Time to light up

I'm not talking about smoking smartypants. I just want to bring to your attention this blog.

FAILBLOG.org
amazing video's and photo's are posted daily, some examples

more about politics and the news is their sistersite:
punditkitchen.com

Valkerie; No kids, this is NOT a classic

Here we go, this new movie Valkerie, starring Tom Cruise, you want my take on it ? Are you ready for it ? It's a piece of shit ! That's all it is and it's time that someone said it!

I love history and a great story about WO II was operation Valkerie. So they decided to make ANOTHER movie about it, well, ok, great !

Don't believe the hype however, it truely is a piece of shit.
Besides loving history I love conspiracies, and on the poster it said Conspiracy, sounds like the perfect movie for me right, so why do I dislike it so much ?

And I am not even talking about the Germans talking with British accents in English, or the fact that Tom Cruise is in it (which seems to annoy a lot of people).

Again, why do I dislike it so much ? Well, honestly I think it is really sad that not only young people, but also people of my own age regard this movie as art. Honestly they do, calling it a classic. It really disgusts me quite a bit. What is happening to our culture ? Even going as far as comparing it with Shindler's list for example. That is simply NOT done !

(For a change) I would like to end my post on a positive note; I am happy to tell you that I have just seen Eyes wide shut for the 100th time and it's just like a great wine, it just keeps gettin' better with age ! Now THAT's a classic kids.

'The day the music died'

At least that is what the song says

The 3rd of February 1959, to some, is the day music died. Rock'n'Roll singer Buddy Holly (22years old) died along with his band in an airplane crash.

In 1971 Don McLean wrote the song American Pie (no not Madonna..) and dedicated it to Holly.

But february made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn't take one more step.

I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

Full of irony ofcourse, writing a song about when music died more than 20 years ago..

To end with a Neil Young quote here: 'Hey hey, my my, Rock'n'Roll will never die !'

Rant - 2nd february

Tonight I got home from school, had dinner, sat on the couch for a bit and then watched the news. Then I shouted for a few minutes at the television set. Then I doubted this great and "free" country for a while, and then I felt I had to blog about it! Damn, those fucking politicians again !

The Netherlands supported the Iraq war. That is, the dutch government at the time supported it. Over 70% of the population was against it at the time and in retrospect a lot more people feel that it was a bad idea. Regardless, the last couple of years people have been pressuring our prime minister to disclose the circumstances under which the war was supported. On what basis ? For years Balkenende toyed with words to stop the opposition from having an inquiry in the matter (and fortunately for him balkenende has a way with words). But yesterday he (had to) announce that he would start an inquiry himself !

Genius at work
You have to understand that the opposition asked for an inquiry done by the people that are supposed to do so under our constitution, but when Balkenende saw that an inquiry like that was inevitable he turned the tide by proposing an inquiry of his own ! Now it is him who appoints who will lead the commission and in doing so he has the guts to call it a true and independent investigation.

That's right, appointing the people that are supposed to dig out the dirt on Balkenende himself, sounds far from anything resembling to independence to me.
The opposition isn't very happy with this but they are ofcourse never happy with what a prime minister does (that's the way politics work right?). But I entirely support the opposition on this one.

This is the moment that I have lost all faith in you mister Balkenende. You have no honor, you have no pride. I don't care if there is a financial crisis going on, how can we call ourselves a democracy (and promote it around the world) if we start behaving in this way ? I don't know what there is to keep from the public and I refuse to speculate on the matters. All I know is that a government shouldn't have anything to hide.

This week the opposition will debate you, I'll video tape it all and watch your cowardly ass talk it's way out of this mess. You are a disgrace Mister Balkenende. Every disgraceful action by my government will lead to a reaction (in writing ofcourse), I guarantee that. And if you start to play with words again I will have something new to blog about, because you are not fooling me anymore sir, I caught on to your games ! And I will continue to do this until you stop, that's what we are at right now.

Fortunately you are not like those other world leaders that want to restrict free speech online (USA, Italy, UK, china ofcourse), but I have got a feeling that Europe will take care of that some day.

here is a video for the dutchies.

Kok, Balkenende, Clinton and yes Obama (I will talk about him in another blog), your all the same !

