease, extreme old age and surround him in the palace with luxury, beautiful women, obedient servants and martial arts training.

One day he journeyed out of the palace on his chariot and witnessed things he had never seen before: first, old age, second, disease and third, death. On seeing these things he asked his charioteer, Channa (Pali) or Chandaka (Sanskrit) what these things meant. When Channa responded that it was the fate of all humans to get old, get ill at some point and eventually die it shocked Siddhartha. After seeing these three things it was a chance encounter with a holy man which awoke in Siddhartha the desire to find answers as to why humans suffer these fates and put him on the path to enlightenment.

The first three things are quite negative and could cause us to be quite despondent but the fourth thing brings hope, faith that we can overcome or at least understand the 'misfortunes' of existence.

As with many stories, the one related above has a more profound, deeper meaning. The life of Siddhartha prior to his 'Four Sights' was controlled and cosseted, a 'dream' existence learning no resemblance to real life. In a similar way we live spiritually, surrounding ourselves in our mind with delusory ideas such as the idea of the permanence of our existence, that illness and death happen to other people and not ourselves.

It is often said that understanding a problem and asking the right questions is well over half of the solution. We need sincerity in our quest and a reasonable amount of energy to pursue it. Buddha's last words were, reportedly, "Work hard for salvation".

We approach the birthday of The Blessed One on 8 May 2022. Let us give thanks for His Incarnation and Teaching. We should also give thanks for the opportunity that this life has given us to be able to pursue The Way and learn from the experiences that befall us. We need to be mindful of our actions and mindful of our lack of mindfulness too. Be ready to accept that we only have ourselves to blame for our own misfortunes and accept them without complaint. Awaken the mind without fixing it on anything and be self-reliant but realise that we are not a separate, independent existence and use that to build compassion for everything sentient and non-sentient.

[davidmalcolm]

Return to the Gold Standard?

Gold. The precious metal which was used historically in cultures throughout the world. The scarcity of gold, as well as its visual appeal, unique characteristics when used in industry has lead to it being deemed the most 'precious' metal... valued at nearly £1500/ounce:£48/gram. Silver is around £19/ounce:£0.60/gram. Palladium is more valuable at £1865/ounce:£60/gram.

The gold standard was used to underpin and stabilise national currency. When the US abandoned it in 1970, the Nixon government was plagued by the rising cost of the Vietnam war and poor economic conditions at home. This enabled the US to print more money and seemingly avoid economic meltdown.

In 1933 FDR delinked gold to the US dollar. He through in terms of gold hoarding which did not help the domestic economy and indeed made the private ownership of gold, other than in the form of jewellery, illegal with very punitive penalties.

After WWII, the American Dollar replaced gold to became the global reserve currency. Many will remember that you could take US dollars to almost any country in the world and use it as local currency.

The original appeal of the gold standard approach helped stimulate trade and investment and provided international currency stabilisation. It was the Great Depression which moved the US off the gold standard. But the USA, with over 8,000 tonnes of gold in its reserve accounting for almost 80 per cent of the world's reserves, has the largest stockpile. By contrast the UK has only 310 tonnes.

Some have been calling for a return to the gold standard as a way to try curb the power wielded by the central banks. One of the problems is that, with the price of gold fluctuating wildly. During the height of the pandemic, with its all its encumbent uncertainty, the price of gold surged by over 50 per cent.

Gold, and silver have historically been seen as 'money' from the times of ancient Egypt. A characteristic of money is that it is seen as having no intrinsic purpose. For example, of the amount of gold mined, around 3000 tonnes, only ten per cent is used in industry, the remainder being used as gold reserve and jewellery. Gold is scarce in the sense it is hard to find and mine in substantial quantities and also not easy to extract, resulting in very high production costs. Supply and demand variations of gold and silver production, unlike market fluctuations of the price of the already existing product, are very stable and small. It is this which has recommended gold and silver as a benchmark against which all other commodities, including printed money, are regulated.