Mad fer it

Thankfully I got another opportunity in my life to see Oasis in Amsterdam. You might argue that Oasis are no longer relevant, but you can not argue that they aren't great live!

I was roughly 7 years old in 1994 and there was a song on MTV that blew my brains out. I was jumping up and down on the couch, I never saw anything like it ! It was the first time I realized that I actually LOVED music. But what did I know right ? I was 7 and all that MTV ever offered in the 90ies was U2 and err, something called happyhardcore.
So I was a fan for life from that point on. It inspired me to pick up a guitar and write a book full of meaningless songs of my own !

Looking back perhaps Oasis isn't that great. But they got my into music, made me listen to other stuff and there is no other band that can claim that.

Oasis was on good form, unlike the rest of the week, they even had to cancel a few shows because Liam had problems with his voice. The Oasis set was excellent from the start, and I must confess that I will never fail to be excited when Fucking In The Bushes is playing on an empty stage in front of me. Oasis seemed to be enjoying themselves out there. Liam was joking around a lot and left us with some memorable quotes. He dedicated slide away "to all the lesbians, you may think you are one, but you're not", which got a huge cheer, Ain't Got Nothing was dedicated "to all the homosexuals", with some very funny comments afterwards - "you might think you ain't one, you might not look like one. But they're out there".
Definitely a gig to remember, amazing versions of don't look back in anger and the masterplan by Noel and at the front (where I was) I had a great time with people jumping, crowdsurfing and singing along and actually doing the Woo Woo's in I am the Walrus and Noel "allowed" the crowd to sing the chorus of Don't Look Back In Anger, which he normally never does.

On my way out I did the right thing and bought myself a poster. Never realizing how big it was.It looks to be almost 2metres wide and just very very tall. So now I have a problem, where will it go ? Do I have to take Jimi Hendrix down.. ?

So long Bush

It's happening ! Finally that nazi offspring is leaving office ! I'm looking forward to my first solid shit in 8 years ! What a relief eh ?

It's time too look back and to give you my take on him. Because frankly I am appalled by the approach the mainstream media is taking on this story. For some reason they feel that they have been 'too hard' on Bush so these last days they feel the need to emphasis the good things he did. Instead I wish to expose him for the cocksucker he really was. I don't think his actions got the attention they really deserved. Unfortunately he accomplished a lot and I can only focus on a few issues.. It's impossible to go over all the horrible acts he has committed. This is just the stuff that I remember him for, in no particular order.

11th of september 2001.
Setting new standards for ignorance or stupidity. Or perhaps both. First of all, why did you cancel meetings with the previous administration repeatedly, you know, the meetings that were specifically about terrorism ? Meant to inform you so you could keep your country safe from terrorism. In retrospeckt that informations would have been usefull right ?
Especially when you consider you Ignored a memo that was on your desk on august the 6th of 2001 with the title: Bin Laden determined to strike within the US. Hear any bells ringing ?

After this it gets a lot worse. I'm not going into the matter of 9-11 too deep as this blog is meant to be about Bush, but let's talk about it for just a second. Was there prior knowledge ? An absurd insinuation right ? Check out this 7 minute videoclip aired by dutch tv in '07. Intelligence communities all over the world -including its own- warned the United states. Some warnings were very specific. Mentioning Bin Laden, the pentagon and the WTC. Obviously someone took those warnings very seriously, those towers were half empty that day and there was massive insider trading taking place in the days before. I could go on for quite a while actually but I will go into that in an upcoming post since there are lots of other points to be made.

Alright, so you are the president of the United States and you've just discovered your nation is under some sort of attack right ? Shit happens as they say, but what do you do ? 1 Plane has hit the towers and you are informed of several hijackings tacking place. You decide to go ahead with a photo op at a school.. Why did you later lie about this course of events? twice?
When the second plane finally hit the tower Bush was in public so we can easily go back in history and know exactly what Bush did when he found out it was a real attack.
Bush did nothing ! Check out this video. Bush is informed of the gravity of the situation as he is being told 'We are under attack'. No one of the secret service takes him away, and George clearly does not know what to do or does not want to do anything. He sits around with the children for 7 more minutes reading a story about a pet goat. For all George knew he was part of the attack since his presence at the school was announced some time before.
He probably didn't want to alarm the children...

So did George have prior knowledge ? One journalist actually had the courage to ask him! When put in it's context the response is quite extraordinary and you should definitely check it out. Check out this unedited video (00:44).

Carlyle (you can skip this if you like, I just get sidetracked everytime I start ranting about politics)
Perhaps there was no prior knowledge but perhaps there just was a conflict of interest that led him to be so terribly negligent ? There is an organization called the Carlyle group. Through this investmentgroup the Bush family as well as the Bin Laden family have made large profits from this new war on terror. The Carlyle group invests in the weapons and security industry. The industries benefiting the most from this war on terror.
It's a fascinating organization that as advisers has former political and military figures.
What it is is the military industrial complex. Former president Dwight Eisenhower warned the world as he saw this phenomenon rising in the 50ies. To bad people didn't listen. It now is the driving force in the world behind war.

To learn more about the Carlyle group (or the world you live in for that matter) you should check out this dutch documentary, in 48 minutes it lays out how the Carlyle Group operates.

In the 1980s George W Bush made millions on the back of a company financed by Osama Bin Laden's elder brother, Salem. In addition both presidents Bush had lucrative stakes along with the Bin Ladens in The carlyle group which has gone on to become one of America's biggest defence contractors.

On the morning of 9/11 George W. Bush's father was meeting with Osama Bin Laden's brother, Shafig Bin Laden, in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Carlyle Group business. The Bin Ladens sold their stake in Carlyle soon after 9/11. I know it's not about Bush anymore, but how can I NOT write about this ? You have mr. Bush and mr. Bin Laden sitting together in a Carlyle meeting on the morning of 9-11, probably watching tv at some point, realizing they are going to make tons of money, amazing stuff right ?

It doesn't actually make a case against Bush, but it makes part of a really interesting part of history that shouldn't be forgotten. The links actually go much further than this and FBI special agent Robert Wright broke down when testifying that he had been gagged and could not reveal the true extent of what he knew about the Bush-Bin Laden connection and 9/11. His lawyer stepped up and said live on C-Span that all he could say was"The Bush Family vacations with the Bin Ladens". If this is what he was allowed to say.. you can't help but wondering what else is there to find out ?

Cover up
I'm not quite done yet and I have to get back to George Bush himself. After 9-11 ofcourse there were the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but something else happened. After each event that changes a country forever there is a commission put in place to investigate and make inquiries. Hopefully the lessons learned will prevent such things from happening in the future. So after a historically long time of waiting (other disasters took -titanic 6days- pearl harbour 9days- JFK assasination 7days- challenger disaster 7days-) it took Bush 411 days to put a chairmain of the commission in.. and then he came up with Henry Kissinger..! Now you have got to understand, Henry Kissinger has covered up a lot in his lifetime, he is famous for it and did you know in some countries he is wanted for warcrimes ? Some people even consider him as an expert on cover ups, so he was the obvious choice for Bush to put him in charge of the independent 9-11 commission right ?
Naturally no one accepted Henry Kissinger as head of the commission, but it showed the intentions the president had with forming this committee.
The coverup is as important as the crime. So Bush appoints (after 431days now) Thomas Cane & Lee Hamilton. Cane has conflict of interest. Mister Hamilton has the nickname "Mister coverup" I don't think I need to go into that even more. Other members of the commission have similar profiles and are intimitaly involved with the Bush administration. This makes the commission far from independent and a farce even before it began its work. I will go into the actual work the commission did at another time.

Ofcourse one of the people that had to appear infront of the commission was George W. Bush himself. But Bush doesn't like to talk about his responsibilities of 9-11 that much, so he finally agreed to meet with the commission, but only on his own terms..
- Behind closed doors
- no family members allowed
- no transcripts for the record
- he was NOT under oath (think about that for just a second)
- he was to appear together with Dick Cheney, and not separate as the commission asked for (to get their stories straight ?)
What makes him so special ? Regularly the point is made that people can give up their privacy because they don't have anything to hide, so lets hear it George, you don't have anything to hide do ya ?