The modern problem is that stability is not seen any more as a desirable quality and that is why there has been no wholesale return to the gold standard. Market and commodity traders prefer large fluctuations over stability. In both bull and bear markets, traders make money with a 20 per cent increase or decrease in value being the threshold. Greed and the nurturing of elites has been and will continue to be the main driving factors in economic development, certainly in 'the west'.

It is strange, though, that the country which has abandoned the gold standard and delinked the value of gold to its currency holds, by far, the greatest reserves of gold. You could argue that the United States, given its position as one of the most powerful destabilising forces in world politics since the European colonialising powers, needs some 'ballast' just in case things go 'pear-shaped.' Certainly its 8000 tonnes of gold held in reserve, with a current value of £384 billion / $500 billion goes most of the way to offsetting its annual trade deficit but is some way off its $30 trillion government debt.

[davidmalcolm]

Bloody Harvest

Following on from my piece on the use of vivisection in medical research, and this may prove a sore point for non-vegitarian readers, there is the case of 'meat producing' animals, who, unfortunately for them, cannot shed their food produce without their blood being shed. Putting aside arguments against the eating of meat, and looking into the desireability of monitoring the conditions in which livestock are transported and maintaining 'humane' methods of slaughter - these are in the interests of the meat seller and consumer alike.

"When a well-fed animal is lying or resting in a stall or standing quietly ina. field, there is, in its muscles, about one per cent of glycogen. This is sometimes termed 'animal starch'. In the active animal, the glycogen is broken down, first to glucose, and then, through a series of linked biochemical reactions, partly to lactic acid and partly to carbon dioxide. This forms part of the process by which muscular energy is released. When rested, well-fed animals are killed, this chain of reactions is set off. The lactic acid produced gives a certain natural acidity to the meat in which it acts as a preservative and helps prevent bacterial growth. If, on the other hand, the animal is fasted before being killed or if it has undergone an arduous journey to the abattoir or has struggled or been highly stressed before being slaughtered, or even if it has been made to stand or has been frightened, the glycogen in its muscles becomes depleted and, in consequence, the acidity cannot build up in the meat. This lack of acidity, whilst it has little immediate effect on the nutritional value of the meat, damages the asthetic value in several ways and, to an extend, reduces its quality as food.

Whilst monitoring conditions in the meat trade has some merit, in some respects it is salving a conscience disturbed by the very fact that the slaughter of such a large number of animals is unneccesary and inhumane.

What is civilised and humane, is seeing that the land is used economically and put back on an ecologically sound basis. Civilisation planted its roots when man started raising crops. Agriculture consumed less of his time and energy than did foraging and hunting, thus providing him with the leisure time to develop arts and basic technology.

The domestication of animals was a later occurrence in the warmer climes of the cradle of civilisation - an extension of man's symbiotic relationship with his environment. Animals provided him with supplementary food, such as eggs and milk and material which could be made into articles of clothing, such as wool and the hides of dead animals. When travelling, the beast bore the burden. In the field, the animal bore the yoke without complanit. In the case of crop failure, some animals may be slaughtered to ease the shortfall in food, but I am sure, reluctantly for what an asset the domesticated animal was to man.

What is the situation today? Animals are raised as through they were crops and cut down or 'harvested.' Not only is this harvest bloody, it is on a massive scale and perennial.

"When man became a hunter, an abyss filled with blood suddenly opened between the human and animal worlds. Man was now the murderer of animals, although he still saw them as being his ancestors or his kin. He had destroyed the unity of life, and though he tried again and again to deceive himself about the nature of his crime by pretending that to eat the killed animal was merely to assimilate it."

The primitive hunter saw himself not as absorbing the flesh of his prey, but absorbing the quality of the animal killed, the courage and independence of the lion or the swiftnes of the gazelle. Present-day nutritionists, while having delegated the dirty work of killing the animals, retain the original guilt, which they rationalise by suggesting that we think of food animals not as creatures with a growing degree of receptiveness to their environment, but as machines for concentrating plant nutrient and converting them into palpable and nutritious meat. This is a misleading notion in so many ways. Animals can consume far more food suitable for human consumption than they produce in therms of their own meat.

"Then said Daniel to Melzer (an officer of Nebuchadnezzar)... prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us the pulse to eat and water to drink. Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenances of the children that eat of the portion of the King's meat... And at the end of the ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in the flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the King's meat." [Daniel, I, xi-xv].

Meat, the original rich man's food, is extolled for its 'superior nutritional value'. With the present days' raised standard of living, not only is the day-to-day purchase of meat for the table within the pockets of most people, it is generally regarded that a meal is not a meal unless there is a bit of meat somewhere in the dish. In fact meat has attained the status of a staple food. The popular idea of cereals now is that they come in cardboard boxes 'with added vitamins'. Rumour says that the reason for the added vitamins is that without them the content has less nourishment than the cardboard box which contains it.

In fact, cereals are the whole grain crops which have provided nourishment for generation after generation since man has learned to cultivate the land. Whole grain wheat, oats, barley, buckwheat, rye, maize and rice contain proportions and quantities of essential amino-acids as beef. Not only does a diet based on these grains supplemented and given flavour and variety by green vegetables, fruits, etc, contain all the essential nutritional elements which has already stood the test of time but can be called, with some certainty, a health promoting diet.

A mouthful of molars

My experience of talking to some meat-eaters on the subject of the vegetarian diet is that, instead of being open-minded to the ideas and multi-faceted arguments in favour of the diet, conversly try to think up any old excuse or 'reason' why not, at least, to try a vegetarian diet based on whole grain cereals, vegetables and fruit. Some people open their mouth and point to their teeth and proceed to make an argument that man is omnivore and not vegetarian by nature and hence has been endowed with two different types of teeth, namely incisors and canines for biting off flesh and molars and pre molars for chewing meat, grains and vegetables. In fact the function of incisors are to cut and shear food not to rip flesh. Incisors are even bigger in herbivores. The over-size canine teeth seen in big cats are used to tear flesh and are effective in helping the clamping action on the neck and windpipe of prey to help pacify them. We humans have incisors. Without them eating a fruit such as an apple might be tricky.

Aside form this, man's unique status as a member of the animal kingdom and enhanced mental capacity, learning memory and control over his environment, gives him an ability to choose what is better for him in the long term. Even when we see from the point of view of natural selection... vegetarians with a mouthful or molars is, I think, highly unlikely.

Conclusion

In changing our diet we become aware of many other considerations apart from the food itself. As well as the quality and taste of the food, we see the importance of the way it is grown, prepared, processed and eaten and the effects of these on the environment. We become aware of all the factors involved in the simple necessity of feeding ourselves - social, economic, etc - and see how these apply to the whole way we live." [from the book 'Nature's Foods' by Peter Deadman and Karen Betteridge]

[davidmalcolm]

Sacrifice or Slaughter?

[This is a piece I wrote back in 1975/6 when I was a member of the London-based National Anti-Vivisection Society]

So, according to the Home Office Return of Experiments performed on living animals in Great Britain during 1975, Clinical Pharmacology tested its products on 1,188,744 animals. That's over two per minute, for every minute of the day, for every day of the year. But why so many?

In the assessment of new drugs, for one animal injected with a drug, there is another 'sacrificed' (involving histopathological exampination of all animals) for control purposes, to determine which apparent abnormalities are due to the drug and which are associated with other inherited or environmental factors to which animals are exposed. After the Thalidomide tradgedy, instead of calling a halt to animal experiements altogether, a new group of toxological studies has been inaugurated which is concerned with the effects of new drugs on reproduction, fertiolity, organogenesis in the foetus, etc. Once again, in all these tests, control groups of untreated animals have to be studied in sufficient numbers in order that the effects of the drugs may be accurately assessed. Information on drugs with 'promising features' is submitted to The COmmittee o Safety of Medicines in Great Britain, for approval to be administered to man, initially in pilot and controlled trials. Even when these drugs have gone into use as standard therapeutic procedures, those drugs...