These were all things Michael Moore should have discussed in his "documentary" fahrenheit 9-11. But he did not. Michael Moore decided to make it appear as if Bush is just an idiot that somehow became the president, took a lot of vacations and made some silly mistakes. The picture I'm painting is much darker then that.

The White house did everything in its power to derail an open inquiry. Then, when faced with it inevitability, the president and his aides sought to limit its scope, its acces, and its funding.

The 9-11 commission started out with a budget of 3 million dollars.
compared to other commissions:
casino gambling - 5 million dollars
columbia shuttle explosion - 50 million dollars
whitewater - 50 million dollars

The 9-11 commission later gets more funding but only gets up to 15 million dollars in total. The government spent 60 million dollars in the investigation of the sex life of Bill Clinton.. just to put things in perspective.

Iraq

Bush’s former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, said that on September 12, 2001, one day after 9/11, “The President in a very intimidating way left us — me and my staff — with the clear indication that he wanted us to come back with the word that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11.”

So why the hell did we -the dutch government supported it too- go to Iraq ?

This piece I have taken from: The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder written by Vincent Bugliosi (a heavy hitter, a tough-minded, legendary prosecutor ) because I could never have done it better myself.

In his first nationally televised address on the Iraqi crisis on October 7, 2002, six days after receiving the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a classified CIA report, President Bush told millions of Americans the exact opposite of what the CIA was telling him -a monumental lie to the nation and the world.

On the evening of October 7, 2002, the very latest CIA intelligence was that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the US This same information was delivered to the Bush administration as early as October 1, 2002, in the NIE, including input from the CIA and 15 other US intelligence agencies. In addition, CIA director George Tenet briefed Bush in the Oval Office on the morning of October 7th.

According to the October 1, 2002 NIE, “Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW [chemical and biological warfare] against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war.” The report concluded that Hussein was not planning to use any weapons of mass destruction; further, Hussein would only use weapons of mass destruction he was believed to have if he were first attacked, that is, he would only use them in self-defense.

-So let me get this straight. You took your country to war, and in doing so you threatened it, even when your own intelligence services SPECIFICALLY told you not to ? That's just nuts, and directly against the oath you took when you became president. George should be in jail, end of story-

Vincent Bugliosi continues:

Preparing its declassified version of the NIE for Congress, which became known as the White Paper, the Bush administration edited the classified NIE document in ways that significantly changed its inference and meaning, making the threat seem imminent and ominous.

In the original NIE report, members of the US intelligence community vigorously disagreed with the CIA’s bloated and inaccurate conclusions. All such opposing commentary was eliminated from the declassified White Paper prepared for Congress and the American people

Your administration willingly LIED against congress/the American people ? I wonder who those 25% of Americans are that still support you George.

Vincent Bugliosi is not done yet:

The Manning Memo

On January 31, 2003, Bush met in the Oval Office with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In a memo summarizing the meeting discussion, Blair’s chief foreign policy advisor David Manning wrote that Bush and Blair expressed their doubts that any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons would ever be found in Iraq, and that there was tension between Bush and Blair over finding some justification for the war that would be acceptable to other nations. Bush was so worried about the failure of the UN inspectors to find hard evidence against Hussein that he talked about three possible ways, Manning wrote, to “provoke a confrontation” with Hussein.

One way, Bush said, was to fly “U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, [falsely] painted in UN colors. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach” of UN resolutions and that would justify war. Bush was calculating to create a war, not prevent one.

Staging events huh ? You've been hanging out to much with Dick Cheney George ! You kinda remind me of.. Hitler !

Denying Blix’s Findings

Hans Blix, the United Nation’s chief weapons inspector in Iraq, in his March 7, 2003, address to the UN Security Council, said that as of that date, less than 3 weeks before Bush invaded Iraq, that Iraq had capitulated to all demands for professional, no-notice weapons inspections all over Iraq and agreed to increased aerial surveillance by the US over the “no-fly” zones. Iraq had directed the UN inspectors to sites where illicit weapons had been destroyed and had begun to demolish its Al Samoud 2 missiles, as requested by the UN. Blix added that “no evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found” by his inspectors and “no underground facilities for chemical or biological production or storage were found so far.” He said that for his inspectors to absolutely confirm that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) “will not take years, nor weeks, but months.”