"...which possess useful therapeutic effects may also produce unwanted, toxic, or adverse affects in certain individuals and if taken in sufficient quantities. The incidence of adverse drug effects in the population is unknown because of difficulties in monitoring them, but it is certainly not small and much morbidity and discomfort is produced by drug treatment.'(1)

Through the eyes of medical science, we are exceedingly complex biological machines in a state of dynamic equilibrium. A great deal of research has been and is being carried out into the natre of the components and mode of functioning of this biological masterpiece. Drug therapy seeks to re-establish equilibrium in the sick person whose system has gone out of kilter, but in cases where the aim is not attained, instead of restoring equilibrium, drug therapy merely shifts the bias, sometimes producing a sickness more morbid than the original disorder.

It is the repeated failures of drug therapy - the call for new and better drugs - that are responsible for the huge number of animals used in pharmacological screening of new drugs, It is a vicious circle, or more appropriately, a dangerously outward-moving spiaral involving the continued suffering of increasingly more animals.

What are the alternatives?

Abolish animal vivisection? Test new drugs on tissue cultures? Yes, but can tissue culture tests be used to determine the effect of new drugs on reproduction and foetus development? Maybe one day it will be possible for biochemists to predict with a high degree of probability, the effect(s) of a new drugs on human beings by juggling about with a few checmicals in test tubes. Meanwhile, calling a halt to animal vivisection, or even stricter control of experimental conditions, could halt or produce a lag to the development and circulation of new drugs, and hence, on medical progress.

What about the age old method whereby the discoverer of the drug or her tries it out on themselves? Since drugs tend to be highly specific, concentrated substances, almost like poisons to the human - unlike herbs, whiich, apart from being far les concentrated and more mellow in their effect, are more acceptable to the body - the incidence of malaise, sickness and death among budding synthetic chemists would be high indeed. 'Volunteers' could be selected from elements in our society which provide a less valuable contribution than the synthetic chemists. The animals or the malcontents, which would you choose?

If there in existence a medical system which can cope with the treatment of the physiological disorders medical science is having little or no success with at present? If a successful system were functioning on a scale necessary to cope, it could take over, as it were, whilst medical science got over its growing pains.

[davidmalcolm]

But where's the groom?

Stella Morris (pictured above) married Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison, where he awaits the outcome of the latest moves to have him extradited to the United States of America to face charges relating to an Indictment issued by the US government on charges including unauthorised disclosure of material which '...reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.'

Assange has been described by Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno as a 'miserable hacker'. It was the in the London Ecuadorian Embassy that Assange had initially been offered political asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden which had issued an international arrest warrant on charges of sexual misconduct, charges which were eventually dropped. Assange claimed that extradition to the US would rapidly follow on from extradition to Sweden. When, after having allegedly interfered in government business in Ecuador, his asylum was revoked and he was arrested by the British authorities for breaking bail conditions. In fact Moreno moved Ecuador away from a more independent political stance and good relations with, for example, Venezuela, towards closer working with the US, allowing them to station military hardware within its country including the Galapagos Islands. Its currency base is the US Dollar. So it's not surprising that Moreno moved away from initial support for Assange, gadfly to the United States, to allowing his persecution to continue.

Going back to Moreno's description, it is not clear and proven that Assange was a hacker. The majority of information that Assange published was leaked by others and made available to him. In the case of the Iraq/Afghanistan was leaks, it was by Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning. Manning was charged with a number of misdemeanours, the main ones being violation of the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse. His sentence of 35 years was commuted to seven years. Assange faces a potential 170 year prison and possibly a death sentence.

Many are saying that Assange is simply the publisher of the material supplied by Manning and that the Indictment brought by the US goes against the principle of freedom of the press embodied within the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States. There is discussion as to whether the freedom from prosecution is enhanced for the press as opposed to the private citizen, that is when seeking information from the government which may be considered confidential or a matter of state security, whether the press has privileges over and above that of the private citizen. The term 'in the public interest' has to be balanced against classified material which may harm, not just the current administration, but the state itself.