Mohamed El Baradei, the chief UN nuclear inspector in Iraq and director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the UN Security Council that, “we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq.”

The UN inspectors were making substantial progress and Hussein was giving them unlimited access. Why was Bush in such an incredible rush to go to war?

Hussein Disarms, so Bush … Goes to War

When it became clear that the whole purpose of Bush’s prewar campaign — to get Hussein to disarm — was being (or already had been) met, Bush and his people came up with a demand they had never once made before — that Hussein resign and leave Iraq. On March 17, 2003, Bush said in a speech to the nation that, “Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict.” Military conflict — the lives of thousands of young Americans on the line — because Bush trumped up a new line in the sand?

Personally I would like to add: Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq. Bush talked about it and knew it, but instead denied it. Hardly makes sense right ?

The Niger Allegation

One of the most notorious instances of the Bush administration using thoroughly discredited information to frighten the American public was the 16 words in Bush’s January 28, 2003 State of the Union speech: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The Niger allegation was false, and the Bush administration knew it was false.

Joseph C. Wilson IV, the former ambassador to Iraq, was sent to Niger by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate a supposed memo that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake (a form of lightly processed ore) to Iraq by Niger in the late 1990s. Wilson reported back to the CIA that it was “highly doubtful” such a transaction had ever taken place.

On March 7, 2003, Mohamed El Baradei told the UN Security Council that “based on thorough analysis” his agency concluded that the “documents which formed the basis for the report of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic.” Indeed, author Craig Unger uncovered at least 14 instances prior to the 2003 State of the Union address in which analysts at the CIA, the State Department, or other government agencies that had examined the Niger documents “raised serious doubts about their legitimacy — only to be rebuffed by Bush administration officials who wanted to use them.”

On October 5 and 6, 2002, the CIA sent memos to the National Security Council, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and to the White House Situation Room stating that the Niger information was no good.

On January 24, 2003, four days before the president’s State of the Union address, the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, which oversees all federal agencies that deal with intelligence, sent a memo to the White House stating that “the Niger story is baseless and should be laid to rest.”

Someone who tried to put Bush in jail was my favorite democrat; congressman Dennis Kucinich. A true american hero if you ask me. He stood before congress and brought up over 60 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush ! It's obvious that this guy has done his homework.

Honestly do you want me to continue ? I could if I wanted, but its getting late and later this week I wish to spend some more time on my upcoming article about Obama. I am going to leave you with my favorite journalist, Keith Olbermann, he has a go at Bush (and Obama).

I think together with Keith I've made a case to bring Georgie to trial. Maybe he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay for a couple of years, you never know what he might confess right? It's for America after all.

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: the Media & Israel

Lately a lot of shit has been going on in the world and naturally I have to comment on THIS shit.

In no way am I trying to sympathize with the Palestinians, I'm just pointing fingers at Israel here. The people of Palestine are being fucked for some years, unfortunately they are "represented" by organizations that are simply nuts, delusional, whatever you like to call it. There is too much to gain for all parties involved in this war, there is a need for a catalyzing event in order for there to be peace.

However here is a very important documentary that I would like you to see. As always documentaries are biased but this one in particular is essential if you wish to understand the conflict (or the world you live in). It especially emphasizes the role of the mainstream media in this conflict.


-More info about this documentary can be found here
-View the documentary (full screen)

Entering the Prisonplanet

Today the European parliament decided to start treating all of its citizens like criminals. We all have to hand in our fingerprints if we want new passports, no joke ! The once free people of Europe are now becoming part of a prison planet.

Again, it's about keeping us safe, of course, from the terrorists.. who are among us.. always. I am starting to think this war on terror is a fraud. Honestly, it's a war on free humanity, that's what it is. The control grid is put in place to guarantee that no one becomes a terrorist, but there will always be room left in the system to become a terrorist or to be declared a terrorist. So the grid can (and will) constantly be expanded. In that sense the war on terror is working great!

Everything against this system (so I guess my little blog too) is suspect and on the grounds of that it is considered terrorism. A bit like the freedomfighters here in Holland in WW-II, remember them ? Before I forget; for the record I would like to state that I'm fighting this system in the spirit of Ghandi and therefore will never resort to any form of violence.

Let's get back to the subject.
It's Big Brother on steroids ! We are being conditioned on a mass scale, and no one seems to do anything about it. This is a system that keeps feeding of itself.

The media is reporting but there is one thing that is missing from almost all of the news articles; where is the outrage ?
I'm seriously thinking about protesting this in some way. If we don't make a stand now, when will we ? Let's make a stand, public life is becoming ever more privacy-less and evermore prison-like. Don't come to me with that I've got nothing to hide rubbish; it's the governments who don't have anything to know ! There is a reason for our human rights and constitutions you know !

I think for now there is a little catch. It's European law stuff which I'm studying. Last month the European court of justice (wow, i've really done my European Law homework) declared a proposed British law to be illegal that said that DNA-porfiles and fingerprints of people who never committed a crime could be kept in databases. It's a bit complicated to go into all of the details (which is certainly do not know, that's what makes it so complicated) but the European courts itself declared it to be illegal, which makes you wonder about this new legislation of theirs. I think this leaves an opening for law suits, so lets see what happens.

Politics divides us, it leads to terrorism which in it's turn is used to conquer us. Divide and conquer; a technique used in the roman ages to control people on a mass scale ! History, remember ? That's the stuff that history lessons should have thought us, but I guess education is part of the same system right ? I would be a lot cooler with the present situation if the people in power wouldn't constantly expand the grid. But I'm afraid they will continue to do so until we don't take the oppression anymore, just like George Washington wrote.

Newsreports like these really fire me up. I could and would go on forever but no one would read me going on about the same subject for 5 pages right ? And I have to be up.. in just a few hours ! I promise tomorrow I will lighten up and post a story about hot air balloons or something.



Edit: I found this quote online, it fits in perfectly with my point on this matter (I needed almost an entire page to express it though)

The debate isn't security versus privacy. It's liberty versus control.
- Bruce Schneider -

spot on Bruce !

United Nations confidential reports released

Wikileaks has released 70 United Nations investigative reports classified “Strictly Confidential”. The reports expose matters from allegations of hundreds of European peace-keepers abusing refugee girls to generals in Peru using Swiss bank accounts to engage in multi-million dollar frauds against the UN.

Now why am I posting this ? Considering the history of the united nations and the fact that they were supposed to be confidential, someone is bound to find something utterly disgusting in these reports. Send this stuff to your (local) media and let them dig this stuff out ! (or do it yourself for a change).

(read about) the united nations confidential reports.

The bulk of the reports were released today with 17 reports relating to Kosovo having being released on 24 Oct 2008.

A number of the reports are both classified “Strictly Confidential” and have selected regions redacted. Often these redacted regions can be “unredacted” by “cut and pasting” the blanked region. On the description page for each report, where possible, Wikileaks has provided a simple text version of the report that includes the redacted information.

"Since the number reports exceeds the ability of the world press to digest them, we ask that journalists and other investigators take responsibility for those those reports immediately before and after the month and day of their date of birth."

Lake of fire

Overall I had a pretty good weekend but the following news story shook me up a bit. I just listened to alex jones' new audio blog and once again Alex brought me back to earth. What is happening to this world ?

'In the second installment of his new audio blog, Alex Jones goes in-depth about his outrage over the BART shooting case, in light of new developments, including clear video and information about victim Oscar Grant’s pleading with the officer for mercy because he has a young child. Alex defends those who stood up to on-its-face police tyranny, despite the negative portrayal of the ‘rioters.’ Alex points out that the evidence points to a premeditated police killing made worse by a subsequent systematic cover-up & lies about the videos that recorded the incident and many other aspects of the incident. Worst of all, it appears that the officer, who has now resigned, is likely to go unpunished.'

If you want to listen you can download the audio blog of the somewhat controversial radiohost/documentary film maker here.

'Citizen journalism continues to cast light on the deadly police shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant in an Oakland BART station on New Year's day. While some of the videos taken with cell phones and video cameras by travelers that morning leave a bit to the imagination, at least one video appears to capture the whole horrible incident from start to finish.'