The Espionage Act 1917 was enacted during World War I to prevent interference with military operations or recruitment; to prevent insubordination in the military and; to prevent support for the United States' enemies. It was deemed that this Act trumped the first amendment although it has been debated fiercely since a test case of 1919 (Schenck v United States). It is specifically Title 18, Chapter 37, Section 798 "Espionage and Censorship/Disclosure of classified information" of the US Legal Code. In other words it is the American version of our (British) Official Secrets Act, where the maximum penalty is a 14 years custodial sentence.

The leaked material published by Assange via Wikileaks was very damaging to the reputation of American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and caused them huge embarrassment. One of the items was video footage of an attack by two US helicopters on unarmed Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad. The attack continued when a van appeared to pick up the wounded. The van had children who were wounded in the attack. The soldiers in the helicopters convinced themselves that the men they were shooting at were carrying weapons. In one case they identified the Reuters journalist as carrying a weapon whereas he was carrying his camera.

[davidmalcolm]

AMERICAN ATTITUDE TO WAR

Whilst it is true that George Washington counselled (1) the American people not to engage in conflict with the rest of the world, it is not counsel that the leaders of this country took on board in the long run.

The pressure to involve the American government in World War I began with a question deliberated by one of its Committees, supposedly committed to searching for ways to promote international peace, namely if it is 'desirable to alter the life of an entire people, is there any means more efficient than war?' The answer they came up with was 'there are no means more efficient than war.'

In a situation not unlike that in the Ukraine conflict, where Italian aid workers refused to load transports with aid which also included munitions to be sent to the Ukranian government, Cunard gave one of their liners, the Lusitania (pictured above (2)), to the British Government, thereby making it a naval vessel. The ship was sent to New York where it was loaded with six million rounds of ammunition, owned by J.P. Morgan & Co, to be sold to the UK and France to aid their war against Germany. American banking interests and some US politicians were very keen for America to enter the war, eyeing the large profits to be made from such a move. Seemingly advertisements were taken out by the German government warning potential American passengers taking the the voyage on the Lusitania from New York to England that they would be sailing into a war zone and should consider it a perilous journey. And what happened is just that. The Lusitania was sunk on May 7 1915 after reports that First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill ordered the Lusitania's escort ship, the Juno, to return to port, leaving the Lusitania to be sunk with the loss of 1201 souls. It is quote probable that the cargo of ammunition exploded causing more death and destruction than would have happened with a torpedo strike. The Los Angeles Times concluded, on the basis of material in a book by Colin SImpson (The Lusitania), that the British Government had connived to 'arrange' the sinking of the Lusitania to lure America into the war.

As it was, the plan did not work and it wasn't until April 6 1917 that America entered 'the war to end all wars.' This was largely due the interception of an encoded telegram from the German Foreign Office to the Mexican government. Called the 'Zimmermann Telegram' after Arthur Zimmermann, the German Foreign Secretary, it proposed a military alliance between Mexico and Germany which might help Mexico recover Texas, Arizona and New Mexico from the United States. The telegram was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence and this, together with the threat to attack American shipping to disrupt them supplying Britain and its allies with war materials.

It's at the end of World War I that we hear the term 'new world order'. The idea was to create a League of Nations whose job it was to 'Enforce Peace' and 'make the world safe for democracy.' The Treaty of Versailles which pushed Germay into an impossible situation by producing hyperinflation, destroying the German middle class and encouraging the promotion of someone who could bring the country back from the brink and control inflation. That someone was, in the end, Adolf Hitler. So, to paraphrase what Lord Curzon said of the Treaty of Versailles, it did not bring peace, simply a twenty year truce.