The video is here for anyone who is interested (needless to say; it isn't a pretty sight).
There is no way you can get around this. This was an execution. Now I know this is an American issue but I don't know how not to report on this. Especially when I know that people are trying to cover this horrific act up.

Almost weekly there seems to be someone who gets killed by a police officer under similar conditions. It's getting rediculous and even more so since I catch myself not even being surprised by it anymore ! I know that generally police are just good people with incredibly hard jobs but lets not ignore the fact that among them there are increasingly more psychopaths.

'Since the incident, Officer Mehserle has resigned from the BART force rather than speak with internal affairs investigators. The shooting sparked riots in Oakland that have already resulted in charges against protesters -- two weeks before a decision is expected on whether to indict Mehserle.'

I honestly don't understand why the system is protecting this officer. Poor Oscar, he was my age.
I remember a song covered by Nirvana from the meat-puppets called lake of fire.
Where do bad folks go when they die
They don't go to heaven where the angels fly
Go to a lake of fire and fry
see them again 'till the Fourth of July
Thanks to examiner.com and infowars.com

For all the bums

'fusing folk, jazz and rock into a medium that still sounds fresh today'

Standing at the station yesterday evening, tired hungry and exhausted, I saw my train departing in front of my eyes before it was supposed to ! I gave the conductor the international signal and then I watched the train leave the station. Bummer !

With temperatures below zero and with 31 minutes left for the next train I obviously wasn't to amused about all this. But I soon forgot about my own misery when the song Aqualung by Jethro Tull sprung to mind. Released in '71 it was included in my fathers car-mix-tape collection and therefore I must have heard it a million-zillion times during our holidays to Italy. The song is about a bum in the freezing cold.

Somewhat sad and at the same-time humorous lyrics, it's a fairly well-known classic. To listen click here for the 7 minute version !

For me it is one of those rock classics, and by the way, Jehtro Tull is great, one of the few rock bands in HISTORY that aren't afraid to use flutes !

Also it is one of my favorite songs to sing under the shower when I know that no body is home.

The revolution will not be televised

Censorship, so what else is new ? This documentary takes you back to a little news story back in 2002. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez for two days was no longer president of his country. Instead he was illegally detained and removed from power.
The whole event was staged by the opposition in collaboration with the media but the people who elected Chavez eventually found out what was really going on; it was a coup d'etat !

At the time it just so happened that two documentary film makers where at the presidential palace to do a report on Chavez or something. For the first time ever we can witness a coup'detat from the inside !

Eventhough the documentary doesn't go into the people behind the coup (and it's far to pro chavez for me) it still remains fascinating to see how coups take place in this day and age.
Again it shows us that the media can not always be trusted and that events are staged (and now that we are talking about it, get real, you don't think it doesn't happen in the 'west' ?)

By the way, the documentary doesn't tell but 'allegedly' the CIA (who else right?) was involved. I will not go into that, but just remember that the CIA has a history with backing/training/funding groups in order to overthrow democratically elected leaders.

You can watch it here, but again beware, the first part is very soft and full of pro-chavez stuff, I assume you can see through all that and that you will focus on the main subject matter of the film.

This documentary isn't great but this (hi)story is just to important to be ignored.

Police set to step up hacking of home PCs. WITHOUT warrants !

Those Brits just can't get enough of big brother. The Times reports: 'The Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant. ' continue reading here.

How dare they ? Without warrants ? I'm calling on all brits to get into the streets and claim your right to privacy. This is despicable. Honestly, I can't believe what I'm reading, what's next ?

The consequences of love

Or 'Le conseguenze dell'amore' in italian. I recently visited my homecountry Italy again and I felt the need to promote some Italian movies. This certainly must be one of them.

In 2004 it won an award at cannes and not for nothing. Toni Servillo (one of my favourite actors) shines in this movie made by the up and coming director Paolo Sorrentino.

Every man has his unmentionable secret.
But Titta di Girolamo has more than one.
It’s obvious.

This is one of those films where you shouldn't read the back and don't do any reading on before seeing it. I'm not going to review it just because it will spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Just rent or buy it and watch, trust me !