The key structures of the West’s post-war strategy were the central financial institutions of the United States and Great Britain – the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve System – coupled with financial-industrial organisations, who set out to establish absolute control over the financial system in Germany to manage the politics of Central Europe. The implementation of this strategy included the following steps: 1st: 1919-1924 – Preparing the grounds for massive American financial investments in the German economy. To that end, Germany was granted $200 million in loans, half of which were provided by Morgan’s banks. By August 1924, the old German mark had been made anew, the financial situation in Germany stabilised, and, as researcher G.D. Preparta wrote, the Weimar Republic was prepared for “the most striking economic aid in history, followed by the most bitter harvest in world history. 2nd: 1924-1929 – Establishing control over the financial system and funding the National-Socialist movement. 3rd: 1929-1933 – Inciting and unleashing a deep economic crisis ensuring the Nazis would rise to power. 4th: 1933-1939 – Financial cooperation with the Nazi government and support for its expansionist foreign policy, aimed at preparing and unleashing the new world war.

The unfortunate and sad truth, at least for the majority, is that both the first and second world wars made huge profits for the already super rich at the expense of the public purse, in turn funded by the ordinary citizen and taxpayer. The UK Government alone had a huge 'Lend-Lease' debt to pay off that was only redeemed, over sixty years later, under Gordon Brown. This is another plank of the new world order, that the US will supply, outside of cash terms, but not free of charge, weaponry to countries it judges to be acting in their interests as part of a 'League of nations' against oppression, aggression and supporting democracy and freedom.

When crimes are committed, the weak and poor, whether guilty or innocent, are brought to justice but the strong and rich have justice bought. As John Adam said, "Power always thinks it has a great soul and has vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.'

The difficulties for Europe which may well arise out of the various political and economic actions that the US/Europe are taking in the light of the conflict in Ukraine have still to be realised but essentially, I would say that the UK/Europe will be seen by the rest of the world as the puppet of the USA. The Euro and the US Dollar will be declined as global currencies given the sanctions being applied to force countries away from any form of trust in those currencies being used as reserves and for international payments. The stance taken by China, India and a number of other countries to resist American demands for condemnation of Russia show that they are unwilling to accept America, Europe and NATO as the 'Pax Americana' global masters having seen the effects of actions by them on Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, many South American countries and now Ukraine. Ukraine's economy was in trouble and now is all but totally wrecked.

The refugee situation, as well as being tragic, is putting enormous ongoing strains on the asylum hosts, especially Poland. It is also highlighting some unsavoury refugee 'choices' being exercised by different countries.

The negative effects of sanctions and blockades on energy, food and goods distribution is gaining momentum.

The concept of the sanctity of private property and financial resource has suffered a massive failure of trust.

As in all conflicts, the reliability of internationally reported information is losing or has already lost credibility as events which have happened are not reported but fabricated stories are being pushed in government sponsored western-centric and Russio-phobic media as well as Moscow-led military-led information creation.

We seem to be living in some kind of illusion that this regional conflict will not degenerate into something much, much bigger.

For us in the UK, quite aside from the prospect of much higher energy and food prices for consumers, national debt may well force further cuts to public services, the way in which the less well off have suffered most under the previous years of austerity, will spread to affect the middle classes and may well, some are predicting, destroy the middle class in Europe, leaving only the super wealthy and indentured classes.

(1) "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world... Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice?"

(2) This picture is of a memorial plaque made to mark the sinking of the Lusitania. It is a family piece which, after seeing a similar example described on the programme 'Flog It', now understand it was made and sold to raise money for a disaster relief fund for victims' families. It is painted on glass with mother-of-pearl inlay. Both my great grandfather and grandfather worked for John Brown shipyard and helped build the Lusitania. There was a feeling within the family that Winston Churchill had something to do with the sinking. They referred to him as the 'war monger.' It seems a Royal Navy vessel was ordered back to port rather than perform escort duties for The Lusitania. Churchill being Lord of The Admiralty at that time might well have been responsible for vetting this order. It's quite possible that the torpedo strike set of ammunitions being transported on the Lusitania, thereby causing much greater damage and causing the Lusitania to sink more quickly, thereby contributing to the very high loss of life.